SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1563 (24), Friday, April 9, 2010
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TITLE: Agency: Bakiyev Refuses
To Resign
AUTHOR: By Peter Leonard
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – An opposition coalition proclaimed a new interim government Thursday after a violent uprising in Kyrgyzstan and said it would rule until elections are held in six months. But a respected private news agency said the president had proclaimed in an e-mail that he would not relinquish power.
Resistance from President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has fled the northern capital for the south, would raise the prospect of continued instability in the impoverished Central Asian nation, home to both a U.S. air base key to the Afghan war and a Russian military facility.
The opposition controls the capital and says it holds four of the country’s seven provinces. Its leader said there were no immediate plans to revisit the current one-year lease on the American base, which runs out in July.
U.S. military officials said Kyrgyzstan halted flights for 12 hours Wednesday at the Manas base during the uprising, and were evasive Thursday when asked if flights had resumed.
This mountainous former Soviet republic erupted Wednesday when protesters called onto the streets by opposition parties for a day of protest began storming government buildings in the capital, Bishkek, and clashed with police in street battles that left dozens dead.
“I have not relinquished and will not relinquish power,” Bakiyev wrote, according to the respected news agency 24.kg. “What’s more important now is to stop the violence and the crazy rage of the crowd that spilled over the streets and squares of Bishkek and other cities.”
Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva, the former foreign minister, said the president was in the southern region of Jalal-Abad, the heart of his political stronghold, and seeking support. This raised some concerns that Bakiyev could try to secure his own survival by exploiting the country’s traditional split between more urban northern clans and more rural southern tribal groupings.
Eyewitnesses in the southern part told The Associated Press that the situation there was tense and unstable, and armed men who appeared to be still supporting Bakiyev were present in the region along with others who seemed to be supporting the opposition.
It was not clear if they answered directly to Bakiyev. The new interim defense minister said the armed forces have joined the opposition and will not be used against protesters.
“I am ready to take responsibility for my guilt in the tragic events if the guilt is proven by an objective and unbiased investigation,” Bakiyev wrote in his e-mail. “In case of further destabilization the opposition leaders will be held responsible and punished according to the law.”
Otunbayeva said parliament was dissolved and she would head the interim government. She said the new government controlled four of the seven provinces and called on Bakiyev to resign.
“His business in Kyrgyzstan is finished,” she said.
Although the opposition has previously voiced objection to Manas, Otunbayeva said there were no plans yet to review the current agreement with the United States. She said her government would meet U.S. diplomats for talks in Bishkek.
“Give us time, it will take time for us to understand and fix the situation,” Otunbayeva said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. deplored the violence and urged all to respect the rule of law.
“[We at] Manas have taken all appropriate measures to continue to support operations in Afghanistan,” U.S. Air Force Maj. Rickardo Bodden, a public affairs officer, said Thursday. He refused to elaborate for security reasons.
In 2009, Kyrgyzstan said U.S. forces would have to leave Manas, a decision made shortly after Russia granted Kyrgyzstan more than $2 billion in aid and loans. The government later reversed its stance and agreed to a one-year deal with the U.S. that raised the rent to about $63 million a year from $17 million.
The U.S. is also paying $37 million for airport improvements, another $30 million for new navigation systems, and giving the government $51.5 million to combat drug trafficking and terrorism and promote economic development.
Leonid Bondarets, who has been affiliated with the Sweden-based Central Asia and the Caucasus review and think tank, said that as long as Bakiyev has not formally resigned, there is room for trouble.
“It’s hard to predict what is going to happen because Bakiyev hasn’t stepped down,” Bondarets said in a telephone interview from Bishkek. “The situation is still tense.”
Kyrgyzstan, which shares an 858-kilometer border with China, is also a gateway to other energy-rich Central Asian countries where China, Russia and the U.S. are competing fiercely for dominance. It is a predominantly Muslim country, but it has remained secular.
The U.S. Embassy denied reports in the Kyrgyz media that U.S. citizens were being evacuated to the Manas air force base, where about 1,200 U.S. troops are stationed. Americans in civilian clothing were seen entering the base Thursday morning.
TITLE: Obama, Medvedev Sign Arms Treaty
AUTHOR: By George Jahn and Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PRAGUE — Seeking to end years of rancor, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday signed the biggest nuclear arms pact in a generation and envisioned a day when they can compromise on the divisive issue of missile defense.
The new treaty, the first of its kind in two decades and nearly a year in the making, signaled a bold new opening in relations between the former Cold War foes. Both leaders hoped for more progress on economic matters and potentially even deeper cuts in their robust nuclear arsenals, while the Russian president still warned of potential pitfalls ahead.
The pact will shrink the limit of nuclear warheads to 1,550 per country over seven years. That still allows for mutual destruction several times over. But it is intended to send a strong signal that Russia and the U.S. — which between them own more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons — are serious about disarmament.
Obama and Medvedev reaffirmed their commitment to considering new sanctions against Iran if the Islamic republic continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment and to start talks on its nuclear program.
Medvedev said it is regrettable that Iran has not responded to many constructive proposals the international community has offered, and it is possible the United Nations Security Council will have to take up the issue. And Obama said the U.S. will not tolerate any actions by Iran that risk an arms race in the Middle East or threaten the credibility of the international community.
They spoke after sitting side-by-side in an elegant hall in the Czech Republic capital city, signing the nuclear arms deal that awaits ratification by the Russian legislature and the U.S. Senate. The White House lobbying effort on ratification is underway.
The upbeat U.S. president said he was confident that Democrats and Republicans would ratify the treaty in the Senate, where 67 votes will be required.
“Today is an important milestone for nuclear security and nonproliferation, and for U.S.-Russia relations,” Obama said. Medvedev hailed the signing as a historic event that would launch a new chapter of cooperation between the countries.
Inside the hall, the anticipated moment came as the two presidents picked up their pens, glanced at each other and grinned as they signed several documents, with aides transferring the papers back and forth so all would have both signatures. When it was done, the leaders seemed momentarily at a loss, with Medvedev flashing a smile and a shrug before they stood to shake hands.
Obama said the treaty sets a foundation for further cuts in nuclear arms.
And he pledged more conversation with Medvedev about missile defense, which remains a sticky issue between the countries as the U.S. moves ahead with plans it calls no threat to Russia. Obama said the missile defense system envisioned is not aimed at changing the “strategic balance” with Russia but rather as a way to counter launches from other countries.
Medvedev said he was optimistic about reaching a compromise on the matter.
As for talks about even deeper cuts in nuclear weaponry, the aim would be to discuss, for the first time, cuts in short-range U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons as well as weapons held in reserve and in storage.
Beyond slashing nuclear arsenals, the U.S. sees “New START” as a key part of efforts to “reset” ties with Russia, badly strained under the Bush administration, and engage Moscow more in dealing with global challenges, including the nuclear arsenal of North Korea and nuclear ambitions of Iran.
The new pact is only part of the Obama administration’s new nuclear strategy. It was signed only days after the White House announced a fundamental shift in its policy on the use of nuclear weapons, calling the acquisition of atomic arms by terrorists or rogue states a worse menace than the Cold War threat of mutual annihilation.
TITLE: Katyn Commemorations Mark ‘Turnaround’ in Relations
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: KATYN MEMORIAL, Smolensk Region — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, paid tribute Wednesday to the thousands of Poles massacred here 70 years ago by Soviet secret police, the first joint ceremony ever held at the mass grave.
The two walked solemnly through the pine forest to a towering memorial inscribed with the names of Polish officers executed in the spring of 1940, an atrocity that the Soviet Union blamed on the Nazis for decades.
Putin went down on one knee to lay a wreath to the Polish dead, while clergy from four confessions offered prayers.
The executions of Polish prisoners of war, captured in 1939 as Germany and the Soviet Union were dividing up Poland, have remained the darkest spot in Moscow’s ties with Warsaw — even after authorities stopped hushing up the killings in the waning years of perestroika.
In his speech after visiting the graves, Putin sought to end the chilliness by showing that Russians regret the killings, just as they feel sorry for their countrymen who fell victim to Stalin’s totalitarian rule.
The Katyn forest was the site of many secret police executions, including ones which took place during the political purges of the 1930s.
“It is common memories and grief that brought us here,” Putin told a small crowd of relatives of the Russian and Polish victims, clergy and officials from both countries, and ethnic Poles living in Russia. “Our people, perhaps like no other people, understand what Katyn means.”
Putin criticized the Soviet-era coverup but also warned that it would be similarly misleading to “blame these crimes on the Russian people.”
Echoing comments that he has made about other countries, Putin said Russia and Poland must move beyond their grievances, while still remembering the victims.
Many Russians still harbor hard feelings about cruelties by Polish troops who fought against the Bolsheviks during the civil war that broke out in Russia toward the end of World War I.
Putin won applause for his emphatic speech condemning terror by the state, despite avoiding the steps that many Poles would have liked to see, including recognizing the massacre as a war crime.
Poland wants Russia to resume a 14-year investigation into the executions, which prosecutors dropped in 2004 on the grounds that the suspects were dead. Russia, Poles say, must officially vindicate the victims, declassify the investigation’s files and make public the archives of Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD.
“For us, any evidence is important,” Tusk said in his speech in commemoration of the victims.
The idea of sharing the files on the Stalinist crimes against the Poles has backers in Russia as well. Human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, a member of the government delegation here, said there could not be any secrets about murders committed on the orders of a “notorious criminal figure and serial killer, Dzhugashvili.”
Josef Dzhugashvili was Stalin’s given name.
Accompanying Tusk on Wednesday were several notable Polish leaders, including former President Lech Walesa, who helped bring about the fall of communism, and filmmaker Andrzej Wajda whose 2007 film “Katyn” premiered Friday on Russian state television.
Galina Subotowicz-Romanova, chairwoman of the Poles in Russia Congress, a group of 5,000 ethnic Poles with Russian citizenship, said members would be heartened by the measure. The organization has been asking the Kremlin to issue a vindication statement for the slain Polish officers.
Moscow has twice officially acknowledged the responsibility of Stalin’s regime for the grisly mass murders.
First, the official Soviet newspaper Izvestia carried a TASS statement in 1990 before a meeting between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Poland’s leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, which accused secret police chief Lavrenty Beria and his sidekicks of ordering the massacres.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a joint Russian-Polish statement in 1992 that blamed Stalin’s rule for causing great suffering to Poland. The same year, Yeltsin ordered that Poland be given a copy of Beria’s proposal to Stalin to apply the death penalty to the Polish prisoners because they were “inveterate and incorrigible enemies of the Soviet power.”
Katyn, a village near Smolensk, is one of a handful of sites across Russia where the NKVD officers executed Polish prisoners of war. The Katyn graves, discovered by Nazi invaders in 1943, hold 4,000 bodies out of what Poland says is a total of at least 21,768 victims.
The prime ministers also laid a cornerstone to a cathedral that will be built in honor of the victims at Katyn, some 350 kilometers southwest of Moscow, near the border with Belarus.
In a news conference after the ceremonies, Putin and Tusk took additional questions on the Katyn massacres, as well as bilateral ties.
Putin suggested that Stalin ordered the killings in revenge for “his personal responsibility for the tragedy” of Soviet-Polish military conflict from 1919 to 1921. He said he had learned from Russian academics that Stalin had personally overseen the campaign, in which some 32,000 soldiers died from hunger and illness in Polish captivity.
“Stalin may have felt guilty,” Putin said. “He may have committed these murders in retaliation.”
He went on to call the joint ceremony and reiteration of Stalin’s responsibility a turnaround. “We showed everybody that this unbiased, genuine truth must help us move on,” Putin said, drawing applause from Polish reporters.
Tusk appeared to concede that the visit might have failed expectations at home to get more out of the meeting.
“Our task is to step down a certain path,” he said. “The full truth requires patience.”
Putin said Russia was not hiding any gruesome facts about the killings from the public by keeping the rest of the investigation’s files under wraps.
“Nothing that could conceal the truth about the crime is being kept behind seven seals,” he said, suggesting that relatives and descendents of those named in the documents could suffer unjustly.
Investigators collected 4 million documents in the course of their work, sharing a quarter of them with Polish counterparts, Putin said.
He made a point of noting that Britain recently decided to extend the time for the files on the pre-World War II murder of the Polish prime minister to be classified for another 20 years, implying that Russia’s refusal to open access to all of the files on Katyn might have the same security reasons that other governments apply.
Putin said he had invited Tusk to commemorate the victims together as a way to stress that there were no taboo issues in Russia. The murders will hopefully no longer remain a topic for diplomats, instead becoming a matter for historians, Putin said.
Tusk said Putin’s show of sorrow was impressive.
“When we saw the Russian prime minister lower his head to the Katyn victims and kneel to light the candles, many might have thought it was something usual to do,” Tusk said at a news conference. “But at the time when we just began talking about the issue, this wouldn’t seem usual.”
He described the talks as frank and warm.
“We spoke as friends, as neighbors who want to understand each other completely,” Tusk said. “Perhaps, this day will go down in history as one of the best days in our relations.”
The prime ministers agreed to boost and extend sales of Russian gas to Poland, Putin said. He did not specify the new amounts but said the supply contract would be signed soon and run through 2037. A new transit contract would cover the time through 2045, Putin said.
A new accord between Gazprom and Polish gas monopoly PGNiG has been delayed repeatedly, leading to fears that Poland may face a gas shortage this year.
TITLE: New Unit To Fight Caucasus Terrorism
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the creation of a new anti-terrorism unit in the restive North Caucasus on Wednesday as new details emerged about the Moscow suicide bombers.
Medvedev told Federal Security Service director Alexander Bortnikov, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin to create the permanent unit by April 19, the Kremlin said Wednesday on its web site.
The new group will be tasked with preventing terrorist attacks like last week’s twin bombings in the Moscow metro that killed 40 people and injured 121 others.
The two women who carried out the bombings have been identified as natives of Dagestan.
One of them, Mariam Sharipova, a 28-year-old schoolteacher who struck the Lubyanka metro station, was the wife of a senior Dagestani rebel, Magomedali Vagapov, who remains alive, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.
Investigators are checking whether Sharipova’s brother Anvar, a Moscow resident, might have masterminded the March 29 bombings, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported Tuesday, without citing anyone.
Investigators have information that Sharipova and Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, the 17-year-old woman who struck the Park Kultury metro station, contacted Anvar by cell phone shortly before the bombings, the newspaper said.
Anvar, 34, lives in Moscow with his wife and works at a gas station, Sharipova’s father, Rasul Magomedov, told Kommersant in an interview published Wednesday.
The father told MK that Anvar stopped answering his phone after the bombings.
FSB investigators in Dagestan are examining the possibility that the two suicide bombers were recruited by Ibragim Gadzhidadayev, who became the leader of Dagestan’s rebels in February after the previous leader, Abdurakhmanova’s husband Umalat Magomedov, was killed by security services in a special operation on Dec. 31, MK said.
The FSB previously investigated Sharipova’s brothers, Anvar and Ilyas, 30, on suspicion of being in league with the rebels, MK said. But no charges are outstanding against the brothers, their father told MK.
The father said Anvar was abducted and severely beaten by law enforcement officers in 2005, while Ilyas has served nine months in prison after having been convicted of illegally possessing a grenade.
He said Ilyas is living at home with him and his mother in the Dagestani village of Balakhani. But neighbors, who asked for anonymity, told MK that Ilyas had joined a rebel group “in the forest.”
TITLE: Khodorkovsky Takes Center Stage in Court
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, facing another 22 1/2 years in jail on charges that he stole more than $30 billion in oil, took the stand Tuesday for the first time in a year, sparring with prosecutors and playing to the crowd.
The hearing, in Courtroom No. 7 on the third floor of Moscow’s Khamovnichesky District Court, was packed with journalists and Khodorkovsky supporters.
At least a dozen people hoping to hear the start of Khodorkovsky’s testimony — which his lawyers promised would be lengthy — could not find seats and were forced to watch by closed-circuit television. The judge had previously blocked the video feed on fears that witnesses could hear earlier testimony.
Wearing a black shirt and coat, Khodorkovsky was led into the glass-and-steel defendants cage along with his former partner, Platon Lebedev, who was dressed in an Adidas track suit. They were accompanied by rifle-wielding guards who, despite the warm weather, were wearing large fur hats.
Khodorkovsky seemed to be in good spirits and flashed smiles at the crowd.
Once the pushing for seats on the courtroom’s narrow benches had subsided, the public began to notice a hint of petroleum in the air. A few moments later, the odor’s source became clear.
It was oil, the main subject of the long-lasting trial, and it was coming from the defendants’ cage.
“I ask the court to observe this oil and well fluid,” Khodorkovsky said.
To the surprise of the judge and prosecutors, he produced two large jars, one containing crude oil and one containing well fluid — the mix of water, oil, drilling fluid and other substances that first comes out of the ground. Khodorkovsky, a chemistry graduate, began to explain that the substances are clearly different, and even visibly so.
In the first motion of his defense testimony, Khodorkovsky defined the word “oil” in Russian and asked for permission to conduct “an investigative experiment.”
The judge, Viktor Danilkin, was not amused and yelled that the fluids were not permitted in the courtroom, which he noted was packed and had only one door.
“Guard, get rid of that flammable liquid!” Danilkin yelled.
Court marshals removed the jars, providing him water instead. As they were leaving, Khodorkovsky noted that he was not giving his oil to the court.
“In this trial, the prosecution replaces the notion of ‘oil’ and the ‘right to possess,’” Khodorkovsky said, adding that he would like to show the difference to the court.
He went on to explain that Yukos had been buying the right to purchase oil from its subsidiaries, not the actual crude. “The oil … didn’t disappear anywhere,” he said.
“I’d like to offer that [prosecutor Valery] Lakhtin try to dispose of this oil, represented by water in the case,” Khodorkovsky said.
Flustered, Lakhtin proceeded to flip through the Criminal Procedural Code before finding a passage saying that experiments in court were not allowed, drawing bursts of laughter from the audience.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, both sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison for fraud and tax evasion, are now being tried on charges of embezzling more than $25 billion of the oil that they were convicted of not paying taxes on.
The case, like its predecessor, is widely seen by Khodorkovsky’s supporters as politically motivated.
On Tuesday, Khodorkovsky said the whole trial was based on a “fabricated case,” for which no documentary evidence had been provided. He asked prosecutors to explain their charges, which he said were “absolutely contradictory.” Otherwise, he said, he would not know how to formulate his defense.
“Are you going to explain the charges?” the judge asked the prosecutors. “No,” Lakhtin answered sharply, adding that they were written clearly in the case materials.
When Khodorkovsky continued, he argued that the theft allegations were illogical since it would be impossible to steal 350 million metric tons of oil, which is more than Yukos produced during the entire period in question.
He also ridiculed the idea that prosecutors were charging him for stealing from a company that he controlled, noting that Yukos regularly paid dividends to shareholders.
Lebedev also took the stand Tuesday, angering both Lakhtin and Danilkin by repeatedly calling the charges and case “rotten.”
Among those in attendance supporting the defendants were numerous elderly people, some wearing T-shirts reading “Khodorkovsky Go Home.” His parents, Boris and Marina, looked tired and had to be squeezed alongside journalists for the roughly six hours of hearings, which were regularly interrupted for recesses.
Along with the second Yukos case in Moscow, last month the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights began hearing a $98 billion lawsuit filed by former Yukos management against Russia for the oil company’s 2006 bankruptcy and subsequent sale to state-run Rosneft.
TITLE: St. Petersburg Metro to Link Ticket Prices to New Zones
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg metro network plans to introduce a zoning system for the pricing of journeys by the end of the year.
The St. Petersburg Metropolitan announced the opening this week of a contest for the design and manufacture of an automatic control system that will establish the prices of tickets on the basis of new zones.
The system will establish the prices passengers have to pay on the basis of the distance travelled.
“We are planning on dividing the metro into three zones — the center of the city, industrial areas, and the commuter belt,” said Yulia Shavel, spokeswoman for the St. Petersburg metropolitan.
Shavel said a test version of the new system may be introduced for some parts of the city’s metro as early as in November. The entire metro network will be operating under the system within two years, she said.
Shavel said the borders of the zones and the prices are as yet unclear. However, she said that the new system may provide savings “for passengers who use the metro for short trips.”
“Some people may even stop using surface transport because it will work out cheaper for them to use the metro,” Shavel said.
The aim of the contest is to develop a control system that will provide maximum convenience for passengers.
“The new system will require passengers to register their payment cards not only when they enter the metro but also when they exit it. So, now we are thinking about how to install these validity devices conveniently at the exits. We’re also planning on having a lot of them, so that there won’t be any standing in line,” Shavel said.
Shavel said the decision to shift to a zone payment system was based on the experience of metro systems in other cities, particularly London and New York, which had demonstrated the convenience of the approach.
“However, we haven’t directly copied any of them, because each city is a very individual case,” she said.
The Moscow metro is also considering switching to a zone system, though not in the near future, Delovoi Peterburg newspaper reported.
Dmitry Gayev, head of the Moscow metro, recently said that it would transfer to a zone system following the completion of a third, outer circle line. This will enable passengers to avoid having to cross several zones, and hence pay a higher ticket price, in order to change lines in the center, despite traveling very short distances as the crow flies.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Chichvarkina Inquest
MOSCOW (SPT) — Investigators ruled Wednesday that the weekend death of the 60-year-old mother of former Yevroset owner Yevgeny Chichvarkin was an accident.
Lyudmila Chichvarkina was found dead in her Moscow apartment with a head injury Saturday.
Chichvarkin, who lives in London, where he is fighting extradition for fraud and kidnapping charges in Moscow, has said he feared his mother was murdered.
But investigators said in a statement that Chichvarkina had accidentally fallen and hit her temple against the corner of a table. It said there was no reason to open a criminal investigation.
White-Collar Crime Law
MOSCOW (SPT) — President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a law that softens penalties for economic crimes, the Kremlin reported on its web site Wednesday.
The law allows suspects to be freed on bail rather than held in custody, pending trial, and sets the bail at up to 100,000 rubles ($3,400) for minor crimes and 500,000 rubles ($17,000) for major crimes.
The bail can be paid in cash, bonds or property.
The law also levies fines of 200,000 rubles to 500,000 rubles on government officials who impede legal business activity.
Bombing Cartoons
MOSCOW (SPT) — A South Korean newspaper expressed regret Wednesday that two cartoons depicting the Moscow metro bombings had upset Russia’s ambassador to the Asian country.
The Korea Times said in an editorial that it was “regrettable if the cartoons aroused any negative feelings in Russians or any other readers.”
One cartoon depicted a bear in a fur hat wiping away tears as it looms over a train in flames. The other showed a train shaped like a skull.
Russia’s ambassador to South Korea, Konstantin Vnukov, demanded an official apology from the newspaper on Tuesday.
TITLE: Experts Call For Russia To Focus on Strengths
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In the current financial situation, Russia should invest more in spheres in which it has traditionally occupied a leading position rather than trying to catch up in all fields, say representatives of the St. Petersburg Union of Entrepreneurs and Manufacturers.
“We should invest in fields where we have traditionally occupied the first and second place, such as the production of military ships and planes,” said Anatoly Turchak, head of the union and the president and chief designer of Leninents, a science and technology center that produces equipment for the defense industry.
“It is simply impossible right now to catch up in all spheres, as we tried to do in the Soviet Union,” Turchak said this week at a press conference dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the union’s establishment.
Turchak said he had a negative attitude to the country’s plans to purchase a Mistral helicopter carrier ship from France.
‘I think we can make such ships just as well or even better,” he said. “Our military planes are also able to perform the necessary tasks better than foreign ones. In this field we currently surpass the Americans and British, so today we can make these products in our own country,” Turchak said.
Vladimir Alexandrov, general director of the city’s leading shipbuilding company, Admiralteiskiye Verfi, also said that Russian shipbuilding plants are able to design and build ships of any category.
“However, this work takes us a certain amount of time, and sometimes a client wants to get an item quicker, and in this case they may decide to purchase it from someone else,” Alexandrov said, referring to the Mistral case.
Alexandrov said that all of St. Petersburg’s shipbuilding plants are currently capable of working to a high standard, and have many contracts, including some for export.
“Our main task today is to agree new contracts and to establish new relations with clients,” he said.
Turchak said the other promising and successful fields in St. Petersburg and Russian industry include energy, nuclear engineering and radio engineering.
“The food industry will also actively develop,” he added.
Turchak said he had less hope for the Russian automobile industry.
The St. Petersburg Union of Businessmen and Manufacturers was founded in 1990, with the main aims of helping organizations and enterprises to survive, maintaining the city’s industrial potential, and influencing the federal authorities to take essential measures to ensure the city’s social and economic stability.
Currently, the union comprises more than 250 members, including public organizations, large industrial enterprises, state enterprises, and small and medium-sized businesses.
TITLE: Forecast: Economy to Bounce Back
AUTHOR: By Paul Abelsky
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s economy will post the “biggest bounce” in the world this year as companies rebuild stocks and rebounding consumer demand boosts output after the record slump in 2009, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.
The economy of the world’s biggest energy supplier will grow 7 percent this year, David Hauner, head of emerging-market economics at the largest U.S. bank, said in a report published Thursday, raising a previous estimate for 5 percent expansion. Russia’s output won’t match its pre-crisis peak until the first quarter of 2011, according to the report.
“Russia already used to be one of the global leaders this year,” Hauner wrote. Following BofA Merrill’s revision, “Russia leads by a wide margin. A 7 percent GDP call for Russia looks aggressive, but is it? The comparison with the 1998-2000 episode suggests our revised forecast remains conservative.” Russia’s output won’t match its pre-crisis peak until the first quarter of 2011, according to the report.
Surging demand for commodities and companies’ efforts to stabilize inventories stoked a rebound that’s helping to pull the economy out of its worst contraction since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The economy grew an annual 0.5 percent last quarter, expanding for the first time since 2008, a VTB Capital report based on manufacturing and service data showed this week.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, Russia’s gross domestic product gained 6.5 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months, which is equivalent to year-on-year growth of 7 percent, BofA Merrill estimates.
Russia’s economy may expand 4 percent to 4.5 percent this year, more than the government’s official forecast of 3.1 percent, Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach said on March 16. GDP may advance 3.35 percent this year, according to the median estimate of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Output shrank for a fourth consecutive quarter in October through December, by an annual 3.8 percent, after a 7.7 percent decline in the third quarter. Bank lending will begin to accelerate in the second half after a “credit-less recovery” so far, and loans may grow as much as 30 percent in the second half from a year earlier, Hauner said.
Retail sales rose an annual 1.3 percent in February, the second month of growth, as higher wages fueled consumer spending. The unemployment rate fell for the first time in four months, reaching 8.6 percent in February.
“Initially, the recovery will likely remain driven by exports,” Hauner wrote. “Only in the second half of the year, we expect consumption to pick up more materially on the back of falling unemployment and inflation and rising wages. The biggest bounce, however, should come from inventory restocking.”
Urals crude, Russia’s chief export, has surged more than 97 percent since the end of 2008. An increase of 1 percent in the oil price boosts GDP by 0.1 percent in the first year and adds another 0.1 percent over the next five years as the improving outlook drives capital inflows, according to BofA Merrill.
A 30 percent increase in the price of oil adds 3 percent to GDP after one year and 6 percent cumulatively after six years, the bank said.
Investment growth will reach an annual rate of about 50 percent in the first half, while inflation will decline to 5 percent by the middle of 2010 and will average 6 percent this year, BofA Merrill predicts.
Consumer-price growth last month fell to 6.5 percent, its lowest level since July 1998, after ruble gains suppressed import prices and demand remained sluggish. The annual inflation rate more than halved in March from 14 percent a year earlier.
Annual consumer-price growth may decelerate to between 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent in 2010, the slowest pace since 1998, the government said in a Dec. 30 report.
Russia’s central bank will take advantage of slowing inflation to cut its benchmark refinancing rate to 6.5 percent this year while narrowing the difference with the regulator’s other policy rates, Hauner wrote.
Bank Rossii lowered the rate a quarter-point to 8.25 percent on March 29, its 12th reduction in less than a year.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Ukraine Gas Imports
Bloomberg KIEV — Ukraine plans to increase natural-gas imports from Gazprom by 8.3 percent more than expected this year, the Fuel and Energy Ministry said.
Gas imports will rise to 36.5 billion cubic meters from an originally planned 33.7 billion cubic meters, according to the ministry.
Fuel and Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko and Evhen Bakulin, the head of state-owned NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, met with Gazprom on Thursday in Moscow to discuss supplies, the ministry’s press service said in a statement on its web site Thursday.
U.S. Pork Quota Cut
Bloomberg MOSCOW — The Russian government has cut the 2010 import quota for U.S. pork by 43 percent, to 57,000 metric tons, according to a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
TITLE: From Pushkin To Democracy
AUTHOR: By Mark N. Katz
TEXT: I have recently returned from a two-week visit to Moscow where I gave lectures to university students studying international relations at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow State University and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. While their views are not representative of all Russians —the students themselves readily acknowledged this — they were nonetheless extremely interesting and a very hopeful sign.
While critical of U.S. foreign policy, the young Russians I spoke to very much want Russia to have good relations with the United States and the West. They see this as being in Russia’s national interest and in their own personal interest as well.
This is because they value highly their ability to travel to the West, something that neither their parents nor grandparents could do in the Soviet Union. Indeed, most of the students I met had traveled abroad. They all fear that deteriorating Russian relations with the West could someday result in their becoming unable to travel there. Many expressed a fear that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s belligerence was going to lead to this.
I was especially surprised at how often I heard students use the expression “this stupid country” to describe Russia. I took this, however, not as an indication of disrespect for their motherland but of disappointment in it not being the modern democratic country that they want it to be.
As expected, the students were uniformly proud of the great Russian cultural figures of the 19th century. During two class discussions, I said a country that could produce Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin and many others is bound to be democratic one day. The students liked this idea but were pessimistic about whether it could be true.
But is precisely this pessimism among educated young Russians that makes me optimistic about the country. There cannot be positive change without the desire for it first. And the young Russians I met definitely have a strong desire to improve the country they live in.
Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.
TITLE: A Treaty With No Losers
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Yevseyev
TEXT: More than a year has passed since U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced at the Munich security conference a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations. Five months after Biden’s speech, Russia allowed the United States and other NATO allies to transport supplies through Russian territory to Afghanistan, and this was a welcome breakthrough in bilateral relations. But on Thursday, the two countries will hit a much larger reset button: Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev will sign the New START agreement in Prague.
When the treaty talks began, Washington had little desire to reduce its nuclear arsenal. Since its nuclear missiles and warheads do not need to be upgraded, the United States could have kept its arsenal at the current levels for the next 10 years and not worried about falling behind Russia. As Russia’s aging nuclear weapons become obsolete and are decommissioned, its nuclear arsenal will be reduced in any case. Although it will try to modernize its nuclear weapons, its ability to do so will be limited. Thus, it is clear that Moscow has always been more interested in arms reductions than Washington.
Nonetheless, Obama has taken a broader look at disarmament — particularly after his key disarmament speech in Prague on April 5, 2009, and because he is trying to assume a leadership role in furthering the global disarmament goals set out in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Moreover, the United States has clearly shifted its security priorities away from nuclear deterrence and toward fighting international terrorism. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington is far less concerned about a nuclear confrontation with Russia, and this has significantly reduced the need for nuclear weapons to ensure national security. As a result, Washington is placing more importance on high-precision conventional weapons, including the refitting of four Ohio class nuclear submarines to carry long-range cruise missiles. Russia, in turn, is focusing on modernizing its fleet of Tu-160 strategic bombers for use in non-nuclear conflicts.
In addition, it became clear to the United States that solving the Iranian nuclear problem and fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan require Russia’s help. Moscow is assisting in both areas, which clearly strengthens the U.S.-Russian partnership.
Of course, the negotiation process for the new treaty was difficult. Some of the decisions made by the U.S. administration with regard to the deployment of elements of its missile defense systems in Poland and Romania complicated matters further. Yet contrary to the opinions of many skeptics, negotiations were completed successfully in a reasonable time frame. This marks a major personal achievement by the heads of both delegations: director of the Foreign Ministry department of security and disarmament Anatoly Antonov and U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary Rose Gottemoeller.
The new agreement stipulates that within seven years of the treaty being ratified, each side must reduce the number of its operationally deployed strategic delivery vehicles to 700 and the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550. Russia insisted that the preamble of the new treaty state that defensive weapons should not undermine the viability and effectiveness of offensive weapons. Also, Article 5 of the treaty prohibits the refitting of missile defense systems to give them the ability to launch offensive missiles. In addition, the treaty no longer allows U.S. observers to be stationed at the Votkinsk plant in the Udmurtia republic, the main factory producing the country’s ballistic missiles. Russia secured an important clause that the exchange of missile flight telemetry data is now voluntary, and the number of reciprocal inspections will be reduced.
The New START treaty does not draw a line between winners and losers. Both sides come out as winners by working toward global disarmament. This could become the reset’s largest dividend.
Vladimir Yevseyev is a security analyst with the Institute of Global Economy and International Affairs.
TITLE: Killers-in-Law
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Lyudmila Chichvarkina, the mother of former Yevroset owner Yevgeny Chichvarkin, died in her Moscow apartment Saturday.
Law enforcement officials claim it was an accident, that she slipped on a kitchen tile, banged her head on the edge of a glass table and died of her injuries. But she did not die immediately. She first went into the bathroom and then lay down on the couch, spattering the apartment with blood in the process. She was apparently drunk when the accident occurred, lost consciousness first and died later from blood loss.
I contend that Lyudmila Chichvarkina was killed, and that agents of the elite “K” division of the Interior Ministry are responsible.
In fact, this is not the first death connected with the Yevroset case. The first to die was the mother of Natalya Ikonnikova, Yevgeny Chichvarkin’s former secretary. In February 2009, investigators applied tremendous pressure on Ikonnikova, interrogated her and searched her home. Anonymous callers subjected both her and her mother to threats. Her mother could not withstand all of the threats and bullying. She suffered a stroke and died.
There was also Boris Levin, former Yevroset chief of security and the main defendant in the case of alleged kidnapping and extortion that the state has brought against Chichvarkin and 10 former Yevroset employees. In prison, the once-healthy Levin was diagnosed with hepatitis.
By contrast, all of the “K” team agents who were responsible for liquidating Yevroset are alive and living comfortable lives. Consider operative Vladimir Knyazev for example, who was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing mobile phones from Yevroset. He signed a document ordering the destruction of a caseload of Motorola mobile phones that were falsely said to have emitted “excessively strong radio waves.” Those phones were later sold on the black market. Knyazev is in excellent health and currently works with the investigators on the Chichvarkin case.
Or consider Major Vladislav Filippov, a “K” agent who was caught red-handed attempting to extort $200,000 from ARB-Inkass. In addition to that money, Filippov happened to be in possession of 30,000 euros and three Vertu luxury mobile phones at the time. It must have made a pretty picture to see all of these “souvenirs,” along with keys to his Interior Ministry office, strewn across the hood of the major’s Mercedes-Benz Gelandewagen when he was arrested.
Also, consider Major Musa Musayev. Recently, the company Intway publicly accused Musayev of extorting $200,000. So what happened? Musayev went on vacation, and the “K” commandos arrived at Intway offices with a search warrant to conduct a surprise raid.
All of these criminals in uniform go unpunished. They drive their Gelandewagens and use their platinum Vertu mobile phones while their victims contract hepatitis, suffer strokes or die in “accidental falls.”
I contend that Natalya Ikonnikova’s mother would not have died were it not for the harassment by law enforcement officers. And who knows whether Lyudmila Chichvarkina would have died had her son just paid off the extortionists in uniform? I contend that some “K” officers are killers, and they kill for the sake of money.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Taking flight
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Mariinsky Theater’s top-flight dancers Diana Vishneva, Ulyana Lopatkina, Viktoria Tereshkina and Leonid Sarafanov will spend the next ten days performing alongside foreign celebrities, dancing both cutting-edge new works and venerable classics.
Mathieu Ganio (Opera de Paris), Alina Cojocaru (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Polina Semionova (Staatsballett Berlin), Daniil Simkin and David Hallberg (American Ballet Theater) will visit St. Petersburg to attend the 10th International Mariinsky Ballet Festival, which runs from April 15 through April 25.
A brainchild of the Mariinsky Theater’s artistic director Valery Gergiev, the festival opens with a premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s ballet “Anna Karenina,” set to music by Rodion Shchedrin, with Mariinsky prima ballerina Diana Vishneva in the lead role.
The Mariinsky Ballet Festival aims first and foremost “to agitate souls,” as Gergiev himself puts it. It is designed to give Russian audiences the opportunity to see Western stars, as well as showcasing the best of the theater’s own talent.
The Mariinsky has another annual festival — “Stars of the White Nights,” which Gergiev established in 1993 — but the choreographic element has gradually been overwhelmed by operatic and symphonic works in its programs.
One of the ballet festival’s highlights will be the Evening of Young Choreographers on April 23, when three young contemporary choreographers — Edwaard Liang, Emil Faski and Yury Smekalov — will present their one-act ballets, created specially for the Mariinsky Ballet Company’s leading soloists Yekaterina Kondaurova, Viktoria Tereshkina and Leonid Sarafanov.
Liang devised his ballet, “The Flight of Angels,” set to the music of John Tavener and Marin Marais, for Olesya Novikova and Leonid Sarafanov.
“I want to take the audience on a journey from the evolution of what we see in the beginning to where this entity is going,” the choreographer said of “The Flight of Angels.”
“I have my own story and a very clear concept, but I want to make sure that audience members are able to find their own way through the piece. The most important thing is that they will see the evolution of a spirit. That is why the piece is called ‘The Flight of Angels.’”
Liang said that in his ballet, the evolution of spirit is about the hero’s mind; it is about shedding his physical body and perhaps moving somewhere else. “I really hope that the audience will find their own stories within it,” the ballet master said.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, and raised in California, Liang took his first dance class at the age of five. In 1993, upon graduating from the American School of Ballet, the dancer joined the New York City Ballet. His dancing career got off to a flying start — in the same year, Liang won prizes at the internationally renowned Prix de Lausanne and Mae L. Wien ballet competitions.
In 2008, the choreographer was nominated for the prestigious Golden Mask national theater award for his ballet “Whispers in the Dark,” which he staged for Igor Zelensky’s company in Novosibirsk.
In 2006, Liang was named one of the “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine for choreography. He was also the winner of the 2006 National Choreographic Competition. The aspiring choreographer currently spends his time between Russia, Singapore, New York and London.
“The Mariinsky Theater is an amazing place to work,” said Liang. “The dancers are incredible. With so much happening at the theater, staging a ballet here is very challenging but anything that is worth something special is always going to be challenging.”
Before coming to St. Petersburg, Liang tried to keep an open mind. The choreographer wanted to arrive at the celebrated theater without a preconceived notion of what it was like.
“I am aware of the fact that there may be two handfuls of people who have ever choreographed for the Mariinsky, so to be a part of this I wanted to do the best job I could,” Liang said. “It was a big surprise for me to be able to do a ballet for Leonid and Olesya so quickly. We choreographed the whole 25-minute-ballet in less than 11 days. Working two hours a day for 11 days, that is surprising! Leonid learnt his five solos in something like four days. It is remarkable.”
In Liang’s opinion, as a technician, Sarafanov is an absolute master. “He is digital. He can do anything,” the choreographer said. “But what makes him the dancer that he is, is that he is not just a technician. Most dancers are either technicians or they are strong artistically. He is a rare interesting blend of being technical and expressive. He’s a true artist, thoughtful and creative, and when he is on stage he is very ‘moment to moment.’ He is alive and unpredictable.”
Another highlight of the festival will be a performance featuring stars of the world’s greatest ballet companies together with Mariinsky Theater partners in a program of duets from the Mariinsky Theater’s “gold reserves.”
“Romeo and Juliet” with choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky on April 17 will star Polina Semionova of the Staatsballett Berlin, alongside the Mariinsky’s Vladimir Shklyarov, while in “La Bayadere” on April 18, the lead roles will be danced by Mariinsky dancers Viktoria Tereshkina and Igor Zelensky, along with Maria Alexandrova of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater.
On the evening of April 19, the title role in George Balanchine’s “Apollo” will be performed by Mathieu Ganio of Opera de Paris, and on April 20, Natalia Osipova of the Bolshoi Theater will perform in “Giselle” together with the Mariinsky’s Leonid Sarafanov.
“Swan Lake” on April 21 will feature a duo of Bolshoi Theater soloists, Svetlana Zakharova and Andrei Uvarov, and on April 24, Alina Somova of the Mariinsky Theater will partner David Hallberg of the American Ballet Theater in “Sleeping Beauty.”
The Mariinsky Ballet Festival runs from April 15 through April 25 at the Mariinsky Theater, Teatralnaya Pl. 1. Tel: 326 4141. M: Sadovaya. www.mariinsky.ru
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: China secretly banned concerts by Bob Dylan, perhaps due to the U.S. singer/songwriter’s past as a counterculture icon and spokesman for a generation, The Guardian reported this week.
Dylan called off his Asia tour because of the cancellation of his two China concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, the newspaper said. He had also been due to perform in Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong.
The Guardian quoted Jeffrey Wu of the Taiwan-based promoters Brokers Brothers Herald, who told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post that the Chinese culture ministry had become wary of Western pop artists after Bjork’s performance in Shanghai two years ago.
Performing there in early 2008, the Icelandic singer shouted “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of her song “Declare Independence.” The incident took place at a time when China was trying to project a positive image for the country and hush down its presence and repressions in Tibet in anticipation of the Beijing Olympic Games, and it must have been pretty annoyed by Bjork’s behavior.
“What Bjork did definitely made life very difficult for other performers. They are very wary of what will be said by performers on stage now,” Wu was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying.
A year later, Oasis were blacklisted in China when the Chinese authorities discovered that Noel Gallagher had participated in a Tibet freedom concert a full 12 years earlier.
“Oasis were informed […] by their Chinese promoters, (Emma Entertainment/Ticketmaster China) that representatives from the Chinese government have revoked the performance licenses already issued to the band and ordered their shows in both Beijing and Shanghai to be immediately cancelled,” Oasis said in a statement at the time.
“The government has instructed ticket agencies to stop selling tickets and to reimburse the thousands of fans who have already purchased tickets for these inaugural Oasis shows in the People’s Republic of China.
“According to the show’s promoters, officials within the Chinese Ministry of Culture only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher appeared at a Free Tibet Benefit Concert on Randall’s Island in New York in 1997, and have now deemed that the band are consequently unsuitable to perform for their fans in the Chinese Republic on 3rd and 5th of April, during its 60th anniversary year.”
Dylan’s official web site is tight-lipped about the whole Chinese affair. The most recent item published in the news section celebrates the singer’s 2001 album “Love and Theft” coming second in Newsweek’s Albums of the Decade.
In Russia, a number of smaller concerts by domestic acts have been cancelled for political reasons recently, but it has not extended to international rock stars. This country still has some way to go, it seems.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Queen and country
AUTHOR: By Veronica Smyly
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: One of the oldest clubs in Russia celebrated its 240th anniversary last month with a lavish celebration at the Cappella Concert Hall.
The prestigious St. Petersburg English Club was founded on March 1, 1770 by the Englishman John Gardener, a merchant in the imperial capital, according to Andrei Galenko, chairman of the club.
Gardener and his friends decided to organize a society “of about 14 or 15 persons” where men from all nations could congregate and enjoy conversation, in keeping with the tradition established in their native England.
“Two years later, there were about 200 members, a branch in St. Petersburg and another branch in Moscow,” said Galenko. The independent Moscow club was founded two years after the original.
Over the centuries, the English Club in St. Petersburg has had a colorful and spirited existence. During its first 30 years, it morphed from an association of merchants into an exclusive club for St. Petersburg’s high society. Many of the traditions begun back then remain evident in the club’s current incarnation.
One such tradition is the careful control of club membership. This is strictly by recommendation from an existing member and approval by the club’s board of long-standing members. The club also invites honorary members, such as the British Consul-General in St. Petersburg as the representative of the Queen of England in the city. Honorary membership is also given to outstanding public figures in the city such as Olympic figure skater Tamara Moskvina.
“This is not a big club because we trust each other; I trust them and they trust me, we support each other,” said Galenko.
“It is very difficult to get all of our members together in one place at our main events,” said Sergei Kirillov, executive director of the club. “The most suitable places house about 100, and it’s more personal. So we are not really interested in getting any bigger.”
After a brief closure at the turn of the 19th century, the club flourished, enjoying its heyday in the mid 19th century when its membership reached several hundred. In 1853 the club rewrote its rules and regulations, which still apply today — one being that members may leave the club, but, should they wish to return, they must pay the equivalent of two annual membership fees.
Galenko emphasized the club’s priority: “First, atmosphere; second, atmosphere; third, atmosphere,” he said. The atmosphere itself is created by the club’s closed nature, appreciation of fine dining, and its historically exclusive membership — Pushkin, Zhukovsky and Krylov all grace the past members list.
“Our history was interrupted in 1917 with the revolution,” Galenko explained. “But we decided to continue this tradition, [and the club was resurrected] in Moscow 14 years ago and in St. Petersburg 12 years ago.” Interestingly, the 18th- century order was reversed this time around, with the St. Petersburg club rising from the ashes two years after the capital’s club.
Today the English Club’s membership numbers about 70, and women are now welcome. Members are mostly Russians with business or cultural ties to England. Recently, a delegation from the English Club visited the Royal Travellers Club and Royal Automobile Club in London to study the historical traditions and modern activities of English clubs.
In keeping with the spirit of its old Latin slogan, Concordia Et Laetita (Concord and Joy), the club organizes a number of opulent events throughout the year, all rooted in tradition: The opening of the season in October, New Year in December, the club’s birthday in mid-March, and the closing of the season in July. Once a year, the club meets at the British Consulate, and an annual trip to England is also arranged.
“Every month we have some events, such as trips to the theater,” said Galenko.
The club also organizes some joint events with its sister club in Moscow.
“Our main problem is that we don’t have a house, a home, because our government appropriated it in 1917,” said Galenko. “Now it’s very expensive in St. Petersburg [to find a venue] for 70 to 100 people.”
Despite its interrupted history and the occasional diplomatic spat between Russia and the U.K., given the club’s extensive history, its exclusive members list and the fact that it remains so unique — no other country has ever had such a club dedicated to it — the English Club continues to thrive, and in another decade will be celebrating a quarter of a millennium since its founding.
TITLE: Italian job
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Russian-Italian couple that gave St. Petersburg the popular ice-cream lovers’ heaven, Cafe Venice on Stary Nevsky, opened a new caf? in February just a short walk from Ploshchad Vosstaniya.
Despite its fairly quiet location on Prospekt Bakunina, between Suvorovsky Prospekt and Stary Nevsky, the new Cafe Italia appears to have become an instant hit, no doubt due in no small way to the popularity of Cafe Venice. Half an hour before closing time on Saturday night, it was busy with parties of stylish young people and young families.
The interior of the brightly lit, glass fronted cafe to some extent resembles an indoor terrace — a red and white striped canopy hangs over part of the main room, whose walls and curtains are in cheerful shades of yellow and terracotta, real flowers and checked tablecloths adorn the tables, and the windowsill houses a small jungle of plants.
However, the design is definitely more authentic Italian than tourist trap. Several shiny Vespas on display add to the effect of having been transported to Italy. The part rustic, part hipster effect is completed by a hint of industrial chic in the form of sections of open brickwork and exposed metal pipes across the ceiling.
The non-smoking room, which resembles a motorbike showroom with racing bikes on display and jackets hung on its white walls, is less inviting but loses no points for lack of innovation, while a rather bare function room with excellent party potential is hidden downstairs.
The laid-back appearance and ambience of the cafe are obviously a big hit with the city’s young, cool crowd, though it is refreshingly glamour-free. Cafe Italia’s extremely reasonable prices and the lively, eclectic music are conducive to a young, vivacious clientele and atmosphere.
The inviting setting was accompanied by a warm welcome, despite the late hour of our arrival, from the wait staff, who offered us one of two comfortable raised tables near the door. In a country where staff rarely have qualms about asking guests to leave, the staff at Cafe Italia were refreshingly accommodating — far from pointing to the clock on the stroke of midnight, our waiter offered to bring us more drinks, and something of a lock-in appeared to be getting underway. (At present, the only alcoholic beverages served at Cafe Italia are a small range of beers, including both light and dark Krusovice priced at 240 rubles ($8) per half-liter, but the cafe plans to offer a wine list when it gets its license.)
Such positive first impressions created high expectations for the food, and the anticipation was only heightened by the seductive smell of baking pizzas and tomato sauces. The first course did not fail to disappoint.
Antipasti misti (190 rubles, $6.50)comprises a platter of several starters, and seemed like more than enough for two people. Despite having ordered one to share, we were brought one each — an unfortunate consequence of our well-meaning waiter switching to English when he overheard us talking among ourselves. The platters turned out to be nothing less than a taste sensation, with spectacular roasted red and yellow bell peppers that were sweet yet tangy with an almost marinated taste. A highly exotic ragout containing eggplant, onion, capers, raisins, olives and pine nuts was just as impressive, and two pieces of toasted focaccia bread topped respectively with cheese and Parma ham, and cheese and salami completed the Gargantuan platter.
The pizzas that arrived hot on the heels of the starters looked as though they would maintain the standard set, with their natural, attractive appearance and thin, crispy bases. As well as offering classic pizzas, Cafe Italia boasts its own house pizzas, of which the Valentino Rossi (350 rubles, $12) bore a suspicious resemblance to the vegetarian Capirossi (also 350 rubles), except for a few pieces of spicy meat added to the top of the former and an attractive artichoke heart adorning the center of the latter. Both were heavy on the eggplant, which appears to be a favorite with the chef. Sadly — particularly in light of the promising starters — both pizzas were disappointingly bland. The eggplant was undercooked, leaving it firm, crunchy and utterly lacking in flavor, as indeed were the tomato sauce and cheese.
A glass counter beside the till reveals a tempting array of gelato, along with some attractive Italian desserts that looked like they might go down very nicely with a coffee — which might, for the time being at least, be the better option until Cafe Italia’s pizza chef gets into his stride.
TITLE: New Mudslide Hits Slum as Rio Toll Rises to 147
AUTHOR: By Bradley Brooks
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIO DE JANEIRO — Beleaguered rescue workers struggled early Thursday to find survivors after another mudslide surged into a rain-sodden hillside shantytown, engulfing at least 40 homes in a huge cascade of mud.
The state Civil Defense department said the latest slide unleashed by heavy rains hit Rio’s neighboring city of Niteroi. There was no word on how many were missing, but it was feared dozens were buried under the debris.
Although rain eased off late Wednesday, Alves Souza, commander of the firefighters in the Niteroi rescue operations carried out under electric lights, said the work was moving slowly. The wet, steep terrain made it dangerous for anyone trapped in the wreckage and for those trying to pull victims out.
“We’ve managed to recover two bodies and the work is very intense, given the fact that the volume of material we have here is very large,” Souza told the Globo television network.
Record rainfall since Monday afternoon triggered deadly mudslides across Rio’s metropolitan area, causing at least 147 deaths. At least 60 people were missing, but that didn’t include the dozens likely buried under the latest slide that hit Niteroi.
On Wednesday, Rodrigo de Almeira had dug for 15 hours through mud and debris, and he looked like it. Auburn mud covered his head, his ripped shirt, his torn jeans and his rubber sandals.
When asked if he had been able to save anyone from a landslide in the Pleasure Hill slum where he lives, he silently shook his head.
“Right there at least 15 people I know died,” Almeira said, staring at a mound of mud and debris. Wood planks — remnants of the shacks engulfed by the surging earth — poked through the mud as 30 rescue workers gingerly dug at it with picks and shovels looking for survivors.
“We found a guy alive this morning, so we had hope,” said Almeira, 28. “He didn’t make it. We were told he died on his way to the hospital.”
Because of the continuing rains, steep hillsides and loose earth, officials said there had been few successful rescues. One man, Carlos Eduardo Silva dos Santos, 24, was pulled alive from under a concrete wall in western Rio. Firefighters said they had no count on how many people had been rescued.
Nearly all the deaths occurred in mudslides that smashed through slums, yet another reminder that life in one of the world’s most famous playgrounds is much different for the poor than it is for the rich.
Residents of the shantytowns often endure dangers such as the frequent shootouts between police and heavily armed drug gangs, and when heavy rain falls on slopes crowded with poorly built shacks, nature itself can deal out death.
Almeira and other slum residents say they have nowhere else to go if they want jobs in Rio’s richer areas.
“The government wants to forcefully remove the residents living in danger, and that is understandable,” said Leandro Ribeiro, another slum resident. “But where are we supposed to go? Some people have been living here for 30 years. This is their home.”
Mayor Eduardo Paes said he was taking a tougher stand on forced relocations. He announced that 1,500 families were going to be removed from their homes on Pleasure Hill and in Rocinha, one of Latin America’s largest slums.
“I don’t want to spend next summer sleepless, worrying if the rains are going to kill somebody,” he told reporters, without saying when the relocations would occur.
Rio was in chaos after the record rains this week. Trees and power lines were knocked down, enormous craters were carved in streets, wastewater flowed down to the city’s white sand beaches and it was nearly impossible to get anywhere in the city of 6 million people.
In Rocinha, officials said 41 centimeters of rain had fallen so far this month — three times the amount normally expected for all of April. Similar figures were seen across Rio’s metropolitan area.
The Rio state Civil Defense department said at least 11,000 people were forced from their homes. Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000 houses in the city.
Rio de Janeiro state Governor Sergio Cabral declared a three-day mourning period, and children were kept from schools Wednesday for a second straight day.
TITLE: Vatican Hits Out
At ‘Hate’ Campaign
AUTHOR: By Frances D’Emilio
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VATICAN CITY — The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic “hate” campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining “the motive for these attacks” on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.
“The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different” agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.
Herranz didn’t identify the lobbies but “defense of life” is Vatican shorthand for anti-abortion efforts.
Also arguing that Benedict’s promotion of conservative family models had provoked the so-called attacks was the Vatican’s dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano.
“By now, it’s a cultural contrast,” Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. “The pope embodies moral truths that aren’t accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church.”
Also rallying to Benedict’s side was Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who heads the Vatican City State’s governing apparatus.
The pope “has done all that he could have” against sex abuse by clergy of minors, Lajolo said on Vatican radio, decrying what he described as a campaign of “hatred against the Catholic church.”
Reverend Rebecca Voelkel, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based minister in the United Church of Christ who is faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, described the cardinals’ comments as “diversionary counterattacks” that are an affront both to the victims of clergy abuse and to gays and lesbians.
“It makes me heartsick,” she said.
Sex abuse allegations, as well as accusations of cover-ups by diocesan bishops and Vatican officials, have swept across Europe in recent weeks. Benedict has been criticized for not halting the actions of abusive priests when he was a Vatican cardinal and earlier while he was the archbishop of Munich in his native Germany.
The mainland European scandals — in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland — are erupting after decades of abuse cases in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other areas.
In Germany, nearly 2,700 people called the church’s sexual abuse hot line in the first three days it was operating, a Catholic church spokesman said Tuesday. A team of psychologists and other experts have spoken with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said.
TITLE: Official: U.S. Military Reviewing Iraq Video
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: WASHINGTON — US military lawyers are reviewing a video of an Apache helicopter attack in 2007 in Baghdad that killed two Reuters employees to verify if the footage is genuine, according to a defense official.
The review at U.S. Central Command came after the whistleblower website WikiLeaks posted graphic gun camera footage on Monday that it said showed the attack on a Baghdad street.
“Military attorneys are looking at it,” the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
There were no plans at the moment to reopen an investigation into the incident, another defense official said.
Pentagon officials earlier did not dispute the leaked video was authentic.
The video has gone viral, with a version on You Tube viewed 4.1 million times. The video has sparked an intense online debate over U.S. forces in Iraq and the actions of the troops who opened fire.
The review of the video came as the military released documents from earlier internal U.S. investigations that cleared the helicopter crews of any war crimes.
A probe by the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade concluded that the helicopter crews identified a threat to U.S. forces, established “hostile intent,” and followed procedures when seeking permission to fire.
The Apache helicopters were called in to provide support for U.S. ground troops who had come under fire in the area, it said.
The crew spotted a group of men about a block away from U.S. forces, and believed they were insurgents armed with AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades, the report said.
The crew acted “in accordance with the law of armed conflict and rules of engagement,” it said.
A separate investigation by the U.S. Army 2nd Brigade Combat team also backed the US troops, and suggested the Reuters news staff should have identified themselves as members of the media.
The report said “their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.”
A telephoto lens could have been mistaken for a rocket-propelled grenade, it said, and added that it was not unusual for insurgents to carry cameras.
Sections of both reports were blacked out, including one on “recommendations.”
The video footage shows an aerial view of a number of men on a Baghdad street including two later identified as Reuters employees Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.
At least two individuals in the video appear to be carrying weapons, but most are unarmed. The Apache pilots also appear to mistake a camera carried by one of the Reuters employees as a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or RPG.
At one point, the Apache pilots tell controllers they have spotted “five to six individuals with AK-47s” and ask for permission to “engage.”
The Apache pilots open fire with the helicopter’s cannon after which one says there are a “bunch of bodies lying there.”
“Look at those dead bastards,” one says. Another replies: “Nice.”
Shortly after the initial shooting, a van pulls up to pick up the dead and wounded and is fired upon by the Apaches. Two children in the van were injured and evacuated by US ground troops who arrived later on the scene.
TITLE: Protesters Defy Thailand’s State
Of Emergency
AUTHOR: By Denis Gray
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BANGKOK — Thailand’s beleaguered government shut down a satellite television station and web sites of anti-government demonstrators Thursday after declaring a state of emergency, while the activists vowed to retaliate by escalating their nearly monthlong protests.
The defiant “Red Shirts,” attempting to drive Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva from office and call new elections, planned another mass rally Friday despite the emergency order that empowers the military to move against large gatherings.
Abhisit canceled a trip to Hanoi on Thursday to attend a summit of Southeast Asian leaders as he groped for ways to resolve the crisis without use of armed force.
The confrontation is part of a long-running battle between the mostly poor and rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a 2006 military coup, and those who oppose him. Thaksin was accused of corruption and showing disrespect to the country’s revered monarch.