SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1454 (16), Friday, March 6, 2009
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TITLE: Reznik:
Election Results  'Falsified'
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Despite massive violations during the municipal election campaign and during Sunday’s elections, the authorities “falsified” the election results after votes were counted, Maxim Reznik, chairman of the local branch of the Yabloko Democratic Party, said in a statement on Tuesday. 
He described the subsequent change in the total number of votes awarded to Yabloko candidate Boris Vishnevsky in the Morskoy municipal district as a “criminal act” and said his party would be pressing for “those who falsified the election results to be punished.”
Vishnevsky, a journalist and member of the St. Petersburg office of Yabloko, said that the number of votes he was initially awarded — enough to be elected as a deputy — then decreased in a table of totals to a number that was not sufficient to win him a seat.
“At around 2 a.m. [on Monday] the calculations of votes from all the six polling stations [of the Morskoy municipal district] were complete, we have all the records from these stations,” Vishnevsky said by phone on Thursday.
“According to the total of these records, I was in fourth position,” he said. “But when we were given the table of totals for the election results the next evening, I discovered that I was not fourth but sixth, and only the top five positions become deputies.”
After comparing the documents, Vishnevsky discovered that two candidates from the Kremlin-backed United Russia party had been awarded extra votes at one polling station. 
One United Russia candidate gained an extra 80 votes, while another was given 40, Vishnevsky said, adding that the votes allocated to boost the positions of pro-Kremlin candidates Anton Chumachenko and Olga Mazo were deducted from candidates who had lost in any case and thus were not expected to complain.
As the result of the change in the numbers of votes, both Vishnevsky and Tatyana Sharagina of the preservationist pressure group Protect Vasilyevsky Ostrov (ZOV) were deprived of their seats.
“We have filed a complaint to the election commission and are insisting that the results are brought into line with how the voters voted; if the commission refuses, which is very likely, we’ll go to court,” Vishnevsky said.
“But it’s most likely that it will refuse for one simple reason: It understands that if they admit we were right, then those who calculated the results based on false records will be criminally responsible,” he said.
If Vishnevsky is deprived of his victory at the elections, only five Yabloko candidates will get seats, the local branch of Yabloko said in a statement on Tuesday. A further two candidates supported by Yabloko (while not being members of the party) won in the elections.
Initially, Yabloko presented about 100 candidates, but only 35 were registered by the election commissions.
Vishnevsky described the municipal elections as “extremely dishonest.” 
“In the beginning they filtered out everybody they could during the registration process — everybody who is opposition, who is not from United Russia — then they started conducting illegal campaigns, using administrative resources, putting pressure on every professional or social group that is dependent on the authorities,” Vishnevsky said.
“In districts where even this did not help, they are now faking the election results.”
United Russia triumphed in Sunday’s municipal elections, winning 1,160 seats (77 percent of votes), according to the preliminary results announced by the City Election Commission on Thursday. The results were expected to be finalized and officially announced on Friday.

TITLE: NATO Reestablishes Ties With Moscow
AUTHOR: By Robert Burns
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS, Belgium — NATO foreign ministers have agreed that the alliance will restore normal relations with Russia, seven months after ties were broken in response to Moscow’s invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
After a prolonged debate, the ministers agreed to revive what NATO calls the NATO-Russia Council, a forum for discussion of a wide range of issues. Lithuania had argued that a decision on this should be put off until NATO heads of government meet in early April.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton argued against putting off the decision.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced at a news conference at NATO headquarters that the matter was resolved, as originally expected. He did not say when the NATO-Russia Council would resume meeting, but said it would not be before the April NATO summit.
Lithuania, a former Soviet republic that gained independence in 1990, argued that the move required more discussion and should be taken up at a NATO summit meeting April 3-4 in France, according to a senior U.S. official who revealed details of the private talks on condition that he not be identified. The summit will be President Barack Obama’s first alliance meeting.
Entering Thursday’s meeting, numerous foreign ministers said they believed the time was right to warm up to Russia. Such a move could boost Obama’s efforts to build a stronger bond with the Russians after years of tensions during the Bush administration. But Clinton and the others seemed to have underestimated the depth of feeling by the Lithuanians, who forced Clinton and the other foreign ministers to prolong the meeting and huddle in minister-only negotiations that dragged on well into the afternoon.
Clinton, at the midpoint of a weeklong trip that began in Egypt and took her to Israel on Tuesday and the West Bank on Wednesday, also proposed a high-level international conference on Afghanistan, possibly sponsored by the UN She said it should include representatives of Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as those NATO countries that have troops in Afghanistan.
After the NATO session she is due to travel to Geneva on Friday to meet with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and afterward visit Ankara, Turkey.
In her remarks to the NATO meeting, Clinton said the time had come “to explore a fresh start” with Moscow, according to a text released by her staff.
“We can and must find ways to work constructively with Russia where we share areas of common interest, including helping the people of Afghanistan, arms control and nonproliferation, counter-piracy and counter-narcotics and addressing the threats posed by Iran and North Korea,” she said in prepared remarks.
NATO must find ways to manage its differences with Russia, she said, adding that the NATO-Russia Council — a joint forum established several years ago — should be resumed as a mechanism for dialogue with Moscow.
But the alliance should also continue to keep the door open for membership by Ukraine and Georgia despite Moscow’s opposition, Clinton said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Clinton’s presence was widely welcomed.
“We can assume there will be a new breeze going through NATO and a new mood of cooperation,” he said. “We will need that because the challenges are not getting any easier.”
In his opening speech, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said it was time to discuss “possible next steps” in NATO’s reengagement with Russia, including the revival of the NATO-Russia Council.
“While not shying away from the serious differences of opinion that remain between NATO and Russia, in particular about Georgia, we also acknowledge that we have obvious common interests with Russia: Afghanistan is one, but counterterrorism and the fight against WMD proliferation are others,” de Hoop Scheffer said.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told reporters upon arrival at NATO headquarters that he would argue in favor of restoring relations with Moscow.
“I think it’s important to re-establish the NATO-Russia Council,” he said. “In many areas, such as Afghanistan, it is important that Russia and NATO work together.” Asked whether that means it will again be business as usual with Moscow, Miliband replied, “Business was changed fundamentally since the Georgia crisis.”
However, some NATO member states said they were opposed to a normalization of ties with Moscow. Lithuanian foreign minister Vygaudas Usackas said it was “a bit premature” to reward Russia.
U.S. missile defenses are another source of tension with Moscow. The Russians are particularly angry about a Bush administration plan — now under review by the Obama administration — to install missile interceptors in Poland and a missile-tracking radar in the Czech Republic.

TITLE: Naftogaz Pays Gazprom Promptly to Avert Gas Cutoff
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ukraine’s energy company paid its February bill for Russian gas in full Thursday, officials said, moving swiftly to avoid a cutoff that could have affected deliveries to Europe.
The payment came just hours after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would halt gas supplies to Ukraine if payment was not made by Saturday. Putin warned that the suspension might stop gas deliveries to other European customers, as well.
The threat raised the prospect of a repeat of the January suspension that cut off most Russian gas supplies to Europe for weeks as the result of a bitter price dispute with Ukraine.
The stoppage left millions of Europeans without heat during a cold spell and angered the European Union, which accused Russia and Ukraine of holding its citizens hostage to their standoff. About 20 percent of the gas consumed in the European Union comes from Russia through pipelines that cross Ukraine.
Naftogaz on Thursday transferred the final $50 million installment of a $360 million payment for gas consumed in February, the Ukrainian company’s spokesman Valentyn Zemlyansky said. Gazprom confirmed that Naftogaz had paid in full for February supplies.
After the sides forged a hard-won deal to end their January price dispute and restore the flow to Europe, Gazprom cautioned that any payment delays could prompt a fresh cutoff.
Putin’s threat came after Ukraine’s national security service searched the offices of Naftogaz on Wednesday in a raid seen as part of the struggle between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The national security service is controlled by Yushchenko; Tymoshenko’s government controls Naftogaz.
Ukrainian security agents showed up Thursday at the main office of a Naftogaz branch, Ukrtransgaz, as part of what officials have called an investigation into alleged diversion of huge amounts of Russian gas. Naftogaz employees sent the agents back, citing a court decision they claimed had halted the probe.
Putin said on television that the Naftogaz raid was “a source of extreme concern.”
If the dispute caused Naftogaz to miss Saturday’s payment deadline, Putin said, “it will lead to the stoppage of our supplies of our energy both to consumers in Ukraine itself and maybe also to our consumers in Europe, since we are hearing about attempts to confiscate the transit contract.”
A Tymoshenko ally claimed Wednesday the agents wanted to seize transit contracts to scuttle supplies, but Naftogaz said the contracts were not confiscated.
Putin urged Ukraine’s leaders to act in the “deep interests of the people” and not out of political motives or a “struggle over money flows.”
Tymoshenko and her allies deny that Naftogaz diverted Russian gas. They claim Yushchenko initiated the search in order to get his hands on the company’s profits and hinder the company’s dealings with Russia by confiscating vital documents.

TITLE: Spanish Premier Makes F-Word Slip-Up
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MADRID — A video of Spain’s prime minister became one of the world’s most talked-about Internet clips Wednesday after he accidentally uttered the F-word in a news conference with President Dmitry Medvedev. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was outlining a Spanish-Russian plan to promote tourism between the two countries when the verbal faux pas slipped out.
“Tourism is an area of special economic importance in relations between Spain and Russia,” said Zapatero, speaking in Spanish. “Therefore, we have reached an agreement to stimulate, to favor, to f**k.”
With barely a pause, but looking down at his lectern, he quickly continued, “to support tourism.”
Zapatero’s office declined to comment on the slip-up.
The Spanish word “to support” has a similar sound to the expletive uttered by Zapatero.

TITLE: Putin Attempts to Ease Registration for Jobless
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Registering for jobless benefits should take no longer than half an hour, and the government is ready to spend additional funds to improve service at unemployment offices, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
The government has made fighting unemployment a priority, setting aside 43.7 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) to co-finance efforts to promote job growth. 
Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova told the Federation Council earlier in the day that the number of registered unemployed could reach 2.8 million by the end of the year, well above the ministry’s earlier forecast of 2.2 million.
Visiting an unemployment office in the Moscow region town of Podolsk, Putin and Golikova were told by a former bank department head that it had taken her about a month to register for benefits and that people had been waiting at the center for two or three hours.
“That’s not right. We had agreed that the waiting time in lines shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes. If we need to do something to ensure people aren’t waiting in long lines, it won’t take that much money,” Putin said, Interfax reported.
There are about 6.1 million people looking for work in Russia, Golikova said earlier in the day, though there are only 1.97 million officially registered. 
Putin noted that monthly unemployment benefits had been increased to 4,900 rubles ($136).
When told that the minimum unemployment benefit in France is 500 euros ($630), Putin bristled. 
“The level of income and expenses are absolutely incommensurable, and the structure of expenses is different. So it’s impossible to compare,” he said.

TITLE: Judge Rejects Request to Quit
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — The judge in the second trial of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Wednesday rejected a request by the businessman’s lawyers to recuse himself. 
Lawyers for Khodorkovsky on Wednesday demanded the removal of Judge Viktor Danilkin, who is presiding over Khodorkovsky’s trial on new charges of embezzling more than $25 billion at Moscow’s Khamovnichesky District Court. 
“The judge noted in his ruling that there are no grounds,” for removing himself, said Yelena Liptser, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky’s co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, Interfax reported. 
Khodorkovsky’s lawyers said the move was a “last resort” after the judge had dismissed several of their motions on Tuesday, including demands to change the state prosecutor and remove Khodorkovsky from a glass-walled cage in the courtroom. 
“We do not understand why the Khamovnichesky court is the appropriate court to try this case,” said Vadim Kluvgant, Khodorkovsky’s lead lawyer. 
One of the lead prosecutors, Dmitry Shokhin, was also involved in Khodorkovsky’s first trial, which ended with the businessman being convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in prison. Shokhin subsequently was promoted to the rank of colonel. 
Prosecutors accuse Khodorkovsky and Lebedev of embezzling 900 billion rubles ($25 billion) worth of oil and laundering 500 billion rubles. 
The two men face new sentences of up to 22 1/2 years in prison if convicted. 
Khodorkovsky’s lawyers say the new charges are absurd because their client is charged with stealing more oil from Yukos than it produced during the years in question. 
They are accused of stealing oil from three Yukos production units from 1998 to 2003. Two of the units, Samaraneftegaz and Tomskneft, have filed lawsuits seeking 170 billion rubles in damages, Tomskneft official Andrei Pyatikopov said Tuesday, Interfax reported. 
Samaraneftegaz, however, will probably not press through with the lawsuit because it recovered damages
(SPT, Reuters)

TITLE: Russian Scholar Says U.S. To Collapse By 2011
AUTHOR: By Mike Eckel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — If you’re inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn’t mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.
Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry’s school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia’s state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American storyline of the Kremlin leadership.
“There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010,” Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited representatives of the  foreign media to attend.
The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia’s Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the U.S. that has been flowing from the Kremlin in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.
Putin, the former president who is now prime minister, has likened the United States to Nazi Germany’s Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy.
Panarin didn’t give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources.
He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world’s wealthiest country for more than a decade now.
But he said the recent economic turmoil in the U.S. and other “social and cultural phenomena” led him to nail down a specific timeframe for “The End” — when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control.
Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.
Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington’s bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.
Panarin insisted he didn’t wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.
Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin’s theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.
It wasn’t clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country’s demise.
Panarin dismissed that idea: “The collapse of Russia will not occur.”

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Tikhvin Virgin Restored</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Icons dating from the 18th century have been returned to the city’s St. Sampson’s Cathedral after undergoing comprehensive restoration, Interfax reported. The cathedral’s rich collection now includes an exact copy of the celebrated Tikhvin Virgin icon. 
Having undergone thorough restoration, the icons were returned to St. Sampson’s from St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The icons are believed to have belonged to the first St. Sampson’s Church, a wooden edifice built by Peter the Great to commemorate victory over the Swedes. 
The original Tikhvin Virgin icon was first discovered in Russia in 1383. On July 9, St. Sampson’s Cathedral, which is located on the Vyborg Side of the city, will mark its 300th anniversary. 

<b>Traffic Police Attacked</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A conflict between the police and an unknown attacker resulted in two deaths on Monday, Interfax reported. On Monday night, a group of men attacked road traffic police officers who had been called to the scene of an accident.  During the conflict, one of the attackers tried to stab one of the officers with a knife, causing the police inspector to shoot at the assailant. 
The attacker was taken to hospital where he later died. One of the officers also sustained injuries and was hospitalized in a critical condition. 

<b>Troll Survives Surgery </b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The lead singer of the popular rock group Mumy Troll had his appendix removed after developing severe appendicitis after the group’s concert in St. Petersburg on Saturday night, Interfax reported. 
Ilya Lagutenko was reported to be in a stable condition following the operation. Lagutenko was taken to a local hospital for the operation following a three- hour set at the city’s Ice Palace. Forthcoming American tour dates will be delayed to allow Lagutenko to make a full recovery. Confirmation of date changes will be announced in the near future.

<b>Man Killed By Pancakes</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A man collapsed and died in Kaliningrad following a blini-eating contest at Maslenitsa celebrations at the weekend, Interfax reported. 
After being declared the winner of the contest, 48-year-old Boris Isayev dropped to his knees while gasping for air. 
He began to foam at the mouth and then stopped breathing. Bystanders attempted to resuscitate him unsuccessfully and paramedics were unable to respond in time. 
The official cause of death will be announced later but doctors have speculated that part of a blini caused a blockage in his trachea.

TITLE: Budget Cuts Set to Remove 'Empty' Jobs
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg authorities said on Tuesday that there would be no layoffs among employees paid from the city budget as a result of the current economic crisis. They said city budget cuts would be limited to reductions in wages and that current vacancies would not be filled.
However, staff at many of St. Petersburg’s schools and kindergartens are already experiencing the first alarming effects of the budget cuts and are concerned about their consequences.
“We’re now analyzing and optimizing the teaching timetables and cutting down the total number of positions — it’s an endless process. However, no doctors or other public employees will be laid off,” St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said at the City Hall meeting on Tuesday.
Mikhail Oseyevsky, the city’s vice-governor, said the city’s expenditure on wages in 2009 would be cut by 10 percent, or six billion rubles ($167 million). 
Oseyevsky said over the last two years the number of jobs in the city’s public sector has grown by almost 25,000, reaching 250,000. 
However, in reality only 170,000 people are employed by the city — the other 36,000 thousand jobs are occupied by people who are doubling up and occupying more than one job. 44,000 jobs are not in reality filled, although they are being paid for by the city’s budget, he said, Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily reported. 
The practice of paying salaries for unfilled positions as bonuses and additional payments to other employees is widespread in Russia. The budget cuts hope to end or at least limit this practice. 
The total number of positions will be reduced by 18,000, or 7.5 percent of the total.
“This will mainly happen at those institutions where the staffing figures are excessively inflated. God save us from laying off real people,” Oseyevsky said.
Another 2.5 percent in savings will come from cuts to the funds reserved for additional classes and guidance teachers. Those payments will be canceled, he said. 
However, when on Wednesday the city’s Legislative Assembly had the first hearing on the budget cut plans, it rejected the idea of cutting guidance teaching payments, though it supported the overall strategy of the plans.
Earlier this year the crisis forced City Hall to cut the education budget by 1.9 billion rubles ($53 million) to 3.8 billion rubles ($106 million). 
In the country as a whole, the financing of education will be cut by 18 percent this year. 
At the same time, City Hall said the budget cuts would not affect social benefits, children’s sponsored summer vacations or school meals.
The teachers’ trade unions in turn are predicting that the promised 22 percent wage hike for teachers would only amount to 12 percent this year.  Forecasts are predicting 14 percent inflation this year.
Meanwhile, reports from the city’s teachers themselves and their reaction to the administration’s measures is far from being optimistic.
“We’re now hearing about the school’s plans to lay off teachers who are at pre-pension or pensionable ages. There is also talk about combining classes and making them bigger, with less teachers being needed as a result,” said Svetlana, a teacher at one of the city’s schools, who didn’t want to give her last name
 “If they cancel the payment for being a form tutor, teachers will have no motivation to do what is essentially a very stressful job,” Svetlana said.
Irina Ivanova, another St. Petersburg teacher, said that at her school the hours for after-school activities were being cut, with parents having to pick their children up at 6 p.m., rather than 7 p.m.
“Because some parents can’t pick up their children by 6 p.m., kids now have to wait for them in the hall of the school,” Ivanova said.
Ivanova said teachers “feel upset” about the impact this is having on them.
Parents are also worried. Discussions on local Internet forums specializing in education center around layoffs that have been made in certain kindergartens, where physical education teachers, psychologists, and even nurses have been laid off. 
Valentina, a teacher in one of the city’s kindergartens, who also didn’t want to give her last name, said they had heard about plans to leave one nurse for every two groups in their kindergarten.
“I can’t imagine how one nurse can take care of two groups simultaneously. There’s so much work for nurses, especially when groups are as big as they are today due to the lack of kindergartens in the city,” Valentina said.
Nadezhda Smirnova, a mother of two, said she is seriously worried about the “the city’s financial policy with regard to education.”
“In the end it will be children who suffer because of these financial cuts,” she said.
Vladimir Kuznetsov, a regional trade union leader in the education section, said schools had begun implementing cuts by removing the unfilled positions.
“Yes, there were no official staff employees in those positions but that doesn’t mean that the work was not being done by anyone,” Kuznetsov said to Metro newspaper. “A physics teacher could be receiving half the wages intended for a laboratory assistant. Now that the vacancy is cut, the same teacher will be doing all that work for free,” he said.
Vladimir Barkanov, head of the Budget Committee at the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, described City Hall’s plans to reduce the payment fund of the city’s budget workers as “unwise.”
“My personal position is that doing so today is irresponsible. I’m convinced that it won’t save any money and that touching this category of workers is unnecessary,” Barkanov said, the Ekho-Peterburga reported.

TITLE: President's Bill Could Aid Smaller Parties
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev is backing two bills that would benefit smaller political parties, a move some analysts say could signal his desire to inch away from the policies of his predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and position himself as a liberal. 
One of the bills would ultimately reduce the number of signatures required for a party to submit to register for parliamentary elections to 120,000, down from the current requirement of 200,000 signatures. 
The other bill is ostensibly aimed at securing equal coverage on state television and radio for parties represented in the State Duma, though it does not specify the amount of coverage to be allocated. 
Summaries of both initiatives, which are currently awaiting a first reading in the Duma, were published on the Kremlin web site Friday. 
The bills address two issues that opposition groups and parties say are hindering the development of a vibrant polity. They complain that the signature requirements to register as parties and for elections are disproportionately strict and that state-controlled media provides excessive free advertisement thanks to fawning reports about ruling party United Russia and its leader, Putin. 
The initiatives follow another bill proposed by Medvedev last month reducing the number of signatures that groups are required to submit to the Justice Ministry to be registered as political parties. The bill would lower the current 50,000-signature barrier to 40,000 by 2012. 
Several smaller, opposition-minded political groups have been denied registration for failing to collect the required 50,000 valid signatures. Opposition politicians such as Mikhail Kasyanov have said authorities deliberately declared many of the signatures that they submitted invalid so that the Kremlin can maintain complete control over the political landscape. 
Communist Duma Deputy Vadim Solovyov called Medvedev’s initiatives “an attempt to camouflage the fact that ... only parties acceptable for the Kremlin are allowed in the parliament. 
“If there is a political order, [election officials] would find the necessary amount of invalid signatures,” Solovyov said. 
The Communists have been among the most vocal critics of the wall-to-wall coverage given to United Russia in state-controlled media during elections. Solovyov, a lawyer who has handled the party’s court complaints about unfair coverage, said even if enacted, the proposed law is unlikely to be enforced properly. 
“The Central Elections Commission is a branch of United Russia, that’s why I have no trust in it,” he said. 
Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center of Political Technologies said Medvedev’s proposals on party registration were “undoubtedly liberal,” though slow-paced. “Because he was voted for as [Putin’s] successor, he has to maintain a balance between continuity and his liberal initiatives,” Makarkin said. “I am not sure that he would have had success as a pure liberal politician.” 
Alexei Mukhin, an analyst with the Center for Political Information, said that by making such small liberal concessions, Medvedev is trying to gain support among liberal-minded voters ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

TITLE: Kremlin Says No to Suggestions of U.S. Quid Pro Quo
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that there would be no trade-off on Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. plans to set up a missile defense shield in Central Europe. 
“No one sets conditions on these issues with trade-offs, especially on the Iranian problem,” Medvedev said at a news conference in Madrid, where he was on a state visit. “In any case, we are working closely with our American colleagues on Iran’s nuclear program.” 
Medvedev was responding to reporters’ questions about a secret letter delivered three weeks ago from U.S. President Barack Obama. 
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Obama suggested in the letter that the United States would back off from plans to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic if Russia helped convince Iran to abandon its ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon. 
But Obama said late Tuesday in Washington that the report did not “accurately characterize the letter,” Reuters reported. 
The U.S. State Department told The Moscow Times that the letter expressed Obama’s readiness to discuss both missile defense and Iran with Russia but did not link the two. 
“We are ready to consult with our NATO allies and Russia … [and] explore the possibilities of cooperation with Russia on configuration of the anti-missile defense system, using assets we have and we may develop” in order to eliminate threats to the United States, its allies and Russia, State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said by telephone from Washington. 
He stressed that the Obama administration would discuss the missile defense options with the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic. 
Medvedev’s spokeswoman Natalya Timakova confirmed the existence of the letter to journalists in Madrid, and she stressed that it did not contain any mutually binding proposals. 
Medvedev welcomed the letter as a sign that the new U.S. administration was prepared to discuss one of the main irritants in relations between the two countries. 
“It is good already because several months ago we received a different signal: The decision has been made, there is nothing to talk about, we will do everything as decided,” he said, RIA-Novosti reported. 
On Nov. 5, the day Obama won the presidency, Medvedev threatened to place missiles on Russia’s border with Poland if Obama followed through with plans by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush to station components of the missile defense shield so close to Russia’s borders. 
Senior Russian officials have said the missile defense plans intended to undercut Russia’s capacity for a retaliatory strike in case of a nuclear attack against the country. Bush officials maintained that the Central European sites were needed to intercept possible missile attacks against the United States and its Western European allies from Iran. 
The United States has long sought for Russia, which last week oversaw the test run of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran and has provided the Islamic republic with short-range anti-aircraft missile systems, to exert some influence over Iran. 
Russian officials have repeatedly said Moscow opposes a nuclear-armed Iran but at the same time have opposed stricter U.S.-backed international sanctions against Tehran. 
The Obama letter was first reported Monday by Kommersant, which cited Washington sources. The New York Times published a front-page report Tuesday, citing unidentified Obama officials. It said the letter was hand-delivered by Undersecretary of State William Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, and that Medvedev has not responded to Obama. 
The two presidents are expected to meet in London on April 2. 
Obama’s position on the missile defense shield was formulated during his presidential campaign last year. He has said the effectiveness and affordability of the whole system needs to be proved before he decides to proceed. He has also said that he was ready to start direct negotiations with Iran. Iran and the United States officially cut ties in 1981. 
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday urged the United States to restore diplomatic relations with Iran.

TITLE: Spending to Go Up by $18Bln
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that spending will be increased by 650 billion rubles ($18 billion) this year under a revised budget as the government bolsters social programs and invests in local industry in a bid to spur growth. 
“The most important thing now is for the state to fulfill its social obligations even as budget revenue declines,” Medvedev said at a meeting with ministers on the economy. 
The government will “activate” home construction, encourage the purchase of more Russian-made equipment and stimulate small and medium-sized businesses while bailing out floundering defense companies, Medvedev said. 
A revised budget will be sent to the government by March 16 that envisions an eight percent budget deficit, its first since the economic collapse of 1998, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. Kudrin last week estimated the increase in 2009 spending at about $14 billion.
The new budget contains 300 billion rubles to recapitalize banks and 255 billion rubles for subordinated loans to banks, Kudrin told reporters after the meeting Wednesday.

TITLE: Oil Pipeline Fire Affects 20% of Export Supply
AUTHOR: By Gleb Gorodyankin and Lyudmila Zaramenskikh
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — An oil leak and a fire on a pipeline in central Russia have halted one-fifth of supplies of the world’s second-largest oil exporter to global markets on Wednesday for at least a few days. 
Officials at Novorossiisk said oil flows had been halted on Wednesday morning and exports were unlikely to resume in the next three to four days. 
“We had a phone call from Transneft, and we were told that repairs would take three to four days,” an operator at the Black Sea port said. Transneft is the pipeline monopoly. 
He also said the port was not loading because of bad weather conditions and was unlikely to resume operations before March 8. 
A Transneft official confirmed an accident on a trunk pipeline running through the towns of Samara, Saratov, Tikhoretsk and Novorossiisk, saying the accident happened near the Volga town of Saratov. He declined further comment. 
The Saratov region’s emergencies ministry said on its web site that some 180 firefighters and 62 vehicles helped extinguish the fire in two hours on a territory of more than 2,000 square meters. 
Novorossiisk had been due to export 840,000 barrels per day of oil in March out of Russia’s total exports of around 4.3 million bpd. 
Oil firms Surgut, Tatneft, TNK-BP and LUKoil had been due to load tankers between March 4 and 7. 
The same pipeline supplies Ukraine’s Lysychansk refinery, which belongs to TNK-BP, half owned by oil major BP. 
It also partly ensures deliveries to the Ukrainian Black Sea ports of Odessa and Yuzhny, which are due to get more than 200,000 bpd of Russian crude for re-exports this month. 
An official from Ukrainian pipeline monopoly Ukrtransnafta said Lysychansk was also cut off from Russian supplies but was hoping to get alternative deliveries from a pipeline running through the towns of Samara, Michurinsk and Kremenchug. 
Sources at the ports of Odessa and Yuzhny also said Transneft had informed port authorities that it was working toward rerouting crude previously supplied via the now-damaged pipeline to the route via Michurinsk and Kremenchug. 
Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, sends over a quarter of its oil exports via the Black Sea ports of Novorossiisk, Odessa and Yuzhny. The rest goes via the Druzhba pipeline to Central Europe and the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk. 
The drop in supplies from the Black Sea will likely further help narrow differentials between dated and Urals, already standing at minus $0.50 per barrel for the Mediterranean compared with minus $1.35 in the Baltics. 
“Russian leaders want Urals to trade at a premium to Brent. Here you are,” one trader with a Western major joked, referring to complaints by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about the steep discount of Urals to other crudes.

TITLE: AvtoVAZ Turns Off Assembly Line, Denies Planning Layoffs
AUTHOR: By Maria Antonova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Carmaker AvtoVAZ stopped its main assembly line for an indefinite period Wednesday morning but denied a minister’s warning that the firm was planning large-scale layoffs. 
Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova said Wednesday morning that AvtoVAZ, the country’s largest carmaker, was planning to lay off 3,200 people, Itar-Tass reported. 
The company has drastically scaled down production since the beginning of the year and has idled many employees and cut workweeks as sales have plummeted and the auto giant has been unable to secure enough credit to maintain operations. 
“There are still 12,500 workers that are not working,” Golikova said at a Federation Council session.
AvtoVAZ denied in an e-mailed statement that they were planning a layoff, saying Golikova was likely referring to a transfer of 3,000 workers from AvtoVAZ’s food service subsidiary to Corpus-Group, a separate company. 
The carmaker announced a stoppage of its main assembly line again on Wednesday, citing lack of component deliveries, mainly from SOK Group. 
Samara-based SOK Group owns both car and component production sites. AvtoVAZ receives about 35 percent of their total component supplies from SOK, accounting for about half of the parts maker’s sales, according to figures from Avtostat, a Tolyatti-based agency that tracks the auto industry. 
“We are in talks about resuming component shipments,” the e-mail statement from AvtoVAZ said.
The company “hopes component shipments will start by 3 p.m. Wednesday,” RIA-Novosti cited an AvtoVAZ representative as saying. Nobody was available for comment at SOK group Wednesday.
The company was also forced to stop its assembly line in February because of a halt in shipments from suppliers. It was stopped on Feb. 5, only to resume again after the weekend on Feb. 9.
The government has approved a bailout package of 10 billion rubles in loans for AvtoVAZ and has allocated two billion rubles to subsidize purchases of many of the firm’s Lada models, in addition to several other domestically produced cars.
AvtoVAZ employs one in seven adults in Tolyatti, a city of 700,000.

TITLE: Elections Expose United Russia’s Weaknesses
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: The regional elections on Sunday were the first vote Russia has held during the crisis. As the “war of interpretation” of the election results is in full swing, almost every political party is claiming victory. United Russia leaders tout the fact that the party won in all nine regional parliaments, even under difficult economic conditions. Their opponents point out that not only did United Russia fare worse in every region than it did during the 2007 State Duma elections, but it also lost badly wherever the slightest hint of competition existed. 
The party’s losses in the eyes of the public are probably of less significance than its loss of status among the regional political elites. United Russia’s greatest setbacks occurred not only in major cities with their large — and less-controllable — voter populations, but also among the Caucasus republics. United Russia on average lost about 10 percent of its usual voter base, but in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia the losses stood at 25 percent. That signals the end of United Russia’s monopoly among the administrative elite in the regions. 
In rebuttal, party functionaries could stress that United Russia retained its strong standing in Tatarstan, with 80 percent of the vote as compared to 81 percent in 2007. But they understand perfectly well that those numbers cannot be attributed to the party’s federal leadership. 
The leaders of the three major rival parties — the Communist Party, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party — are also reporting success. The Communist Party received from 50 percent to 100 percent more votes across the board than it did in 2007, earning a presence in all nine regional parliaments and finishing a strong second after United Russia. One notable exception to this: The Patriots of Russia came out ahead of the Communists in Karachayevo-Cherkessia. The Patriots of Russia also had good results in Khakasia, but this party is no threat to the Communist Party as it participated in only three of the nine regional parliamentary elections. 
A Just Russia has experienced noticeably better results this year and finished on par with the Communists in two or three regions. It even surpassed the Communists in the Kabardino-Balkaria and Arkhangelsk regions, but failed to gain parliamentary seats in Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Tatarstan. A Just Russia even lost ground in the Vladimir and Bryansk regions. The Liberal Democratic Party is celebrating the fact that it gained seats in seven regional parliaments. 
Rumors that the Kremlin is tired of the Liberal Democratic Party and plans to shove it aside have once again proven unfounded.
The picture turns out to be more interesting and varied on the municipal level. That is where candidates’ personal influence plays an even greater role, and the state’s rigid control of the political machine is less apparent. United Russia claimed victories in Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Chita, Birobidzhan and Blagoveshchensk, where the incumbent mayors were re-elected by wide margins. In cities where a runoff election is required — Smolensk, Murmansk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Tomsk — United Russia’s incumbent mayors either already lost in the first round on Sunday or stand a good chance of losing once the opposition voters consolidate their support for a single candidate in the second round. In Tver, the Communist Party walked away with a clear victory, bringing in twice the number of votes as United Russia in the city’s legislature. United Russia failed to achieve 40 percent representation in the city legislatures in Bryansk, Ulan-Ude and Tolyatti. In Tolyatti, second place went to the opposition movement December that includes representation from Yabloko and Right Cause.
Not only the participating parties but the entire electoral system passed the test of whether it could function under crisis conditions. Although the country is still very much struggling with overcoming the economic crisis, it has entered a new phase of political activity. 
United Russia’s weakness, which was clearly demonstrated during Sunday’s elections, will only increase with time. Here the hard numbers from the election results are of less importance than the growing political rivalry within the party, disagreements between the party’s regional and federal leadership and the conflicts between United Russia and local political elites that surfaced even during the last elections two years ago. United Russia is gradually transforming from a monolithic bureaucracy under strict Kremlin control into something resembling a true political party. In just a short time, United Russia might lose its standing as the dominant party.
The Kremlin faces another problem from the loyal “opposition parties” in the Duma. As they gain more voter support, their loyalty to the Kremlin will dissipate. On the other hand, the current mood of protest will probably not provide them with significant long-term support in a system dominated by United Russia and its spinoff parties in the Duma. 
Real liberalization of the party and electoral systems is inevitable, and it must supplant the current, merely decorative system under President Dmitry Medvedev. If the Kremlin doesn’t take concrete steps in that direction by the next elections, the growing pressure from dissatisfied voters with no place to vent their anger will simply blow the lid right off the kettle. 

Nikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

TITLE: A Crisis Crash Test
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Of all the official statements coming from the government and big business over the past few weeks, three stand out as most important. First, multibillionaire Oleg Deripaska announced that he would not request any more government assistance for his ailing business empire. Second, Olimpstroi, the state corporation responsible for preparing Sochi for the 2014 Olympics, will reportedly return 50 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) to state coffers. (Rosnano and Russian Railways will also hand back 130 billion rubles and 80 billion rubles, respectively.) The third most important announcement was made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday when he met with United Russia leaders: “The crisis is far from hitting its peak,” he said. 
Translated from “Kremlinese” into ordinary English, the first statement means that even Deripaska — the most-connected oligarch among Putin’s favorites — won’t get any more cold cash from the government. The second means that financing for Putin’s pet project to turn Sochi into a winter wonderland is drying up. 
When oil prices were high, the Kremlin suffered no political fallout for making poor decisions. After former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced in May 2005 to eight years in a prison located in a remote, radioactive Siberian town, the markets had a brief scare, but they recovered relatively quickly because the economy was in the midst of an oil-driven boom. 
Almost a year after Khodorkovsky was arrested, then-President Putin abolished elections of regional governors, but few seemed to care too much because most Russians enjoyed higher living standards as petrodollars flooded the economy. 
Now, of course, the situation has reversed completely. The political cost of making bad decisions is extremely high, but poor decisions are the only kind the Kremlin is capable of making — in good times as well as bad. 
The authorities are unable to grapple with the crisis because it was precisely their actions that caused it in the first place. When a drunk driver slams into a tree, the tree is not the cause of the accident. Russia’s leaders are like a drunk driver. Intoxicated by petrodollars and racing along the highway at 200 kilometers per hour in his armor-plated Mercedes, the driver slammed into a huge tree called the global financial crisis. The driver is still alive thanks to the car’s fat air bag — the country’s stabilization fund. Although heavily bruised and injured, the driver is able to get out of the smashed car, look at the tree and scream, “It was you, America, that caused this whole mess!” 
Russia’s economy is falling at a record rate, comparable only to its rapid decline in fall 1941. The country has spent a whopping $200 billion on “supporting” the ruble. In the end, the only support to speak of is that the ruble has lost about 50 percent of its value since last summer, while the $200 billion spent on this accomplishment is gone forever. 
Few know for sure how much money is really left in the Reserve Fund. Meanwhile, the market value of Russian companies has decreased by roughly 75 percent on average since their peaks last year, while their huge debts have not gone away. This imbalance could easily result in mass defaults or bankruptcies. 
The ruling elite were willing to forgive Putin for his mistakes during the prosperous years, but when the magic goose stopped laying its golden eggs, they started taking a hard, sober look at the person who sparked a gas war with Ukraine in the heat of a dire financial crisis and who threatens to shoot protesters at unsanctioned political rallies. 

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

TITLE: Thrill seekers
AUTHOR: By Travis L. Mills
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This month marks the first anniversary of Igels Live Club, where thrill seekers from around the world gather to climb the largest indoor rock-wall facility in St. Petersburg, and one of the largest in all of Russia. Covering over 700 square meters, and featuring a slack-line harness for climbers, parkour arena, tumble-track spring-loaded floor and two trampolines, Igels Live Club is staged for impressive displays of strength and acrobatics. Located in a disused quarry in a developing industrial area 10 minutes from Baltiyskaya metro station, the club welcomes all ages and levels of skill. 
One of Igels’ most popular attractions is the parkour arena. The discipline of parkour is rapidly becoming more widespread in Russia and much of the world, combining the aesthetics of gymnastics and the thrill of high speed stunting. Difficult to categorize as a sport since it has no clear set of rules or team basis, many say that its closest discipline is martial arts. Practitioners of parkour — known as traceurs — practice manipulating their movement to make the most efficient gains in distance and most effective means of enduring obstacles. In doing so, they become increasingly aware of spatial limitations when flipping onto, off of, through, behind and around objects they encounter in their direct path. 
“Parkour demands both physical and mental toughness; it takes an incredible amount of concentration when planning your next move,” said Luke Scott, an American student studying in St. Petersburg. Adherents of the activity draw comparisons with rock climbing and acrobatics — rock climbing is also an exercise in physical strength, but is principally one of precision and calculated movements. 
Part of the appeal of parkour is the fact that its only real limitation is the imagination of the traceur and the laws of gravity, though some contend that even the latter can be challenged. Owing its origins to indigenous tribes in Africa, and later developed by a French naval officer as the basis for French military training during World War I, it is usually seen in and around urban areas. It has even graced the big screen in films such as “Casino Royale” and “Live Free or Die Hard.” Alas, during winter months, traceurs are hard pressed to find ways of practicing, especially in Russia, as most training is done outdoors in parks, abandoned buildings and atop roofs.  
Igels is the product of extensive planning and numerous revisions. Kirill Kozhukhov, the owner and general manager of the club, came up with the idea of fusing rock-climbing and parkour in order to draw a more dynamic crowd. The combination has proven to be a success, and the gym has many regular visitors. 
Both serious sportsmen and curious passersby gather at the club to appreciate other disciplines, try their hand at something new, and develop a workout regime that is not restricted to a treadmill or stationary bike. 
“I just wanted to have a facility that would increase the exposure of climbing and parkour to locals and make them more popular,” said Kozhukhov, who is himself an internationally ranked rock-climber who has been climbing for more than twenty years and hopes to start a legacy of great climbers within the St. Petersburg community.  
“I come here because it’s an affordable spin on my usual workout,” said one foreign patron, adding that it was nice to know that she need not sign any contracts or year-long agreements. “International students can even get a discount by showing their International Student Identification Card (ISIC). I can come and enjoy the company of friends, and get a great workout,” she said.  
For 200 rubles ($5.50), visitors can use the facilities for as long their endurance lasts. No special equipment is required, though visitors may wish to purchase or rent rock-climbing shoes for use on the state-of-the-art rock wall. 
The club provides private instruction in every discipline on offer to ensure that visitors get the attention they require and hopefully develop an interest in what Kozhukhov calls “a lifetime sport and full-body workout.” 
 
Igels Live Club is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. 136 Nab. Obvodnogo Kanala, corpus 71. Tel: 6220966, www.igelsclub.ru.

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: <b>Grigory Sologub</b>, a local punk and new wave legend who died at the age of 47 last Friday, was buried on Wednesday. Over 200 friends, musicians and fans traveled by car and bus to the funeral ceremony held at the Kuzmolovskoye Cemetary in the Vsevolozhsky District, a 30-minute ride from Devyatkino metro station, the last stop on the northern metro line.
The funeral opened with a full, 45-minute funeral prayer sung by an Orthodox Christian priest, and ended two hours later with a large group of mourners giving a final applause to the musician and singing “Khorovod,” one of the best-known songs of <b>Stranniye Igry</b>, the pioneering 1980s ska band with which he played.
At a wake held at Griboyedov club in the evening, a solo concert played by Sologub at the club two years ago on March 31, 2007 (not 2008, as reported earlier) was shown. The concert was perhaps the only solo show performed by Sologub, who sang and played guitar, and there was an eerie quality to the recording.
Sitting on a chair with lit candles next to him, Sologub announced in a typically punk manner that he would be singing songs written by “stiffs, or people who are not with us anymore,” and performed a song by <b>Georgy Ordanovsky</b>, the frontman of hard-rock band <b>Rossiyane</b>. Ordanovsky was perhaps the first major loss of the local rock scene when he disappeared in 1984 and was officially pronounced dead in 1991.
During the recorded concert Sologub was wearing, rather poignantly, a T-shirt featuring a portrait of <b>Andrei Panov</b>. Better known as Svinya, or The Pig, and known as the “Grandfather of Russian Punk,” Panov was the founder of the band Avtomaticheskiye Udovletvoriteli, or Automatic Satisfiers. Sologub sang a pair of classic songs written by Panov, who died of peritonitis in 1998.
The other late rock musicians Sologub sang songs by were <b>Mikhail “Maik” Naumenko</b>, the frontman of <b>Zoopark</b>, and <b>Alex Ogoltely</b> (real name Alexander Strogachyov), the frontman of <b>Narodnoye Opolcheniye</b>. 
Naumenko died of a skull fracture in 1991, while Ogoltely died of heart failure in 2005.
Another late musician paid homage to by Sologub in the 2007 concert was <b>Alexander Davydov</b>, the founder of Stranniye Igry who died of an overdose in 1984, soon after leaving the band. Sologub also sang a couple of his own songs.
This video recording is truly precious and fully deserves to be released, along with both of Stranniye Igry’s albums, which for some reason have never been properly released on CD.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Ibsen’s legacy
AUTHOR: By Elmira Alieva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT:    The idea that writers immortalize themselves through their work as their books continue to be read and reincarnated into numerous films and productions is especially true of the 19th-century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, whose drama has been inspiring film directors for many decades. Ibsen’s rich legacy and influence is the subject of a forthcoming film festival at Rodina cinema this week entitled “A retrospective of Henrik Ibsen.”
   “The aim of the festival is to present Ibsen’s life and literature in a new way through old and new films,” said Herborg Alvsaaker, consul at the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in St. Petersburg, which is one of the program’s organizers. “Many have seen his plays on stage, but film is another artistic expression, perhaps an opening for new interpretations of Ibsen,” she said.
   A leading author of realistic drama, Ibsen is one of the most-performed playwrights in the world, second only to Shakespeare. He was admired, criticized and discussed when he was alive and his plays are still interpreted and debated throughout the world.
   “I think Ibsen’s popularity, in his own time and now, is mostly due to his honest descriptions and meaningful comments on the everlasting problems of society,” said Alvsaaker. “Human nature, how we develop relationships and how we organize our societies are universal human concerns, and this is what makes Ibsen popular even today,” she said.
   “This retrospective festival was introduced in 2006 within the framework of ‘The year of Ibsen’ marking 100 years since his death,” said Alexander Mamontov, general director of the St. Petersburg International Film Festival “Festival of Festivals” — another of the organizers. 
   “The festival has been touring in Europe for several years, and now it is the turn of St. Petersburg,” he said. “This event allows spectators to familiarize themselves with the international cinematographic vision of Ibsen’s literary works. It is especially useful for young people who might have not read Ibsen,” he said.
   The festival presents 14 films based on Ibsen’s work and produced by Norwegian, British, Swedish and French film directors from 1917 to 2006. Among the films are classic feature films such as “A Doll’s House” starring Jane Fonda and Anthony Hopkins and “The Wild Duck” made by Tancred Ibsen, the playwright’s grandson. There are also modern short films and award-winning documentaries about Ibsen himself, entitled “Lion. Henrik Ibsen” and “Immortal Ibsen.” 
   “The plots of several films at the festival are based on Ibsen’s works, but [the action is] transferred to the present, which is quite an interesting experimentation,” said Mamontov.
   Ibsen’s ideas were deeply philosophical — he proclaimed the essential values of personal freedom and criticized the suppression of human and individual rights. He was especially well known for his radical thoughts about the position of women in the family and in society. 
   “For instance, this is reflected in ‘A Doll’s House,’ which is still, from a gender perspective, a radical play in many parts of the world,” said Alvsaaker. “However, perhaps he wanted to provoke and create debate rather than criticizing his own times. His plays challenged established truths and therefore made life more difficult for some people,” she said.
   Ibsen died more than a hundred years ago, but people still argue about his impact on literature and culture. They continue to discuss his ideas and produce films and performances based on his works. When film directors choose Ibsen’s work as the basis for their films, once again they are demonstrating the fact of his immortality, and ensuring that Ibsen’s life and literature are kept alive.

 “A Retrospective of Henrik Ibsen” runs from March 6 through March 14 at Rodina cinema. http://www.rodinakino.ru/

TITLE: Lost World
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In times of turmoil it is comforting to know that there are some things that never change. Jurassic Park, a quirky cafe on Izmailovsky Propekt, is one of them — for at least a decade its decor, menu and service have remained reassuringly unchanged, as if trapped in amber.
This is perhaps because it is difficult to find, located in a basement and announcing its presence with only a modest sign (which mimics the logo of the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name). The doorway is anonymous and a little shabby and it isn’t obvious that Jurassic Park is a restaurant. From the street it could be a video store or a dry cleaners. 
Once inside, clues to an obsession with the prehistoric world begin to appear. There are a few fronds of ferns sprouting from a wall hewn from rock, and the first of a series of large, striking oil paintings depicting dinosaurs. It is all fake, but kids and fans of The Flintstones will love it.
An old man is seated at a desk in an alcove that has bars on it. Is it Hannibal Lecter? Not really, he’s simply a relic from a more courtly age and leaps to his feet to take diners’ coats and hang them up in his alcove. If he leaves his post, he can lock the cage behind him to ensure the coats are safe.
The cafe comprises three dim, cave-like rooms and a bar. The far room is the largest and most comfortable, but it can be difficult to catch the attention of the waitress at this remove. On the other hand, this also means you will not be stared at or fussed over. And there’s time to admire more dinosaur scenes hanging on the rock walls: a stealthy Stegosaurus in one, a roaring T-Rex in another.
As you might expect in this carnivorous atmosphere, the Russian cuisine on offer at Jurassic Park is based on meat served in dinosaur-sized portions. Pork, beef and lamb dishes dominate but there’s also ostrich and shark on offer. Starters are mostly huge bowls of startlingly bland salads, all smothered in mayonnaise and heaps of grated cheese, but few food options are as authentically Russian as these, and offer excellent value at 120-150 rubles ($3.30-$4).
Main courses follow a similarly gratifying format of meat-plus-sauce-plus-garnish-plus-side salad (corn, peas, sauerkraut, olives, cucumber, tomato, parsley and dill accompany every dish). It is difficult not to warm to a dish like Svinina po Russky (180 rubles, $5), in which a large amount of fried pork is fossilized in cheese and chopped mushrooms. Served with potato wedges (60 rubles, $1.70), the dish is not subtle, but the ingredients are fresh and cooked with the care of a chef that knows his audience.
There’s nothing fancy about the paper tablecloths and rudimentary furniture at Jurassic Park, and the Russian chanson music pumping out of a seriously loud sound system might be considered distracting. But the working class middle-aged men and their flouncy wives that flock here for long evenings of feasting are a loyal herd who will greet new diners as one of the family. Jurassic Park is a vodka sort of place, and the only beer on offer is non-filtered Vasileostrovskaya (80 rubles, $2.20) but its muddy hue is of a piece with the primordial atmosphere of the place.
With no windows to let in natural light, time has stood still at Jurassic Park. It offers excellent value for money and refuge from the complicated modern age. There is even something touching in its naive celebration of the Jurassic era and its semi-mythic monsters. If this is the land that time forgot, may its charm remain immortal.

TITLE: Spring fever
AUTHOR: By Finn Cohen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It’s fitting that a week after Maslenitsa, which marks the official beginning of spring, St. Petersburg should see an appearance by Air France, a duo from Gothenburg, Sweden. On Saturday the pair, who rarely play their own music live, will play a DJ set at Sochi that should herald the arrival of longer, warmer days. 
Joel Karlsson and Henrik Markstedt, who make up Air France, have created an enormous buzz in Europe and North America with last year’s “No Way Down” EP, which uses lush string samples, Afro-Caribbean percussion and airy guitar lines to channel the vibe of a summertime dance party near the shore, a far cry from the Swedish winter that mirrors the Russian one.
“I think it’s just because [winter in Sweden] is so dark, we want to escape that feeling,” said Markstedt on the eve of the group’s first trip to Russia. “We have half a year of darkness and then half a year of light, so in the winter, people long for summer. That’s what we’re trying to convey in our songs, that longing.”
Critics have noted the similarity between the Gothenburg scene, which includes The Tough Alliance and Jens Lenkman, and the Balearic dance music craze born in Ibiza, Spain, in the late 1980s and brought back to England by house DJs Paul Oakenfold and friends. And while all these groups share a common penchant for sunny pop hooks and 80s synth sounds, what sets Air France apart is how their songs unfold into soaring, winter-defying choruses from unassuming intros.
“We write songs about things we don’t really know anything about, in the soundscapes, I mean … everything you would expect that is Swedish, we want to do the opposite, and take a route no one has gone before,” said Markstedt.
Performances of their own material are rare — Air France has attempted to play a concert as such only once, with slightly disastrous results, as it’s difficult to reproduce the layers of melody and rhythm found on “No Way Down.”
“I think it’s because we have a lot of samples and strings and a million different elements in our songs,” Markstedt said. “And we’re only two people, so I think to play live we’d have to get a 12-man orchestra. ... We may have to end up remixing our own songs so we can do sort of like a DJ set with our songs…more a feel of a party than a concert.” 

Air France plays at Sochi with DJ Fanick and DJ Chance at 11 p.m. on Saturday. 7 Kazanskaya Ulitsa, M: Nevsky Prospekt. Tel: 312 0140.

TITLE: McEnroe Pins Davis Cup Hopes On Roddick
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — U.S. captain Patrick McEnroe is confident that a revitalized Andy Roddick will be ready to reverse a two-match Davis Cup loss streak in a World Group tie against Switzerland starting Friday.
McEnroe’s side will be in the driver’s seat against a Switzerland minus Roger Federer as the world number two remains at his base in Dubai working out the final kinks in a lingering back problem.
Federer withdrew from the Davis Cup to try and prepare for the run of back-to-back ATP events in the US starting next week in Indian Wells, California, and continuing in Miami.
The nations stand 1-1 in their rivalry, the Americans having won the 1992 final in Fort Worth, Texas and the Swiss earning revenge in the first round in 2001.
Swiss coach Severin Luethi will lead with number 16 Stan Wawrinka, backed up by a supporting cast of 342-ranked Marco Chiudinelli, number 143 Stephane Bohli and Yves Allegro.

TITLE: Khartoum  Expels NGOs Over  ICC
Accusations
AUTHOR: By Andrew Heavens
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KHARTOUM — Sudan’s president told thousands of cheering supporters on Thursday an international call for his arrest on war crimes charges was a ploy by western nations set on grabbing the country’s oil.
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the first sitting president to be charged by the International Criminal Court, responded to his indictment over the conflict in the western Darfur region by ordering 10 foreign aid agencies to leave Sudan.
Authorities accused the aid groups of passing information to the ICC on alleged atrocities in Darfur, center of the world’s largest humanitarian operation, and one aid official said at least three more agencies may be sent home.
Bashir said the Hague-based ICC was a tool of imperialists targeting Sudan for its oil, natural gas and other resources.
“We have refused to kneel to colonialism, that is why Sudan has been targeted ... because we only kneel to God,” he told a crowd outside the Republican Palace.
Cheers of “We are ready to protect religion!” and “Down, down U.S.A!” from the protesters interrupted his speech. Washington has welcomed the ICC warrant.
Some in the crowd carried banners branding the court’s prosecutor a criminal and Bashir, 65, danced along to nationalist songs.
He earlier said the government would tackle any attack on stability. The ICC has no powers of arrest and relies on national police forces to hand suspects over.
“We will deal responsibly and decisively with anybody who tries to target the stability and security of the country,” Bashir told a meeting of top politicians on Thursday.
“We have expelled 10 foreign organizations ... after monitoring activities that act in contradiction to all regulation and laws,” he said.
China, a major investor in Sudan’s oil which has sent peacekeepers to Darfur, urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to heed calls from African and Arab countries and suspend the case against Bashir.
The African Union (AU) said it would send a high-level delegation to press the United Nations’ Security Council to delay the indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for a year to give the peace process in Darfur a chance.
The ICC, set up in 2002, indicted Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which included murder, rape and torture. The three-judge panel said it had insufficient grounds for genocide.
Sudan revoked the licenses of several foreign aid agencies hours after the warrant was issued.
Hassabo Mohamed Abd el-Rahman, head of the government’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, told Reuters some groups had “passed evidence to the ICC” and made false reports of genocide and rape. He said many agencies were being investigated.
An aid official said later the government was set to expel three more aid agencies, bringing the total number to 13.

TITLE: Pakistan Stunned by Ambush in Lahore
AUTHOR: By Simon Cameron-Moore
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ISLAMABAD — Pakistani police hunted on Wednesday for gunmen who mounted the bold attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Lahore and officials scrambled to figure out who was behind it.
The attack which killed eight people, six of them Pakistani police, plunged Pakistan into a “state of war,” Rehman Malik, the prime minister’s interior adviser, said.
“Be patient, we will flush all these terrorists out of the country,” he added.
Six members of the Sri Lankan team and a British coach were wounded in the daylight attack as their bus approached the cricket stadium. None was so seriously hurt they had to be left behind when the squad departed for Colombo on Tuesday night.
New Zealand canceled their cricket tour of Pakistan planned for later this year, saying there was no way the trip could go ahead after the attack on the Sri Lankan team.
“We are not going. I think that’s pretty clear. I don’t see any international team will be going to Pakistan in the forseeable future,” New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan told local radio on Wednesday.
Pakistan has reeled under a wave of bomb and gun attacks in recent years, mostly carried out by Islamist militants linked to the Taliban or al Qaeda, but arch nationalists would relish a link being found between rival India and the latest attack.
The incident had echoes of an attack on the Indian city of Mumbai last November in which around 170 people were killed and which led to the Indian cricket team cancelling its planned tour of Pakistan, and a Sri Lankan team taking its place.
The group blamed by India for the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba, came from Pakistan’s Punjab province whose capital is Lahore.
The police chief in Punjab province announced some arrests, without saying if any gunmen were among those picked up.
Journalists were shown weapons found at the scene and at other locations, including 10 AK-47 rifles, two rocket grenade launchers, 32 hand grenades and plastic explosives.
“They were determined ... it was a thoroughly prepared operation,” police chief Khuwaja Khalid Farooq said.
The United States wants Pakistan focused on fighting terrorism, but there are worries that President Asif Ali Zardari’s civilian government could be engulfed by multiple crises less than a year after taking power.
U.S. President Barack Obama said he was “deeply concerned” about the attack.
Vice President Joe Biden will consult NATO allies in Brussels next week as part of a strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by Obama, his office said on Tuesday.
Aside from militancy radiating across the northwest from the borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan desperately needs billions of dollars of aid to supplement a bail out by the International Monetary Fund last November.
Pakistan has arrested a few LeT members. India and other governments are watching to see how forcefully Pakistan follows through on its investigation as LeT has had close ties with Pakistani intelligence agencies in the past.

TITLE: Man U Reinforce Lead in Premier League
AUTHOR: By Jason Mellor
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: NEWCASTLE — Cristiano Ronaldo was involved in an angry confrontation in the tunnel after helping Manchester United restore their lead at the top of the Premier League to seven points.
The Portuguese international exchanged heated words with Steven Taylor after being caught by the defender’s flailing elbow during United’s 2-1 victory at Newcastle.
It was the champions’ 11th consecutive win in the league and, with the added advantage of a game in hand over Chelsea and Liverpool, placed second and third, they look increasingly sure of a third straight title.
Newcastle’s caretaker boss Chris Hughton defended Taylor for the robust elbow-first challenge that left Ronaldo clutching his face shortly before the interval, earning the defender a caution.
Angry United skipper Rio Ferdinand had to be held back from remonstrating with the England Under-21 international as emotions ran high.
But Hughton defended Taylor. “Ronaldo’s gone past Steven and Steven was probably a little bit head-strong and in his endeavors to pull him back, he catches him on the shoulder and that’s all it was,” he said.
“Anybody who watches the incident again would see that’s what happened. Steven’s a player of high energy and enthusiasm and that’s how we expect him to play.”
Alex Ferguson preferred to pay tribute to Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney after the strike duo combined to inspire United’s come-from behind win — their sixth in seven unbeaten visits to St. James’s Park. 
Rooney scored on the turn from the edge of the box to cancel out Peter Lovenkrands’ early opener after an uncharacteristic mistake by Edwin Van der Sar saw the keeper’s 14-game run without conceding a goal finally come to an end.
Berbatov struck the winning goal in the match, his 13th of the season, to put him two behind Rooney in the scoring charts shortly after half-time following a mistake by Newcastle’s Ryan Taylor.
United remain on course for a haul of five trophies.

TITLE: North, South Korea Wrangle Ahead of U.S. Military Drills
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEOUL — North Korea threatened South Korean civilian planes flying near its airspace on Thursday and warned that upcoming U.S. and South Korea military drills could trigger a nuclear war.
The warning from North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland came days before the annual joint exercises are slated to begin and amid concerns Pyongyang is preparing to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile.
The North is “compelled to declare that security cannot be guaranteed for South Korean civil airplanes flying through the territorial air of our side and its vicinity ... while the military exercises are under way,” the committee said in a statement.
“No one knows what military conflicts will be touched off by the reckless war exercises of the U.S. and the puppet clique for a war of aggression against” the North, said the statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
The statement did not say what kind of danger South Korean planes face or if it means the North would shoot down planes.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries are slated to hold 12 days of exercises at sites across South Korea for drills involving 26,000 American troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Seoul and Washington repeatedly have said the joint annual maneuvers are purely defensive.

TITLE: Obama Tackles Health Reform With Forum
AUTHOR: By David Alexander
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama takes on healthcare reform at a White House forum on Thursday, seeking to design an overhaul of a costly and inefficient system he believes is threatening the U.S. economy.
Obama, who has nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as his health secretary, will gather about 120 people representing everyone from doctors and patients to health insurers and lawmakers to discuss how to fix U.S. healthcare.
It’s a challenge that has defeated earlier presidents. But officials say the current U.S. economic crisis only makes it more imperative.
“If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of healthcare this year, in this administration,” Obama said in remarks prepared for the opening of the event.
“Making investments in reform now, investments that will dramatically lower costs, won’t add to our budget deficits in the long-term — rather, it is one of the best ways to reduce them,” he said.
The United States spends approximately $2.5 trillion annually on healthcare but leaves some 46 million people uninsured and consistently ranks lower than other Western countries on indicators like infant mortality rates.
Obama pledged during his election campaign that he would expand health insurance coverage to virtually all people and find a way to control costs, which businesses complain are making their products less competitive in the global markets.
“Our healthcare costs are exploding our economy,” said Melody Barnes, Obama’s senior domestic policy adviser. “When he talks about getting spending under control ... one of the primary things he is focusing on is bringing our healthcare costs under control.”
The president has not presented a specific reform plan to Congress, seeking to avoid the problems that killed President Bill Clinton’s healthcare effort in the 1990s when his administration presented a long, detailed plan to lawmakers.
“He isn’t sending a bill up to the Hill,” said Barnes. “He’s articulated some of the principles that are important to him, but I think he also strongly believes that to get this done he’s going to have to be open, pragmatic and listen and engage with Congress to get a bill done.”

TITLE: China Says Ready to Negotiate With Taiwan
AUTHOR: By Christopher Bodeen
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said Thursday that Beijing is ready to hold talks with Taiwan on political and military issues in the pursuit of ending hostility between the longtime rivals.
In a report to the annual legislative session’s opening ceremony, Wen hailed a significant improvement in ties and a major reduction in tensions over the past year between China and the self-governing island across the Taiwan Strait that Beijing claims as Chinese territory.
“Positive changes occurred in the situation in Taiwan, and major breakthroughs were made in cross-strait relations,” Wen said.
Beijing was ready to hold talks to “create conditions for ending the state of hostility and concluding a peace agreement” between the sides, he said.
Wen’s remarks to the National People’s Congress were a near word-for-word reiteration of offers made by president and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao in a Dec. 31 address.
Relations have improved dramatically since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou took office last year with a mandate to reduce tensions and strengthen economic ties between the sides.
Wen gave no additional details on the content of a peace agreement or what the talks on political and military issues would include. However, the tone of his remarks was far more conciliatory than the typically hawkish references to Taiwan contained in previous addresses to the congress.
A vice chairman of Taiwan’s Cabinet body responsible for China policy said political negotiations would move forward “only after the two sides have reached a certain degree of mutual trust, and also with the internal consensus of each side.”
Mainland Affairs Council’s Liu Te-shun also referenced the hundreds of Chinese missiles pointed at Taiwan and other military threats that are a prime source of distrust and trepidation.
The Chinese authorities “should remove the military threat toward us and should extend the principle of pursuing peace and prosperity together to every level of cross-strait interaction to build mutual trust,” Liu told reporters.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing says it is intent on eventual unification, by persuasion if possible but by force if considered necessary.