SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1496 (58), Friday, July 31, 2009
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TITLE: Medvedev Faces Tough Balancing Act In Dushanbe
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Dushanbe on Thursday to kick off a trip intended to bolster his country’s influence in Central Asia, meeting with the leaders of Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan before a two-day security conference in Kyrgyzstan.
According to the agenda for Medvedev’s trip released Wednesday by the Kremlin, he will hold talks with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon and also meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari.
The leaders will discuss regional cooperation and the possibility of selling Tajik electricity to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tajikistan has a severe electricity deficit, however, and has struggled in the past to get through winters without rationing power use.
On Friday, Medvedev and Rakhmon will attend the official opening of the Sangtudinskaya hydroelectric power plant, which produces about 12 percent of Tajikistan’s power. Russia invested $550 million in the project, which was completed in November, and controls 75 percent. The rest belongs to Tajikistan.
From there, Medvedev will travel to Russia’s most loyal ally among the former Soviet states, Kyrgyzstan, for an informal summit of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, that will end Saturday.
The summit — which will also be attended by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — will follow up on a preliminary agreement in February to create a joint emergency-response military force.
Political analysts said the trip was part of Moscow’s strategy of keeping its former satellites under its influence by acting as a broker among them, which some said has stopped being fruitful.
Construction of the power plant and Russian attempts to boost its military presence in Kyrgyzstan have drawn a negative reaction from Uzbekistan, which strives to maintain a more independent foreign policy than its neighbors.
Moscow has had to strike a delicate balance in the region to prevent leaders from falling under the influence of other global powers, such as the United States and China, which are actively building ties there.
Ivan Safranchuk, a Central Asia analyst, said that with the United States managing to keep a military base in Kyrgyzstan earlier this month, Russia may pay less attention to Uzbekistan — which is believed to have held talks about opening a U.S. base on its soil earlier this year — and press ahead with its projects in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
“Moscow’s tactics dating back to the 1990s of winning concessions from its allies by acting as arbiter and balancing their interests no longer work. Instead, the former Soviet republics win concessions from Russia by threatening to leave its sphere of influence,” he said.
In February, Moscow issued a $2 billion anti-crisis loan to Kyrgyzstan, gave its government a grant of $150 million and forgave $180 million in debt. The same day, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was re-elected last week, announced that his government would evict the United States from the Manas military air base, which it has used since 2001 for the war in Afghanistan.
Washington has since won permission to stay after offering a dramatic increase in the rent and securing tacit approval from Moscow.
Safranchuk suggested that Western noninvolvement in the presidential elections was part of the deal. Western-backed opposition protests led to regime changes in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
Kyrgyz police arrested on Wednesday dozens of opposition activists who marched in protest of the election results, claiming that they were falsified.
Safranchuk and Alexander Khramchikhin, a security expert with the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, agreed that Medvedev was going to Kyrgyzstan to remind Bakiyev that he owes his victory to Moscow.
The Kremlin had not congratulated Bakiyev on his win, but Medvedev said in a statement Wednesday that “the elections are evidence of a high level of trust from the Kyrgyz people.”
Moscow also desperately needs to demonstrate progress on the joint military task force, which it started pushing after last year’s conflict with Georgia, the analysts said.
The last summit — held in Moscow last month amid a trade war with Minsk — was snubbed by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said then that a decision on the joint forces was illegitimate because no consensus was achieved in Moscow. Uzbekistan also did not sign the agreement.
Sergei Prikhodko, Medvedev’s foreign policy aide, said Wednesday that the Kremlin hoped that Lukashenko would attend and sign the agreement.
The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Lukashenko’s administration had confirmed that he would attend the summit, to be held in the town of Cholpon-Ata on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul.
Russia will also press ahead with the creation of a Russian-Kyrgyz anti-terrorist center in Kyrgyzstan, said Alexander Knyazev, a Bishkek-based analyst with the Russian Institute of the Commonwealth Countries. Uzbekistan, which has an unsettled territorial dispute with Kyrgyzstan over the Osh Valley, has objected to the plan, he said.
Prikhodko said Wednesday that Russia and Kyrgyzstan had agreed on the parameters of the new military base there.

TITLE: Minister Toughens Oversight for Police
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel and Lidia Okorokova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Facing widespread mistrust over corruption and violence in its ranks, the Interior Ministry will now hold officials personally responsible for police leadership appointments, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said Tuesday.
The ministry also announced that candidates for police positions would be screened with lie detectors.
But analysts predicted that the measures would fall far short of solving rampant corruption among the country’s police and were merely an attempt to soothe misgivings after an officer’s shooting spree earlier this year.
Nurgaliyev announced that those appointing senior police officers would be personally responsible for their decisions. “We need a system that safeguards the reliable recruitment for our units of suitable young people to serve the fatherland,” he told a conference with senior police officials, the ministry said in a statement on its web site.
He also suggested that the plan was a result of the case of police major Denis Yevsyukov, who killed three people in a shooting rampage in Moscow in April.
The fact that the current recruitment and promotion system was plagued by people unwilling to introduce changes “was confirmed by the tragic events in April of this year in southern Moscow,” Nurgaliyev was quoted as saying by Interfax.
The comments were not carried in the ministry’s statement.
President Dmitry Medvedev fired powerful Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin after the shooting amid reports that Yevsyukov had been appointed thanks to his ties to senior Moscow police officials.
Opinion polls consistently show the police force among the country’s least trusted institutions, and police officers nationwide are routinely indicted for corruption and violent crimes.
Nurgaliyev told Tuesday’s conference that “our main task is to return trust, respect and acceptance, to ensure the support from society for the work of the police.”
The Interior Ministry’s press service said personal responsibility would lie with those who give references for leadership appointments, Interfax reported.
But anti-corruption experts were mostly scathing about the measures.
Georgy Satarov, a corruption expert with the Indem think tank, called them “stupid.”
While the measures would prove insignificant in real life, they would probably raise the risk of blackmailing inside the ministry, he said. “The ministry needs two things: either an outside oversight body or a complete closure followed by restructuring,” Satarov said.
Yelena Panfilova, head of the Russian branch of international corruption watchdog Transparency International, agreed that changes were needed.
“Controlling staff at the Interior Ministry is a problem that needs systematization,” she said.
Nurgaliyev’s remarks showed that he felt pressure to demonstrate results, but he is just “fixing one problem without addressing the system,” she said.
“The minister is in desperate need to change something quickly, as there are demands from society and the Kremlin,” she said.
The ministry’s human resources chief, Vladimir Kikot, told the same conference that lie detectors would be used to screen aspiring police officers and that all officers permitted to carry firearms would have to undergo yearly psychological tests.
He added that every candidate who had been rejected by the police for reasons such as alcoholism, drug abuse or ties to criminal groups would be blacklisted. “We already have a list of more than 6,000 people,” he was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Anatoly Kucherena, head of the Public Chamber’s committee on law enforcement oversight and judicial reform, said lie detectors were no solution to the problem. “I do not believe that you can sort out the human psyche with technology,” he told Interfax.
Kikot also said fake diplomas were widespread among members of the police force.
“We did a review of all our staff … and discovered more than 100 fake diplomas or documents with evidence of falsification every month,” he was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.
Since taking office more than a year ago, Medvedev has made fighting corruption a central theme of his policies and has initiated a host of measures.
The Interior Ministry has initiated other measures to boost police popularity: Earlier this year, it implemented a behavior code that forbade officers from engaging in a range of unseemly deeds — from cursing and smoking publicly to adultery.

TITLE: Design Selected for Construction of Mariinsky's 2nd Stage
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg-based Bureau of High-Rise and Underground Construction, or KB ViPS, has been selected as the local partner for the Canadian firm Diamond and Schmitt Architects in building Mariinsky II, the second stage for the Mariinsky Theater (see related story, page 5). 
The new building, with a planned capacity of 2,000 seats, will add to the Mariinsky’s landmark historic premises and its 2007 state-of-the-art concert hall designed by the French architect Xavier Fabre.
KB ViPS was selected by a specially created state commission during an open competition. The commission included, among others, the Mariinsky’s artistic director Valery Gergiev, Russia’s culture minister Alexander Avdeyev and St. Petersburg’s chief architect Yury Mityurev.
Mariinsky II is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2011 at an estimated cost of $452 million.
“I am extremely pleased to see that we have finally moved on from the state of uncertainty to a clear and transparent situation, in which the costs and the deadlines have been set,” said Gergiev. “We are a world-class theater and really cannot continue to postpone the opening of the second stage year after year. The opening has to be celebrated on a very high artistic level, perhaps with a marathon of star performances. This kind of event requires two or three years of preparations, so careful planning is essential.”
The Mariinsky Theater gives nearly 600 performances a year, including almost 400 shows at home. The company boasts a vast opera and ballet repertoire, performing up to 150 titles annually.
“I am glad that we have moved on from considering gorgeous-looking or extravagant projects that turn out to be unrealizable in reality,” Gergiev said. “The Canadian design will give us no trouble.”
The Mariinsky II saga has been dragging on since 2003, when the prominent French architect Dominique Perrault won a prestigious international competition to design the building.
In 2004, after painstaking bureaucratic scrutiny, the Culture Ministry finally signed a contract with the French architect to use his design for a state-of-the-art building. Despite the imminent deadlines, the government appeared to be in no rush to get things started.
Some insiders say this embarrassing procrastination was due to a lack of money. Since the competition, the projected cost of the building had increased from $100 million to $244 million. Perrault’s design was a non-symmetrical, many-sided golden metal structure built around a new theater building. The architect said that he saw himself as a fashion designer, and his design was meant to wrap the black marble facade of the building inside a light, transparent golden tunic. The new building was intended to exist in harmony with the existing theater building, which was built in 1860 to a design by the Italian Albert Cavos. A bridge over the Kryukov Canal was to connect the two buildings.
Many St. Petersburgers — including many members of the city’s cultural elite — never accepted the French project, branding the design too revolutionary or lacking taste. One of the least offensive nicknames applied to the new building was “the golden potato.” Critics said Perrault’s design was too elaborate and out of keeping with the classical lines of the neighborhood.
In November 2008, the Russian government officially announced that the Perrault project had been rejected.
“Dominique Perrault is a renowned architect but he has no experience in designing theaters; and I am against anyone using an internationally acclaimed company like ours as a training ground,” Gergiev said. “I came to the Mariinsky symphony orchestra an accomplished conductor, and had my lessons, training and practice elsewhere.” 
Mityurev said a series of minor amendments will have to be made to the new project but no serious alterations need to be made.

TITLE: TNT Plans Appeal of Ruling On 'Dom 2' Reality Program
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The Moscow Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Television channel TNT will appeal a court ruling ordering long-running reality show “Dom-2” to be shown only at night, after a group said it was offensive and should be covered by laws on erotica.
On Tuesday, Moscow’s Presnensky District Court ruled that the show could only be aired between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. It is currently shown at 2:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. as well as twice nightly.
“Dom-2,” on the air since 2004, regularly attracts calls to be taken off the air, and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev called it “criminal” in April.
Contestants compete to win a house that they are all building. The show’s subtitle is “Build Your Love,” and participants are encouraged to become couples.
TNT general director Roman Petrenko said Wednesday in an e-mailed answer to questions that he was not sure whether the court’s decision related to erotica, as there has not yet been a written judgment.
“We know the laws … and are absolutely sure” that the show complies, he said.
Andrei Richter, head of Moscow’s Media Law and Policy Institute, spoke as an expert in court and confirmed that the case was about whether the show is erotic. It “has erotic elements, but it has other elements, too, such as a competition to get the house,” he said. “You can’t label it as an erotic show.”
The legal definition of erotica, however, is “very vague,” he said.
Under Russian law, erotic material  — “which wholly and systematically exploits interest in sex” — can only be shown after 11 p.m.
Two groups of experts gave conflicting opinions on whether the show is erotic, leaving the judge “basically free to make the decision he wants to make,” Richter said.
The experts who called the show erotic were psychologists Vera Abramenkova, Viktor Slobodchikov and Yelena Pronina, TNT said on the “Dom-2” web site. None could be reached for comment Wednesday.
Slobodchikov and Abramenkova last year gave testimony about two cartoons shown on 2x2, calling them immoral.
Two of the three people who sued are members of the conservative group All-Russia Parents’ Meeting, which also campaigns against sex education in schools.
The “Dom-2” suit was filed by Nadezhda Khramova, of Yekaterinburg, Sergei Davydov, from the Samara region, and Yelena Strekalova, from the Moscow region.
German Avdyushin, the group’s head, said Khramova and Davydov were members but that he did not know Strekalova. Avdyushin said they went to court “on their own initiative” but that he supported them.
“Dom-2 is poisonous information for young people,” he said. “It needs to be stopped once and for all.”

TITLE: Yamadayev Survives Shooting
AUTHOR: By Alexander Velikanov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Isa Yamadayev, a Chechen pro-Moscow opposition politician, said Wednesday that he was attacked in his Moscow apartment a day earlier, and investigators said a suspect had been detained.
The attack follows a string of attacks on his family, including the killings of his brothers Ruslan, in September 2008, and Sulim, in March.
“On Tuesday evening, a man came to my apartment in Moscow,” Yamadayev told Rosbalt news agency. “I asked him to enter the hall, but he took out a gun and shot me in the back.”
Yamadayev refused to say whether he was wounded but said his life was saved by the actions of the Moscow police and that the gunman was detained.
Police initially denied the attack, with a law enforcement source telling Interfax that it had “no evidence concerning someone firing a gun at Yamadayev.”
But Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigative Committee, later told Itar-Tass that police had detained a suspect accused of shooting at Yamadayev and that it was being treated as an attempted contract killing.
Sulim Yamadayev, a former commander of the Vostok battalion and an ally turned enemy of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot dead near his Dubai home in March in what local police described as a political killing. For a long time afterward, Isa maintained that his brother was still alive.

TITLE: Sniper Wounds Reputed Mob Boss Ivankov
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An unknown gunman has shot and seriously wounded one of the country’s most notorious reputed crime bosses in a mysteriously botched sniper attack.
Vyacheslav Ivankov, better known as Yaponchik and dubbed the godfather of the Russian mafia, was gunned down late Tuesday when he was leaving the Thai Elephant restaurant in the city’s northwest, investigators said Wednesday.
“He was injured by one bullet in the stomach and is being treated in a hospital,” said Viktoria Tsyplenkova, a spokeswoman for the city’s Investigative Committee.
Investigators are treating the case as an attempted murder, she said.
Tsyplenkova would not comment on the victim’s health, but national media reported that Ivankov was in an critical condition after an emergency operation. His recovery is complicated by the fact that he is 69 years old, the Newsru.com portal reported, citing sources at the clinic.
It was unclear, however, why the gunman did not manage to kill Ivankov.
Media reports suggested that while the crime was professionally prepared, it was executed with a high degree of blundering.
The purported killer hid in a GAZelle minivan parked on a roadside about 70 meters from the restaurant, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. Photos published on Life.ru showed the truck with a blue canvas cover, which had a small rectangular hole cut out at the top left corner.
While the killer managed to flee, the minivan was abandoned, leaving investigators not just the gun — a scoped Degtyarev sniper rifle — but also fingerprints, camouflage trousers and a jacket, news agency Rosbalt reported, citing a law enforcement source.
Detectives are also examining bullet fragments and footage from a video camera installed at the restaurant’s entrance, the Investigative Committee said.
“Investigators are convinced that this was the work of a professional who could not complete his task because Ivankov stooped down when the shot was fired,” the statement said.
Tsyplenkova refused to elaborate on why a shot aimed to kill could hit a stooping victim well below the head and chest.
She said the gunman shot at least once and that investigators had yet to determine whether other shots were fired.
The motive for the attack was also unclear, although one police source pointed to a gangland conflict and warned that it could escalate.
“The most likely reason is a conflict between the clans of Aslan Usoyan and Tariel Oniani,” Interfax quoted an unidentified investigator as saying.
Ivankov had supported Usoyan, also known as Grandpa Khasan, in the conflict, and this might have led to the attempt on his life, the source said.
The conflict came to the fore in July 2008, when police detained dozens of reputed crime bosses after a dramatic helicopter raid on a yacht at a reservoir outside Moscow.
Media reports at the time said the mobsters had gathered to defuse the conflict and that Oniani was among those detained. Yet most of the suspected gang leaders were subsequently released because of a lack of evidence.
Oniani, an ethnic Georgian with a reputation as one of the most powerful crime bosses in the Soviet Union, was again detained in June at the Gorky-2 luxury village outside Moscow, Interfax reported.
He is accused of kidnapping a Georgian businessman, but more charges might follow, the agency reported.
Ivankov — whose nickname Yaponchik, or “Japanese,” comes from his slightly Asian appearance — spent 10 years in Soviet prisons before being released in 1991. He managed to enter the United States only to find himself in jail again after being tried for extortion in 1995. He was extradited to Russia in 2004 to face murder charges but was acquitted by a Moscow court.
He has been described as one of the most influential “thieves-in-law,” the masters of the Russian criminal underworld.

TITLE: Ukraine Still Providing Georgia With Armaments
AUTHOR: By Alexei Nikolsky
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ukraine is openly continuing to supply Georgia with arms, and despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s order that those supplying weapons to Tbilisi face sanctions, Russia appears to be in no hurry to carry out the threat.
Eduard Kokoity, president of breakaway South Ossetia, said Monday that the United States, Ukraine and Israel were still arming Georgia.
In early July, Ukrainian newspaper Segodnya published an interview with Sergei Bondarchuk, chief of state arms exporter Ukrspetsexport, in which he said they were continuing to fulfill arms contracts signed earlier with Georgia.
Medvedev signed an order in January banning Russian companies from supplying arms to Georgia. The order also allows the government to halt military and technical cooperation with countries and companies that are delivering Soviet- or Russian-designed weapons. The Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation is responsible for determining who is in violation and for sending proposed sanctions to the government for approval.
Vedomosti sent questions to the service two weeks ago asking whether it was aware of Bondarchuk’s comments and whether a decision had been made on seeking sanctions against Ukrspetsexport, but the service has yet to respond.
Ukrspetsexport declined comment.
A source in the Russian defense industry said no sanctions had been introduced against Ukrspetsexport and that the company continued to work with partners in Russia. The Georgian Interior Ministry, which is also supplied with arms purchased abroad, declined comment, saying the matter was classified. The country’s Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment.
Georgia’s defense budget for 2009 is $500 million, down from last year’s $900 million, according to figures from Lawrence Sheets, head of International Crisis Group’s office in the Caucasus.
After last August’s war, Western suppliers are worried about selling weapons to Georgia, despite President Mikheil Saakashvili’s requests, said Mikhail Barabanov, scientific editor of the magazine Export Vooruzhenii.
But Ukraine has supplied weapons since the war as part of contracts signed in early 2008, including another 20 T-72B tanks and likely several dozen BTR-70DI armored personnel carriers and anti-tank Kombat rockets.
It is highly unlikely that Ukraine will face sanctions for its arms sales to Georgia, said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. They’re even less likely to affect the critically important enterprise Motor Sich, which is the monopoly producer of helicopter engines for the army and would be impossible to replace, Pukhov said.
Vyacheslav Boguslayev, chairman of Motor Sich and a Verkhovna Rada deputy from Party of the Regions, said the company had not delivered any military hardware to Georgia and has no plans to do so in the next 20 years. He said he thought that Russia was right to sanction suppliers of weapons to Georgia.

TITLE: One-Factory Towns Hit Hardest by Crisis
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: BAIKALSK — The cellulose factory in Baikalsk once employed 2,200 people and was the lifeblood for the town on the shore of Russia’s Lake Baikal and a symbol of Soviet-era industrialization.
As well as being by far the biggest employer in this town of 16,000 people, the factory’s power plant also supplied hot water, electricity and heating to its inhabitants.
But now, amid the economic crisis, it employs only 268 workers and a heavy silence weighs beneath the plant’s famous smokestacks, an emblem of Russian industry.
Its main owner, the Basic Element holding company of Russia’s former richest man Oleg Deripaska, is encumbered by billions of dollars of debt accumulated for a spending spree in the good times of the Russian economic boom.
And its problems are shared by many other towns across the country — known in Russian as monogorodi — whose populations are largely dependent on one single factory for their wellbeing.
“They reduced the staff progressively. Firstly, 50 people. Then by 1,300. Then 154 more,” local trade unionist Alexander Shendrik told AFP.
“Baikalsk came into being thanks to its factory. Before that there was nothing but taiga around here. People came from all over to work here.”
Even those workers still employed in the factory have not been paid for two months and their future remains in doubt as Basic Element considers closing the plant as it is no longer profitable.
Today it is not the factory production line but the local job center that is buzzing. Dozens of people queue outside the facility daily looking for new openings.
“Our situation is without hope. We are a little town, far from anywhere. Who is going to worry about us?” said Irina, a woman in her forties who was sacked by the factory in March, as she awaited her turn at the center.
Tulana Abdugafur, 51, worked as a mechanic in the factory for 25 years and is now living off the salary of his wife, who works in a school.
“I can’t find work as I’m close to the retirement age,” he said. “It’s hard, we took out a loan and now we are in debt.”
Shendrik said that debts were a major problem for many of the laid-off workers. “The banks want to be paid back but people cannot pay back the money.” In June, 42 workers started a hunger strike to obtain 100 million rubles (2.2 million euros) of unpaid wages.
According to the Moscow-based Institute for Regional Politics there are 460 single industry towns in Russia with a total population of 35 million. In 2008, they accounted for 40 percent of Russian GDP.
“The drying-up of credit and the fall in prices of commodities have caused problems in many companies,” said the institute’s director, Bulat Sotliarov.
“The situation is at its most critical in cities dependent on car factories,” he said. “It’s a little less severe in the coal and metals sector and there is almost no problems in towns involved in the energy industry.”
The government has openly admitted it is concerned about outbreaks of social unrest in Russia, a phenomenon almost unthinkable in the boom days under the Vladimir Putin presidency.
In the best known incident, laid-off workers from cement factories in the town Pikalyovo in June blocked a main highway for several hours, causing kilometers of traffic jams.
Basic Element is an owner of one of the three factories in Pikalyovo, which is located in the Leningrad Oblast, about 250 kilometers to the south east of St. Petersburg.
In a scene that has now entered modern Russian folklore, Putin, now Russia’s powerful prime minister, visited the town and forced Deripaska to sign an agreement to restart production at the plants.
In the episode, relayed endlessly on Russian state television, Putin slammed a pen on the table in front of the oligarch and told him to “sign now.”
A handful of other towns have seen similar disturbances over unpaid wages — although not followed by such dramatic prime ministerial intervention.
This month, workers from a construction firm blocked bridges and roads in the Altai region in southern Siberia and also threatened to block a motorway.
According to Deripaska himself, it is the responsibility of federal and regional authorities to create job opportunities and promote small and medium size business.
“My task should be to care about my companies,” he said in comments released by Basic Element last week.
“How to make them profitable and how to work with low demand, how to cut costs and create new products and create new opportunities in terms of markets.”

TITLE: Deripaska Close To Debt Deals
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element unit is “very close” to agreeing with Alfa Group on revising terms of $800 million of debt as he steps up efforts to restructure part of the $20 billion owed by his companies.
“In the coming days we plan to sign a complex agreement between Alfa and Basic Element covering the debt by all of our companies,” Basic Element Corporate Finance Director Andrey Yashchenko said in a phone interview from Moscow on Thursday. 
Part of the debt will be repaid and the rest restructured, while Basic Element, the holding company for Deripaska’s businesses, will pledge property as additional collateral, Yashchenko said.
Deripaska’s En+ energy unit this week agreed with banks to extend repayments on $1 billion of loans in the businessman’s first debt restructuring. His aluminum maker United Co. Rusal got an agreement from foreign banks to extend a freeze repayments on $7.4 billion of debt as it continues restructuring talks. 
Alfa earlier opposed changing theterms of its loans and pursued Deripaska in the courts.
“Alfa Bank doesn’t exclude the possibility of signing a complex agreement on Basic Element debt,” Vladimir Tatarchuk, the lender’s deputy chairman, said in response to questions from Bloomberg News, without elaborating.

TITLE: Artemyev 'Wakes Up,' the Fight Goes On
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Igor Artemyev, chief of the government’s anti-monopoly watchdog, becomes livid when he talks about gasoline, threatening endless lawsuits for oil producers that refuse to temper their appetite for high prices at the pump.
The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has been waging court battles against the country’s largest oil companies ever since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin excoriated the watchdog last July, urging officials there to “wake up” or face the ax. Artemyev’s response has been no less forceful, propelling the service from among the many, largely faceless bureaucracies reporting directly to Putin, to the constant, three-letter subject of headlines and board meetings: FAS.
But for all his efforts, the service’s results have been underwhelming so far, exposing the enormity of work to be done before monopolies are tamed and cartels face the threat of swift and ruthless punishment.
As most of the court cases — in which FAS accused Rosneft, LUKoil, TNK-BP and Gazprom Neft of maintaining unfairly high gasoline prices last year — drag on, the gasoline prices didn’t drop nearly as dramatically as those for crude oil. Yet gasoline quickly became more expensive following a rebound in the crude price to about $70 a barrel in the last few weeks.
“If we have to file 10 more lawsuits, we’ll file 10 more lawsuits until oil companies stop behaving this way,” Artemyev said at a recent news conference. “It’s not advanced mathematics. It’s clear that it was absolute abuse.”
Unfair competition and pricing still thrive in most sectors of the economy, showing no signs of decreasing after Putin’s complaints, said Igor Nikolayev, a professor teaching a course on Russian economic reforms at the Higher School of Economics, a state-run university. As proof, he pointed to the racing inflation here, expected to reach 12.5 percent this year, in contrast to the falling — or at least stable — consumer prices in the developed countries.
“The main, fundamental reason for double-digit inflation, which is almost unheard of in a crisis, is that we have a problem with competition,” he said. “The situation hasn’t changed during this past year. It couldn’t have changed so quickly.
“It’s a problem that takes years of scrupulous work. We paid little attention to it in the fat, favorable years and, as a result, have these negative consequences at the most unsuitable moment, that is, in a crisis.”
Putin famously criticized FAS in July 2008 for doing nothing about jet fuel prices, which had risen higher in Russia than anywhere else in the world. They climbed so high that AiRUnion, an alliance of five airlines, suspended flights and then went bankrupt last summer. At Putin’s request, FAS began a relatively successful crackdown.
Jet fuel prices soon fell, allowing Transaero, the country’s third-largest airline, to drop fuel surcharges and sell tickets on average 30 percent cheaper beginning in October, a company spokesman said.
“Compared to last year, the situation has seriously changed for the better. There’s no doubt about that,” he said, adding that prices fell the most in central Russia, where competition is higher than in the east.
The trickle-down effect on plane ticket prices wasn’t as big as FAS expected, however, and Artemyev ordered a new probe this month — this time targeting airlines.
State carrier Aeroflot was one of the first to come under investigation, and it was ordered this month to pay a fine after charging double what it should have — 36,000 rubles ($1,150) — for a round-trip ticket between Krasnoyarsk and Norilsk.
 Artemyev says Putin’s help was key to passing tougher anti-monopoly rules.
The flight, lasting roughly 2 1/2 hours, falls under government pricing regulations intended to make travel affordable in the Far North.
S7, the other airline operating the route and using a similar plane, charged 13,000 to 31,000 rubles for a round trip, depending on booking terms at the end of July, its web site showed.
Aeroflot did not return a call or answer an e-mail seeking comments for this article.
Analysts have said airlines hope that by keeping the higher ticket prices they will compensate for a sharp drop in passenger traffic, exacerbated by the need to pay back loans they took out to expand before the crisis.
Unlike jet fuel, gasoline prices have proven a harder nut to crack. FAS began tackling the issue at about the same time, but it has little to show for the effort.
The price for Urals crude, the main Russian export blend, fell by 73.5 percent at its lowest point in late December from a peak last summer. Retail gasoline prices, although they did decline with a long lag, never dropped nearly that much.
When they were the cheapest, at the end of May, gasoline cost just 25 percent less than it did in the summer of 2008.
The four oil companies, of which only LUKoil lost its case against FAS, said they were innocent. LUKoil chief executive Vagit Alekperov complained earlier this month that FAS could eventually go as far as installing government caps on gasoline prices.
Artemyev said he was intent on making oil companies more flexible about refined product pricing.
“They behave unacceptably. They’re used to behaving this way,” he said at the news conference. “But the situation is changing.”
Artemyev took the helm at FAS more than five years ago, in March 2004, but he kept a low profile until Putin brought the agency to the forefront of the battle against cartels and inflation.
Like many Cabinet members, Artemyev hails from St. Petersburg. He served as a City Council member responsible for maintenance and budget from 1989 to 1996, when Putin headed the city government’s foreign relations committee and worked as first deputy mayor.
But Artemyev also stands out among his colleagues as a former liberal politician, listing such high points of his career as being deputy chairman of the Yabloko party faction in the State Duma from 1999 to 2003. Nevertheless, this background hasn’t been particularly evident since he joined the government, some political analysts say.
Artemyev has been unable to influence the state’s policies much because he hasn’t found great support in the government, said Yury Korgunyuk, chief political analyst at INDEM, a think tank.
“It happens sometimes that FAS says something to some big players, but very, very carefully,” Korgunyuk said. “It understands very well that it’s not this agency that decides such issues.
“There may be liberals among our elite, but when it comes to doing something, they adapt to the circumstances,” Korgunyuk said. 
“And the circumstances are such that you have to take your liberalism and shove it. Play with it at home, but don’t bring it to work,” Korgunyuk said.

TITLE: Fight Over Gasoline Reignites As Prices Jump
AUTHOR: By Alex Anishyuk
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gasoline prices increased 8.8 percent over the month of June, topping almost 23 rubles per liter for 95-octane, the State Statistics Service reported — an increase that has renewed fears that oil companies may be fixing gasoline prices.
While oil companies blame the fundamentals for the price growth, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has again voiced its concern over possible price collusion among major market players.
In early 2008, the service fined the major oil companies a total of 13.2 billion rubles ($430 million), with Rosneft, LUKoil, TNK-BP and Gazprom Neft, paying the lions share. The four firms were fined an additional 1.5 billion rubles each later that year.
The service sued the majors again in 2009 for repeated increases in gasoline prices and warned that continued high prices may result in fines topping several hundred million dollars.
Oil producers reply that they have again fallen victim to poor tax policy, which is geared toward raising cash rather than regulating business.
“Today, we’re witnessing a pretty typical situation for a country that does not have interior gasoline pricing and is stuck to oil market tendencies,” said Grigory Sergienko, executive director of the Russian Fuel Union. “Therefore, Russia, a major oil exporter, enjoys the same pricing policy as importing countries.”
Each time there is a significant drop in market oil prices, Russian producers compensate for their losses by increasing the cost of gasoline inside the country or by simply freezing the prices, Sergienko said.
The Energy and Industry Ministry used to adjust the oil tariff every two months based on the average price during the previous period. When the oil price began to fall in August 2008, they switched over to a monthly regime.
But with oil prices falling so fast, that was still a significant delay. In October 2008, the lags were so bad that some oil firms had to reduce their exports so as not to operate at a loss.
“Imagine, today the state takes 87 kopeks of each ruble earned by the oil companies in taxes. How do you want them to generate profits then?” Sergienko said.
But critics say there is currently no mechanism to prevent oil companies from charging whatever they want.
“It is common knowledge that major market players can afford to set the price they want to and there is nothing to prevent them from doing so,” said Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Russian Institute for Globalization Problems.
“According to Russian law, you can sue companies for monopolistic activities only if you have direct proof of a ‘deal’ between them. And in this case there may be no deal at all — they just set the prices they think are appropriate and follow up with each other.”
But investigations, such as those by the anti-monopoly service, are largely pointless, Delyagin said, as other parties usually bear the brunt of any punishment levied by the authorities.
“Some time ago [the anti-monopoly service] opened about 200 cases to punish the monopolists but ended up penalizing several gasoline stations,” he said.

TITLE: Airlines See Drop Of 10%
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The country’s airline industry saw passenger numbers slump by nearly a fifth in the first six months of 2009, although the depth of the slowdown eased in June, the Federal Air Transportation Agency said Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Russians are tightening their belts because of rising unemployment and lack of confidence, while a weaker ruble has made foreign holidays less affordable than last year. Some airlines are struggling with losses, starting restructuring talks or are close to bankruptcy.
Recent economic data suggest, however, that the worst of the slowdown may have passed, and airline figures support this.
In June, national airlines carried 4.6 million passengers — 13.4 percent less than in the same period of 2008 but an improvement on the 16.3 percent year-on-year slump seen in May.
Month on month, passenger traffic actually increased 26.2 percent, reflecting the start of the holiday season.
For the first six months of the year, airlines carried 18.75 million passengers, down 18 percent over 2008.
The five major players, including state-controlled flag carrier Aeroflot, Transaero, S7, Rossia and UTair, carried 10.37 million passengers in June, with S7 suffering the sharpest decline of 33 percent in passenger traffic.

TITLE: Rule May Affect Foreigners Carrying Cash Over Border
AUTHOR: By Maxim Tovkailo
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Travelers entering the country with $10,000 or more may soon have to explain the origin of their money and its intended use, the Federal Customs Service said in a statement on its web site.
As the regulations now stand, sums over $10,000 have to be declared by anyone entering the country. Under the proposed new rules, however, travelers will have to go an extra step, providing information on where the money came from and the identities of persons it is intended for, the service said.
Travelers would be required to present documentation regarding the money’s origins, which could include receipts from the sale of personal items or for cash withdrawals from banking machines.
The toughened rules, which would apply to both foreigners and Russian citizens, are necessary to fight money laundering and terrorism, the statement said.
The changes have already received approval from the Central Bank and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and are now undergoing expert evaluation, the statement said.
A Federal Financial Monitoring Service spokesperson declined to comment.
An employee of the service who asked not to be identified said the new rules would help to bring Russian legislation in line with foreign laws on money laundering.
The Central Bank did not respond to requests for comment.
The Federal Customs Service could not provide statistics on the number of Russians who carry $10,000 or more into the country.
The Russian Travel Industry Union said it did not keep statistics on the amounts of cash travelers carried. Tourists usually do not carry those types of sums in cash, said Irina Tyurina, a union spokeswoman.
Experts criticized the proposal, saying it could end up affecting the wrong people and increase the powers of the Federal Customs Service.
A criminal carrying a large sum of money won’t go through the red corridor, as they have other channels for transporting money into the country,” said Galina Balandina, a lawyer with Pepeliaev, Goldsblat & Partners.
Passengers making customs declarations at Sheremetyevo Airport must walk through a corridor indicated by a red sign.
The law would mostly hurt law-abiding citizens, Balandina said.
The customs service is not currently responsible for determining the source of citizens’ incomes, said Yelena Belozerova, a lawyer with Goldsblat BLP.
“This would be a widening of [the service’s] powers,” she said.
Tax inspectors and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, not customs officials, should be responsible for checking on the sources of people’s money, said Vladimir Reznik, chairman of the State Duma’s Financial Markets Committee.

TITLE: Mobius May Double Size of Russia Portfolio
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Mark Mobius said Wednesday that he plans to double Templeton Asset Management’s emerging-market assets to $50 billion within two years.
Templeton may also allocate more funds to Russia, which could “theoretically” account for as much as 20 percent of its portfolio compared with 10 percent now, Mobius said in Volgograd. He didn’t say how much of the portfolio’s growth would be because of the rising price of stocks and bonds.
“Emerging markets will be the first to climb out of the crisis, and Russia will be one of the leaders,” said Mobius, who oversees about $25 billion as executive chairman at Templeton. “Authorities in those countries have the chance to act more promptly and decisively.”
China is a top pick in emerging markets, followed by Brazil, and then India and Russia, Mobius said.
“Before, purely driven by valuations, China and Brazil were cheaper. But now, Russian stocks look cheaper, so we expect Russian stocks to come up and become more important” in Templeton funds, he added.
In Russia, Templeton is focused on commodity and consumer stocks, he said. “Consumers are bad now but will be recovering and doing well next year.”
Templeton may increase its 0.5 percent stake in RusHydro to as much as 10 percent, Mobius said. “We don’t have much investment in other Russian power companies because we feel RusHydro is the best,” he said.
RusHydro is accepting bids until Aug. 10 for a secondary share offer at 1 ruble par value. Of a 16 billion share issue, the state has already used pre-emptive rights to buy 4.9 billion and private investors 2.3 billion, leaving the rest for the offer.

TITLE: Discount Carriers Could Face Restrictions at Pulkovo Airport
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Discount carriers could face restrictions to their access of Pulkovo Airport following complaints by a local airline.
At a Monday meeting on changes to St. Petersburg’s strategy for the development of its transportation and logistical complex, Rossia airlines head Roman Pakhomov said that while the plans being discussed specified bringing discount carriers to Pulkovo, they did not offer any support for St. Petersburg’s largest aviation companies.
St. Petersburg Deputy Governor Yury Molchanov told Pakhomov that it would be necessary to curtail the proposal on budget airlines, five participants of the meeting said.
Discount airlines are a major source of competition for other carriers because they offer cheaper prices in exchange for fewer services, a Rossia airlines spokesperson said.
In 2008, six discount airlines operated in Pulkovo, accounting for more than 5 percent of its passenger traffic, an airport representative said.
As Pulkovo’s owner, the city can theoretically interfere in airport policy, although this has never happened in the past, the representative said.
Next year, Pulkovo will be managed by VTB and Fraport, the winners of a June tender on the rights to rebuild and operate the airport for the next 30 years. 
The consortium’s strategy for attracting new airline companies met with general approval, Molchanov said.
Starting next year, the consortium will determine which airlines will have access to the airport, he said.
VTB and Fraport representatives could not be reached for comment.
Budget airlines are an indicator of a competitive market, broadening the spectrum of price categories that passengers have access to, said an employee of a budget airline operating in Pulkovo.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>Russia Key for Lufthansa</strong>
MOSCOW — Lufthansa, Europe’s second-biggest airline, said Russia is still one of its key destinations even as the global recession hurts demand for flights there more than in some other markets, said Ronald Schulz, Lufthansa’s regional director for Russia, Reuters reported.
“Russia remains one of our three top priorities, next to China and India,” Schulz said Wednesday.
The carrier’s Russian traffic, or the number of passengers multiplied by the distance flown, fell 7.5 percent in the first six months compared with a 5.7 percent decline globally, Schulz said.
Demand will “remain flat” in the country through the end of the year, he said.
Lufthansa currently operates 137 flights a week from eight Russian cities, including Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Samara, Schulz said. The airline added a daily flight to Dusseldorf from St. Petersburg in April.

TITLE: The Kremlin’s Violent Underbelly
AUTHOR: By Alexei Malashenko
TEXT: The Kremlin has been caught off guard by a spike in violence in the North Caucasus over the past few months. One reason for this: The Kremlin had believed its policies in the region were successful. After canceling its anti-terrorist operations in Chechnya (largely at the insistence of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov), the authorities were convinced that the situation there had stabilized.
It is clear, however, that the picture is far less rosy. It has become obvious that the number of insurgents in the North Caucasus — primarily in Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan — is greater than official figures have stated and that they have deep reserves and the ability to operate at a fairly professional level. The militants have also formed, if not coalitions, then at least mutual understandings with other political forces, primarily those that have suffered from the government’s fight against corruption. The result is that the daily news coming from the Caucasus sounds more like war coverage, including attacks on well-known religious figures, government ministers and even Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.
It is no longer possible to explain the spike in violence on the seasonal factor — that insurgents are most active in the spring and summer. In Ingushetia, the policies of Yevkurov have caused fear not only among militants, but also corrupt officials who had grown fat under the republic’s previous leader. In Chechnya, the reason for the troubles is the political and human costs associated with the policies of Kadyrov, who is hated as much as he is loved by the population. What started as the Kremlin’s attempt to “Chechenize” the conflict in the republic — that is, to convert it into a domestic struggle rather than one between Russian troops and local forces — has now turned into a “Kadyrovization” of the problem, with all of its numerous drawbacks. As a result, Moscow is becoming increasingly annoyed with Kadyrov’s absolutism and the way his strong loyalty to the Kremlin is coupled with attempts to transform Chechnya into something bordering on an independent state. Neither can Russia’s leaders be too happy about the murders in Moscow and Dubai of the Yamadayev brothers, who had connections with security service groups, or the recent killing of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova in Chechnya. All of these murders have been linked in one way or another to Kadyrov.
Finally, there is dissatisfaction in Moscow and the North Caucasus over Kadyrov’s ambitions to extend his political influence beyond Chechnya to include the entire region. His desire to impose order on neighboring Ingushetia personally — while emphatically claiming that he has President Dmitry Medvedev’s support — has caused heightened anxiety within Ingushetia. Kadyrov has also aggravated many people with his attempts to interfere in Dagestan’s internal affairs. Many blame Russia’s leadership for Kadyrov’s uncontrolled, reckless ambitions.
Since canceling the decade-long, anti-terrorist operations in April, the security situation has deteriorated to such an extent that it has been necessary to reinstate the operations in some regions. But this has turned out to be only a stopgap measure and one that is clearly inadequate.
Kremlin officials have no idea what to do next. On one hand, the direct application of force is no longer effective. Sending federal forces to the region evokes hostility among local people and only escalates tensions. On the other hand, it is unrealistic and even dangerous to give full authority to local officials to solve their own problems, given the widespread lack of trust they have among the people.
Moscow’s experiments with the powerful Kadyrov and the weak former Ingush President Murat Zyazikov demonstrated that both extremes produced similar results. Kadyrov’s excessive force proved to be just as dangerous as Zyazikov’s weak hold on power. In the first case, the local leader can break free from Moscow’s control, and in the second the president is simply unable to carry out his leadership role. The best option is somewhere in the middle, a strong but tractable president whose actions do not create additional problems for the Kremlin. But finding such a candidate is difficult, especially because that person should not simply rule with an iron fist, but he must also somehow find a common language with the people and build a consensus. This is the only way to achieve stability in the region.
That is precisely what Yevkurov tried to do in Ingushetia. Unfortunately, having attempted to earn the public’s trust by fighting corruption and the irreconcilable insurgents, he has become the Caucasus’ most tragic political figure. In late June, he was the target of a suicide bomber and is recovering from serious injuries in a Moscow hospital. Without idealizing Yevkurov in any way, I think that he is the first leader who, in the midst of an ongoing crisis, has tried to build the foundation for consensus by seeking alternatives to the use of force.
The drama surrounding Yevkurov mirrors the condition of the entire North Caucasus. Here is a person who, while striving for peace, was forced out of the political arena by a terrorist attack. In the process, the very idea of establishing a wide-ranging dialogue has effectively been lost. Now, anybody can point to Ingushetia as proof that the soft approach to resolving conflicts is ineffective. This once again strengthens the position that the use of force is the only effective way to rule in the North Caucasus.
In the meantime, the people living there continue to live according to their own laws. Blood feuds are on the rise again, and Islam is playing an increasingly central role in regulating social relations. Religion has become politicized from two sides. First, jihad remains a standard rallying cry for the Muslim opposition. Second, secular authorities frequently appeal to Islamic leaders, viewing them as convenient tools for maintaining their own authority. Even traditional Islam has become politicized in the Caucasus, and in Chechnya the mosque serves as the center of political indoctrination for the republic’s youth.
Members of both the Wahhabi opposition and the Tariqah order advocate introducing sharia into society. They simultaneously welcome the success of the Palestinians’ Hamas and support the well-known theory that the Judeo-Christian civilization is moving toward an epic clash with Muslim civilization.
The republics across the North Caucasus are experiencing an acute de-modernization. The region is extremely weak. It has few elements of a modern economy, and the system of middle school and secondary education has practically collapsed. Emigration is growing, in turn causing tensions in neighboring regions of Russia. The problems in the region have definitely become one of the Kremlin’s biggest problems.
And it is precisely in the North Caucasus — in the country’s vulnerable “underbelly” — that the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will be held. True, the games might stimulate the economy of the Southern Federal District, where Sochi is located, but who can guarantee that they will be carried out without any unwanted terrorist attacks? The Sochi Games could be an excellent opportunity for Caucasus extremists to demonstrate their own importance. Vladimir Putin’s 10 years of rule as the country’s president and prime minister have not been enough to defeat extremism and instability in the region. Now, only five years remain before the Sochi Olympic Games’ opening ceremony.

Alexei Malashenko is an analyst specializing in religion and security issues at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

TITLE: Unfit for Democracy
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: I live in a small dacha community where all the drivers yield the right of way to each other in a friendly, neighborly fashion. Someone driving a Mercedes-Benz is just as likely to give way to let a Zhiguli pass as the other way around. On a basic level, every vehicle has four wheels, and this means that everyone is equal. This is a good, simple model of a working democracy.
But it is another matter entirely on the community’s unpaved paths that cut through the nearby woods. I have noticed that the path is always blocked by felled trees. As it turns out, someone puts them there on purpose, thereby making passage impossible for bicycle riders, mothers pushing baby carriages or pensioners pulling their belongings in handcarts.
I pulled some trees out of the way a couple of times, but they just kept reappearing. I couldn’t figure it out, so I finally asked a local man, “Who is putting the trees there, and why are they doing it?”
His answer was surprising: “This is all because someone decided to drive his all-terrain vehicle along the paths.”
That is a good example of a dysfunctional democracy. On the roadways, drivers are more or less well-off since everyone owns a car, and therefore they are considered “equal” regardless of how expensive or cheap the car is. On the unpaved paths,  however, pedestrians are considered “poor,” and therefore a rich ATV that travels among poor pedestrians stands out like a sore thumb. In this poor environment, democracy cannot function. In its place, raw jealousy takes over. Therefore, it is more important to prevent the owner of the ATV from enjoying his wealth, even if it means causing problems for themselves as pedestrians.
Regarding the question of whether Russia is fit for democracy, there are usually two answers. Some say democracy is unnatural for Russia because the people are not ready for it. Others say the authorities are at fault for defeating popular attempts to create an open, democratic society.
The real problem is that no country with a  large number of impoverished people is fit for democracy. After the humiliating defeat in World War I, the poor people of Germany voted for Adolf Hitler. Decades later, poor Venezuelans voted for the populist Hugo Chavez, and poor Iranians voted the radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into office.
There is a general rule that has been observed throughout history: If the people are poor, then “rule by the people” is often transformed into rule by a dictator. If these authoritarians deny the common people democratic rights, they perpetuate their abuse of power and turn the ruling elite into a petrified caste. As a result, the country inevitably degenerates and lags heavily behind other countries in terms of economic and political development.
Only the Industrial Revolution was able to break this vicious cycle. When industrialization brought wealth to large segments of society, this made democracy a stable form of government.
Modern Western democracy is built according to the principle that, while a Zaporozhets and a Mercedes-Benz might differ on the showroom floor, they have equal rights on the roads. But Iran, Venezuela and Russia are still built on the crude, unpaved paths where the “Stop that damn dirt buggy, whatever the cost!” is the guiding principle. Iranians, Venezuelans and Russians throw logs across our own road, even when this is to their own detriment.
Democracy is unfit for Russia because it is unfit for the poor.

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

TITLE: Design for life
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The renowned Canadian architectural firm Diamond and Schmitt Architects were announced as the winners this month of an international competition to design Mariinsky II, Russia’s first new grand-scale opera house since before the Bolshevik Revolution. The company has already signed a contract with the Russian government, which will finance the $452 million project. The firm’s head architect, A. J. Diamond spoke to The St. Petersburg Times this week about what St. Petersburg will gain from the Toronto-based company and shared his views on architecture and working in cities with a precious historical context.
St. Petersburg would probably never have heard about the Canadian designers had it not been for a stroke of luck for the architecture firm. On a tour to Canada back in 2007, the Mariinsky’s artistic director Valery Gergiev was taken on an excursion around the Toronto Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects.
What impressed Gergiev was that the theater combined all of the technical requirements of a modern opera house — including its internationally praised acoustics — with a particular character much loved by visitors, who appreciate its lofty amphitheater, superb sound and the unique ambiance of the theater, which they often compare to a comfortable home. The auditorium of the Toronto opera is calm, soft and enveloping, almost like a giant living room.
“It has never happened to me as much before: People just stop me in the street and say, thank you, we love it,” Diamond recalls. “And when the orchestra played in the hall for the first time, they were in tears, and said they never thought their instruments could sound that way.”
Unlike the Mariinsky Theater, which gives a staggering 600 performances a year, with 400 of them at home, the Toronto Opera sells tickets for 93 performances a year and is still building up its audience. It has already had impressive success. “Now people line up from 10 in the morning and wait for two hours to get in for a lunchtime event, even if it is harsh weather and a fierce winter wind,” Diamond said.
The audience’s physical comfort is crucial for Diamond. In the case of the Toronto Opera, the seats were modified seven times before he was happy. 
Diamond and Schmitt Architects paid special attention to the seats situated on the edges of the auditorium to ensure there is not a bad seat in the house. Diamond always takes his guests to what should be the worst seat in the opera. He takes them up to the last seat on the top row, but people deny that the seat is bad, as they still enjoy a good view and a remarkable density of sound.
The whole building stands on rubber cushions so that no sound enters the hall; the entire auditorium is independent of the shell around it. The hall is renowned for its acoustics: The seats at the very back have the same density of sound as those on the front row.
St. Petersburg spectators can expect the same approach and attitude.
By his own admission, Diamond is not an architect who “hits you in the eye” or goes for extravagant solutions. Nor does he tend to replicate the past. “If back in the 18th century St. Petersburg was replicating the past, you would have had a different city,” the architect smiled.
“St. Petersburg absolutely blows me away,” Diamond said. “Apart from Venice, I have never seen a city with such consistent scale and such a consistent architecture. Amazing.
“If you look at the most beautiful European cities, especially Italian cities, you see medieval gothic, classic, modern — a generous variety of architectural styles all in the same city that makes a rich impression,” he said. “So we always look for contemporary expression that is harmonious with the city. I was most inspired by St. Petersburg’s architectural landscape; it is phenomenal. It has a calmness and consistency about it that are genuinely inspiring. I love it. The ensembles are absolutely extraordinary.”
Diamond admits that work on the Mariinsky designs was both challenging and time-consuming. “Remember that Ferrari was not the first car designed; it took a little bit of time,” he said. “I have done a number of plans and thought about it, and I draw, and I change, and I sketch ... but it really evolves. The pressure of the competition has helped too. I think it was Boswell who said, ‘Hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully,’ so I really had to focus — and it came together.”
Diamond said that typical St. Petersburg architecture is a masonry base between three and six stories, crowned with a metal roof. The continuity is broken with porticos and columns, with the porticos providing relief. The Mariinsky II will have a masonry base and a metal roof, but instead of a portico there will be glass bay windows, giving audiences a stunning view over the canal and enabling them to see St. Petersburg in a fresh way.
“The roof is a complicated roof, because I want a terrace so that people can take advantage of the white nights and enjoy the skyline from up there,” the architect said. 
Diamond’s philosophy as an architect is to respect and be inspired by the city’s context. “What you build in Jerusalem and what you build in New York is very different,” he explains. “Every city has a different voice. But the underlying principle is always this: I make a virtue of a necessity. You know the beautiful flying buttresses on cathedrals, on Notre Dame in Paris, for example, that everybody admires — it was originally a structural solution aimed at reducing the thickness of the wall. There is no arbitrariness about it, but inevitability. And then you celebrate that.”
Diamond does not believe in iconic architecture, as he feels it represents only one part of a design. 
“The form has to be derived from what happens inside,” the architect explained. “Design it from inside out and the outside in, and that resolution of the two, the context and the content, is what makes it good architecture.”

TITLE: Chernov's choice
TEXT: <strong>Peter Gabriel</strong> dedicated a song to the slain Russian human rights activist <strong>Natalya Estemirova</strong> during his headline performance at this year’s WOMAD festival on Saturday. Gabriel, who runs his own human rights organization Witness, performed “Biko,” a song he wrote about the South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who was murdered in prison by Pretoria policemen in 1977.
 “Witness was set up to help all those people around the world who have courage to fight for the rights of their people, whatever the cost to their own lives,” Gabriel said.
“And in fact only ten days ago, a young woman in Chechnya called Natalya Estemirova was taken out of her house in Grozny and murdered by some people that many suspect are connected to the government, and she was a Witness partner and made two films with us,” he said toward the end of his set in Charlston Park, Wiltshire, to introduce the song, while Estemirova’s portrait was shown on the giant screen behind him.
“You can blow out a candle / But you can’t blow out a fire / Once the flames begin to catch / The wind will blow it higher,” Gabriel sings in the song, which was originally released in 1980.
A fan’s video of the performance can be watched on YouTube.com. 
This was an example of an honest and relevant artist. Sadly, an example of exactly the opposite is being offered by Gabriel’s compatriot and counterpart this week. 
<strong>Ken Hensley</strong>, ex-member of the 1970s hard rock band <strong>Uriah Heep</strong>, will entertain Kremlin-backed youth movements such as Nashi at their summer camp at Seliger lake this weekend.
Hensley is due to perform on Saturday and “will then answer questions and speak to participants” of the Orthodox Christian events, a Nashi leader announced in his blog.
Gabriel and Hensley come from the same generation of British rock musicians who started out in the 1960s, which makes the gap between what they are now all the more striking. 
As for local news, <strong>Sochi</strong> music bar announced it is closing for good this week. The farewell party is to kick off at 11 p.m. on Saturday, and will feature <strong>Digital Forks</strong>, <strong>Info</strong> and <strong>The Krolls</strong>. 
<strong>Getawaycab</strong>, an indie-rock band from Kauhajoki, Finland, will perform at Sochi on Friday and at Mod on Sunday.
<strong>Dead Combo</strong>, the Manhattan, New York-based band influenced by the Stooges and Suicide (not to be confused with the Portuguese band of the same name, which appears to be better represented on the web) will perform at A2 on Saturday. From Monday, A2 will be on vacation until Aug. 28.
On Sunday, <strong>Madonna</strong> will perform on Palace Square, while <strong>Alexei Nikonov</strong> of the punk band PTVP will hold a poetry recital presenting his new book of poetry at Zoccolo.
Next week, the <strong>Mad Caddies</strong>, a ska-punk band from Solvang, California, will perform at Orlandina (Monday) and <strong>Amanda Palmer</strong>, the frontwoman of the U.S. cabaret punk band Dresden Dolls, and <strong>Jason Webley</strong> will play at Glavclub (Thursday).

<em>— By Sergey Chernov</em>

TITLE: For the very first time...
AUTHOR: By Alec Luhn
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg communists and Russian airborne forces hope to stake out a bit of the glory when the Queen of Pop performs in St. Petersburg on Sunday.
Record-breaking pop star Madonna will give a concert on the city’s Palace Square at 7 p.m. Sunday. As the grandiose musical spectacle will take place directly next to the Winter Palace, the site of the overthrow of the provisional government by Bolshevik forces in the October Revolution of 1917, a group of local communists is calling on the singer to commemorate the event in her performance. 
As Sunday also marks Paratroopers Day in Russia, the military authorities are framing the concert as a performance in the troops’ honor.
In an open letter to Madonna published on their web site on Tuesday, the Communists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast asked the performer to include a revolutionary song — “at the very least, the ‘Marseillaise.’”
Addressing Madonna with the informal and, in this instance, possibly disrespectful “ty” form for “you,” the letter argues that since Madonna has compared McCain to Hitler, railed against the war in Iraq and praised Martin Luther King, “only one step remains to the performance of revolutionary songs.”
The letter also requests changes to Madonna’s wardrobe to commemorate the sailors who took part in the storming of the Winter Palace, suggesting a sailor’s hat with a red ribbon, sailor’s striped vest and pea coat, a Mauser rifle and an Order of the Red Banner of Labor medal. 
In conclusion, the appeal makes a reference to a controversial ad for the concert in which Madonna uses a Russian swear word — “Instead of the word with which you addressed Russian fans, you would do better to learn the name ‘Lenin’ or ‘U.S.S.R.’” — and advises her to try Russian cuisine rather than bring her own food.
On the heels of the communists’ letter, the commander of the Russian paratroops hailed as “a great honor” Madonna’s performance on Paratroopers Day, a holiday on which paratroopers often gather and party on Palace Square.
“Let’s say that Madonna is coming to congratulate all Russian paratroopers,” Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov told reporters Wednesday. “This is a great honor for us.”
Shamanov likewise advised all citizens to congratulate any commando they might meet, rather than “cross over the street.”
The concert will be Madonna’s second performance in Russia and first in St. Petersburg. According to concert promoters, the singer accepted her lowest fee ever for the performance in order to fulfill a personal desire to come to St. Petersburg. 
Madonna’s concert in Moscow three years ago was marked by controversy over her use of religious symbols, with Russian Orthodox activists protesting the event and the Russian Orthodox Church calling on believers to boycott the concert. Nonetheless, the concert attracted over 50,000 fans, and organizers hope Sunday’s show will be a similar success.
Tickets are still on sale and will be available for purchase from a portable ticket kiosk on Palace Square on the day of the performance, Marianna Lyubina, the spokeswoman for concert organizer PMI, said Thursday. Tickets range in price from 2,000 rubles ($63) for the standing area to 30,000 rubles ($952) for access to a VIP zone in front of the stage with amphitheater seating and an open bar. 
Lyubina added that starting at 4 p.m. Sunday, access to Palace Square from all nearby streets, including Dvortsoviy Proyezd and the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt with Bolshaya and Malaya Morskaya streets, as well as the Alexandrovsky Gardens in front of the Admiralty, will be closed to those without tickets.

TITLE: Shiny happy people
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Images of dead seagulls crawling with flies and ants projected onto large flat-screen TVs surrounding the table may not be everyone’s idea of appetizing. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have occurred to the management of Manilov Caf?, a sleek establishment that opened earlier this year.
That, however, was its greatest sin. The flat-screen TVs comprise part of Manilov’s caf?-restaurant-club hybrid concept. The club atmosphere dominates in the first-floor room, with its shiny black floors, dark sofas and tables, house music and shimmery transparent curtains that appear to be all the rage these days. The effect is completed by dim lighting, multiple mirrors and a long bar lit up with fluorescent green lights. The upstairs room, however, is decorated in pale tones and has a light and airy feel to it — no overtones of nightclubs here.
The concept and interior appear to be verging on the glamorny (New Russian glamour) — a suspicion enhanced by the private customer parking area in front of the eatery. Yet it bills itself as a humble caf?, and prices are reasonable — certainly less than could be expected from the overall style.
What Manilov Caf? is like by night, when the tables are cleared from the middle of the room and DJs and musicians perform, or whether it attracts many people to its location at Tekhnologichesky Institut, remains to be seen, but anyone finding themselves in the area at lunch time could do far worse than drop in for a bite to eat.
Manilov offers an impressively broad range of cuisines, including Russian, Japanese and Italian. From the page of “French Week” dishes, fried Camembert (300 rubles, $9.50) was a bold combination of deep fried Camembert on a bed of lettuce, apricots, orange segments and grapes, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Such an adventurous juxtaposition of sweet and savory may not be to everyone’s taste, but it was certainly a rarity on the St. Petersburg dining scene, and the ingredients were both fresh and plentiful.
Caesar salad with chicken and bacon (270 rubles, $8.50) — also from the French section — was less satisfying. Though the lettuce was crisp, the Parmesan fresh and the croutons delightfully crunchy, the chicken was rather dry and the sauce was so salty that it bore more resemblance to seawater than dressing.
Despite the epic proportions of the menu, vegetarian dishes are as scarce as ever, and that other blight of dining out in Russia — the erratic timing of dishes being brought out — was also sadly present at Manilov, with one starter arriving a full ten minutes before the other. Service was brisk and courteous, and our assiduous waitress offered to adjust the frosty air-conditioning without us having to ask. No doubt she would also have turned off the seagull corpse visual trauma, if only we had asked.
Of the Russian cuisine on offer, solyanka soup (220 rubles, $7) was as thick and hot and packed with meat and vegetables as it should be, but roused suspicions that it had been prepared earlier and merely heated up, rather than being heated in the oven from scratch as tradition demands.
From the Italian selection, penne arrabiata (a bargain at 180 rubles, $5.70) came with tiny strips of zucchini, was rich, oily and mildly spicy, and did not disappoint. 
Yet another section of the menu was devoted to beer snacks — usually dishes designed to complement and soak up beer, while enhancing the desire for more of the amber nectar, though in this case the term applied to dishes containing beer. “Chicken in a beer batter” (deep-fried chicken sprinkled with sesame seeds, 280 rubles or $8.80) was piping hot, freshly prepared and succulent, and was a hearty portion that would certainly have absorbed a few liters of beer.

TITLE: The Word's Worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: <strong>Ïðåññ-êîíôåðåíöèÿ:</strong> press conference
Could everyone who is sick of politics please raise your hand? (Thousands of arms shoot up.) I’m sick of the subject, too. (Pleased murmurs fill the hall.) But (loud groan) the thing is, I keep finding all these weird political translation problems. (People shuffle loudly out of the hall, muttering.)
OK, for those of you who are still interested, here’s the question: Why would a country with some of the world’s best-trained, most-talented, experienced and creative translators stick a lousy translation of a presidential news conference on an official web site?
The news conference in question took place in Moscow on July 6 with Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama. The translation of Medvedev’s comments into English seems decent and fairly complete. True, if someone asked me to red-pencil it, I’d fiddle a bit. For example, <strong>“Ýòî áûëà, âíå âñÿêîãî ñîìíåíèÿ, òà âñòðå÷à, êîòîðóþ æäàëè”</strong> was rendered “This, no doubt, was a meeting that has been expected.” I would have written: “This was unquestionably the meeting that people had been waiting for.”
But the real problems are with the curious translations and omissions in Obama’s comments. For example, Obama said about Iran: “This is not just a problem for the United States. It raises the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.” This was rendered in Russian as: <strong>“Ýòî áîëüøàÿ ïðîáëåìà äëÿ Ñîåäèíåííûõ Øòàòîâ, ïîòîìó ÷òî ðå÷ü ìîæåò èäòè î ÿäåðíîé ãîíêå âîîðóæåíèÿ íà Áëèæíåì Âîñòîêå.”</strong> (“This is a big problem for the United States because it might concern a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”)
In another case, the tense, a conjunction and the nature of the problem changed: “Too often, the United States and Russia only communicate on a narrow range of issues, or let old habits within our bureaucracy stand in the way of progress.” <strong>“Ñëèøêîì ÷àñòî â ïðîøëîì ìû ñîòðóäíè÷àëè òîëüêî ïî óçêèì ïðîáëåìàì, è íàøà áþðîêðàòèÿ ìåøàëà ïðîãðåññó.”</strong> (“Too often in the past we only cooperated on narrowly defined problems and our bureaucracy impeded progress.”)
In Russian, a list of working groups cited by Obama omitted development, nuclear energy and security, international security, defense, foreign policy and preventing and handling emergencies. But it did have a blanket <strong>è òàê äàëåå</strong> (and so forth) and included <strong>ýíåðãåòè÷åñêàÿ áåçîïàñíîñòü</strong> (energy security) — no doubt an important issue but not one that Obama specifically mentioned.
The list of areas of cooperation in health care cited by Obama included combating “infectious, chronic and noncommunicable diseases, while promoting prevention and global health.” In Russian: <strong>“[áîðüáà] ñ èíôåêöèîííûìè çàáîëåâàíèÿìè âî âñåì ìèðå”</strong> (combating infectious diseases all over the world).
On Georgia, Obama said, “Yet even as we work through our disagreements on Georgia’s borders, we do agree that no one has an interest in renewed military conflict.” The Russian version differed: <strong>“Ìû òàêæå íåñîãëàñíû äðóã ñ äðóãîì ïî ïîâîäó ãðàíèö Ãðóçèè. Íî íèêòî èç íàñ íå çàèíòåðåñîâàí â âîåííîì êîíôëèêòå.”</strong> (“We also disagreed about Georgia’s borders. But none of us has an interest in a military conflict.”) Call me a nitpicker, but “no one” is different from “none of us,” and “as we work through our disagreements” is quite different than “we don’t agree on.” And so it goes for the entire news conference. It reads like an unedited simultaneous translation produced by someone who had some problems with aural comprehension.
Maybe all the good Russian translators were on vacation?
?
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.

TITLE: Taliban Calls for Afghan Election Boycott
AUTHOR: By Rahim Faiez
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL — The Taliban urged Afghans on Thursday to stay away from the Aug. 20 elections, threatening to block the roads to polling stations and dismissing the balloting as an “American process.”
In a statement posted on a web site used frequently by the militants, the extremist Islamic movement mocked the upcoming presidential and provincial polls as part of an American “failed strategy” in the country — paid for and secured by foreigners.
The statement highlights the pressure likely to face voters who choose to cast ballots in areas of the country where the insurgents are strongest.
“All those Afghans should stand together with the Islamic emirate and should not participate in this American process,” the Taliban said in a statement. The Islamic emirate is the name used by Taliban groups loyal to Mullah Omar.
The statement urged Taliban fighters to prevent people from voting.
It said that a day before the elections, roads would be blocked to government vehicles and civilian traffic “and the people should be aware of that.”
Hundreds of polling stations are likely to remain shut on the election date, almost all in areas dominated by Pashtuns, the biggest ethnic group and the backbone of the Taliban. A low Pashtun turnout could call the legitimacy of the election results into question.
A low turnout in Pashtun areas could also cost President Hamid Karzai support among his fellow Pashtuns, who tend to vote by ethnicity even though many of them are disenchanted with him because of his ties to the Americans. Karzai’s chief rival in the 39-candidate field, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, is popular in northern Tajik areas, which are more peaceful and more likely to have a strong turnout.
Karzai is widely assumed to be the front-runner but if he fails to win more than half the votes in the crowded field, he would face a runoff with the second-place finisher in October. Karzai could be vulnerable if his opponents rally around an alternative candidate in the runoff.
It was unclear whether the Taliban would be capable of intimidating large numbers of people from voting.
Ronald Neumann, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said the Taliban had tried to stop the 2004 presidential election but had failed.
“There will obviously be some danger if the Taliban really try to stop the voting but in my experience if people really want to vote they will do so,” Neumann said.
Also Thursday, a roadside blast killed four Afghan guards in the south of the country, the Interior Ministry said. It said the blast occurred in Helmand province and the victims worked for a private security company.
Thousands of U.S. Marines and British soldiers are conducting anti-Taliban offensives in Helmand province, one of the centers of the Taliban insurgency.
Insurgents have ramped up attacks markedly since the last presidential election, and have dramatically increased their use of roadside bombs this year.
July has been the deadliest month of the war for U.S. and international forces, and the rising casualties have shaken public support for the war in Europe even as the U.S. ramps up its participation in the conflict.
On Wednesday, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Italy will be looking for an exit strategy from Afghanistan after the August election.
Berlusconi’s comment followed calls from within his own government to bring back Italy’s 2,800 troops in Afghanistan. Those calls sparked controversy and Berlusconi was quick to assure allies that Italy would stay the course.
“Only after (the election), will it be possible to think about an exit strategy,” Berlusconi said during a meeting with senators from his own conservative party. He said any exit strategy “will have to be the subject of careful and agreed-upon analysis with international allies.”
Italy’s troops are stationed in the western region of Herat and in Kabul. Rome is also sending an additional 500 troops on temporary deployment ahead of the vote.

TITLE: Nigerian Troops Kill 100 At Mosque
AUTHOR: By Njadvara Musa
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Nigerian security forces shelled then stormed the mosque and compound of an Islamist sect blamed for days of violence across northern Nigeria, killing more than 100 militants in a raging gunbattle.
The bodies of barefoot young men littered the streets of Maiduguri on Thursday morning as the army conducted a house-to-house manhunt on the outskirts of the city for sect members. Police said most of the dead were Islamist fighters.
Sect leader Mohammed Yusuf escaped along with about 300 followers but his deputy was killed in Wednesday night’s bombardment, according to Army commander Maj. Gen. Saleh Maina.
An AP reporter watched soldiers, under fire, shoot their way into the mosque in Maiduguri on Wednesday and then rake those holed up inside with gunfire. The reporter later counted about 50 bodies inside the building and another 50 in the courtyard outside.
The militants, armed with homemade hunting rifles, bows and arrows and scimitars, were no match for the government forces.
Another five corpses were just inside a large house near the mosque. Maina pointed to the body of a plump, bearded man and said it was the Boko Haram sect’s vice chairman, Bukar Shekau.
“The mission has been accomplished,” said Maina, the army commander.
Militants seeking to impose Islamic Shariah law throughout this multi-religious country attacked police stations, churches, prisons and government buildings in a wave of violence that began Sunday in Borno state and quickly spread to three other states in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria.
It is not known how many scores of people have been killed, wounded and arrested. Relief official Apollus Jediel said Wednesday that at least 4,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.
The epicenter of the violence has been the Boko Haram sect’s headquarters in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, which was bombarded Wednesday. Maina said his troops would fire mortar shells later Thursday to destroy what is left of the sprawling compound, which stretches over 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).
The radical sect is known by several different names, including Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or “Followers of Mohammed’s Teachings” and “Boko Haram,” which means “Western education is sin.” Some Nigerian officials have referred to the militants as Taliban, although the group has no known affiliation with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Earlier this week, President Umaru Yar’Adua said the sect was preparing to unleash “the holy war.” Security agents have been watching the sect for months and were ordered to attack when the movement began gathering fighters from nearby states at its Maiduguri headquarters, he said.
In recent months, police have been raiding militant hideouts and finding explosives and arms. The house at the compound in Maiduguri included a laboratory the military said was used to make chemical and fire bombs.

TITLE: Baby Cut From Mom’s Womb, Woman Arrested
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WORCESTER, Massachusetts — A baby girl cut from her mother’s womb was found and a woman arrested after acquaintances became suspicious of her claims that she had just given birth, police said.
The body of the girl’s mother was found Monday in a closet at her Worcester apartment. It was not until an autopsy that authorities discovered the fetus was missing.
The girl appeared to be in “fairly good health” at a New Hampshire hospital Wednesday, Worcester Police Sergeant Kerry Hazelhurst said.
Julie Corey, 35, of Worcester, Massachusetts, and a male companion were arrested in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where police found them with the child. Corey was charged as a fugitive from justice and was to be arraigned in district court in Concord, New Hampshire, on Thursday. She was in custody and could not be reached for comment late Wednesday, and Worcester police did not know whether she had a lawyer. Police said the man was released.
Corey told acquaintances that she delivered the baby sometime late last Thursday or early Friday at an undisclosed hospital, and by later Friday was showing the newborn off to acquaintances, police said.
“Some friends became a little concerned about how she got home so early after just giving birth,” Hazelhurst said.
Police said Corey had reportedly gone to New Hampshire to relocate. A newspaper report said she arrived at a Plymouth homeless shelter Tuesday night. She told workers there that the girl was 6 days old and identified herself as the mother but had no information on the child, according to the Union Leader in New Hampshire.
Corey was arrested Wednesday as she tried to leave the shelter with the infant after workers alerted police and a nurse began photographing the baby with her cell phone, the report said.
The baby’s mother, Darlene Haynes, was eight months pregnant. Her body was found by her landlord, William Thompson, who said a “horrifying smell” led him to her apartment, where he found her body wrapped in bedding in a closet. Her death was ruled a homicide.
“It’s horrific,” Thompson said Wednesday. “There’s no words to describe what’s going on in this building today.”
The exact cause of Haynes’ death has yet to be determined pending toxicology tests, but Worcester said the autopsy indicated Haynes suffered head injuries.
Police said the 23-year-old had apparently been dead for several days, and that she hadn’t contacted family or friends since last Thursday.
Haysha Toledo, a 17-year-old neighbor, said neighbors used to hear fighting from the apartment Haynes shared until recently with her boyfriend, Roberto Rodriguez.
“We used to hear her crying and screaming but no one ever really did anything,” Toledo said, adding that neighbors did not want to get involved.
Haynes had a restraining order against Rodriguez, who allegedly pushed her into a glass table in June and cut her arm, then grabbed her by the throat and slapped her, according to court records. Court records also showed Rodriguez was charged with hitting Haynes in 2008 in a case that was continued without a finding.
In June, Haynes described the 24-year-old Rodriguez as her boyfriend of several years. Her landlord said Rodriguez moved out of the apartment last month.
Rodriguez was interviewed by authorities. He told WCVB-TV that Haynes was “a nice girl.”
“She had her problems, you know, but nobody deserves to go (through) what she went through,” he said.
Family members said she had three other children.
Her youngest, an 18-month-old girl, is in state custody, according to Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Alison Goodwin. Family members had been looking after her.
Karl Whitney, Haynes’ uncle who is acting as a spokesman for the family, said Haynes’ grandmother, Joanne Haynes, is raising the two other children, Jasmine, 5, and Lillian, 3.
He told the Telegram & Gazette that Haynes had picked the name Sheila Marie for her fourth child.

TITLE: Britain Begins Inquiry Into 
Iraqi War
AUTHOR: By David Stringer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — The head of a British inquiry into the Iraq war said Thursday he will call former Prime Minister Tony Blair to testify about the run-up to the conflict, but acknowledged it is unlikely that senior Bush administration officials would give evidence.
John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, said the relationship between Britain and the United States would form a key part of his panel’s attempts to consider errors made by Britain, the U.S. and other allies before, during and in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Chilcot said that he hoped to take evidence from the “key decision makers,” but conceded that it is unlikely top officials from former U.S. President George W. Bush’s government would join Blair in giving evidence to the independent panel.
“We certainly plan to have discussions, on as broad a basis as we can, and that must include clearly, people in the United States as well as elsewhere. Discussions and evidence sessions are not necessarily the same thing, and of course we have no power to compel witnesses here, let alone in foreign governments,” Chilcot said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked Chilcot to hold an inquiry to examine the period from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States through to the current situation in Iraq.