SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1458 (20), Friday, March 20, 2009
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TITLE: Russia Accuses U.S. Of Poaching
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s defense minister this week accused the United States of beefing up its military presence near Russian borders and poaching for mineral wealth there, signaling that Moscow could take a tough position in upcoming talks with Barack Obama’s new administration.
Anatoly Serdyukov’s statement — made alongside President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting of the military’s top brass on Tuesday — reflected deeply entrenched Russian suspicions despite Obama’s desire to improve relations with Moscow.
Medvedev, meanwhile, cited NATO expansion, international terrorism and regional conflicts as reasons why upgrading Russia’s nuclear forces was the top priority in an ambitious military modernization plan that he pledged to pursue despite the worst economic crisis in a decade.
Relations with Russia plunged to a post-Cold War low under the previous U.S. administration, whose plans to build missile defense sites in eastern Europe and bring ex-Soviet republics into NATO angered Moscow.
Medvedev’s first meeting with Obama next month will set the tone for talks over a new arms control treaty and other major disputes — and Russia is signaling that it will be a tough negotiating partner.
“U.S. aspirations have been aimed at getting access to raw materials, energy and other resources” of ex-Soviet nations, Serdyukov told military officers. “Active support was given to the processes aimed at pushing Russia out of the sphere of its traditional interests.”
Moscow has fiercely opposed plans to put Ukraine and Georgia on track to NATO membership. Russian officials also hope the Obama administration will cancel plans to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Moscow has raised the stakes by threatening to deploy missiles next to Poland if the U.S. goes ahead with the missile shield.
Russia is also deeply wary of any U.S. presence in oil- and gas-rich Central Asia, which Moscow considers its historic sphere of influence.
Windfall oil wealth over the last decade allowed the Kremlin to nearly quadruple defense spending, start upgrading aging arsenals and press efforts to revive the nation’s clout and prestige. Still, military modernization has gone slowly and glaring weaknesses, such as shortages of precision “smart” weapons and modern communications gear, were highlighted during Russia’s war with Georgia in August.
The financial crisis has raised more doubts about meeting modernization goals, something Medvedev sought to dispel Tuesday.
“Let me mention the top priorities. The main one is a qualitative increase in the troops' readiness, primarily of strategic nuclear forces. They must guarantee the fulfillment of all tasks of ensuring Russia’s security,” Medvedev said.
He also repeated past pledges, made by his predecessor Vladimir Putin, that Russia’s armed forces would be equipped with modern equipment.
“In the past year, we have transformed a whole range of combat units and formations by providing them with modern equipment, and in 2011 we will begin the large-scale rearmament of the army and navy,” he said.
Military officials say about 25 percent of the 1.5 trillion rubles ($43 billion) budgeted for weapons purchases this year will be spent on upgrading the aging, Soviet-era nuclear force.

TITLE: Ecologists Decry Arrival of Nuclear Waste
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: About 30 members of St. Petersburg’s ecological organizations protested on Thursday the transportation of nuclear waste from other countries to Russia.  
“No to the Import of Nuclear Waste!” read the slogan held by a group of ecologists in front of Avtovo metro station — the area of the city through which trains transporting nuclear waste from Europe usually pass.
“We are protesting nuclear transportation through St. Petersburg,” said Rashid Alimov, co-chairman of the ECOperestroika ecological organization at a press conference on Thursday. “We also declare the start of a public campaign against the construction of a terminal for receiving radioactive waste cargo in the port of Ust-Luga,” he said.
The protest was prompted by the arrival of the ship MV Schouwenbank loaded with 1,250 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride from Germany to St. Petersburg on Thursday. It was the biggest transfer of German radioactive waste to Russia in history, ECOperestroika said.
 “Another shipment of radioactive waste to Russia is arriving despite such activities being completely illegal, and in violation of the promises of the Russian Nuclear Energy State Corporation, or RosAtom, to stop the import of so-called uranium tailings,” Alimov wrote earlier on the organization’s web site.
“The transportation of such cargo is extremely dangerous. It is fraught with incidents in which containers have become depressurized, which can lead to the poisoning of a large number of people, and to the toxic and radioactive pollution of large areas, including Russia’s big cities,” he said.
Alimov said ecologists intend to measure radiation levels in the vicinity of the current cargo along its route through Russia.  
At the end of the protest, police detained Alimov for what they called “the violation of fire safety rules and rules on holding public events,” said Vera Ponomaryova, representative of ECOperestroika.  
Russia has already accumulated more than 700,000 tons of uranium hexafluoride.
The uranium tailings being sent to Russia belong to Urenco, a western European company, whose shareholders are the two major energy firms E.On and RWE. Urenco has a contract with RosAtom, during the term of which cargos of waste have already been shipped to Novouralsk in the Sverdlov Oblast, Seversk in the Tomsk Oblast, Angarsk in the Irkutsk Oblast and Zelenogorsk in the Krasnoyarsk region.
The annual reports of Russian Technical Watch for 2003-2007 showed that the safety norms for the storage of such waste were not met at any of the enterprises in the above cities. The tailings are kept outside, and there were also cases of containers becoming depressurized, ECOperestroika said.
The transportation of the tailings began on the night of March 12 from a uranium plant in Gronau, Germany. The shipment of the cargo from railway sidings to the ship took 36 hours, the environmental group said.
Vladimir Slyvnyak, co-chairman of the Ecozashchita (Ecological Defense) group, said that when sending its tailings to Russia, Urenco tries to find the cheapest way to get rid of the responsibility for radioactive and toxic waste.
“We demand a stop to this cynical and immoral business that contradicts the Russian legislation,” Slyvnyak said.
From St. Petersburg port, the train with the tailings will go to the city of Novouralsk. The train travels through St. Petersburg, passing by residential buildings, ECOperestroika said.
Last year a train carrying similar nuclear waste from Germany was discovered by ecologists near residential buildings in the city’s Avtovo district. The ecologists measured the radiation background near the containers and found that it exceeded the normal level of background radiation by 30 times, environmental groups said.
Oleg Bodrov, head of the Green World ecological organization based in the town of Sosnovy Bor in the Leningrad Oblast, said that the Ust-Luga port west of St. Petersburg is currently building new infrastructure for the import and export of nuclear materials. In two years cargos of nuclear waste will be transported via Ust-Luga, he said.
“This is a threat for the Kurgalsky peninsula,” Bodrov said.
Nuclear experts recognize the danger from the transportation of uranium tailings. The British nuclear company BNFL has said that “the sudden emission of a large quantity of uranium hexafluoride, if taken by the wind, may lead to a large number of victims. Theoretically, in certain weather conditions the deadly concentrations may spread over a radius of 32 kilometers from the place of emission.”
RosAtom’s press-service said on Thursday that deliveries of depleted uranium hexafluoride or OGFU is carried out on the basis of contracts signed by Technabexport in the mid 1990s, and that the ministry will end the agreement in 2009-2010, Interfax reported.
“In 2009-2010 the old contracts on the additional concentration of OGFU will run out, and we will not prolong them or sign new contracts,” said Igor Konyshyev, head of RosAtom’s public relations department. “We said it in 2007, and we will keep our word.” 
Konyshev said the “various enterprises of RosAtom possess more effective technologies for the enrichment of uranium than European enterprises.” Russian technologies enable OGFU of European origin to be used as a raw material for producing U-235 — the isotope used for the production of fuel for nuclear power stations, he said.
Starting in 1996, under such contracts Russia has received more than 80,000 tons of uranium tailings from Europe. Ecologists say that by the end of 2009, another 20 tons of waste is to be delivered to Russia.
Russia and other countries have currently accumulated several million tons of OGFU. In the U.S. such waste officially became considered as radioactive waste in 2005. European countries do not consider the substance to be radioactive waste, and send it for burial to Russia.
RosAtom head Sergei Kiriyenko said earlier that after the OGFU is enriched in Russia, it is returned to its country of origin, Interfax reported.
Protests against the import of nuclear waste to Russia are also taking place in other Russian cities, including Yekaterinburg. On Monday ecologists plan to hold a protest action in front of RosAtom’s office in Moscow.

TITLE: Local Youth Fight Back Against Widespread Xenophobia
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While Russian authorities are stepping up nationalist rhetoric with Kremlin-backed youth organizations organizing rallies against migrant workers, a massive campaign against xenophobia has been launched by independent activists in St. Petersburg.
Called Xenophobii.NET, or No to Xenophobia, the campaign kicked off with street performances by Vykhod (Way-Out), a gay rights organization, and the Russian Union of Social-Democratic Youth (RSDSM) followed by a Food Not Bombs event that saw anarchists and anti-Nazi activists distributing free vegetarian food to homeless people at Vladimirskaya Ploshchad last Sunday.
“Last year [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin said that he and [President Dmitry] Medvedev were ‘nationalists in a good sense.’ This shows that nationalistic ideas find support at a very high level,” RSDSM leader Yevgeny Konovalov said by phone on Thursday.
“If the authorities start to lose their influence they need an enemy. It’s not enough anymore to have an external enemy. The opposition as an internal enemy is weak and you cannot scare anybody with an Orange Revolution anymore. They need another enemy, and the simplest target is migrants who can be held responsible for all trouble. The authorities play this card now cynically to stay in power as long as possible, not thinking about the consequences it can lead to.”
St. Petersburg, with its long history of neo-Nazi murders and beatings, is notorious for being one of the worst hotspots of nationalist violence in Russia. Earlier this month, Nazi skinheads attacked and beat a Jewish student on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, while last week two teenagers carved a swastika on the arm of 14-year old girl, according to the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which monitors nationalism and racism in Russia.
“The situation is very, very dramatic, because the economic crisis often helps radical views to prevail,” Konovalov said.
“The authorities contribute to it, because if we turn on the radio or television or listen to some press statements from the Interior Ministry, we are constantly told that in connection with the economic crisis, crime will be aggravated by migrants who will rob people or get involved in other criminal activities. Of course, it benefits nationalists who immediately exploit the situation. 
“That’s why, in our view, there’s a great danger that nationalism may prevail in Russia and there’ll be a new ‘Reich’ in this country.”
Promoted by a number of organizations, including the Russia Without Racism movement, the German-Russian Exchange, the Russian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Network, the Oborona democratic movement, and Anti-Fascist Action, the anti-xenophobia campaign will continue through March 29. 
A number of film screenings, seminars, discussions and outdoor events are planned. 
Although different types of xenophobia have been targeted at various events in the city for the past several years, the current campaign is the most extensive and addresses all types of bigotry, including racism, prejudice against representatives of youth subcultures and homophobia, according to Konovalov.
“It’s very important that this is the first time we’ve had a campaign about absolutely every kind of xenophobia, all together, because, in our view, you can’t protest about the infringement of rights of one group, and then agree to it regarding another,” he said.
“Because the situation is so painful, it is high time for such a coalition to form, and I am glad that we have managed to do this, even if somewhat spontaneously. Our next step will be to export such a coalition, the St. Petersburg experience, to other regions of Russia. There has emerged a powerful fist that can beat off the nationalist onslaught.”
With at least two passers-by on Sunday reacting aggressively, shouting and gesticulating, at Food Not Bombs activists holding the banner “Toss Nationalism into the Trash!” — and with Konovalov’s blog entry announcing the campaign being overloaded with hostile comments and threats — it seems the campaign’s activists will have plenty of work to do.
“It’s evident that nationalists have got scared,” Konovalov said.
“They write on the web, ‘Watch out, trouble has come to St. Petersburg.’ It means we’re hitting home.”

TITLE: Azerbaijan Votes to End Term Limits
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAKU, Azerbaijan — Election officials in Azerbaijan said Thursday that citizens overwhelmingly voted to scrap presidential term limits in the oil-rich country courted by Russia and the West. Opposition leaders claimed the constitutional referendum was rigged and vowed to dispute the outcome in courts.
The official result opens the door for indefinite rule by President Ilham Aliyev in the Caspian Sea nation that critics say is closer to a monarchy than a democracy. Based on returns from more than half the polling stations counted, the Central Election Commission reported 92 percent of voters approving the referendum, with 71 percent turnout in the country of 8 million people.
Aliyev’s beleaguered opponents claimed the vote was riddled with violations encouraged or organized by the state. They said their observers witnessed abuses including ballot-box stuffing and multiple voting. Ali Kerimli, head of the Popular Front party, said the opposition believes actual turnout was no more than 15 percent.
“The referendum was not free or fair and we do not consider it valid,” Kerimli told a news conference. He said the official results “do not reflect the will of the people.”
“The vote showed that the people have said ‘no’ to the ruling regime,” said Isa Gambar, leader of the opposition Musavat party.
Opposition leaders had said before the vote that they suspected its timing reflected government concerns that plunging oil prices and economic troubles could damage its popular support and weaken its grip.
Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea oil fields and its location straddling a strategic corridor for westward oil and gas exports from Central Asia — bypassing Russia and Iran — make it a focus in the struggle between Moscow and the West for regional influence.

TITLE: Stem Cell Register To Be Held in City
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A register of donors’ stem cells — special human cells that can help combat illnesses, including some forms of cancer — will appear in St. Petersburg by 2012, it was announced this week. 
The register of donor cells taken from the umbilical cords of new-born babies will consist of 10,000 samples, and will take from three to four years to develop, said Alexander Smolyaninov, general director of Pokrovsky Stem Cells Bank, Interfax reported. 
This time period is required in order to process and prepare the stem cells for storage. 
Stem cells are unique cells that are able to multiply quickly and mature into the cell elements required to make blood and repair the cardiovascular system, endocrine organs, bone, cartilage and muscular tissues.
Stem cells are successfully used to treat leukemia, cancer and other serious illnesses, when traditional medical treatments are not effective.
The cost of developing the register for Russia’s northwest region will amount to $15 to $20 million, and the entire country will be able to use the register, said Smolyaninov. 
“Meanwhile, when making such registers, we need to consider the national peculiarities of DNA structure, because the DNA for instance of people from Russia’s northwest may not coincide with the DNA of a person from the Caucasus,” he said. “Therefore we need to create such registers according to national specifications.”
One of the reasons for creating a Russian national stem cells register is that transporting stem cells from foreign donors is very expensive.
“The cost of the transportation of donors’ cells can cost from $20,000 to $40,000,” said Smolyaninov. “In future, the price for so-called biological insurance, including cells intake, their processing and storage, will be equal to 55,000 rubles ($1,650),” he said.
Basyr Ganapiyev, professor at the city’s Raisa Gorbachyova Children’s Hematology and Transplantology Institute, said that about 1,000 people develop leukemia every year in Russia. Last year, doctors carried out 169 bone marrow transplants on children. 
The main source of stem cells in the human body is bone marrow, though it is not the only source. The blood from umbilical cords and placenta is another source of stem cells with high potential.
Modern medicine allows stem cells to be extracted from umbilical cord blood in the first few hours after a baby is born. After that, the stem cells can be stored at temperatures less than minus 196 degrees Celsius in special donor banks for decades. If a person needs the stem cells in future for treatment, they will not need require a donor, but can use their own cells.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>$3 Million Lottery</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A lottery ticket purchased in St. Petersburg has won its owner a 100 million-ruble ($3 million) jackpot in the 36th All-Russian State Lottery, Interfax reported Thursday.
The winning ticket was purchased in the suburb of Kolpino, south of St. Petersburg, according to an announcement on the lottery web site. The owner of the ticket has not yet claimed the winnings.
The 100 million-ruble prize is the largest in the history of the Gosloto lottery, which has been conducted by the Russian government since September 2005. The lottery was also the first from which the proceeds have gone into funding the development of Russian sport, according to the site. 

<b>Adoptions Rising</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The number of families adopting children in the Leningrad Oblast increased tenfold between 2006 and 2008, according figures published by the region’s Committee of General and Professional Education on Thursday.  
Two-hundred seventy-two families which have adopted more than 400 children were registered in Leningrad Oblast at the start of this year.
Although 3,840 children remain in guardianship in the region, the number of children in this situation is diminishing due to a growing understanding of adoption, the committee said in a press release. This has been achieved through classes for adoptive-parent candidates and educational groups for children without the guardianship of their parents, the committee said.
Such educational programs received 215 million rubles ($6.4 million) in government subsidies last year to place children with guardians and adoptive families.
More than fifty percent of adoptions in 2008 involved Russian parents, as opposed to non-Russian families, up from 38 percent in 2006.  

<b>Children’s Festival</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An international festival showcasing the creative work of children with disabilities begins Friday in St. Petersburg, according to the event’s director.  
The “Step Forward” festival features artwork and music by children from 73 countries and will run until Tuesday, Interfax reported.  Participants will display the crafts they’ve created, present theatrical productions and play jazz music in concert halls around the city, Festival Director Valeria Sokolova announced at a press conference Wednesday.
The festival’s organizing committee chose 415 groups from more than 1,000 entries to take part, Sokolova said. Besides displaying their work, the children will attend master-classes in drawing and go on excursions to the zoo, dolphinarium, theaters and the Hermitage and Russian museums.
The festival has earned the support of well-known faces such as St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, according to Alexander Rzhanenkov, president of the city committee for social policy. Director Igor Shadkhan announced he would shoot a film to capture the spirit of the festival, Interfax reported.

TITLE: Retail Sales Contract As Incomes Decline
AUTHOR: By Paul Abelsky
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Russian retail sales contracted for the first time since 1999 in February as the decline in disposable incomes and the depreciating ruble hurt consumer demand.
Sales fell an annual 2.4 percent from a revised 3.1 percent rise in January, the Federal Statistics Service said in an emailed statement Thursday. The result exceeded the median forecast of 17 economists surveyed by Bloomberg for a 0.2 percent drop.
The country’s wage arrears rose in February for the second consecutive month, climbing 16 percent as manufacturing companies struggled to pay their employees after cutting output. Russian industrial production dropped an annual 13.2 percent in February for the fourth monthly decline.
 “As firms struggle to access financing, unemployment looks set to soar to 12 percent,” said Neil Shearing, an emerging-market economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London, in a report before the data release. “This will spell disaster for an economy in which private consumption accounts for over half of GDP.”
Credit conditions haven’t improved because of the government’s “botched efforts to shore up the ruble,” Shearing said. Russia’s central bank has drained more than a third of the country’s reserves since August to stem the currency’s decline. The ruble dropped 11 percent against the dollar last month.
Urals crude, Russia’s chief oil export blend, averaged $42.80 in February, a decline of almost 70 percent from a July record of $142.50 a barrel. The economy may contract 2.2 percent this year if Urals trades at an average price of $41 a barrel, according to the government.
The weaker ruble, frozen credit markets and falling incomes will lead households to rein in spending on durable goods and switch to cheaper products, the Metropol brokerage in Moscow said in a report, predicting that Russia’s retail market will contract 17.5 percent in dollar terms this year.
The average monthly wage rose an annual 0.1 percent in February, while unemployment increased to 8.5 percent. Real disposable incomes dropped 4.7 percent after tumbling 10.2 percent the previous month.
Russian real wages and disposable incomes may fall more than 15 percent in dollar terms and remain flat in rubles this year, UniCredit SpA said in a report this month.
The deteriorating economic outlook may lead to an annual 24 percent plunge in the Russian food retail market this year in dollar terms, Italy’s biggest lender said. Russia’s inflation rate rose to 13.9 percent in February, a four-month high, after the devalued ruble pushed up import prices.

TITLE: Russian Alcohol’s Sales Soar 20 Percent
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian Alcohol Group’s sales rose more than 20 percent in the first two months of 2009, and the growth probably will “continue in that direction” for the rest of the year, chief executive Carlo Radicati said Wednesday.
“Russian Alcohol has a flexible portfolio of brands that is adaptable to the current situation,” Radicati said at a news conference. 
A financial squeeze in the country is pushing out smaller producers, enabling Russia’s largest private vodka maker to keep increasing market share, he said.
Russian vodka consumption may climb 0.6 percent in volume this year as more people switch to local brands from imported ones, Renaissance Capital said in a Feb. 5 report. The market may climb 11 percent when valued in rubles, it estimated. Last year, Russian vodka output slipped 7.6 percent as higher incomes enabled more shoppers to buy imported alcohol.
Russian Alcohol, maker of Green Mark vodka, accounted for 13 percent of the market by volume in 2008, followed by Synergy, Renaissance analyst Ulyana Tipsina said, citing State Statistics Service data. 
Russian Alcohol may add another  four to five percentage points to its market share this year, Radicati said.

TITLE: Putin Says Printing Money Won’t Solve Economic Woes
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia won’t resort to printing money to cover a 2009 budget deficit forecast at 7.4 percent of gross domestic product, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
The government should tackle the deficit “by using the reserves that have been accumulated in recent years, or if necessary by borrowing under market conditions,” Putin told the cabinet in Moscow on Thursday, adding that Russia doesn’t yet need to borrow. “Resorting to a printing press would be unwise and extremely dangerous.”
Russia’s budget “will probably come in with a deficit for the next few years,” Putin said, reiterating that the government has no plans to borrow abroad.
The government is considering a revised 2009 budget with Russia’s first deficit in a decade as it attempts to stabilize the economy with 1.6 trillion rubles ($47.9 billion) of bailout spending.
Russia will boost spending this year even as plunging commodity prices cut revenue by 28 percent. Under the revised budget, the government will spend 9.7 trillion rubles, an increase of 667 billion rubles from the original 2009 budget approved last June. Of this total, 1.6 trillion rubles are earmarked for the anti-crisis package, which the government says is modeled on plans developed by the U.S. and U.K.
A 10-day public discussion period started Thursday, during which the plan will be debated across the country in town hall-style meetings.
The seven-point plan includes social welfare, maintaining industrial capacity, boosting domestic demand, promoting small business, tackling corruption, supporting the financial system and laying the groundwork for long-term development.
The government will run a deficit of 2.98 trillion rubles, or 7.4 percent of planned gross domestic product of 40.4 trillion rubles, according to the Finance Ministry. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said last Saturday that the deficit may exceed 8 percent of GDP.
The government expects the economy to contract 2.2 percent this year — the country’s first recession in a decade — as prices for oil, gas, metals and other commodities slump because the global economic crisis is weakening demand around the world.
The original budget was based on an average oil price of $95 a barrel, while the revision was calculated on an average price of $41 a barrel and an inflation rate of about 13 percent.

TITLE: TNK-BP Continues Search for CEO
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — BP Plc, Europe’s second-biggest oil company, expects to find a new leader for its Russian joint venture by the middle of the year, following a shareholder dispute that led to Robert Dudley’s departure in December.
“We are making good progress in the search,” Toby Odone, a BP spokesman, said Thursday by phone, declining to name candidates. COO Tim Summers, who has been acting CEO since Dudley left, said in January he would continue in that role until mid-year.
TNK-BP is seeking new management after BP and the Russian shareholders agreed to end a power struggle that had hurt output and discouraged investors.

TITLE: Why Russia Should Recover Faster
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Gavrilenkov
TEXT: Global economic and financial news remain disappointing. There are no signs of economic recovery, and expectations of negative growth for the global economy this year have only risen. Meanwhile, an increasing number of observers expect further contraction of world equity markets. Amid mounting efforts to pump more liquidity into the financial system, governments are becoming increasingly vocal about the need to strengthen regulation of the financial sector, a quite understandable but nonetheless populist move. Debates mostly center on the need to change and strengthen the role of the International Monetary Fund or create a superior regulator. Such proposals are implicitly based on the assumption that an “ultimate regulator” with perfect knowledge of the system and sufficient authority can be established in principle. But little is said about the need to improve the quality of regulation.
I have expressed doubt about such ideas in the past. If international financial institutions, which are supposed to have all of the necessary information, money and authority at their disposal, have failed to predict a number of crises in the developed world — above all in the United States — then who can guarantee that a new regulatory entity will perform any better? The debate on the new financial architecture should instead shift from the need to create a perfect global regulator toward greater responsibility on the part of governments and international financial organizations in establishing more transparent and mutually acceptable rules of the game, such as guidelines for macroeconomic policy. 
Ultimately, it was central banks and governments that created an environment where private financial institutions were “encouraged” to take excessive risks. After all, the roots of the crisis can be traced to the government’s negative real interest rates and growing budget deficits that create the illusion of an abundance of money. Why can one be so sure that the same regulators will suddenly achieve perfection or at least become more efficient? 
I believe that most serious macroeconomic problems usually originate from flawed macroeconomic policies rather than the activities of private financial institutions, for whom it becomes not only tempting, but even reasonable in some sense, to take excessive risks and create complicated and risky financial products when money is easily available. The soaring growth in money substitutes such as institutional money funds helped to inflate balance sheets, particularly on the assets side. This, in turn, helped with obtaining increasingly more credit, thereby inflating the liabilities side. As a result, the system became overleveraged. Ratings agencies only aggravated the problem by rubber-stamping those money substitutes with high ratings. 
Thus, central bankers in many developed countries — above all the United States — lost control over growth in the money supply in recent years, helping private financial institutions create money. Interest rate differentials stimulated borrowing in a low interest rate environment and transfers to countries with higher rates. Even though no virtual money was created in this fashion, excessive moves in exchange rates also generated potential sources of instability
Overall, there is a growing consensus that the “balance sheet recession” will last a long time. This term, first coined by the U.S. Federal Reserve in 1991 and popularized in Richard Koo’s 2003 book “Balance Sheet Recession,” describes a severe economic contraction caused by a sharp drop in assets prices that leads prudent companies to pay down debt at the expense of business expansion. In his book, Koo explains Japan’s prolonged stagnation of the 1990s as a classic balance sheet recession. You can draw certain parallels between balance sheet recessions and the current global economic crisis in which banks keep absorbing cash aid from governments but continue to behave like “zombies” — that is, not lending until their balance sheets are restored. Given the size of the problem and the depth of the global financial system, this process may last for years, in which time global growth will remain poor.
Across countries, however, the situation may differ. Russia is among those countries that can overcome the current problems much faster. First of all, Russia is mostly a pipeline exporter, and the elasticity of pipeline exports is not as high as that of, say, automobiles. That said, on the exports side, Russia was mainly hit by falling prices and only to a lesser extent by decreased volumes. Adjusting the exchange rate, which has largely already occurred, should do much to stabilize the balance of payments and money markets. Hence, I believe that Russia’s recession is not only externally influenced, but largely a homegrown phenomenon originating from the slow reaction of the authorities. 
I also believe that Russia’s response to the current problems should differ from the policies adopted by other governments. The Russian economy was already overstimulated by excessive budgetary spending and foreign borrowing, and these trends need to be moderated. Meanwhile, I think that the current exchange rate will help keep the current account in surplus while helping to address capital account problems, such as repaying foreign debt.
Russia is the only country among the Group of 20 with double-digit inflation, and this remains one of the country’s most serious problems. Russia’s key dilemma is how to contain inflation while allowing the Central Bank to cut its benchmark interest rates. Meanwhile, in an environment of soaring Central Bank lending in recent months, the relatively cheap and abundant supply of rubles was converted into foreign cash, thereby shrinking the money supply. This stands in contrast to what occurred in other countries, where many banks loaded up on toxic assets. This was never a problem in Russia.
Given that Russia’s financial system is not as deep as those in other countries — the total ruble money supply fell to around $330 billion as of Feb. 1 — Russia’s version of the balance sheet recession should last for a much shorter period of time.

Yevgeny Gavrilenkov is managing director and chief economist at Troika Dialog.

TITLE: A Credibility Crisis
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: The Russian government has developed a new anti-crisis plan. Although nobody has seen it yet, we can be 100 percent certain that it is a good one and that it will enable Russia to fulfill its strategy for development through 2020, offer solutions to new problems and provide for overall stability. The upper limit of the currency corridor will be observed, there will be no further devaluation of the ruble and the Russian people will be able to sleep easily at night. 
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, a leader of the government’s anti-crisis campaign, tried to calm Russians: “The current anti-crisis plans are formulated so that even under the most adverse conditions, our model for the country’s economic growth through 2020 will be strategically executed — with some tactical corrections.”
Of course, Shuvalov is no Cicero and therefore gets his thoughts a little bit mixed up, but the idea is clear enough: The crisis won’t damage Russia. It follows that none of the government’s current policies or strategies requires corrections because it is doing everything right. And if, by chance, something does not work out as it should, it can be fixed with “tactical corrections.”
Who actually believes all of that? Probably only those who believe in abominable snowmen, UFOs, witches, demons and Santa Claus.
If he wanted, Shuvalov could publish his anti-crisis plan for the public to review. He could also ask the State Duma to endorse the plan to give it additional authority. The only thing the authorities cannot do is force it to work. This is because any serious plan for overcoming the crisis must begin by admitting that the policies of the last 15 years have hit a dead end. To overcome this crisis, it is not enough to make “tactical corrections” to the old strategy. A new strategy must be formulated that adopts new goals. In short, a new ideology is needed.
There is a false notion that Russia can flourish again as soon as high prices for gas, oil and other natural resources return. There is also the flawed notion that Russia’s “free market capitalism” can somehow coexist in a monopoly-driven economy led by huge state-owned corporations. In short, the entire ideology underlying the social and economic strategy of President Vladimir Putin’s era is on the verge of collapsing. Until our leaders recognize this, the government’s policies will be limited to haphazard measures and to making “tactical corrections” to a fundamentally flawed strategy.
The problem is that the current rulers aren’t willing to admit their mistakes or risk implementing radical measures to improve the situation. Radical measures are required to overcome a severe crisis, but conservatives and conformists are incapable of acting boldly. President Dmitry Medvedev and others have spoken a lot all about preparing future leaders — the so-called Golden 1,000 — and about the opportunities opening up for youth. But the crisis has revealed that little has been done in preparing the next generation of leaders.
The Russian people have not yet fully recognized the scale of the problems they are facing and the degree to which the authorities have failed to cope with the crisis. As a result, it has caused more bewilderment among the population than a desire to protest or call for the ouster of the government. 
Who will be the first to recognize the need for radical changes — the authorities or the people? Even if leaders finally get serious about tackling these problems, there is little chance they will succeed. After all, it is not only the ideology that must be replaced but the leaders who are charged with implementing it. And no bureaucratic machine has ever dismantled voluntarily. 

Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.

TITLE: Beauty in motion
AUTHOR: By Kevin Ng
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: At the opening night of this year’s Mariinsky Ballet Festival last Saturday, the Mariinsky Ballet presented a major world premiere of a full-length ballet, “The Little Humpbacked Horse” by Alexei Ratmansky, the former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet who is one of the most sought-after classical choreographers in the world today. 
Meanwhile in Moscow last weekend, the Bolshoi Ballet, which Ratmansky directed until last December, premiered the reconstruction of the 19th century classic “Coppelia” by Sergei Vikharev, the Mariinsky ballet master whose reconstruction of several 19th century classics for the Mariinsky Ballet since 1999 have been hugely acclaimed in the West. (Mariinsky Ballet director Yury Fateyev announced in an interview last autumn that Vikharev’s reconstructions won’t be performed at the theater during his tenure, which is an unfortunate and regrettable decision.)
How ironic that the Mariinsky Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet are now taking leaves from each other’s books.
“The Little Humpbacked Horse” is better crafted than the last full-length ballet Ratmansky created for the Mariinsky Ballet, “Cinderella,” in 2002. Ratmansky could not have wished for better and more danceable music than this rich and sonorous score by Rodion Shchedrin, which was used in the Bolshoi Ballet production in 1960. Shchedrin’s wife, the Bolshoi star Maya Plisetskaya, actually danced in the original cast. 
Saturday’s premiere, sublimely conducted by maestro Valery Gergiev, was a glittering occasion, with Shchedrin and Plisetskaya seated in the Tsar’s Box in the center of the theater. 
On the second night, there were loud ovations for Plisetskaya from the audience at the beginning of the interval. The delighted Plisetskaya greeted her audience briefly with a series of swan-like arm movements.
Ratmansky’s two-act ballet “Humpbacked Horse,” with eight scenes lasting over two hours, is a demi-caractere ballet with a lot of mime but also contains two very pure classical duets in Act II. The libretto, by Maxim Isayev, is based on the fairy tale by Pyotr Yershov. Ivan the Fool is given a little humpbacked horse with magical powers who helps him succeed in performing impossible tasks demanded by a vain and selfish Tsar. Ivan finally marries the Tsar Maiden who is in love with him instead of the Tsar. 
This ballet is life-affirming and rich in humanity. Ratmansky’s choreography is masterly, and has a clear form and shape. His narrative is clear, and each scene is of the right length. The final transformation scene of Ivan into a young tsar is effective and witty. The two classical duets are full of heart-warming tenderness. The duets for Ivan and the Humpbacked Horse in Act I are spirited and lively. 
The cast on the first night was splendid. Ivan the Fool was excellently danced by Mikhail Lobukhin, who gave the best performance of his career to date. This demi-caractere role suited him perfectly. Lobukhin conveyed very well Ivan’s shyness, generosity of spirit and passion. As the Tsar Maiden, Viktoria Tereshkina had a warm glow in her characterization, on top of her usual dazzling virtuosity which was well showcased in her solos. Ilya Petrov was fresh and breezy as the Humpbacked Horse with his airy jumps and fleet-footedness.
Yury Smekalov, who joined the Mariinsky Ballet from the Eifman Ballet earlier this season, was most outstanding in his portrayal of the evil lord chamberlain of the Tsar. The Tsar himself was superbly played as a buffoon figure by Andrei Ivanov — another perfect role for him after the lead role in Noah Gelber’s ballet “The Overcoat,” created for him in 2006. Yekaterina Kondaurova had grandeur as the Princess of the Sea. The opening night was definitely a triumph.
 As Ivan in the second night’s cast, Leonid Sarafanov was more charming and endearing. His powerful virtuosity was absolutely brilliant. His impeccable series of double tours en l’air in his two big solos drew loud ovations. As the Tsar Maiden, Alina Somova emphasized the character’s innocence, and was quite radiant. Grigory Popov was good as the Humpbacked Horse. 
The black sets, designed by Maxim Isayev, are rather sparse and Isayev’s costumes are colorful but could have been grander and more elaborate.
As a good contrast to this narrative ballet, the third evening of the festival on Monday featured Mariinsky star Diana Vishneva in her pure-dance show “Beauty in Motion” which was first premiered in New York last year.
The three-part evening opened with “Pierrot Lunaire” also choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, who is clearly very well represented in this festival. Vishneva danced gracefully with three male dancers representing different aspects of Pierrot’s character. Alexander Sergeyev was creamy and smooth in his dancing and Islom Baimuradov danced with intensity. Ratmansky’s choreography is fluent, but this ballet isn’t on the same level as his new “Humpbacked Horse.”
The middle piece “F.L.O.W.” by American modern dance choreographer Moses Pendleton, the leader of the MOMIX troupe, has three sections. In the first section, Vishneva joins two female colleagues in a show of lighting illusion in which their limbs form various delightful shapes including a heart and a swan. The second section is also visually striking with Vishneva reclined on a tilted mirror, dancing to her reflection with her limbs doubling up. The final section sees Vishneva spinning around in a huge circular headdress — no doubt justifying the show’s title “Beauty in Motion.” It is a striking and theatrical piece, but rather trivial.
The final work, “Three Point Turn” by Dwight Rhoden from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, is for three couples. The vocabulary of Rhoden’s brutal choreographic style is derived from William Forsythe, whose ballets are in the Mariinsky’s repertory. This ballet, however, sheds no new light on Vishneva’s artistry. 
It will be more rewarding to watch Vishneva dance “Giselle” on Saturday with Marcelo Gomes from the American Ballet Theater. The Festival concludes Sunday with the usual gala performance featuring international stars. The troupe won’t have much rest before departing early next week for a tour to Taiwan.

www.mariinsky.ru

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: Local promoter PMI’s announcement last week that <b>Madonna</b> would perform on Palace Square on Aug. 2 was immediately followed by a statement by the director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, and St. Petersburg’s Culture Committee that no such concert is possible on the historic square because of its proximity to the priceless works of art that are kept in the museum.
Piotrovsky famously opposed a Paul McCartney concert held on the square in 2004, although in that case the ex-Beatle, who had previously visited then-Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and even sung “Hey Jude” to him, was permitted to perform in the sensitive location.
Strangely, Piotrovsky had no objection to The Rolling Stones performing on the same spot in 2007.
“The Rolling Stones concert was not over 85 decibels, which is quite loud,” he told Britain’s The Independent last year.
“We have to concentrate the sound in a certain direction. We have our people measuring the sound during the concerts. If something goes over the limit then we can do something about it.”
Even more absurdly, the proposed date of Madonna’s concert coincides with Russian Paratroopers Day, which annually sees hordes of infamously drunk and aggressive veteran paratroopers marauding around the city center. 
This is the official reason the city parliament has given against the show. It sent an official letter to Governor Valentina Matviyenko about it on Wednesday.
“[Pro-Kremlin party Just Russia] deputy Alexei Kovalyov put forward the worst-case scenario, describing a picture in which veteran paratroopers will ‘end up in a conflict with the singer’s fans,’” Interfax reported.
In a further development, City Hall presented concert promoter PMI with two demands, Fontanka.ru reported on Thursday.
Citing Vice Governor Alla Manilova, the web site reported that the promoter should guarantee the protection of Palace Square as St. Petersburg’s main square and of The Hermitage as St. Petersburg’s main museum.
The other condition is that the Queen of Pop’s show will only be permitted if it does not feature any “aggressive content,” Fontanka reported.
On a smaller scale, <b>Kaiser Chiefs</b>, the British band that was scheduled to perform at Glavclub on June 28, canceled this week — about a week after the concert was announced, pretty quietly, on the club’s blog. No explanation for the cancelation has been given.
A sort of replacement for some might be <b>Kula Shaker</b>, which is scheduled to perform at Zal Ozhidaniya on Apr. 4. 
This week check for New York-based new music double bass player <b>Robert Black</b> (Maly Manezh, 103 Nab. Kanala Griboyedova) on Friday and the 1980s post-punk gothic rock band <b>The Sisters of Mercy</b>, (Glavclub, Wednesday).

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Finding art in the everyday
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT:  St. Petersburg’s State Russian Museum unveiled an exhibition Wednesday of a “21st century sarcophagus” that local artist Vadim Grigoryev-Bashun, 48, has made for himself. 
The coffin, which looks more like a combination of an airplane and a submarine, features a button that when pressed, opens the folds of the sarcophagus like wings. 
Following the ancient tradition of making mausoleums and gravestones when people are still alive, Grigoryev-Bashun had the idea of designing a unique coffin for himself. He decided to make a sarcophagus, exhibit it, and later “use it for himself.” 
The artist also wanted to demonstrate that art could transform ordinary items into objects of art. 
“I wanted to show that if an artist applies his work to such a utilitarian thing as a coffin, he can turn it from a box for human remains into an object of art, into a visually philosophical object,” Grigoryev-Bashun said. 
The artist completed the engineering part of the object with the help of his father, Boris Grigoryev, one of the designers of the legendary nuclear submarine K-705, which was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s fastest submarine with a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour. 
The sarcophagus was made at the modeling department of the city’s Malachite association that designs new submarines, since the construction of the coffin demanded precise technology.  The project took seven years to complete, including lengthy breaks. 
“My father is a submarine designer, and I have made an underground sub in which according to Greek mythology I will travel along the Lethe river or simply fly to the other world,” said Grigoryev-Bashun. 
The sarcophagus is made from a rare kind of alder wood. The base of it consists of a fixed undercarriage similar to that of an airplane. 
Grigoryev-Bashun, who is also a sculptor and photographer, has named his exhibition “Project C –21/S – 21.” Along with the sarcophagus, the exhibition includes two kinetic sculptures and five other objects. 
In his art, Grigoryev-Bashun frequently combines abstract concepts with the study of Oriental wisdom. The artist has traveled extensively around India, Nepal and Tibet.

TITLE: A tale of two Leos
AUTHOR: By Aimee Linekar
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Vying for attention amid Ulitsa Rubenshteina’s eclectic array of well-heeled restaurants, Leonardo, has, it seems, turned to the old-fashioned principle that any theme, no matter how zany, will draw in a clientele. This, though, must count as one of the more outlandish restaurant concept pitches: A time-traveling, cross-cultural fusion of those two great Leonardos — Da Vinci and DiCaprio. 
Quirky and elegant, the classy dual decor feels remarkably natural; groups of young women relax in the faux-baroque opulence of the Da Vinci section with slim cigarettes, tea, coffee or wine in the early evening, while the high-class diner chic of DiCaprio’s scarlet leather lair, nestling behind the bar, offers a more energetic environment for those hankering after some Hollywood glamour. Flat-screen televisions were showing “Shakespeare in Love” and “Chicago” the evening that we visited, completing the intergenerational theme.
Featuring an inventive choice of seafood and meat dishes, the menu is as delightfully diverse as the surroundings; although both its namesakes share Italian roots, Leonardo is no straightforward pizza house. The velvety cream of pumpkin soup (180 rubles; $5.20) came presented to compete with the backdrop, finished with a spiders' web of balsamic syrup and a pot of very moreish garlic croutons. My friend’s generously-proportioned Caesar salad (with a choice of chicken, salmon or bacon, 320 rubles; $9.20), proved a little lackluster under the weight of its heavy and decidedly non Caesar-like dressing, although it was most likely a safer proposition than the “Parma hat with salami and melon” or “tunny fish” (tuna).
This is a restaurant that offers plenty for the palate and the eye alike; the salmon steak with vegetables (500 rubles; $14.40) was tender and flavorsome with its dainty stacks of roasted carrots, zucchini, and baby corn, perked up by a mystery coulis (alas, not described in the menu). 
My duck breast with apple and hazelnut sauce (530 rubles; $15.30) proved a gastronomic joy with its mound of pureed potato, charred apple chunks, and sticky-sweet hazelnut, pine nut and walnut sauce. Both main courses offered an element of surprise in comparison to their listed description, however, so it is advisable to clarify with the waitress if you have any allergies.
Lighter offerings include bouillabaisse, listed as “Marseille-style fish soup” (200 rubles; $5.80) and a short but sweet selection of pasta dishes (300-500 rubles; $8.60 to $14.40).
Also worthy of mention is the choice of freshly-squeezed juices; my apple juice had an authentic foamy head and tasted exactly as it should: sour, sweet, and earthy all at once. Should the fancy take you, celery and beetroot juices are also available (150 rubles; $4.30). There is also a respectable wine and spirits list, only let down by the rather disappointing lack of cocktails: The idea of settling back into plush red leather to commune with DiCaprio over a cosmopolitan has a certain appeal.
The attentive waitresses were efficient and friendly, providing an unobtrusive and unhurried service as well as ashtrays on request. 
In the evening, at least, Leonardo is certainly not a budget proposition, but it does deliver true quality in intimate, chic — and tongue-in-cheek — surroundings, the ideal spot for a laid-back pre-theater aperitif, girls’-night-out or romantic dinner. Neither Da Vinci nor DiCaprio, though, come included, so bring your own date.

TITLE: Gothic man
AUTHOR: By Luke Ritchie
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Artistic work in the style of “Russian Gothic” icons is currently on display at the Anna Akhmatova museum until April 3. Its creator, Valery Valran is a renowned artist who typically designs abstract, still life and city landscape pieces. 
“I lived in an epoch of totalitarianism, and it is from this basis that I consider myself, albeit in a small way, a ‘gothic period’ man,” Valran said last week. 
“Valery Valrun’s interpretation of the (Russian) ‘gothic-period man’ is highly individual,” Zhana Televitskaya, curator of the exhibition, told The St. Petersburg Times. “It is of a person who has lived and still lives during a time of extreme shifts, from art being closed and controlled, to perestroika, and the cultural possibilities it brings,” she said.
 It is this moment — when art is no longer subservient to an ulterior motive — that Valrun is using to connect with his predecessors, turning the innate messages of icons into a language understandable to contemporary society, just as the great icon painters did for their centuries. 

The Anna Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House , 53  Liteiniy Prospekt, open Tuesday to Sunday from 10.30 a.m. until 6.30 p.m. Tel: 272 2211, 579 7239. The Russian Gothic exhibition runs through April 3. 
www.akhmatova.spb.ru

TITLE: Actress Natasha Richardson Dies After Ski Accident
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — Tributes have begun to pour in from across the show business generations for Natasha Richardson, the Tony Award-winning actress who died after suffering a head injury on a ski slope.
“She was a wonderful woman and actress and treated me like I was her own,” said Lindsay Lohan, who as a preteen starred with Richardson in a remake of “The Parent Trap” in 1998. “My heart goes out to her family. This is a tragic loss.”
Richardson fell during a private lesson Monday at a ski resort in Quebec. She was not wearing a helmet. The 45-year-old actress was seemingly fine afterward, but about an hour later, she complained that she didn’t feel well. She was hospitalized Tuesday in Montreal and later flown to a hospital in New York.
Alan Nierob, the Los Angeles-based publicist for Richardson’s husband, Liam Neeson, confirmed her death Wednesday without giving details on the cause.
Neeson and Richardson’s sister, actress Joely Richardson, were seen leaving Lenox Hill hospital Wednesday. Actress Lauren Bacall also visited the hospital.
Yves Coderre, director of operations at the emergency services company that sent paramedics to the Mont Tremblant resort where Richardson suffered her fall, told The Globe and Mail newspaper Wednesday the paramedics who responded were told they were not needed.
“They never saw the patient,” Coderre told The Globe and Mail. “So they turned around.”
Coderre said another ambulance was called later to Richardson’s luxury hotel. By that point, her condition had gotten worse and she was rushed to a hospital.
Richardson’s career highlights included the film “Patty Hearst” and a Tony-winning performance in a stage revival of “Cabaret.”
Richardson was a proper Londoner who came to love the noise of New York, an elegant blonde with large, lively eyes, a bright smile and a hearty laugh.
Jane Fonda on Wednesday recalled meeting a young Richardson on the set of “Julia,” the 1977 film Fonda starred in opposite Richardson’s mother, Vanessa Redgrave.
“She was a little girl but already beautiful and graceful. It didn’t surprise me that she became such a talented actor,” Fonda recalled on her blog. “It is hard to even imagine what it must be like for her family. My heart is heavy.”
As an actress, Richardson was equally adept at passion and restraint, able to portray besieged women both confessional (Tennessee Williams’ Blanche DuBois) and confined (the concubine in the futuristic horror of “The Handmaid’s Tale”).
Like other family members, she divided her time between stage and screen. On Broadway, she portrayed Sally Bowles in the 1998 revival of “Cabaret.” She also appeared in New York in a production of Patrick Marber’s “Closer” (1999) as well as the 2005 revival of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” in which she played Blanche opposite John C. Reilly’s Stanley Kowalski.
She met Neeson when they made their Broadway debuts in 1993, co-starring in “Anna Christie,” Eugene O’Neill’s drama about a former prostitute and the sailor who falls in love with her.
The New York Times critic Frank Rich called her “astonishing” and said she “gives what may prove to be the performance of the season.”
Her most notable film roles came earlier in her career. Richardson played the title character in Paul Schrader’s “Patty Hearst,” a 1988 biopic about the kidnapped heiress for which the actress became so immersed that even between scenes she wore a blindfold, the better to identify with her real-life counterpart.
Richardson was directed again by Schrader in a 1990 adaptation of Ian McEwan’s “The Comfort of Strangers” and, also in 1990, starred in the screen version of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
She later co-starred with Neeson in “Nell” and with Mia Farrow in “Widows’ Peak.” More recent movies, none of them widely seen, included “Wild Child,” “Evening” and “Asylum.”
Richardson was born in London in 1963, the performing gene inherited not just from her parents (Redgrave and director Tony Richardson), but from her maternal grandparents (Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson), an aunt (Lynn Redgrave) and an uncle (Corin Redgrave). Her younger sister, Joely Richardson, also joined the family business.
She also is survived by two sons, Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12.
Friends and family members remembered Natasha as an unusually poised child, perhaps forced to grow up early when her father left her mother in the late ‘60s for Jeanne Moreau. (Tony Richardson died in 1991).
Interviewed by The Associated Press in 2001, Natasha Richardson said she related well to her family if only because, “We’ve all been through it in one way or another and so we’ve had to be strong. Also we embrace life. We are not cynical about life.”
Her screen debut came at 4, when she appeared as a flower girl in “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” directed by her father. The show business wand had already tapped her the year before, when she saw her mother in the 1967 film version of the Broadway show “Camelot.”
She once said that Neeson’s serious injury in a 2000 motorcycle accident — he suffered a crushed pelvis after colliding with a deer in upstate New York — had made her really appreciate life.
“I wake up every morning feeling lucky — which is driven by fear, no doubt, since I know it could all go away,” she told The Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2003.

TITLE: Nadal Powers Through to Quarterfinals
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INDIAN WELLS, California — Rafael Nadal came to life in the wee hours, fighting off five match points to take a 3-6, 7-6, 6-0 victory over nemesis David Nalbandian at the BNP Paribas Open.
In a fourth-round match that began about 11 p.m. Wednesday and lasted until around 2 a.m. local time on Thursday, Nadal climbed back after losing the first set and falling behind 3-5 in the second. He then overcame four match points in the ninth game, and another in the 10th.
The 22-year-old Spaniard broke Nalbandian’s service to pull even at 5-5, then both held. Nadal shot out to a 4-0 lead on his way to winning the tiebreaker and the set.
He then dominated the third set against the Argentine, who had beaten him in both their previous meetings.
Earlier Wednesday, Roger Federer ran his record against Fernando Gonzalez to 12-1 with a three-set victory to also move into the quarterfinals.
Federer, his play spotty but good enough to continue his domination of his frequent foe, ousted Gonzalez 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
Andy Roddick, the lone American remaining in the singles draw, came back strong in the third set to beat David Ferrer 7-6, 3-6, 6-3. Roddick finished with 10 aces against his Spanish opponent, who served eight of his own.
Roddick had difficulty handling Ferrer’s service returns in the second set, but he won 15 of 18 first serves in the third.
“My rhythm on my serve went off in the second set and I guess I was developing a pattern,” Roddick said. “But he played well. I thought I hit the ball well in the second set.
“The guy’s a bulldog and he just does the basics so well. He’s a good player.”
Andy Murray also advanced, extending his fine 2009 start to 18-1 when Tommy Robredo retired in the second set of their match because of a wrist injury. Murray won the first set 6-2 and was up 3-0 in the second.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic outlasted Stanislas Wawrinka 7-6, 7-6. Juan Martin del Potro defeated John Isner 7-6, 7-6, and Ivan Ljubicic downed Igor Andreev 4-6, 7-6, 7-6. Fernando Verdasco defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-4, 3-6, 6-1.
The quarterfinal matchups are Nadal-del Potro, Federer-Verdasco, Roddick-Djokovic, and Murray-Ljubicic.
On the women’s side, Victoria Azarenka knocked out Dinara Safina 6-7, 6-1, 6-3 in a quarterfinal match. A 19-year-old from Belarus, Azarenka won titles at Brisbane and Memphis earlier this year. Vera Zvonareva also advanced, taking a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Caroline Wozniacki in their quarterfinal.
Federer, ranked World No. 2 after losing his four-year hold on the top spot to Nadal last year, was inconsistent against Gonzalez. The Chilean fought his way back into the match in the second set, overcoming earlier frustration he had vented by slamming a racket onto the court — three times — and shattering it.
Federer, the tournament champion three consecutive years beginning in 2004, said he felt he finally was able to establish some rhythm in his game after playing mostly serve-and-return against his first two opponents.
“Today was a bit more baseline, even though I couldn’t find his [Gonzalez’s] backhand,” Federer said. “If you don’t find his backhand, the point is over quickly. He has such a massive forehand.
“I’m looking forward to playing against Verdasco. It’s a good thing that I’m still in the tournament and facing an opponent who actually is going to extend the rallies a little bit.”
Murray said he anticipated a difficult test heading into his match against Robredo.
“I was expecting a tough match. I had lost to Tommy two previous times I played him,” the 21-year-old Scot said. “I knew I had to be on my game.”
Murray said he was aware Robredo had a problem with his wrist, although he still seemed to be hitting the ball OK.
“But mentally, a wrist problem can be tough,” Murray said. “I know because I’ve been through it. It’s just the pain that’s there and feeling like something might happen.”

TITLE: Bin Laden Addresses Muslims in Somalia
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: DUBAI — Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged Somalis in a new audio tape on Thursday to topple the new president, who is already struggling to deal with insurgents in the lawless Horn of Africa country.
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist elected this year in the 15th attempt to form a central government, has been trying to reach out to rebels who have waged a guerrilla war for the past two years and control large swathes of territory.
“The war which has been taking place on your soil these past years is a war between Islam and the international crusade,” bin Laden said, according to al Qaeda’s own English translation of the Arabic-language tape.
“These sorts of presidents are the surrogates of our enemies and their authority is null and void in the first place, and as Sheikh Sharif is one of them, he must be dethroned and fought.”
A surge in al Qaeda-linked attacks against Ahmed and his government would intensify the insurgency led by hardline Islamist groups against the government and its foreign backers.
The violence has killed more than 16,000 civilians since the start of 2007, driven more than a million more from their homes and left about a third of the population depending on food aid.
Western security services fear the failed Horn of Africa country could become a base for al Qaeda-linked militants.
Somali opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys dismissed the new president this month as another stooge of neighbouring Ethiopia and a traitor to Islamists — a message echoed by the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader.
“My Muslim brothers in Somalia: you must beware of the initiatives which wear the dress of Islam and the religious institutions even as they contradict the rules of Islamic sharia, like the initiative attributed to some of the clerics of Somalia which gives Sheikh Sharif six months to implement Islamic sharia,” he said.
“The obligation is to fight the apostate government, not stop fighting it.”
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the authenticity of the tape, titled “Fight on, champions of Somalia”, but the voice sounded like that of bin Laden.
In his second message posted in less than a week, bin Laden also called on Muslims to help the Somalis in their jihad.
More than 60 messages have been broadcast by bin Laden, his second-in-command Ayman al-Zawhiri and their allies since the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities in 2001.
In his previous message, bin Laden accused moderate Arab leaders of pitting the West against Muslims.
Also on Thursday, the African Union condemned a roadside bomb attack by Somali insurgents on Wednesday that killed one AU peacekeeper and wounded three in Mogadishu.
In a statement, the AU special envoy for Somalia, Nicolas Bwakira, blamed the attack on rebels from the al Shabaab group, which Washington accuses of having close ties to al Qaeda.
“He notes with regret that yesterday’s attack on peacekeepers is one of the desperate attempts by al Shabaab to claim their relevance within Somalia,” the statement said.

TITLE: Plyushenko Planning A Comeback
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Yevgeny Plyushenko is planning a comeback to defend his Olympic figure skating title at the Vancouver Games.
The three-time world champion, who overwhelmed the field at the Turin Olympics and dominated skating from 2003-06, is back training with longtime coach Alexei Mishin, according to agent Ari Zakarian. Plyushenko already has mastered two quadruple jumps, Zakarian said.
“Yevgeny is really focused on the training, he took away all his major show appearances, and he is looking to the Vancouver Olympics,” Zakarian said Wednesday.
Plyushenko has not competed since his sensational performances at Turin. This is not the first time he has considered a comeback, but his training now is more intense than at any time since 2006.
“He is training from six to seven hours a day,” Zakarian said. “He is taking out all options to make sure he is at his best for Vancouver.”
The 26-year-old Plyushenko recently worked on choreography with American ice dancers Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, but has not settled on any choreographers.
“Yevgeny will use everybody he can to be in the strongest position for the Olympics,” Zakarian said.
The last time he failed to win a competition was at the 2004 Grand Prix final, where he finished second.
The world championships are in Los Angeles next week, and Russia has no medal contenders among the men. Indeed, after dominating the last three Olympics, the Russians have struggled since Plyushenko left. Ilya Kulik won the gold medal in Nagano, and Alexei Yagudin took it in Salt Lake City with Plyushenko finishing in second place.
No Russian has won a medal at the worlds since Plyushenko, and Russia’s a long shot to have three berths in the men’s field at Vancouver. Plyushenko would need to go through a qualifying process to earn a spot on the Olympic team, but it would be hard to imagine an in-shape Plyushenko denied by the Russian federation.
Plyushenko, plagued by knee problems for much of his career, previously considered a return in 2007. He decided against it, but there were no Olympics on the horizon then. Now, he can just about see the five rings on the ice in Vancouver.

TITLE: North Korea Arrests Two
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SEOUL — North Korean security officials have detained two Korean-American journalists who were filming across the Tumen River from the Chinese side of the border, South Korean media and diplomatic sources said on Thursday.
The arrests come at a time of mounting tension on the Korean peninsula, with the North accusing the United States and South Korea of using joint military exercises which end on Friday as preparations to invade the isolated state.
A diplomatic source said the reporters were on the frozen Tumen river when taken by North Korean security guards. The Tumen runs along the eastern section of the border with China.
The YTN channel earlier quoted a South Korean government official as saying North Korean guards crossed the border into Chinese territory to arrest the two women on Tuesday after they ignored warnings to stop filming.
But the diplomatic source said it was not clear which side of the border they were on at the time.
YTN said the women worked for an online news company based in California but gave no other details. A media source said the two were working for Current TV, a U.S.-based online news company.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Beijing was investigating the report and declined to comment further.

TITLE: Defending WBC Champ Klitschko Talks Down Gomez
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: STUTTGART, Germany — Vitali Klitschko has promised to teach Juan Carlos Gomez a lesson when the heavyweights fight Saturday for Klitschko’s WBC title.
Klitschko was hoping to fight Britain’s David Haye, but instead has to defend his title against another former cruiserweight champion who is the mandatory challenger.
“I am ready. I am confident,” Klitschko said Monday at a joint news conference with Gomez. 
“I had no injuries in training camp, thank God, and I am 100 percent ready. I heard a lot of statement from Gomez’s camp recently and all I can say is that they can dream on, they are all dreams.
“He says he has had the hardest training camp of his career and I can promise him the hardest fight of his life. I think he is a very good boxer, with technical skill, and he showed it all in the cruiserweight. But heavyweight is something else. I will show him. It will be a lesson, but it won’t last long.”
Gomez, a 35-year-old Cuban defector who lives in Germany, did not seem impressed.
“I will beat his face in. I am the better boxer,” Gomez said. “I will beat him, that’s it.”
During the pre-fight hype, Gomez has also vowed to “destroy” Klitschko.
Gomez used to spar with Vitali and his younger brother Wladimir, the IBF and WBO champion, whenever they had to prepare for a bout against a left-handed fighter and they all had the same promoter in Germany before switching camps.
The 37-year-old Vitali (36-2, 35 KOs) returned to the ring in October after a break of nearly four years and stopped Samuel Peter when the Nigerian decided not to come back after absorbing a steady flow of punches for eight rounds.
Gomez (44-1, 35 KOs), won an unanimous decision over Vladimir Virchis in September to earn the right to challenge Klitschko.
The Cuban held the WBC cruiserweight title for four years before vacating it in 2002 to move up to heavyweight.
In October 2005, Gomez tested positive for cocaine after winning a decision over Oliver McCall and the fight was subsequently ruled a no contest. He was suspended for a year and beat McCall again after returning to the ring.

TITLE: Fritzl Sentenced to Life Behind Bars
AUTHOR: By Veronika Oleksyn
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ST. POELTEN, Austria — Josef Fritzl was convicted of homicide, enslavement, incest, rape and other charges Thursday and sentenced to life in a psychiatric prison for holding his daughter captive for 24 years and fathering her seven children.
Fritzl, 73, sat calmly and bowed his head as the verdicts by the Austrian jury were read. He later told the court he accepted the outcome and waived his right to appeal — bringing a dramatic end to a shocking case that has drawn worldwide attention.
Court spokesman Franz Cutka said Fritzl would be taken to a secure psychiatric ward for mentally deranged criminals.
The homicide count — “murder by neglect” in German — was the most serious of the charges against 73-year-old Fritzl, and the jury gave him the maximum punishment allowed by law. Officials said Fritzl would not be eligible for parole for at least 15 years, and psychiatric experts would have to concur with any decision to free him.
The other charges included incest, false imprisonment and coercion. Fritzl had changed his stance and pleaded guilty Wednesday to all counts against him after he and the court viewed 11 hours of emotional videotaped testimony by his daughter, Elisabeth, whom he locked in a dungeon when she was 18.
“I regret it with all my heart ... I can’t make it right anymore,” Fritzl told the court Thursday, hours before the verdicts were announced.
In a surprise move, Elisabeth appeared in the court as it viewed her testimony. Fritzl’s lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said Fritzl decided to stop contesting the homicide and enslavement counts after seeing that heart-wrenching videotape.
Prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser had called for the maximum punishment in her closing arguments in Fritzl’s trial in St. Poelten, west of Vienna. She urged the jury to think about his daughter’s nearly quarter-century ordeal as it considered how much time he should serve.
“Don’t be duped like Elisabeth was 24 years ago,” when Fritzl took her captive in a cramped, rat-infested dungeon he built beneath the family’s home.
Elisabeth, now 42, and her six surviving children, who range in age from 6 to 20, have spent months recovering in a psychiatric clinic and at a secret location. Prosecutors described her as a “broken” woman after enduring multiple rapes — some in front of her children.
The homicide charge stemmed from the 1996 death in captivity of an infant boy. Prosecutors contend the ailing newborn born to Elisabeth — a male twin called Michael — might have survived if Fritzl had arranged for medical care.
“Any amateur could have determined that the child was in the throes of death for 66 hours,” Burkheiser said, arguing that Fritzl should be locked up for the rest of his life for refusing to intervene and save the baby’s life.
Police say DNA tests prove Fritzl is the biological father of all six surviving children, three of whom never saw daylight until the crime was exposed 11 months ago.
The three other children were brought upstairs to be raised by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, who was led to believe they were abandoned by Elisabeth when she ran off to join a cult.
Eva Plaz, a lawyer for Elisabeth and the other victims, urged the jury not to lessen Fritzl’s sentence just because he pleaded guilty. In Austria, guilty pleas can be a mitigating factor.
Fritzl’s pleas “were not a confession,” Plaz said, adding that Elisabeth’s main reason for testifying was that she believed she “owed it to her child, Michael.”
Mayer, his lawyer, did not argue that Fritzl was innocent — even telling the court at one point that Fritzl raped his daughter 3,000 times. But he said Fritzl had been plagued with guilt for the past 24 years, and asked the jurors to take a hard look at the homicide charge.
Mayer said Elisabeth made no mention in her diary of her baby’s struggle to survive, noting instead that Fritzl brought her a crib, that both twins were born without incident and that their names were Michael and Alexander. 
Psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner had told the court Wednesday that Fritzl had a serious personality disorder and would pose a threat to others if freed.

TITLE: Former Israeli President Indicted for Rape
AUTHOR: By Aron Heller
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM — Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was indicted Thursday on rape and other sexual offense charges, after calling off a plea deal that would have allowed him to escape jail time.
The 63-year-old Katsav was charged with raping a woman who once worked for him, in addition to lesser sex crimes involving two other former employees. The indictment was filed in Tel Aviv district court nearly three years after the case broke.
Katsav, who has insisted he is innocent, had no immediate comment. No trial date has been set.
Attorney General Meni Mazuz notified the former president two weeks ago that he would be charged.
Days later, Katsav delivered a 2 1/2-hour televised speech in which he denied all charges, fiercely attacked his accusers and waved a compact disc that he said would prove his innocence. 
Katsav has accused the media of orchestrating a witch hunt against him, implying he was a target because he represents Jews of Middle Eastern origin.
The women worked for Katsav when he was tourism minister in the 1990s and president earlier this decade. They have accused him of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
In 1998, Katsav forced one woman to the floor of his office at the tourism ministry, pulled off her pants and raped her, according to the indictment. 
A second time that year, he summoned her to a Jerusalem hotel to go over paperwork and raped her on the bed in his room, the indictment said. Katsav tried to calm his victim by saying “Relax, you’ll enjoy it,” the indictment read.
Katsav became president in 2000. The indictment said he harassed two women during his term, embracing them against their will and making unwanted sexual comments.

TITLE: In-Flight Baby Born, Binned
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A woman who gave birth in mid-air left the baby behind when she disembarked in Auckland, Television New Zealand reported Thursday.
Police and Pacific Blue, the airline, were saying little about their investigation Thursday, but mother and child were said to be recovering in hospital.
Television New Zealand reported that the Samoan woman gave birth in one of the aircraft’s toilets during the flight to Auckland early Thursday.
The infant was found by an airline worker in the toilet rubbish bin more than an hour after the plane landed.
There was no suggestion any of the 150 passengers or crew were aware that the woman, reportedly aged 30, had borne a child in mid-air.
But the television station said authorities discovered something was wrong after she approached them saying she had misplaced her passport. They noticed she was pale and blood-stained.
A police spokeswoman said an investigation was underway, but police had not been able to speak to the woman because she was having surgery in hospital.
Pacific Blue’s website says women need medical clearance to board a flight if they have passed the 36-week mark in their pregnancy.