SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1572 (33), Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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TITLE: A 65-Year Wait For An Apartment And TV
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Mikhail Mogilnichenko, 85, does not like to wear his war decorations because he says it would look like he were showing off, even though he has every right to do so as a combat veteran.
A more practical — though belated — reward was finally bestowed on Mogilnichenko a few weeks ago. The veteran is now preparing to move into a new apartment provided by City Hall.
The apartment came as a surprise. Mogilnichenko said he had not expected the government to fulfill its promise.
“Many years have passed, and I have received a present I never thought of receiving,” Mogilnichenko said in an interview. “It’s very good for me. The apartment is nice and convenient, so I’m very glad and satisfied.”
Mogilnichenko is among thousands of World War II veterans who were promised housing by President Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. To qualify, the veterans had to have registered for a waiting list before March 1, 2005, when a new Housing Code went into effect.
Families of deceased veterans also were eligible for apartments, and Medvedev later promised that soldiers who missed the 2005 deadline would be covered as well, although some have been left out of the program.
The deadline for veterans to receive their apartments was May 1, just days before this weekend’s celebrations commemorating the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Mogilnichenko was put on the waiting list in 2000, when he moved in with his son’s family in Moscow from his home village, Vorontsovka, in the Voronezh region. The veteran has not seen his new apartment yet because a wartime leg wound makes it hard for him to walk. But he knows from his son that it is a two-room, 53-square-meter renovated apartment in a residential complex in northern Moscow.
The veteran said he would pay his first visit to the new apartment on Victory Day — May 9 — and move there together with his grandson by the end of the month.
City Hall has also awarded Mogilnichenko with a 65th anniversary medal and given him a new television set.
Mogilnichenko, who was sent to the frontline in 1943 at the age of 18, wept as he recalled his baptism of fire in the Battle of Kursk, a turning point of World War II and the last German strategic offensive on the Eastern Front.
“I was very scared when I first saw the Germans, I started trembling. I thought, ‘What can I do to them if they are so tall,’” he said, drying tears with a napkin.
Later, Mogilnichenko was part of the Soviet force that pursued the retreating Germans, and he served as a scout on the border of Belarus and Poland, gathering information about enemy forces.
In 1944, he received a severe leg wound in the battle of Koenigsberg in East Prussia.
“It was a penetrating bullet wound. The leg was broken here,” Mogilnichenko said, pointing to his left leg above the knee.
“I thought that I would not survive, the pain was terrible,” he said.
Mogilnichenko spent six months in the hospital and finished the war working in military logistics, eventually returning home to the Voronezh region.
Housing for Mogilnichenko and other veterans has cost the government 89.2 billion rubles ($2.9 billion), Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin said Wednesday. All 28,494 veterans put on the waiting list before the 2005 deadline have received apartments, Basargin said.
The ministry had also requested 20.6 billion rubles of the 70 billion rubles estimated to be required to provide new housing for veterans who were put on the waiting list after March 1, 2005, Basargin said in April.
The number of veterans not included in the 2005 list but eligible for new apartments currently amounts to 84,322 and may reach 140,000, Basargin said.
He promised that 90 percent of veterans who missed being included in the waiting list on time would receive apartments this year, and he said Wednesday that 5,437 of those had already received new housing.
City Hall said it had provided apartments for 1,019 veterans and families of those deceased.
This does not mean, however, that the government has provided new housing for all veterans of World War II. A veteran is eligible for a new apartment only if the living space per person in his or her current housing is 10 square meters or less.
Svetlana Kirsanova, 71, a survivor of the Siege of Leningrad, a status considered equal to a war veteran, is currently living in a 35-square-meter, one-room apartment in Moscow with her son and 7-year-old granddaughter.
Kirsanova was 2 years old when the siege started, and had to subsist on 125 grams of bread a day.
Kirsanova has been trying to get a new apartment for five years, but the City Hall’s housing policy department had refused to grant her request, saying space per person in her current housing exceeds the norm by almost 2 square meters.
Kirsanova said she had to live in the 9.6-square-meter kitchen, while her son and granddaughter occupied a 19-square-meter room.
“But what’s a 9-square-meter kitchen if there are also all the household appliances there?” she said.
A letter sent by Kirsanova to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was forwarded to the housing policy department, she said.
The Prosecutor General’s Office plans a nationwide check in the second half of 2010 to see if the housing for veterans has been provided, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said last week. Authorities in a number of regions were slow to provide veterans with new apartments, he said.
There were 677,898 surviving World War II veterans in Russia as of Jan. 1.
The St. Petersburg Times received a letter the week before last from Ivan Svishchev, 88, who fought in the defense forces of Leningrad.
Svishchev, who lives in the Penza region, said local authorities refused to provide him with new housing because the total space of the house he is currently sharing with his wife is 53.4 square meters.
The house has no running water and no central heating. The toilet is located in the yard.
Svishchev said he had complained to regional and Moscow officials and politicians, including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but received nothing except runarounds.
“The head of the local administration should think how an elderly person lives in winter without gas heating, with only a stove. It is necessary to buy firewood … and to save every slab in order not to die of severe frost,” Svishchev said.

TITLE: Death Toll in Siberian Blasts Reaches 32
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MEZHDURECHENSK — Rescuers pulled 20 more bodies from the rubble of Russia’s largest coal mine on Monday, but 58 miners were still missing deep underground as water flooded into the mine shafts.
The official death toll now stands at 32 following two explosions in the Siberian mine.
Many of the dead were rescue workers who had gone into the mine after the first of the weekend blasts. A second, more powerful blast then destroyed the main air shaft, which had a diameter of five meters, and a five-story building over the mine. Black soot covered the area.
High levels of methane gas remaining in the mine had raised fears of further explosions and prevented rescue workers from resuming their search until early Monday.
Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu, who heads the rescue operation, said later Monday that methane levels were down to acceptable levels, but another danger is now posed by rising water levels in the deep mine. Rescuers have a maximum of 48 hours to reach 13 people presumed to be in two locations that are being flooded, he told reporters.
The first blast, believed to have been caused by methane, hit the Raspadskaya mine just before midnight Saturday. There were 359 workers below ground at the time, and the majority managed to get out. A total of 69 people were hospitalized Monday.
The second explosion occurred about 3 1/2 hours later, after rescuers had entered the mine. The bodies of 12 miners and rescue workers were recovered on Sunday, the Emergency Ministry said. A further 20 bodies — all rescue workers but one — were found on Monday.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the prosecutor general to determine what caused the accident at Raspadskaya. Speaking at a government meeting, Medvedev described the mine as one of the best-equipped in the country.
The mine is one of several in Mezhdurechensk, a city of about 100,000 people in the coal-mining Kemerovo region of west Siberia.
More than 500 emergency workers from around the country were brought to Mezhdurechensk to help restore ventilation to the mine and rebuild mine shafts so the search for those missing could resume.
The first few brigades of rescue workers went down into the mine early Monday. By afternoon, 14 brigades of five to six rescuers each were working in the mine shafts.
The Raspadskaya mine is 500 meters deep and has 370 kilometers of underground tunnels. It has produced about 8 million tons (8.8 million short tons) of coal a year, according to the company’s web site.
There was no information on what set off the blast. Mine explosions and other industrial accidents are common in Russia and other former Soviet republics. They often are blamed on inadequate implementation of safety precautions by companies or by workers themselves.
The deadliest explosion in Russia’s coal mines in decades occurred in March 2007, when 110 miners were killed in Kemerovo.
There have been a number of deadly coal mining accidents around the world in recent months.
The United States was hit with its worst coal mining disaster in 40 years when 29 miners died April 5 in an explosion at a West Virginia mine.
In China, where the mining industry is the world’s deadliest, at least 33 miners died after a mine flooded on March 28. The flood had trapped 153 miners, but most were eventually rescued.

TITLE: Eco Hotel Project Launched in St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Ecology Union is calling on the city’s hotels to join the Eco Hotel project in order to promote environmental protection and attract new clients. 
The union, which has developed an ecological certification system for Russian hotels, said it expects at least three hotels to obtain eco status in St. Petersburg by the end of the year.
“In Europe the number of so-called ‘green’ hotels — hotels meeting special ecological standards — is increasing every year. In Russia, however, this field has not yet been developed,” Tatyana Baklanova, general director of BtG Event Solutions, the project’s official partner, said at a recent seminar on eco hotels in St. Petersburg.
“The status of eco hotel can be awarded to those who save electricity, heating and water; who sort their trash and encourage their guests to help protect the environment,” said Maria Vysotskaya, head of the eco hotel project at the St. Petersburg Ecology Union.
Vysotskaya said that in different countries, eco hotels have differing standards and requirements, depending on local nature conditions.
“For instance, in some countries hotels use solar or wind power to help protect the environment, but this is not possible in St. Petersburg, where we have very few sunny days and no wind power stations,” Vysotskaya said.
“So each country usually develops its own certification system for eco hotels. We have also devised our own certification system, Listok zhizni (Life Leaf),” she said. 
The ecological Life Leaf label is included in the Global Eco Labels Network (GEN), and can therefore be trusted by both Russian and foreign guests, Vysotskaya said.
Vysotskaya said that due to the lack of alternative energy sources in Russia, the eco certification system is concentrated mainly on waste disposal issues.
To qualify for eco status, Russian hotels will have to reduce their use of disposable plates, glasses and other items, and sort their waste into categories including paper, plastic, broken glass, food fat and food waste so that it can be recycled.
Hotels seeking eco certification will also have to offer energy and water saving technologies, such as adjustable lighting and water-saving bathroom equipment. 
In addition, Listok Zhizni has introduced requirements concerning the construction materials used to build the hotel.
Another condition for obtaining certification is the use of cleaning agents that contain fewer toxic elements.
Vysotskaya said the union’s experts are prepared to visit any hotel and check its eligibility for eco certification. The certification procedure costs from 100,000 to 150,000 rubles ($3,275 to $4,915).
Vysotskaya said that between three and five hotels in St. Petersburg are ready to apply for the project.
Ksenia Andreyeva, marketing manager of Reval Hotel Sonya, said the hotel was interested in checking its eligibility for getting ecological certification.
“It’s important for us, because eco status would not only prove our intention to take care of the hotel’s clients and personnel and of the environment; we also understand that this label could positively influence the hotel’s image and guarantee its competitiveness on the market,” she said.
Andreyeva said that Reval Hotel Sonya had already introduced a number of measures aimed at helping to protect the environment. The hotel asks its clients not to waste water, and to turn off the light when leaving the room.
“For instance, recommendations for how much light is necessary in the morning or in the evening are written on the electricity switches. There are also signs indicating when the room has 100 percent, 50 percent or less light,” she said.
The hotel asks guests to print out only the most necessary documents in order to save trees.
Metamorphosis, the hotel’s restaurant, offers a menu that includes vegetarian dishes, lactose- and gluten-free meals, and Russian dishes that contain only locally produced products.
Andreyeva said the Building Management System (BMS) that the hotel operates allows it to regulate electricity and heating consumption. If a room is not occupied, the hotel maintains a maximum temperature of 18 degrees Celsius to save on unnecessary heating. Just before the guest’s arrival, staff turn up the temperature in the room.
Electricity in the room can only be turned on with a guest card, and to prevent the pollution of the Baltic Sea, the hotel uses non-phosphate cleaning products.
Andreyeva said the Reval Hotel is interested in getting ecological certification, especially since all of the chain’s hotels located in the Baltic states already have eco status. 
Baklanova said that the eco hotel status may not only attract additional clients who care about environmental safety, but also help hotels to reduce their expenses.
Sergei Lobanov, head of the city’s information and tourism center, said the presence of eco hotels would attract more tourists to St. Petersburg and so the city administration considers the project to be important.
Eco hotels are already popular in Europe. In Sweden, there are more than 100 such hotels, Baklanova said while the construction of “green office buildings” — energy-saving office buildings — is on the rise in Europe and the U.S.
The most “ecological” hotel in the world, the four-star Crown Plaza Copenhagen Towers, was built in the Danish capital in November 2009. Its 85-meter facade is equipped with the biggest solar batteries in Europe, and its system of cooling and heating water through the earth decreases energy consumption in the hotel by almost 90 percent.
From April 19, the hotel has offered its guests the chance to earn their dinner in a novel way — by pedaling an exercise bike connected to a power generator.  Those who generate 10 watts in an hour are offered a dinner at the hotel’s expense.

TITLE: Chechen President Says He Doesn’t Own a Car
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov owns no cars and lives in a cramped 36-square-meter apartment in Grozny, making him one of Russia’s poorest regional leaders — at least on paper.
According to his newly released income declaration, Kadyrov earned 4 million rubles ($131,000) last year, a slight increase from 3.4 million rubles in 2008, but the car that he declared in last year’s statement is gone.
Kadyrov said he lives in a three-room, 36-square-meter apartment in Grozny. A posh family estate in the Chechen village of Tsentoroi is owned by his mother, Vedomosti reported.
Kadyrov’s 2008 declaration listed a VAZ-21053 car among his personal assets. His spokesman, Alvi Karimov, could not say what happened to the car.
Kadyrov’s wife, Medina, owns a 209-square-meter apartment, according to the declaration. Of his seven children, two own a stake in his wife’s apartment, and the rest, all underage, have no property.
In 2006, two businessmen presented Kadyrov with a Ferrari and other luxury cars, including a Lexus and a Lamborgini, which were photographed parked by Kadyrov’s family house. Karimov had no comment on any of these vehicles.
Kadyrov is also a collector of racehorses, including an Irish-bred stallion named Tsentoroi. He has said the horses belong to Chechnya, not to him personally.
All senior officials are supposed to declare their income and some assets under an anti-corruption drive initiated by President Dmitry Medvedev last year. The deadline for regional leaders to file their declarations with the tax authorities and publish them on their regional web sites was Friday, April 30. Kadyrov did not say why he waited until this week to publish his declaration.

TITLE: Yabloko Calls For the Beating  Of Activist to Be Investigated
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Leaders of the Yabloko Democratic Party called for two police officers who allegedly beat a party activist Friday to be investigated and brought to justice.
The alleged incident took place after an anti-Stalin demonstration had been dispersed by the police. Denis Vasilyev said Monday that he was beaten after he refused to be photographed by the police, insisting that by law they had no right to do so. According to Vasilyev, two plainclothes officers who said they were from the criminal investigations department but refused to give their names, took him by the collar and pushed him headfirst into a wall. One of them then punched him in the chest before he was handcuffed.
Three other activists who had distributed anti-Stalin leaflets while dressed in convicts’ uniform near Kazan Cathedral in the city center were also detained and taken to police precinct number 27.
“The policemen were dragging a girl into their car without any cause, and I asked them what the reason for the detention was, so they let go of the girl and grabbed me instead,” Vasilyev said.
After being questioned and photographed, the activists were released without charges, according to Vasilyev. He said the duty officer had said that the activists had not committed any offense.
“In my experience, which is quite large, this is the first time that a duty policeman did his job,” Vasilyev said.
“His job is to investigate the situation and then write a report. That’s exactly what he did; he assessed the situation and determined there had been no offense.” 
Opposition activists in St. Petersburg are frequently charged with minor offences after being detained at rallies, ranging from using obscene language in public to crossing the road in the wrong place.
Vasilyev said he filed a complaint with the head of police precinct 27 as soon as he was released.
The police press officer was unavailable Monday.
On Saturday, Yabloko chair Sergei Mitrokhin said he would demand that the Prosecutor General and Investigation Committee carry out an investigation and open a criminal case regarding the officers’ alleged abuse of power and use of physical force against Vasilyev. 
Maxim Reznik, the chair of Yabloko’s St. Petersburg branch, said the party would file a lawsuit against the officers and lodge a complaint with the prosecutor’s office.
Organized by the youth section of Yabloko, the demonstration was directed against the use of images of Stalin, several of which appeared in the city last week during the buildup to Sunday’s Victory Day celebrations. The most high-profile image was on a bus that runs along Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street.
“We are outraged by the appearance of a portrait of that butcher on the eve of Victory Day,” Yabloko said in a statement.
“The image of a man who blighted millions of fates, led the army incompetently and exterminated people who had heroically defended Leningrad during the siege is inadmissible in any form.”

TITLE: ‘Healer’ Granted Early Parole
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Grigory Grabovoi, a self-proclaimed miracle worker who claimed to be able to resurrect children killed in the Beslan school attack, will be freed on parole Friday after serving half of an eight-year sentence for fraud.
A court of the Urals town of Berezniki ordered on Thursday the early release of Grabovoi, 46, for good behavior, Interfax reported.
Prosecutors offered no objections.
Grabovoi, the leader of a cult-like following that he attempted to shape into a political party to run for Russia’s president, was arrested in 2006.
Prosecutors accused him of defrauding people by taking their money in exchange for promising to resurrect their dead relatives. His clients included several mothers of the 180 children who perished in the Beslan hostage drama in 2004.
In July 2008, a Moscow district court convicted Grabovoi of 11 charges of fraud and handed him an 11-year sentence in prison.
The prison sentence was later reduced to eight years by a higher court.
Under the Criminal Code, a convict jailed for fraud can seek parole for good behavior after serving half of his or her sentence.

TITLE: Kremlin Links Iran With U.S. Trade Ban
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A senior Kremlin official said Russia expects the United States to lift bans on trade with four Russian companies if it backs new sanctions against Iran, Reuters reported.
The official said Russia wants “the swiftest removal” of U.S. sanctions against state arms exporter Rosoboronexport and three other enterprises that he indicated were under U.S. restrictions aimed at preventing weapons proliferation.
“We will demand it — seeing as they are counting on our position in working out [measures] against Iran with the international community,” the official told reporters Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Russia says none of its weapons sales violate international law or nonproliferation rules.

TITLE: Ukrainian Communists Unveil Stalin Statue
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: ZAPORIZHIA, Ukraine — Ukrainian communists last week unveiled a controversial monument to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, despite angry criticism from nationalists.
About 1,000 supporters of the Communist Party, including many elderly World War II veterans bedecked with medals, cheered as the monument was dedicated in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporozhia.
“Long live Stalin!” said one of the speakers at the festive, Soviet-style event, as the audience responded: “Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!”
The metal statue was placed outside the local headquarters of the Communist Party in Zaporozhia, a Russian-speaking city about 500 kilometers southeast of Kiev.
Standing more than two meters tall and depicting Stalin holding a pipe, it was commissioned by local communists and dedicated ahead of this weekend’s 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Stalin is a deeply controversial figure who is accused of causing the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens in his brutal Gulag prison camps and through the forced collectivization of agriculture.
Nationalists in Ukraine — which won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 — revile Stalin as the instigator of a 1930s famine which killed millions of Ukrainians.
But Stalin’s supporters praise his role in the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
“It was the USSR under Stalin’s leadership that liberated Europe,” Olexander Zubchevsky, the second secretary of the Zaporozhia regional branch of the Communist Party, said ahead of the dedication ceremony.
The Gazeta po-Kievsky newspaper reported that the Stalin statue had been sculpted in secret and that communists would keep a round-the-clock guard around the monument to prevent it from being defaced.
Svoboda (Freedom), a Ukrainian nationalist group, had sought to hold a protest against the dedication of the monument, calling Stalin “the executioner of the Ukrainian people.”
But Svoboda was denied permission by Zaporozhia authorities to hold its protest, the Interfax news agency reported.
The dedication comes three months after the election of Ukraine’s new pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych has downplayed the importance of the Stalin statue, saying it was a communist initiative not backed by the government.
“Since this territory belongs to the communists, the consent of the city council was not needed,” Yanukovych said last week in comments carried by the presidential press service.
Yanukovych said residents of Zaporozhia should vote in a referendum on whether their city should be home to the statue.

TITLE: Medvedev Gives Poland Long-Sought Katyn Files
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday turned over scores of volumes from an investigation into the Katyn massacre to his Polish counterpart, a move underlining Moscow’s new willingness to repair long-troubled relations with Warsaw.
The World War II massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens by Soviet secret police has been an issue that soured relations between the countries for decades.
After decades of blaming the 1940 massacre on invading Nazi troops, the Soviet Union in 1990 acknowledged responsibility, part of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost initiatives. But officials refused to refer to it as a genocide attempt — a designation that Poland had sought because international law generally considers that genocide has no statute of limitations.
The Soviet Union began a criminal investigation the same year, but it was closed in 2004. The chief military prosecutor later said the case was closed because the killings were not found to be genocide.
The 67 volumes that Medvedev turned over to acting Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski are files from that investigation. Polish historians have agitated for access to the case files, and Medvedev indicated that there was information to come.
“Work on the criminal case, including the declassifying of material, will be continued by my order,” Medvedev said, RIA-Novosti reported.
Komorowski expressed gratitude.
“The Katyn crime, the Katyn lie, is a stumbling block between our countries. The truth about Katyn is an ordeal experienced jointly by both Poland and Russia. It may serve as a good basis for the further development of relations between our countries,” he said, Itar-Tass reported.
Katyn inadvertently drew world attention a month ago when Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 other Poles died in a plane crash in Russia while coming to attend a Katyn commemoration.
The plane crashed on April 10 as it was coming in for a landing in Smolensk in heavy fog. Preliminary investigation details appear to point at pilot error, but it remains unclear why the plane attempted to land in such poor conditions.
Medvedev told Komorowski on Saturday that final investigation results would be made public.
On Sunday, hundreds of people rallied in Warsaw to express their discontent over the pace of the Russian-led investigation into the crash.
Meanwhile, Kaczynski’s twin brother, Jaroslaw, said Sunday that he hoped that the plane crash would help bring about a historic change in relations between Poland and Russia.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is now running to succeed his brother as president, issued a video addressed to Russians expressing words of warmth for the powerful neighbor.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Russian friends,” Kaczynski said, beginning his three-minute message. “We thank you for every tear, for every lit candle, for every moving word.
“There are moments in history that can change everything, that can change the course of history. I hope — and this hope is shared by millions of Poles, among them those who supported Lech Kaczynski — that such a moment is coming.”
The clip, which has Russian subtitles, was presented at a news conference in Warsaw by members of Kaczynski’s nationalist and conservative Law and Justice party and was posted on YouTube.

TITLE: Military Says Pirates Have Been Freed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The pirates seized by a Russian warship off the coast of Somalia have been released because of “imperfections” in international law, the Defense Ministry said Friday, a claim that sparked skepticism — and even suspicion that the pirates might have been killed.
Authorities initially said the pirates would be brought to Russia to face criminal charges for hijacking a Russian oil tanker. But Defense Ministry spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said Friday that the pirates had been released.
Kuznetsov declined to elaborate on the purported legal flaws that prompted the release, and it was unclear how the seizure of the tanker might be legally different fr om last year’s purported hijacking of the Russian-crewed freighter Arctic Sea.
That vessel supposedly was seized by pirates in the Baltic Sea off Sweden and went missing for several days before a Russian warship tracked it down off West Africa. The eight suspected pirates were flown to Moscow to face eventual trial.
The Law of the Seas Convention, to which Russia is a signatory, says the courts of a country that seizes a pirated vessel on the high seas have the right to decide what penalties will be imposed.
But what to do with pirates has become a murky problem. Some countries are wary of hauling in pirates for trial for fear of being saddled with them after they serve prison terms, and some propose that pirates be taken to Kenya for trial.
Kuznetsov appeared to echo those concerns when asked why the pirates who seized the tanker were released.
“Why should we feed some pirates?” he asked. He did not give specifics of the pirates’ release, but Itar-Tass quoted a ministry source as saying they were “sent home,” unarmed and without navigational devices, in the small boats they had used to approach the tanker.
Their home, presumably, was Somalia, a chaotic and lawless country where pirates are almost certain to avoid any formal prosecution.
Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the online Marine Bulletin, said the release strained credulity and instead sparked suspicion that the pirates had all been killed.
“There is no more stupid version than the one that has been proposed to us — that there was no sense in dealing with the pirates and that in Russia there are no suitable laws for convicting them,” he wrote.
“If the pirates really were let go, it should have been done in the presence of journalists. If the pirates were killed, a heroic version would have to be thought up,” Voitenko said.
The pirates boarded the tanker Moscow University on Wednesday. They were arrested Thursday after special forces from a Russian warship stormed the tanker. A gunbattle ensued in which one pirate was killed; 10 others were arrested.
The warship opened with warning fire from large-caliber machine guns and a 30mm artillery complex, the Defense Ministry said. Special forces troops then rappelled down to the tanker from a helicopter, said Rear Admiral Jan Thornqvist, the European Union Naval Force commander.
The tanker’s 23 crew members, who had taken refuge in a safe room, were not injured.
Suspected pirates from other cases are in custody and awaiting trial in France, the Netherlands and the United States.

TITLE: State Duma Blocks Anti-Adoption Move
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s parliament on Friday defeated a motion that would have prevented Americans from adopting Russian children.
The motion was put forward in reaction to the case of Artyom Savelyev, an 8-year-old Russian boy sent back to Moscow alone last month by his adoptive mother in Tennessee. The mother claimed the boy was violent and that the orphanage had lied about his condition. Russian physicians said they found no mental issues with the boy.
Savelyev’s return led to calls for more control over foreign adoptions and a freeze on all adoptions to Americans until the United States signed a bilateral agreement allowing Russia to better monitor and control adoptions.
A motion to freeze all adoptions to the U.S. pending the signing of such an agreement fell 98 votes short Friday in the lower house of the State Duma.
After a month of conflicting signals, Education Minister Andrei Fursenko confirmed earlier this week that Russia had not suspended U.S. adoptions, which he said required legislation to be passed by parliament or a presidential act.
The dominant Kremlin-friendly party, United Russia, voted against Friday’s motion, saying it did not make sense given Americans’ willingness to discuss an agreement.
“If an agreement is not signed, we will be the first to submit a freeze bill to parliament,” deputy Natalya Karpova said.
Some 1,800 Russian children were adopted in the United States last year, according to the Russian Education and Science Ministry.
U.S. citizens have adopted nearly 50,000 Russian children since the early 1990s, the ministry’s Alina Levitskaya told the State Duma on Friday.

TITLE: Exiled Oil Boss Gutseriyev Makes a Return to Russia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Mikhail Gutseriyev, founder of the Russneft oil company, returned to Russia on Friday after living abroad in exile for more than two years to escape criminal charges, which have since been dropped, Reuters reported.
A spokesman for Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov said Gutseriyev had arrived back in his homeland and would meet Yevkurov after the extended Victory Day holiday weekend.
“He spoke by phone to the president, and they agreed to meet up after the holidays,” spokesman Khalid Tankiyev said.
The rehabilitation of Gutseriyev in the eyes of the authorities appears to be linked to the role the billionaire might play in calming tensions in the North Caucasus.
Yevkurov told Ekho Moskvy radio that he hoped Gutseriyev would be able to help Ingushetia.
“I hope we will find a common language with him and will help each other. … He is gifted by God as a manager and businessman. … I hope his abilities and these qualities will help attract some investment to the republic,” he said.
Ingushetia has recently seen an uprising of violence by militant Islamists fighting against Moscow-backed local authorities.
Gutseriyev fled in 2007 after being accused of tax fraud and seeing his son die under mysterious circumstances.
Investigators removed Gutseriyev from an international wanted list in November in a move many analysts interpreted as a precursor to his return. Last month, the criminal case against him was dropped.
A source close to Gutseriyev said the businessman’s long-term plans were to stay in Russia.
“It is a private visit. He has been away from his motherland for quite long and wants to see his son’s and parents’ graves,” the source said. “He plans to live and work in Russia.”
In January, ownership of Russneft reverted back to Gutseriyev.
The Washington-based Jamestown Foundation said late last month that Moscow wanted help from Gutseriyev to pacify the republic.
“One such method could be using Gutseriyev’s money and expertise to invest in and develop the region,” it said.

TITLE: Panel Says Russia Won in START Talks
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — A panel of arms experts critical of the U.S. administration has claimed that Russia bested the United States in a new treaty designed to reduce the two countries’ arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons.
Speaking at the Nixon Center, James Schlesinger, secretary of defense in the administrations of U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said the United States made substantial concessions to the Russians to seal the historic New START treaty signed by presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev last month.
He said he would support ratification only if the Senate — which could receive the document as early as Friday — would provide for new U.S. weapons not prohibited by the treaty.
Along those lines, Stephen Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control in President George W. Bush’s administration, said Wednesday that it was likely the treaty would be approved. But he said he hoped senators would “ask questions” first about Russian development of new weapons.
“The treaty obligates the U.S. to re- duce [its arsenal]. The Russians don’t have to do anything. They are there already,” Rademaker said, referring to the treaty’s lowered ceiling of 1,550 long-range nuclear warheads within seven years. “Every hard issue in the treaty is favorable to the Russians,” he said.
The agreement does not require cuts in short-range or tactical nuclear weapons, which are significant to Russia’s overall military posture, said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center. “While the treaty has addressed Russian concerns about U.S. missile defenses, there are no references in the treaty to major U.S. concerns about many thousands of Russian tactical weapons, particularly in Europe,” Simes said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has directed U.S. negotiators to begin talks on such cuts. The New START aims to reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads in each arsenal to 1,500 over seven years, a third less than the 2,200 currently permitted.

TITLE: Bomb Kills Two Near Base in Dagestan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MAKHACHKALA — A bomb exploded as a car was passing near a military base on Sunday, killing two people, and a soldier was killed in a separate blast in the same city where a military parade bombing exactly eight years ago killed scores.
The blasts in the Dagestani city of Kaspiisk took place on Victory Day, a holiday often chosen by insurgents to launch terrorist attacks, including the 2004 killing of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who died in a bomb blast while attending a military parade at a stadium.
One bomb went off near a checkpoint at the entrance to the military base, killing two people in the passing car, the Federal Security Service said. The explosion was initially thought to have been a car bombing carried out by two suicide bombers.
Regional police spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said a soldier was killed Sunday in Kaspiisk when a bomb exploded outside a house where soldiers live.
He said the soldier was a sapper who had been called to inspect a suspicious package on the street outside the house.
In Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, sappers were called to disable an explosive device found near the entrance to a city park, the Federal Security Service said.
Also Sunday, a small bomb exploded on a main street in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. Officials said there were no injuries.
Meanwhile, a powerful bomb tore through a crowd of commuters at a railway station in the Dagestani town of Derbent on Friday, killing a woman and wounding five other people, officials said.
The woman died in a hospital shortly after a bomb planted in a garbage bin exploded, regional transportation police spokesman Akhmed Magomayev said. He said a police officer was among the wounded.

TITLE: Beretta May Produce Arms at Kirov Plant
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Italian firearms maker Beretta agreed to consider opening a production unit in Russia, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to a government transcript released Thursday.
If the deal materializes, Beretta could supply the country’s special forces and police, Chemezov said in a meeting late Wednesday with Putin and Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh.
A foreign producer would find the Russian market largely pristine because the country’s own defense companies mainly supply the armed forces, experts believe.
Chemezov said talks were underway with Beretta about creating a joint venture on the premises of a floundering defense factory — named Molot, or Hammer — near Kirov. Owned by Chemezov’s state corporation, Molot makes hunting rifles, pellet pistols and a range of civilian goods, such as parts for oil and gas equipment.
At the meeting, Chemezov reported that the federal and local governments had made good on a promise to pay the factory’s workers their back salaries, worth 300 million rubles ($9.9 million), which he described as the “biggest wage arrears” in Russia. As a way to keep the jobs, Molot may house the joint venture “planned” by Beretta, “hopefully in the beginning of next year,” he said.
In addition to pistols for police and special forces, the venture would crank out hunting and competition guns for sale in Russia and the former Soviet republics, Chemezov said.
Stefano Quarena, a Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta spokesman, said he was unaware of the talks.
“We need to investigate,” he said by telephone from Gardone Val Trompia, Italy. “I need to check with the owners of the company.”
He did say Russia was a “strategic” market for the company where it set up a local distributor named Russian Eagle in 2008 to build a sales network and further study demand.
Boris Vesnin, a spokesman for Belykh, said the Kirov regional government was being informed about the talks but had no knowledge about the size of the planned investment.
A source familiar with the situation said contacts with the Italian company were at a very early stage and that neither side had named any financial estimates.
A spokesman for Russian Technologies declined further comment when contacted Thursday afternoon. A woman at Russian Eagle, who declined to identify herself when she answered the phone, said no one was available to speak about Beretta’s position on the Russian market.
Russian gun manufacturers have fallen behind the worldwide trend of developing firearms that cater to the needs of special operations and law enforcement agencies, such as having a larger magazine to confront gangs, said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, an independent defense industry think tank.
As a result, the country’s agencies have taken to importing foreign-made firearms, he said.
Based in a country with closer ties to Russia than some other Western states, Beretta may well invest in a Russian production facility if it wants to, Pukhov said. Chemezov, on the other hand, is a heavyweight lobbyist capable of securing enviable sales, he said.
The government in 2009 included Beretta-92 guns, along with some other foreign models, on the list of firearms that prosecutors and police investigators can wear for self-defense. The Interior Ministry, which received permission in 2007 to use foreign firearms, said in December that it had begun equipping its special units with Austria’s Glock 17 pistols.
Other authorized foreign manufacturers include the Czech Republic’s Ceska Zbrojovka, Austria’s Steyr Mannlicher Gmbh & Co KG and Germany’s Heckler & Koch.

TITLE: Yanukovych Turns Coy on Merger Offer
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ukraine said it would consider Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s proposal to unify the two countries’ state energy companies, which have clashed in recent years.
Any unification of Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukrainy must be mutually beneficial, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told reporters in Kiev on Wednesday.
Putin offered to merge Gazprom with Naftogaz at an April 30 meeting with Azarov. Ukraine moves about 80 percent of Russia’s Europe-bound gas exports via the Soviet-era transportation network. Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas company, cut supplies to Ukraine twice in the last four years because of pricing disputes amid strained political ties, reducing flows to Europe.
“This issue has not been discussed before, it was spontaneous,” Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych said Wednesday in a statement on his web site. “Ukraine will give an answer when we take into consideration everything from the point of view of our national interests.”
The European Union, Russia’s main gas consumer, should be involved in any Ukrainian merger talks, Yanukovych said.
But the European Union’s energy chief said Thursday that the bloc would play no part in the proposal, because the decision is up to Moscow and Kiev.
“It’s an offer and proposal from Mr. Putin [and] the decision has to be made between Kiev and Moscow, and not in Brussels,” European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told reporters.
“The most important thing for Ukrainian national interests is that its gas transportation system is reliable,” said Yanukovych. Ukraine can upgrade its pipelines to pump as much as 200 billion cubic meters a year within five years, up from 120 billion cubic meters now, he added.

TITLE: Court Rules Against Transneft Over Charity Funds
AUTHOR: By Irina Malkova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Transneft minority shareholder Alexei Navalny has won a court ruling forcing the police to conduct a check into the beneficiaries of the state-owned oil pipeline operator’s billions of rubles in charity donations.
Navalny, a lawyer and activist shareholder, has been trying for two years to find out who receives Transneft’s enormous contributions to charity. From 2005 to 2008, the company donated nearly 15 billion rubles ($494 million), but it did not disclose the recipients.
His first success was a decision Tuesday from Moscow’s Tagansky District Court, which ruled that the police did not conduct a check into Transneft, despite Navalny’s complaint, and that police investigator Ilya Samotayev had been “illegally inactive.”
Navalny did not go straight to the police. In 2008, he filed lawsuits against Transneft in the Moscow arbitration courts, which he lost. The company was able to prove that it is not required to disclose the recipients of its donations. Navalny then asked the Interior Ministry to conduct a check.

TITLE: Duma Gets Bill to Curb Circular Ownership
AUTHOR: By Filipp Sterkin, Alyona Chechel and Vera Kholmogorova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — State Duma deputies have introduced a bill that would fight circular ownership structures by depriving a company’s subsidiaries of voting rights and dividends from owning shares in the parent firm, although experts said the proposals went too far.
The amendments limiting the use of cross-holdings were submitted by four Duma committee chairmen from United Russia. When subsidiaries buy the parent company’s shares, managers are able to control the firm to shareholders’ detriment and the company becomes less transparent, the deputies wrote in explanatory notes to the bill. There are also risks of conflicts of interests, Viktor Pleskachevsky, a co-author of the bill and chairman of the Property Committee, told Interfax.
The other co-sponsors are Financial Markets Committee chairman Vladislav Reznik, Constitution and State Affairs Committee chairman Vladimir Pligin and Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship Committee chairman Yevgeny Fyodorov.
The amendments would include all firms in a company’s consolidated results to international financial reporting standards or its combined results to Russian financial reporting standards. The changes do not ban a subsidiary from holding shares in its parent company, but the owner would not have voting rights or be able to receive dividends with the shares.
The bill would also prevent subsidiaries from obtaining “financial instruments … recognizing the rights to shares,” and it would require those already purchased to be sold within 180 days of the bill becoming law.
While cross-ownership can allow management to control a company to the detriment of shareholders, the proposed bill is too radical, said Anton Sitnikov, a partner at Goltsblat BLP. The market should be able to decide whether to invest in a nontransparent company, agreed Grigory Chernyshov, a partner at Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners.
A company’s own shares are typically needed for mergers and acquisitions, said an official at a company that uses a cross-ownership scheme.
Chernyshov said direct subsidiaries should be banned from voting with a parent company’s shares, which would settle the problem of quasi-treasury shares. In court, it is difficult for minorities to prove that the de facto owner of such shares is the parent company, which is not allowed to vote with treasury shares, he said.
Cross holding ownership reached its peak in 1995 and 1996, although it is rarely used now, said Andrei Dobrynin, a partner at New Russia Growth Capital Advisers.
“Sometimes quasi-treasury shares appear during a reorganization, though the stakes are typically insignificant,” Chernyshov said.
An official in the White House said the government had not yet considered the proposal.
“The conflict between principals and agents needs to be fought differently, not with such localized measures,” said Ivan Oskolkov, director of the Economic Development Ministry’s corporate governance department. “Shareholders need to be stimulated to reach agreement on the management of a company and to motivate managers correctly, not introduce another set of bans.”

TITLE: Energia Set to Rescue Bankrupt Sea Launch Venture
AUTHOR: By Alexei Nikolsky and Ivan Vasilyev
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Space corporation Energia has received preliminary approval from a U.S. court to pay the operating costs of bankrupt consortium Sea Launch, possibly with the intention of purchasing the company.
The specially created Energia subsidiary Energia Overseas Limited, or EOL, will help Sea Launch out of bankruptcy. Sea Launch, which launches satellites from an offshore platform, filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on June 22, 2009.
Energia said Wednesday that on April 27 the court gave preliminary approval to an agreement under which EOL would provide $30 million in additional financing for Sea Launch’s operations. Of the sum, $19 million will replace a credit the consortium was expected to get from Space Launch Service and the Heinlein Prize Trust, created after the death of science fiction writer Robert Heinlein.
An Energia spokesperson declined to comment on the source of the funds.
Sea Launch was created in 1995, with Boeing taking 40 percent, Energia taking 25 percent, Norway’s Aker ASA taking 20 percent and Ukraine’s SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash holding the remaining 15 percent. From a Norwegian-designed platform built in Vyborg, Sea Launch launched satellites on Yuzhnoye-developed, Yuzhmash-built Zenit-3SL rockets, which used a booster from Energia and Russian engines.
The offshore platform and control vessel are based in California, with launches conducted near the equator in the Pacific Ocean.
Since 1999, Sea Launch has fired off 33 rockets, of which 30 launches were successful. The company’s overall debt when it filed for bankruptcy was estimated at $1 billion, with assets of $100 million to $500 million. The cost per launch is more than $80 million.
Energia needs Sea Launch, since the Russian company is developing the booster for the Zenit, and the commercial success of the rocket and booster are linked to the future of the Sea Launch project, said Andrei Ionin, a correspondent member of the Russian Cosmonautics Academy.
The market for commercial space launches has been left with just three real players — Arianespace, International Launch Services, or ILS, and Sea Launch — and it is impossible to forecast how orders will be divided among them, he said.
The bankruptcy of Sea Launch could be a repeat of what happened to the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in 2007, said an entrepreneur close to the management of the Federal Space Agency.
Lockheed Martin — Khrunichev’s partner in the joint venture ILS, which conducted commercial launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome — sold its stake to a firm called Space Transport. To retain the right to launch Proton and Angara rockets on the international market, which belonged to ILS, Khrunichev had to buy out Space Transport’s stake for about $200 million in 2008, using a loan from Sberbank.
Unlike Lockheed, Boeing is likely to leave the business through bankruptcy rather than selling its stake, the businessman suggested.
It was not by chance that Energia chief Vitaly Lapota said there was a plan to save Sea Launch without specifying how, a second manager in the aerospace industry said. They will have to seek state assistance — a loan for hundreds of millions of dollars from a state bank — to hang on to Sea Launch’s rights to launch Zenit rockets.
Spokespeople for Energia and the Federal Space Agency declined to comment on that possibility.
A spokesperson for Boeing said only that it and other partners supported Sea Launch’s efforts to study various restructuring methods in accordance with the bankruptcy proceedings.
Ionin said ILS and Sea Launch were started in the late 1990s in expectations of a growing market to launch communications satellites. But those hopes were unfounded as land-based technologies topped satellites, which explains why the U.S. companies are looking to leave the joint ventures.
In 2009, a total of 78 rockets were launched, of which 74 were successful. Russia conducted 32 launches, including 13 Soyuz rockets of all types, 10 Protons and four Ukrainian-Russian Zenit-3SL/SLB rockets, one of which was launched by Sea Launch.
Energia is 38.22 percent owned by the Federal Property Management Service, Energia subsidiary Razvitiye (17.32 percent), ZAO Lider (6.72 percent), DWS Investments (6.11 percent) and a nominee shareholder (30 percent).

TITLE: National Nanotech Network Planned
AUTHOR: By Maxim Tovkailo, Anastasia Yermakova and Valery Kodachigov
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The largest state universities and research centers will be integrated into a countrywide nanotechnology network, whose members will receive access to information about one another’s research developments and facilities.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed an order in late April creating the National Nanotechnology Network, which was published Wednesday on the government’s web site.
An Education and Science Ministry official said the network was created as part of the federal targeted program on developing the nano-industry from 2008 to 2010. Fifty research centers (such as the Kurchatov Institute) and universities (including Moscow State University and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology) that the state already provides with equipment needed for nano-research will automatically become members of the network, known by its Russian acronym NNS.
Once the Education and Science Ministry develops criteria for NNS participants, any qualifying organization will be able to join, the source told Vedomosti.
The ministry official stressed that the network’s creation would not reduce the importance of Rusnano. The state corporation works on commercializing ideas, whereas the NNS has the much broader task of uniting all participants in the innovation process, from scientists to entrepreneurs.
The NNS is being created to form a competitive research sector in nanotechnology and an effective system to commercialize that know-how, the government’s order says. The network’s goal is to boost the volume of nano-production and create an entry point for Russian companies onto the global market.
The domestic market for nanotechnology was 19.2 billion rubles ($637 million) in 2009, a figure that should reach 55 billion rubles by 2015, the ministry official said.
NNS members will work in nine different spheres: electronics, engineering, energy, space, biotechnology, security systems, high-purity substances, composite nanomaterials and construction nanomaterials. The ministry official said the members would receive access to one another’s scientific results and information on their technological facilities.
The network is intended to coordinate the work of the largest participants in the innovative process so that they are not duplicating research or purchases of expensive equipment, the ministry source said, adding that NNS participants would be able to work on one another’s equipment.
Information will be collected about developments’ commercialization and demand for them, and universities will be able to obtain information on cutting-edge scientific programs, a source in the White House said. NNS membership will be free, he said.
An official in the Economic Development Ministry said a structure like the NNS was needed. “The government is spending serious resources on science and nanotechnology, and it wants those expenses to be highly effective,” the source said.
In 2010, the state will spend 1.1 trillion rubles ($36.5 billion) on basic and applied science, higher education, related federal programs and high-tech medicinal help, Putin said. From 2010 to 2015, the state plans to spend 62 billion rubles on nanotechnology through the federal budget, Rusnano, VEB and the Russian Venture Company.
The Kurchatov Institute, headed by Boris Kovalchuk, will coordinate scientific developments in the NNS, while Rusnano will analyze the market for nano-products and follow how products developed with budget financing are progressing. The Education and Science Ministry will oversee all of the NNS participants and approve new members.
A spokesperson for Rusnano said the system would codify its existing relationship with the Kurchatov Institute. A spokesperson for the institute declined comment.
Nikolai Kudryavtsev, rector of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, called the idea a good one. To date, the fastest way to share information is at research conferences, which means a delay of at least half a year, he said.
“Now we can learn about everything online,” Kudryavtsev said, adding that coordination on nanotechnology projects was very important because the research is complicated and expensive.
Marina Udachina, director of the Innovations, Infrastructure and Investments Institute, said network management could help optimize a project’s costs.
In the West, similar systems have been in place since the early 2000s, and not just for investors in nanotechnology, said David Yang, chairman of IT company ABBYY. Informational exchanges can help realize a business project, but they are not a panacea, he cautioned. “The most important thing is that the product is competitive,” he said.
NNS members should not be required to disclose all information, since that will frighten effective businesses that are afraid to reveal their competitive advantages, he said.

TITLE: Service Industries See Surge
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Service industries, from banks to supermarkets, grew in April at the fastest pace since July 2008, signaling a “strengthening recovery,” a survey showed on Thursday.
The Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 56.9 last month from 53.6 in March, VTB Capital said in a statement. The index, based on a survey of about 300 purchasing managers, shows expansion with a reading above 50.
“A further sharp increase in new business pushed the business activity index to a 20-month high” and employment expanded for the first time since September 2008, Svetlana Aslanova, an analyst at VTB Capital, said in the statement. This backs up “our bullish view on the economic recovery” for economic growth of 4.9 percent this year, she said.
Retail sales rose an annual 2.9 percent in March, the third consecutive month of growth, fueled by higher wages and slowing inflation, while unemployment was unchanged at 8.6 percent.

TITLE: Feting an Alliance of Spam and Powdered Eggs
AUTHOR: By Alexander Hill
TEXT: Many Russians are understandably proud of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War — the Soviet term for their war against Nazi Germany from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945. Few historians in the East or West would disagree that the bulk of the German army was destroyed on the Eastern Front during World War II. The eastward advance of the German army and its allies was halted initially at Moscow in December 1941, then again at Stalingrad in November 1942, almost two years before the Americans had committed significant ground forces against Germany. The surrender of German and Romanian forces at Stalingrad in February 1943 marked the destruction of a force of more than 250,000 men, more than 91,000 of whom surrendered to the Red Army. By the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Red Army was advancing rapidly westward through Ukraine and Belarus, recapturing Minsk in July 1944 and reaching the gates of Warsaw by August. Berlin finally fell to the Red Army on May 2, 1945, with German capitulation following shortly afterward — technically on May 8 according to the Western Allies, or May 9 for the Soviets, although sporadic fighting continued for a day or two afterward.
These victories were achieved at horrendous cost — more than 8.5 million Soviet soldiers were either killed in battle, died later of wounds or did not return from German captivity. Up to 27 million Soviet citizens died as a result of the war.
World War II was not, however, just a war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the victory in May 1945 was not just a Soviet victory but a victory for the Allied forces as well. From June 1940 to June 1941, Britain and the Commonwealth fought alone against Nazi Germany, even while material assistance increased from the United States as 1941 progressed.
Months before the United States joined the war against Nazi Germany in December 1941, it was supplying increasing quantities of weapons and war materials to Britain without charge under the provisions of the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 — assistance that was extended to the Soviet Union in November 1941. Little U.S. aid reached the Soviet Union before the end of 1941, but the limited war materials supplied by Britain in late 1941 and early 1942 reached the Soviet Union at a critical time before the Soviets were able to make up for horrendous losses during the summer and fall of 1941. British-supplied tanks were used by the Red Army in battle as early as November 1941.
By the summer of 1943, though the Western Allies hadn’t yet launched a second front against mainland Europe, they were still making an increasingly significant contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. By this point, U.S. aid was flowing in to the Soviet Union through the Persian Gulf. Dodge and GMC trucks, along with Spam and powdered eggs, were making a major contribution to keeping the Soviet advance moving.
More significant, increasing numbers of German aircraft were being drawn from the Eastern Front, not only by Western Allied air operations in the Mediterranean but also by the Western Allied bomber offensive against Germany that was picking up steam during 1943. 
The Battle for the Atlantic was also a big drain on German industrial resources, and in May 1943 the Western Allies seemed to be making headway against the U-boat menace. Even the official Khrushchev-era Soviet history of the Great Patriotic War suggests that by July 1943, up to one-third of German divisions were either fighting or preparing to fight Western Allied attacks, and by June 1944 this figure jumped to 40 percent.
Although the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were united in fighting a common foe, there was little contact between the Eastern and Western Allies at a grassroots level for most of the war, except for meetings among politicians, diplomats and generals. The Soviet Union and the Western Allies were joined in a union that required them to ignore or at least play down differences, but it was, of course, a marriage of convenience. Stalin’s deep suspicion of foreigners meant that there were few Allied personnel in the Soviet Union during the war.
It was only on April 26, 1945 — two weeks before the fall of Berlin — that American and Soviet forces advancing from East and West linked up on the Elbe River as the tightening noose strangled the Nazi regime. But fraternization between the troops was not encouraged by Red Army political officers. Stalin feared that Western influence would undermine the Soviet system. The joint Allied victory parade in Berlin on Sept. 7, 1945, did not become an annual event.
Notably, it took 65 years for the British, French and U.S. military to finally unite to participate in the annual May 9 parade on Red Square. Sunday was a day to celebrate how unity of purpose triumphed over political division and to remember the great sacrifices made by men and women of all Allied nationalities.

Alexander Hill is an associate professor in military history at the University of Calgary, Canada.

TITLE: Two Heads Are Better Than One
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: United Russia is starting to prepare for October regional elections. This is especially important this year because the Kremlin’s strategy has changed since last fall when United Russia did not let more than one of the other three officially sanctioned parties make it to regional legislatures. Now it will have to compete against all three simultaneously. As a result, United Russia will have somewhat less access to administrative resources than before.
In addition to the parliamentary elections in the Tuva republic and the Belgorod, Kostroma, Magadan and Novosibirsk regions, elections will also be held for 40,000 seats in municipal governmental bodies. The October elections will be the first serious test run prior to the State Duma elections in 2011.
United Russia is focusing its campaign preparations on renewing staff, regrouping its forces and changing tactics. The process of replacing United Russia party secretaries in the regions continues. A couple of days ago, six more party secretaries were replaced not only in regions where United Russia did poorly, but also where protests have been strong over the past year. This includes the Vladimir, Kaluga, Smolensk, Sverdlovsk and Khabarovsk regions and the Udmurtia republic.
A major staffing change is also expected in the office of regional affairs at the party’s headquarters. The emphasis will be on bringing in younger workers from the regions who are motivated to gain a foothold in Moscow.
There is another important political innovation: As of January 2011, to be eligible for appointment into the Federation Council, all senators must have been elected by popular vote in a municipal or a regional election at the time of their appointment.
What this means in practice is that United Russia will continue developing its so-called “locomotive” party tickets — those that are headed by celebrity candidates who have no intention of ever becoming deputies. Their only job is to push through lesser-known party members into their respective legislative assemblies. The votes these “locomotives” earn will be counted toward the formation of the party list for federal elections in 2011. Priority in those elections will be given to lawmakers who receive the highest voter support during these earlier stages.
Perhaps most important of all, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plans to appoint his own person who will take day-to-day control of United Russia from his office in the White House. Up until now, this was done exclusively by Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov, who answers to President Dmitry Medvedev. Putin had always been content leaving these duties to Surkov only because the elections did not concern him all that much, or he assumed that United Russia’s results were going according to plan. But as Duma and presidential elections are approaching and after the poor results and allegations of fraud in the October vote, Putin was forced to take more direct control of the party.
This means that there will be two centers of power controlling United Russia — Putin’s representative from the White House and Surkov from the Kremlin. In a worst case scenario, this could turn into a management disaster with two competing power centers eating each other alive. In the best case, however, it could improve the party’s effectiveness by introducing some competition within the United Russia structure. If successful, United Russia could be transformed from its traditional status as a party of androids into being a real political party — or something to close to it.

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

TITLE: Church Calls For Return Of Treasures
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynovaand Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is atoning for the sins of the Bolsheviks — or delivering a heavy blow to Russian culture, depending on whom you ask.
His government is pushing to transfer thousands of “religious items” from museums to the Russian Orthodox Church, a move that art experts and museum workers fear will lead to the ruin of important artifacts now preserved in museums and put many items off-limits to the public.
Gennady Vdovin, director of the Ostankino Estate Museum in Moscow, said the clergy has frequently neglected church property in the past. 
“There are a lot of examples when museum experts have found icons thrown out by priests in backyards,” Vdovin told The St. Petersburg Times.
The environment within churches poses another problem, as the smoke from candles used during services has a very negative effect on icons, he said.
The government is preparing legislation on the transfer of religious property that is scheduled to be considered by the State Duma this year, said Sergei Obukhov, a deputy with the Communist Party and a member of the State Duma’s Social and Religious Organizations Committee.
The bill, however, has not yet been submitted to the Duma, he said.
But the restitution is already under way. Moscow’s ancient Novodevichy Convent was transferred from the State History Museum to the Russian Orthodox Church last month in what Patriarch Kirill called “an act of historic justice.”
The Culture Ministry promised to model future transfers of museum property to religious organizations based on this move, which Putin ordered in January.
The Russian government remains the formal owner of the Novodevichy Convent, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but the complex will be managed exclusively by the church. Were it not for the UNESCO label, the convent could have passed into church ownership.
The icons and other artifacts that belonged to the State History Museum will stay within the walls of the convent. But about 80 art experts, restorers and researchers will be evicted, said Vadim Yegorov, deputy director of the museum.
He noted that over the last 15 years, the only church personnel at the convent were 12 nuns.
The Novodevichy Convent was closed by the Bolsheviks in 1922, and in 1926 it became a branch of the State History Museum. In 1994, the convent regained its original function, with nuns and museum personnel sharing the premises.
The convent constitutes a part of the vast property that was expropriated from the church by the Soviet government, and the Russian Orthodox Church insists that it has a legal right to reclaim the property.
“A temple must be a temple, not a museum. An icon has its place — not in a museum, but in a functioning temple,” said Archbishop Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department of external relations.
Church representatives, including Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the department for church and society affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, have been allowed to work on the bill to transfer property from museums to the church.
But museum workers have complained that they are barred from participating in drafting the legislation.
In February, about 150 museum directors and experts appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev in an open letter, asking him to “speak against the ill-conceived and dubious initiative.” Medvedev has made no public response to the appeal.
Then in March, about 40 renowned artists and art experts published an open letter to Patriarch Kirill, arguing that works of art needed to be stored by museums, not churches.
Chaplin stressed that the bill was limited to real estate and would not include items such as icons registered with museums.
“The bill covers buildings that are already being used by the church,” Chaplin said in an interview.
But the publicly available draft of the legislation does not specify what kinds of property will be retained by museums, speaking only of “religious items.”
Speaking on April 19, Patriarch Kirill called the public discussion “very low-grade” and said the church was perfectly capable of preserving treasures it had owned for centuries.
Although only real estate is under discussion at the moment, the patriarch hinted that the church might stake a claim to museums’ collections.
“We realize that the icons included in museum exhibits are intended for the spiritual enlightenment of our people, unlike those stored in collections,” Kirill said, adding that there were also problems with museums’ storage facilities.
The measures appears to have some support from Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev, who has also said “icons are sometimes better preserved in churches than museums.”
The state wants to transfer as many icons as possible, but only if their safety is guaranteed, Avdeyev told Ekho Moskvy radio. He said he did not expect the bill to empty museums of religious artifacts.
The government will cover all costs of preserving items transferred from museums, said Alexander Kibovsky, chief of the Federal Service for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. Religious institutions have already received 1.2 billion rubles ($41 million), he told Interfax last month.
But Engelsina Ugryumova, a senior expert with the State History Museum, insisted that artifacts were safer if they remained with museums.
“Giving away a religious object to the church means losing it in the near future, because property like buildings may decay and fall into ruin due to negligence, while certain objects may be stolen due to a lack of proper safeguards,” Ugryumova said.
Museum specialists also worry about public access to cultural treasures, a constitutionally protected right that is nonetheless little used. Critics of the plan say the church may impede access after it receives the artifacts.
But church officials argue that museums, too, have been unable to provide regular access to their collections. Many items can remain in storage for years without going on display.
“It is true that museums don’t display everything they have in storage, but the artifacts are carefully looked after,” said Vdovin, of the Ostankino Estate Museum. “Museums are not the ideal option, but they’re the best we have. We’ve lost a lot, but we are going to lose even more.”
Many art officials say they have no idea why the current system needs to be changed so dramatically.
“For many years, church and museum personnel have been peacefully co-existing in museum-convents,” Ugryumova said. “It’s hard to understand why the Russian Orthodox Church decided to abandon this favorable cooperation.”
Museum staff interviewed for this article cautioned that the new bill had the power to cause a rift in society that could possibly lead to public unrest.
“There is an opinion that the conflict was triggered by someone within the Russian Orthodox Church who wanted to pit the Russian intelligentsia against the clergy,” said Yegorov, of the State History Museum. “My son is a priest, and he says that not everyone among the clergy approves of the project, but the rigid discipline [of the church] doesn’t let them speak out.”
Museum workers linked the possible restitutions to the growing role of the Russian Orthodox Church in state affairs and its proximity to Russian leaders.
“Over the past few years, we have been witnessing a “clericalization” of the country. We see how religious studies are introduced to school programs, while the prime minister and president are shown visiting Orthodox churches,” Vdovin said.
During the meeting at the Danilov Monastery on Jan. 6, the Orthodox Christmas Eve, with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praised the church for “educating citizens in a spirit of patriotic love for their country and passing on a love for spiritual values and history.” 
Patriarch Kirill returned the compliment by praising Putin’s efforts in dealing with the economic crisis and by saying he hoped that the Lord would help Putin “in performing the high task God has given him.”
This exchange of compliments may lie at the heart of what prompted Putin to placate the patriarch with a massive sweetener: Some of Russia’s most beautiful and historically significant monasteries. The prime minister is seeking to secure the long-term support of Russia’s spiritual leader, which means the Russian people are likely to see the patriarch and other church officials on television more often, giving their blessing to government initiatives. 
Novodevichy Convent is not an isolated case, although it is the largest in terms of scale. In a much-discussed and much-criticized move in December, St. Petersburg’s State Russian Museum, which boasts the richest collection of Russian art in the country, opted to deliver, for temporary display, the 14th-century Toropets icon of the Virgin Mary to the newly built five-cupola Alexander Nevsky Church in an elite gated community just outside Moscow.
Ivan Karlov, chief curator of the State Russian Museum, said the museum expects the valuable icon to be returned in September. “When we last monitored the public pilgrimage to the icon at the Alexander Nevsky Church, more than 30,000 people had been to see the relic,” Karlov said. “Since then, many more thousands of people have seen it.”
Vladimir Gusev, director of the State Russian Museum, said that the gallery signed an agreement with the church as a symbolic gesture that served “to signal to the clerics that the museum is prepared for a dialogue.”
Karlov said it is yet to be decided whether the Toropets icon will go on public display at the museum upon its return to St. Petersburg or whether it will be placed in the repository.
On paper, the Russian Orthodox Church strongly adheres to the view that icons should serve their original purpose, namely, as aids to worship. The museum loaned the icon after a personal request from Patriarch Kirill, subsequently approved by the Culture Ministry. It was made despite strong protests from the museum community. Curators argued that the icon is already accessible to everyone as a museum exhibit, and that there are no concerns about its security in the museum, or issues related to climate control or preservation. Many museum experts strongly disapproved of the Culture Ministry’s decision to move one of the museum’s oldest icons to the church, disregarding their views.
They regard the removal of the icon from the museum as a violation of the museum’s standards of preservation. In other countries, they argue, such fragile works of art are not allowed to be transported. “It is difficult to imagine how, for instance, Raphael’s Sistine Madonna could be handed over to a church,” said Irina Shalina of the State Russian Museum.
A notable feature of this dispute is that the Alexander Nevsky Church was built by the Sapsan construction company, whose president, Sergei Shmakov, has made a name for himself as a generous church patron. He has given huge donations for the restoration of Orthodox churches, including the Korsunsko-Bogoroditsky Cathedral in the town of Toropets, where the Virgin Mary icon was kept for nearly two centuries. To some, the involvement of the patriarch in this deal suggests growing ties between the state, the Orthodox Church, and the business world.
Archpriest Chaplin said the real problem was not social or political in nature, but commercial: The museums are reluctant to relinquish their lucrative real estate.
“They just don’t want to move from prestigious premises with good locations that bring profit,” Chaplin said. “We are aware of about a dozen such places now,” he said without elaborating.
Despite mutual accusations, the church and museums agreed that they shared a single goal of safeguarding the country’s cultural heritage, which requires their cooperation.
“Cultural preservation is the cause of both believers and nonbelievers,” Yegorov said.

TITLE: Pressure Mounts in U.K. to Form New Govt
AUTHOR: By David Stringer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Britain’s election deadlock appeared closer to resolution Monday as David Cameron’s Conservatives and their potential ally, the Liberal Democrats, reported progress in talks to form a new government amid fears that prolonged uncertainty would rattle the markets.
But Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s faltering Labour Party also made overtures to the third-place Liberal Democrats, refusing to give up on a chance to stay in power.
The key issue: Electoral reform, which the Liberal Democrats demand but which the Conservatives fear would banish them to the political wilderness for years to come.
The Conservatives — who won the most seats in Thursday’s national vote but fell short of capturing a majority in Parliament — spent the last few days wooing Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats in hopes of forming an alliance.
Cameron and Clegg met face-to-face Monday as teams of party negotiators tried to hammer out a power-sharing deal — and Clegg also met separately with Brown.
Top Conservative Party lawmakers were guarded as they arrived for a meeting in Cameron’s office Monday afternoon. Asked if Cameron would be prime minister by Tuesday, lawmaker Des Swayne, an aide to the leader, said: “I hope so.”
Some observers suggested that Clegg’s party might be open to talks with Labour if Brown agrees to step down — due to Cameron’s expected refusal to back sweeping electoral reform.
It’s a critical juncture for Clegg. His position as kingmaker could determine his party’s influence not only in the next government but in elections for decades to come, but only if the Liberal Democrats can get their main wish — an overhaul of Britain’s electoral system.
Proportional representation is critical to Clegg because it would mean his party would gain a greater share of seats in House of Commons. On Thursday, his party earned 23 percent of the vote yet got only 9 percent of the body’s 650 seats.
Clegg on Monday urged voters to “bear with us a little longer.”
“All political parties, all political leaders are working flat out, round the clock, to try and act on the decision of the British people,” Clegg said. “[But it’s] better to get the decision right rather than rushing into something which won’t stand the test of time.”
Clegg has a tough sell to persuade his party to accept an alliance with Cameron that doesn’t include voting reform.
But the Conservatives strongly oppose the change, as it would likely mean fewer seats for Britain’s two main parties — the Conservatives and Labour. So far, Cameron has offered the Liberal Democrats only a review of the voting system and the prospect of a House of Commons vote on changing it — a vote that Clegg is unlikely to win.
Still, the experience of decades as Britain’s third-place party is likely to weigh heavily on the Liberal Democrat lawmakers as they meet with Clegg later Monday to discuss the possible alliance.
Like Clegg, Cameron also faces dissent in his ranks — caught between his circle of reformers and the Tory old guard, which blames him for failing to secure a majority in an election that months ago he was supposed to win.
William Hague, Cameron’s de facto deputy, said negotiators had made “further progress” in talks Monday with the Liberal Democrats.
“The negotiating teams are working really well together,” he said.
Former Conservative Party prime minister John Major told BBC radio that a quick deal was necessary. “Everybody is looking at the compromises that may be necessary, but I don’t think this is a dance that can go on for too long,” Major said.
The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives said they’d found some agreement on action to reduce Britain’s record 153 billion-pound ($236 billion) deficit and reform of its education system.
Although all three main parties are committed to keeping British troops in Afghanistan — at least for now — Clegg and Cameron’s groups have wide differences over foreign policy, nuclear power and plans to replace Britain’s fleet of nuclear-missile armed submarines.
They also differ widely on relations with the rest of the European Union. Clegg’s party is in favor of Britain eventually joining the euro currency, a move the much more Euroskeptic Conservatives bitterly oppose.

TITLE: EU Creates $1 Trillion Package 
For Euro
AUTHOR: By Raf Casert and Elena Becatoros
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS — The European Union put up a staggering $1 trillion Monday to contain its spreading government debt crisis and keep it from tearing the euro currency apart and derailing the global economic recovery.
Analysts said the huge sum supplied the “shock and awe” markets had been waiting for for weeks, at least in the short term, and the euro soared on the news.
European leaders negotiated into the early hours of Monday before reaching a deal in which governments that use the euro would join the EU and International Monetary Fund in putting up 750 billion euros in loans available to prop up troubled governments.
The European Central bank will buy government and private debt to keep debt markets working and lower borrowing costs, a crisis measure dubbed the “nuclear option,” while the U.S. Federal Reserve joined with other central banks in the effort, reactivating a currency swap program used during the earlier stages of the financial crisis to ship dollars overseas to be pumped into banking systems as short-term credit.
The overnight decision immediately jumpstarted markets worldwide. The euro immediately shot back to life and up to $1.30, recovering from Friday’s 14-month low of $1.2523.
Stocks too basked in the glow. France’s CAC-40 stood out in Europe, surging 285.08 points, or 8.4 percent, to 3,677.67. Athens’ main index was up nearly 10 percent and Lisbon’s PSI 20 jumped 9 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average rose 1.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 1.3 percent. European markets jumped higher — major indexes were up more than 3 percent — and Wall Street was also expected to surge on the open, with Dow futures also 3.0 percent higher.
Officials acted after ominous slides in world stocks and the euro last week that raised fears that the debt crisis would spread from heavily indebted Greece to other financially weak countries such as Spain and Portugal. It reached the point where President Barack Obama discussed the crisis by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
Policy makers worried the slide could shake the world economy the way the bankruptcy of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers did in 2008, making banks fearful of lending to businesses, hammering stocks and killing off economic recovery.
It also raised long-term worries that the crisis would force a weaker member such as Greece out of the euro.
Analysts said the measures had put out the fire for now by eliminating fears that governments would lack funds to pay off their debts. But several raised long-term worries about spreading  the debt of budget sinners to more responsible governments, and pointed to the lack of tough rules to keep debt from piling up again.
“It buys time. We don’t know if it will be enough,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist with CIMB-GK Research in Singapore.

TITLE: Ash Clears Over Europe, Delays Continue
AUTHOR: By Slobodan Lekic
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS — A band of volcanic ash was drifting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean Monday and adding hours to flights from North America to Europe as planes diverted around it.
Flights across Europe were operating normally after the dispersal of another plume of volcanic ash that disrupted air traffic and forced some airport closures over the weekend, aviation officials said.
Airlines pushed authorities for an official determination on when airlines could fly though areas of light contamination. Most of the clouds over Europe have contained light concentrations of ash.
Air traffic charts showed that airliners on both the westward and eastward tracks across the Atlantic were being diverted far to the north, over Greenland, to avoid the danger zone around the Icelandic volcano whose eruptions forced a five-day suspension of air traffic in Europe last month.
The resulting travel chaos saw the cancellation of more than 100,000 flights — stranding passengers around the world and causing airlines direct losses of more than 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion).
The Association of European Airlines said the losses caused by this weekend’s disruptions, which affected less than 2 percent of scheduled flights, were likely to be negligible.
“In terms of airspace closures, there were bits and pieces here and there, but these were relatively short term,” said David Henderson, a spokesman for the group.
“Trans-Atlantic traffic has also not been severely disrupted, but there has been lengthy re-routings which affected fuel burn, and also led to knock-on disruptions and delays,” he said. “Those are the kind of losses that it will be much harder to put figures to.”
Air France KLM reported a 15.9 percent slump in traffic in April because of airport closures brought about by the ash. The disruptions cost Air France KLM 35 million euros ($46 million) per day in operating income for all suspended operations, the company said Monday.
Air France KLM said the effect on cargo traffic was minimal, with a drop of just 2 percent in April, since most goods were stocked until flights resumed.
Lufthansa pointed out that international aviation authorities have yet to fix a safe level of ash contamination.
“We’re not thinking what to do if there are other events like this, because we don’t have a crystal ball to see into the future,” said Wencke Lenes, a spokeswoman for the airline. “We’re focused on trying to get the authorities to determine a safe level of ash, so that there are no more unnecessary closures of airports and airspace.”
Eurocontrol said all airports in Europe were operating normally Monday, including those in Spain. Up to 20 Spanish airports, including international hub Barcelona, had closed over the weekend. Lisbon airport also reopened after being forced to close Sunday.
But Eurocontrol warned that a finger of oceanic ash was still threatening parts of the Iberian peninsula.
“During the afternoon, areas of higher ash concentration are predicted to move in a northeasterly direction from Portuguese airspace towards the center of Spain with the potential of airport closures during the afternoon and evening,” spokeswoman Kyla Evans said.
Eurocontrol says it expects approximately 28,500 flights to take place within Europe — slightly below the average for this time of year.

TITLE: At Least 84 Dead In Attacks in Iraq
AUTHOR: By Saad Abdul-Kadir
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a textile factory Monday in a crowd that had gathered after two car bombings at the same spot, in the worst of a series of attacks that killed at least 84 people across Iraq, the deadliest day this year.
The violence added to fears that political uncertainty could further destabilize the country. More than two months after the March 7 elections, there is still no new government in sight and the negotiations to form one could drag on for months more as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw.
In the worst attack of the day, a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his belt blew himself up among a crowd of people who were trying to help victims of two car bombs that went off earlier outside a textile factory in the Shiite city of Hillah south of Baghdad, said provincial police spokesman Major Muthana Khalid.
At least 45 were killed and 140 wounded, said Khalid and Zuhair al Khafaji, director of al-Hillah general hospital.