SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1583 (44), Thursday, June 17, 2010
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TITLE: Kyrgyz Army Tries to Get Control 
In South
AUTHOR: By Sergei Grits
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyzstan’s weak and undersupplied military attempted Wednesday to regain control of the city of Osh, a major transit point for Afghan heroin and the epicenter of brutal rampages that have driven much of the ethnic Uzbek population from Kyrgyzstan’s poor, rural south.
Checkpoints circled the city and troops held the central square, but reports of looting by an army that lacks fuel and other basic supplies cast doubt on the government’s ability to re-establish stability and quell fresh outbreaks of violence.
The unrest — which erupted last Thursday in Osh between the majority Kyrgyz population and Uzbeks and spread to surrounding regions — has prompted more than 100,000 Uzbeks to flee for their lives to Uzbekistan, with tens of thousands more camped on the Kyrgyz side of the border or stranded in a no-man’s-land.
The United Nations has declared that the fighting was “orchestrated, targeted and well-planned,” and appeared to have begun with five simultaneous attacks in Osh by men wearing ski masks, but it stopped short of apportioning blame. It nevertheless bolstered claims by the interim Kyrgyz government that attackers hired by deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev marauded through Osh, shooting at both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks to inflame old tensions.
Some experts argue further that the violence could be rooted in the drug trade. Members of the Bakiyev clan had controlled the drug flow, but they lost their hold a week ago with the killing of the leader of an Uzbek criminal group, said Mars Sariyev, a political analyst in Bishkek.
The Bakiyev clan may have helped instigate the ethnic violence in an attempt both to weaken the interim government, which took over when Bakiyev was ousted in April in a bloody uprising, and to regain control over the drug flow, he said.
Humanitarian aid was trickling in via Uzbekistan, though some supplies coming into Osh were reportedly intercepted and volunteers attacked.
One of the few Uzbek families to remain in Osh told the Associated Press that a mother of two was killed by shrapnel from a shell launched toward their home by the Kyrgyz military.
“The Kyrgyz are out of control. They are destroying us,” said Abdumanap Mamasydykov, 38, at a funeral for the woman, his 48-year-old sister Gelbar Alynbayeba. They had remained in Dostyk, an Uzbek quarter of Osh, to tend to elderly relatives too frail to flee.
The claim that authorities were firing on Uzbeks could not be verified, but an AP photographer saw military patrols and heard artillery fire from their positions in central Osh overnight. No other armed units or groups had been seen.
Military trucks and armored personnel carriers were stationed on the central square, and at least five checkpoints had been established around the city, including along the road to the airport and other entry points. An APC and a dozen soldiers manned each post. Every few hours military trucks transported refugees out of the city.
The official death count from the past week of violence rose to 189 on Wednesday, with 1,910 wounded, the Health Ministry said. But observers believe the real toll is much higher, with many victims being buried quickly in keeping with Muslim tradition.
Meanwhile, thousands of ethnic Uzbeks were camped in squalid condition near the Uzbekistan border, waiting to cross and enter one of the dozens of refugee camps there. At a crossing near Jalal-Abad, frustration was mounting as several hundred who had made it into Uzbekistan tried to return to Kyrgyzstan but were refused re-entry.
In neighboring Kazakhstan, border guards were prohibiting ethnic Uzbeks from crossing from Kyrgyzstan and will deport some 200 ethnic Uzbeks who had crossed into Kazakhstan in recent days, Zaridjan Sultanov, an Uzbek leader in Bishkek, said.
Kazakh border officials were not immediately available for comment.
The UN has been delivering aid including bread through Uzbekistan, saying there was a lack of security along routes through Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyz authorities said some 160 tons of aid have been sent to Osh and Jalal-Abad — another city suffering serious damage in the rioting. But there were concerns about whether it was all reaching the needy.
Aid workers in Osh have received numerous threats of physical violence if they deliver aid to ethnic Uzbeks, human rights advocate Yelena Voronina told Internet-based news agency 24.kg.
Uzbek community leader Jyldyz Joldosheva told 24.kg that dozens of families have rushed to the aid center at an Osh hotel to receive food aid, mostly flour and vegetable oil.

TITLE: Security Guards Need Protection From Police
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — When police major Denis Yevsyukov walked into a Moscow supermarket last year and opened fire, killing two and wounding six, the resulting public outcry forced the Kremlin to order a dramatic overhaul of the Interior Ministry.
But chilling security videos of the attack also showed that the store’s two private security guards were woefully unready or unwilling to halt the rampage, which only ended after a shootout with police.
The attack on April 27, 2009, was a turning point in the public’s already unfavorable opinion of Russia’s 1.4 million-member police force. President Dmitry Medvedev subsequently ordered his interior minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, to slash the force by 20 percent over the next two years and raise salaries for the rest.
Now the police have set their sights on private security guards, a veritable army of largely undertrained and underpaid men who comprise more than 1 percent of the country’s work force.
The Interior Ministry is using Federal Law 272, a bill that it drafted and that went into full force in January, to bring the industry under their control.
Supporters say the legislation will help weed out unqualified guards and improve public safety. But critics of the bill — including virtually all private security firms — say it was designed to enrich corrupt police officials who will be responsible for overseeing its implementation.
The law requires private security guards to pass an exam conducted by a police commission, in effect forcing guards to pay bribes for good grades, critics say. New guards will have to pass the test before starting work, while those already employed must take the exam within a year.
But the changes have been even more dramatic for the schools that provide private security guards.
They must now buy expensive exam software and train at costly shooting facilities. The firms must also lease their weapons from the Interior Ministry, which has the right to suspend a security firm’s operations for purported violations — without a court order.
Lawmakers who backed the bill were “surely lobbying the interests of the non-departmental guards,” said Igor Yeremin, head of the Moscow-based association of private security firms Gruppa R.
He was referring to the Interior Ministry’s own division that protects commercial enterprises, state agencies and private individuals.
If it seems like there’s a middle-aged security guard at the door of nearly every business in Moscow, that’s because there is.
About 718,000 people are employed in private security across Russia, said Dmitry Sarychev, an Interior Ministry official in charge of licensing security guards. About 20 percent of them are in Moscow.
By the number of vacancies on Joblist.ru, private guards are surpassed only by drivers, builders and mechanics as the most sought-after workers, said Ivan Tyutyundzhi, a spokesman for recruiting firm HeadHunter, which owns the web site.
That could begin to change, however, as companies face rising costs to hire new staff.
Moscow alone shed about 14,000 jobs in the sector in the first two months of the year, with the number of guards falling from 157,000 to 143,000, said Yevgeny Karabanov, head of NSB, an association of private security firms.
Over the same period, the number of facilities protected by private security firms in the capital edged up to about 45,500 from 43,800, as electronic surveillance systems replaced human guards, he said, citing police data.
The vast majority of private security firms — about 80 percent — are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees and yearly revenue of no more than 10 million rubles ($315,000), said Galina Astratova, head of Positive Strategy, a market analysis company.
Alexander Ivanchenko, executive director of the Russian Security Industry Association, estimated that the market was worth $4.5 billion to $5 billion per year.
But statistics suggest that companies’ returns on security expenses might not be great.
According to Interior Ministry statistics, private security guards manage to fend off every 20th attack, at most, said Igor Goloshchapov, chairman of the board at the Coordination Center of Managers of Security and Detective Firms, a nationwide nongovernmental association.
Part of the problem is training, he said. Private guards also have little incentive to put their lives on the line for relatively modest paychecks.
One of the worst ramifications of the new law is the massive increase in bribery required by the corruption-prone examination system, managers of private security firms said.
The mandatory training, they say, does nothing to improve guards’ skills because police are willing to pass people who never take the test and flunk honest guards who try to pass without paying them off.
In Moscow, the official cost to take the exam varies from 4,000 to 6,000 rubles ($125 to $190), but the guards also have to drop 3,000 rubles to assure a pass, said Yury Pavlusenko, head of the private security firm G4S.
For another 1,000 rubles, or about $30, guards can get their diploma without even showing up.
Trainees give the cash to an intermediary firm, which then pays off the school, said the deputy head of a Moscow-based private security firm.
“Police officers at the licensing departments, who are in cahoots with the schools, fleece the guards,” said Gennady Gudkov, a Duma deputy and representative for the council of private security firms at the Interior Ministry, an advisory body that the ministry consults about laws and other initiatives concerning private security firms.
“As a rule, they try to flunk a guard at the exam so that he pays extra money,” he said.
Gudkov and his party, A Just Russia, abstained from voting for the law in the first reading but supported it in the second and third readings, after multiple amendments.
“But even these amendments didn’t solve all the problems,” he said. “I thought we could mend the situation by passing regulations, but in practice it turned out to be more complicated,” he said.
Including training expenses, a Moscow guard can expect to pay from 11,000 to 22,000 rubles to pass the test, compared with an average monthly salary of 12,000 to 15,000 rubles, industry insiders said.
Karabanov, from NSB, said he thought that the costly training stemmed from the software schools use, which sells for 500,000 rubles (almost $16,000) per copy, he said.
One of the private security firm chiefs interviewed for this article said on condition of anonymity that “the ministry has recommended that schools buy this particular program, which makes me suppose that schools share the money with the ministry.”
The software was commissioned by the Interior Ministry, but the state does not set the price for it, said Sarychev, the Interior Ministry official.
A guild of private security firms and the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry are preparing to ask the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to examine pricing of the software for possible competition violations, said Karabanov, who is also a senior official at the guild.
The law has already had a dramatic impact on the firms themselves, forcing hundreds across Russia to close.
The legislation banned private security firms with registered capital of less than $3,500, and it also stripped internally hired security departments from guarding a company’s premises.
Another clause in the bill effectively banned foreigners from creating private security firms by requiring that their home countries sign special agreements with Russia.
About 2,300 of the country’s 29,000 security firms at the end of 2009 have since disappeared, Sarychev said.
Until January, there had been about 500 firms founded jointly by Russians and foreigners, including 370 in Moscow, he said. Some have since reregistered with only Russian owners.
The decision to bar foreign ownership was in part a protectionist measure, Sarychev said, citing an unpublished order given to the government in 2005 by then-President Vladimir Putin to protect Russian security firms from competitors and foreign intelligence services.
Foreign security firms were poised to dominate the Russian market, like they do in the Baltic states, which was deemed a threat to the national security, he said.
Security experts and executives took particular issue with the law’s provision allowing the police to halt a company’s activities without a court order. The move appears to go against recent Kremlin anti-corruption drives, which have sought to lessen officials’ stranglehold on private business through excessive licensing and inspections.
Letting police decide whether to freeze a firm’s work can “lead to unjustified decisions” because the police no longer need to prove alleged violations, said Yury Starorussky of Alligator, a Moscow-based association of private security firms.

TITLE: City Prepares to Host Annual Economic Forum
AUTHOR: By Kristina Aleksandrova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: More than 2,300 participants will attend the 14th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which runs Thursday to Saturday at Lenexpo. 
This year, the city’s leading international business event will be held under the motto “Laying the Foundation for the Future.” The forum’s program is divided into three parts: “Global Economy,” “Russia — Today and Tomorrow” and “Looking into the Future,” and this year’s buzzwords look set to be “innovation” and “modernization.” 
For more than a decade, the forum has attracted the attention of the most eminent politicians and businessmen from all over the world. This year is no exception, with about 140 flights bearing forum guests and participants expected to arrive in the city. Pulkovo Airport is due to operate as usual. This year’s guests include the presidents of Microsoft International, Neste Oil Corporation, Siemens, Lukoil, Sberbank and high-ranking representatives of other major companies.
All the business dialogues will be held on the first day of the forum, with the perspectives for cooperation with the EU, U.S., CIS and India all up for discussion. The official opening ceremony will take place the next day, Friday, when President Dmitry Medvedev will give a speech on modernization and the difficulties faced by the world in the wake of the global economic crisis. Medvedev is expected to accentuate the importance of establishing long-term growth strategies.
A panel session titled “Finance after the Crisis” organized by Sberbank will follow, focusing on the topic of recovery in the post-crisis world and moderated by Dr. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. Participants will discuss ways to create a well-managed global financial sector.
One of Russia’s most pressing problems — educational reform — will be put in the spotlight at the forum. Sergei Guriyev, rector of the New Economic School, will chair a discussion on ways of making Russian education globally competitive.
Medvedev’s pet topic, the importance of innovations, will not go without mention at the forum. The advantages of adopting new technologies will be discussed during panel sessions titled “Looking into the Future.” Speeches on the development of medicine, cinematography and telecommunications will be given, and Kremlin economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich, the modernization commission’s secretary, will moderate a briefing on the Technopolis technology center titled “Technopolis — the City for Innovation.” 
The infrastructure of modern cities and problems of urbanization also feature in the forum’s program. This is a burning issue for St. Petersburg, where the construction of the planned Okhta Center skyscraper has been hotly contested. Panelists will discuss the houses of the future. While living in “intelligent” houses is no longer science fiction, it remains an expensive luxury. Participants will predict the year when it will be possible to build such houses for the majority of the population.
The forum itself will be innovative, featuring not only general discussions, but interactive briefings in which a maximum of three panelists will communicate with the audience. Another novelty is the “Deep Dive” on-line service, which is accessible for all participants and journalists. Up-to-date information about forum sessions can be found at www.deepdive.forumspb.com, and special applications for iPads and iPhone are also available.
This summer’s main event, the FIFA World Cup currently underway in South Africa, will not be ignored during the forum. On Saturday, TV presenter Yulia Bordovskikh will lead a discussion of the organizational and economic aspects of holding the World Cup in Russia.
Another topic up for discussion on Saturday is the development of tourism. After discussing Russia’s image on the global tourism market, a presentation of North Caucasus ski resorts will be made. On the final day of the forum, panelists will touch upon the issue of turning space travel into an industry.
Other forum sessions will focus on the development of the gas market, migration policy, pension systems, universal citizen smart cards, and the customs union.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy will speak at Saturday’s final plenary session, “Rethinking Global Economic Trends.” Sarkozy and Medvedev will take part in a session moderated by Sberbank president German Gref.
As usual, the forum’s business side is complemented by an extensive cultural program for both forum participants and city residents. An opera with a symbolic title for the Economic Forum — Prokofiev’s “The Gambler” — is on the playbill at the Mariinsky Theater on Thursday. The official cultural program also includes a host of classical ballets, a concert by the U.K. group Faithless at 8 p.m. Thursday on Palace Square, and a performance by renowned French soprano Natalie Dessay on Friday.

TITLE: Americans, Russian Blast Off for Space Station
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Two U.S. astronauts and a cosmonaut blasted off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a two-day trip to the international space station, Reuters reported.
The rocket took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome early Wednesday, marking the 100th flight to the orbital outpost, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction 350 kilometers above Earth.
Riding inside the Soyuz capsule were cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, a former station commander returning for a second stint, NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock, a veteran shuttle astronaut, and first-time flier Shannon Walker, Houston’s first hometown astronaut.
The trio will become part of the 24th live-aboard expedition crew headed by cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, who, along with cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko and NASA’s Tracy Caldwell Dyson, were launched to the station April 2.
The arrival of Walker will mark the first time the station’s live-aboard crew includes two women.
“I’m very happy and a little bit apprehensive,” Walker, speaking in Russian, told reporters during a pre-launch news conference.
Walker’s husband, four-time shuttle astronaut Andy Thomas, who served aboard the Russian Mir space station 12 years ago, was among the dozens of NASA officials, friends and relatives in Kazakhstan to bid the crew farewell. Thomas said he was “excited, thrilled, nervous and a tiny bit jealous.”
Among Walker’s personal items is a watch worn by Amelia Earhart during a pioneering solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Walker, a private pilot and member of the Ninety-Nines International Organization of Women Pilots, said in a statement that she hoped honoring Earhart might draw some new pilots into the field.
Like other launches from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan, the crew’s mission followed a time-tested routine.
After being meticulously fitted for their pressure suits just after midnight, the crew received a final message of encouragement from space officials, including the head of Russia’s Federal Space Agency.
At the final salute before mounting the bus to the launching pad, a group of well-wishers greeted Walker with letters spelling out “Go Shannon!”
Before the bus engines started up, Yurchikhin’s young daughter, Yelena, was held aloft and kissed her father through the glass.
At the pad, the astronauts sat, tightly bound into their seats in the rocket some two hours before the launch, while their family and colleagues anxiously waited at a viewing platform a little more than one kilometer away.
Against the backdrop of the starkly dim steppe, lights on the gantry holding up the Soyuz rocket shimmered on the launch pad known as Gagarin’s Pad. It is the site from which the Soviet Union sent off Yury Gagarin in 1961 to become the first human in space.
In the hour before the launch, regular updates on the final preparations crackled out of speakers at the viewing platform.
When the time came, the rocket roared to life and gradually lifted off the ground before darting off into the heavens, dramatically turning the sky a shade of phosphorous white.
“That was probably one of the more beautiful launches I have ever seen,” NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said.
The crew is scheduled to reach the station Friday.
(SPT, AP)

TITLE: Etiquette Guide For Foreigners Prepared
AUTHOR: By Alexey Eremenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Moscow authorities are preparing an etiquette handbook for foreigners that advises them to speak in Russian, not to walk around the city in national attire and to avoid slaughtering sheep in the courtyard of apartment buildings.
City Hall is collaborating with diasporas and scientists to create the “Muscovite’s Code,” a list of nonbinding behavior guidelines to be presented to every foreigner who moves to Moscow.
“There are unwritten rules that residents of our city are obliged to follow, such as not slaughtering sheep in the backyard, not grilling shashliks on the balcony, not walking around the city in national attire, and speaking in Russian,” Mikhail Solomentsev, head of City Hall’s committee for interregional cooperation and national policy, told Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
“Now we want to develop a code to speed up the integration of migrants who take up permanent residency in Moscow,” Solomentsev said in an interview published Wednesday.
“We have asked Moscow diasporas themselves to draft the rules. We’ll study their suggestions and consult with researchers to create the ‘Muscovite’s Code,’ so to speak. When a person moves to Moscow, they will receive a book from their compatriots to tell them what is acceptable here and what is not,” he said.
Solomentsev first announced plans for the “Muscovite’s Code” in 2008, but the idea was put on the backburner.
It is a rare sight to see foreigners walking around Moscow in national costume, and sheep slaughtering is unheard-of, except at special locations during Islamic holidays.
Yulia Vaidakova, a spokeswoman for Solomentsev, said Wednesday that she could not disclose any additional details at the moment.
But Ekho Moskvy radio reported Wednesday that the code might be completed by early next year.
Representatives of diasporas contacted by The St. Petersburg Times were cautiously optimistic about the project, which they said may help new migrants integrate, but they warned that it must not infringe on their rights to follow their traditions.
Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, head of the Migration and Law Center, praised the call for dialogue but said “the absurdization” of the discussion might result in serious matters, such as the proper treatment of migrants, being dropped in favor of more controversial issues.
“The idea of a common code for everyone is great, but it must not be reduced to a false intrigue such as [a discussion on] dress style, eating habits and behavior patterns,” said Dzhurayeva, who is the former head of the Tajikistan Foundation.
Eldar Guliyev, executive director of the All-Russian Azeri Congress, said people who move to a big city from a village — which includes Russian citizens as well as foreigners — really require help in integrating, but the new norms should be approached with “delicacy.” 
“Rules are needed, but they must not be something the officials can use against a person’s rights,” he said.

TITLE: FSB Says 240 Rebels Killed
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Security Service has killed more than 240 insurgents, including 11 rebel leaders, in the North Caucasus since the start of the year, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday.
Bortnikov said the FSB has tracked and eliminated “most” perpetrators of twin bombings in the Moscow metro that killed 40 people on March 29 and a May 7 blast at the Derbent railway station in Dagestan that killed one and injured six, Interfax reported.
Earlier this month, the FSB reported killing three men linked to the bombing in Dagestan and several members of a group headed by Magomedali Vagabov, who is blamed for the Moscow attacks.
Bortnikov, speaking at a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, also said a number of terrorist attacks had been averted over the past two months. He did not elaborate.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>Gay Parade</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Representatives of sexual minorities submitted a request to City Hall on Tuesday to hold a gay pride parade, Interfax reported. 
The organizers also sent a letter to Alexei Kozyrev, the city’s human rights ombudsman, asking him to monitor the observance of the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
“Not a single public demonstration by sexual minorities promoting tolerance and condemning discrimination has been allowed by the authorities,” reads the letter written to City Hall. 
The parade is planned for June 26 and is due to start on Ploshchad Truda, proceed to Konnegvardeisky Boulevard and end with a meeting on Ploshchad Dekabristov. Gay pride parades are planned for the same day around the world. 

<strong>Phallic Fun</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — On Sunday night vandals describing themselves as the War Art Group painted a gigantic penis on Liteiny Bridge. The penis, drawn on the opening section of the bridge, became visible to passersby and traffic when the bridge was raised. 
Spokespersons for the group said that they were attempting to prove that security measures for the St. Petersburg Economic Forum were insufficient, Interfax reported. 
Washing off the paint proved difficult, as authorities had to wait for the bridge to close again at 5 a.m. before two fire-trucks could start hosing the bridge section down. One of the members of the group was arrested but released the next day, police reported.

<strong>Olympic Protests</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) —  Yabloko youth activists were arrested Wednesday while attempting to hold a flash mob protesting against the high expenditures on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. 
“We were detained before we could do anything,” one of the organizers of the event told Interfax. 
The activists planned to hold a demonstration with skis and sleds as props in front of the Winter Stadium to show disapproval of the high costs being incurred in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Those arrested were charged with jaywalking and using profane language.

TITLE: Local Firm Tasked With Putting Forum on Web
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Keeping track of what’s being said at this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is a truly gargantuan task which will involve 35 transcribers in St. Petersburg and 25 translators and editors in eight time zones around the world. 
Eclectic Translations, the St. Petersburg-based firm tasked with transcribing and translating the Forum sessions, estimates that it will produce somewhere in the region of 360,000 words as it types up about 3,500 hours of audio and then translates it, creating thousands of pages of text which will be posted on the Internet within hours.
“The real challenge is the deadlines,” said William Hackett-Jones, managing director at Eclectic Translations, which will be providing translating and transcribing services to the forum for the second year running. “Last year was the first time the forum wanted to have transcripts up on the net within 24 hours of each session being held, and that was a real challenge.”
Each hour of talk will take about six hours to transcribe and translate, with the end versions being provided in English and Russian, meaning that Eclectic Translations, which has a permanent staff of just four, will have to take on dozens of temporary staff to cover the event, Hackett-Jones said. 
Eclectic Translations lists major firms such as Baltika, Vodokanal, Gazprom and Ilim Pulp among its clients, but the timeframes and volume of work at this year’s Economic Forum present different obstacles. “If we had months to do it in, it’d be about the same volume as work for some of our larger clients, but here we need to get it back the next day,” said Hackett-Jones.  
The firm was founded in early 2009 by two ex-pats living in St. Petersburg, an Englishman, Hackett-Jones, and an American, Thatcher Milnes. Between them, they had over 10 years’ translating experience and felt that they had something special to offer. 
“We’d noticed a distinct lack of service providers at the top end of the translation market. For example, in five years of doing voiceovers for various Russian clients, there had been only two occasions when the text provided to me, apparently translated by a reliable source, was readable,” said Hackett-Jones. 
“All of our translations go through a four-stage filtration system — a project manager assesses the job, assigns a specialist in the particular field to translate it; then an editor looks at the translation, checking it against the original, and finally a proofreader makes sure it sounds like a well-written document, rather than an awkward translation. That’s labor-intensive, so it only really suits firms looking for quality and ready to pay the price. Our clients at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum tell us that it’s this level of accuracy that they require.”

Transcripts from the St. Petersburg Economic Forum will be available at www.forumspb.com

TITLE: Guilty Party Sought in Car Crushing
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva, Alla Tokareva and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Damage caused by a concrete wall collapsing on Konnogvardeisky Boulevard on Friday, crushing six vehicles parked next to it, could amount to six million rubles ($192,000), analysts estimate.
Concrete blocks measuring 0.4 meters by 2 meters fell from a wall at 5 Konnogvardeisky Boulevard, which is undergoing major reconstruction work, wrecking six vehicles including a Honda C-RV, Mitsubishi L200 and Opel Astra, the press service of the Emergency Situations Ministry reported.
Isaakievsky Hotel, which according to the SPARK-Interfax news agency is owned by Inteko, is reconstructing the building as a hotel. The subcontractor responsible for the work and safety at the site is TMG-Group, a Serbian firm, according to Inteko’s press service. In 2008, it erected a wall to reinforce the building’s fa?ade; the blocks which fell Friday were counterweights within it. By law, the subcontractor is obliged to insure construction work, a spokesperson for Inteko said. 
The slabs, which weigh about a ton each, were erected by TMG-Group two years ago, and it is possible that they fell as a result of vibrations from road works being carried out close by, said Mirko Titsa, the general director of TMG-Group. The work was insured by the RESO-Guarantee insurance company, though it is possible that the insurance term has already expired, he added. RESO-Guarantee could not be reached for comment. 
Titsa said that his firm guarded the site until the beginning of June. Two weeks ago, Geoizol took over as chief subcontractor at the site, said a spokesperson for Inteko. Geoizol recently signed the contract, but as yet has not begun any work at the site, said Yelena Lashkova, general director of Geoizol. 
The director of the Petersburg branch of PSK insurance firm, Valentin Smyshlyayev, said that he couldn’t recall any other incidents in which so much property was damaged as a result of a similar accidents at building sites. The damages resulting from the slabs falling onto the six vehicles could amount to six million rubles ($192,000), according to Dmitry Sinishev, head of the sales department at the Petersburg branch of Rosgosstrakh insurance firm. Smyshlyayev estimated the damages at three million rubles ($96,000). The owners of the vehicles could claim under their automobile policies or they could sue the firm carrying out the construction work for damages, advised Yury Volkov, deputy director of the northwest directorate of the Rosno insurance firm. 
Identifying those responsible for the damange will be difficult, said Smyshlyayev. “An expensive and lengthy expert analysis will be required,” he said. The entity responsible for the slabs falling is financially liable, but first the identity of that entity has to be established. The owner of one of the cars told Vedomosti that he is prepared to take his case to court.

TITLE: City to Auction Off Historic Buildings
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: City Hall plans to auction off 17 historic buildings for a total of 2.5 billion rubles ($79 million) by the end of the year.
On May 20, City Hall approved amendments to the city’s privatization program for 2010. The list of six buildings to be sold off was increased with the addition of another 17 sites, nine of which are monuments of federal significance and five of which are of regional significance (including the Benois Dacha, the Benois Dairy Farm, the Lutheran Church in Pavlovsk and the Otrada Dacha in Pavlovsk), according to the local government decree. The city hopes to make 2.5 billion rubles ($80 million) from the sale of the sites, although a full evaluation has not yet been completed, said Andrei Stepanenko, director of the Property Fund, which will manage the sale of the properties.  
The majority of the monuments have already been rented out with long-term lease agreements and advance payments. Sovkomflot, which was allocated the Krugly Market building for reconstruction, has already paid rent on the property through 2055. A spokesperson for Sovkomflot could not be reached for comment. Last year, Andrei Kechashin, Sovkomflot’s assistant general director, said that his company was continuing work on the reconstruction project.
Fyodor Lychagin, director of Nikolskiye Ryady, which is carrying out the reconstruction of the Nikolsky Market as a hotel and business center, said that his company had an interest in privatizing the site. 
The city has already received rent advances on the majority of sites on the privatization list, a State Property Management Committee (KUGI) representative confirmed. The Astoria Hotel complex is an exception, he said. A controlling stake in the company is owned by the British firm Rocco Forte and Family. According to KUGI, the rental rate for the Astoria building, which comprises 17,000 square meters, amounts to 3.45 million rubles ($109,000) per month. The hotelier plans to rent the building through July 1, 2046, when the rental term expires, said Anna Kagan, a spokesperson for the Astoria. Kagan declined to give further comment. 
The Astoria building is rented at a rate that is seven times below the market rate, bringing the value of the building down to $10 million to $15 million, according to Vladimir Sergunin, deputy director of the investment department of the Petersburg branch of Colliers International. 
According to Sergunin, all the sites on the list will primarily be of interest to tenants. Their prime locations, predominantly in the center of the city, make them attractive, but their value is reduced by the presence of long-term tenants, particularly as some of the sites no longer generate any income. 
Buildings that KUGI planned to auction off but which didn’t make it onto the list include the First Mutual Credit Society building located at 13 Kanal Griboyedova and the St. Petersburg Credit Society at 7 Ploshchad Ostrovskogo. According to a report on the official web site of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Arbitration Court, KUGI is contesting the ownership of 13 Kanal Griboyedova with the Federal Agency for the Management of Historic and Cultural Monuments. A decision on the privatization of 7 Ploshchad Ostrovskogo has not yet been taken, a representative of the KUGI press service said.

TITLE: Admiralty Wharves Up for Redevelopment
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin and Nadezhda Zaitseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) and City Hall intend to make the territory of the Admiralty Wharves eligible for development. 
The main production facilities of the Admiralty Wharves will be relocated outside of St. Petersburg, Roman Trotsenko, president of USC, announced last week.
City Hall intends to sign an agreement with USC on the decommissioning of the Admiralty Wharves later this week, said Alexei Chichkanov, chairman of the city’s investment and strategic investment committee. A bridge to Vasilyevsky Island crossing New Admiralty Island will be completed by 2013, and by 2016, USC will vacate the island of all its facilities, concentrating its production at a different site and modernizing it, according to the plans. 
All of the Admiralty Wharves’ facilities, which occupy about 65 hectares, will eventually be relocated from the center of the city, although that will happen no earlier than in 2020, a USC spokesperson said. He said that it is as yet unclear who will finance the move. 
USC intends to gradually transfer the Admiralty Wharves facilities to the territory of the Kronshtadt Sea Factory, a manager at the corporation said. In February, the Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Arbitration Court ended the factory’s bankruptcy proceedings, which had been ongoing for 10 years, and it was taken over by USC.
Restoring the production facilities at the Kronshtadt Sea Factory is not a viable option, according to the USC spokesperson.
The freeing up of New Admiralty Island could cost up to $200 million, while the complete transfer of the Admiralty Wharves could cost as much as $1 billion, according to an expert who works in the sector. 
City Hall intends to auction off New Admiralty Island, which has an area of 17 hectares, Chichkanov said. 
About 50 percent of the territory is occupied by protected historic heritage sites which are structurally not suitable for renovation as housing, although they could be turned into 45,000 square meters of commercial premises, said Zosya Zakharova, the head of projects and analytical research at ARIN real estate consultancy. About the same volume of residential premises could be built on the remaining territory, although there is a 21-meter limit on the height of constructions, said Zakharova. The total cost of such a project would be at least $130 million, she added. If the investor has to cover the cost of the transfer of the Wharves, the project would not be viable and no company would be willing to take part, Zakharova said. 
Although New Admiralty Island is an attractive territory, the costs involved in relocating the Wharves make other sites available in the city far more attractive to developers, said Natalia Chereiskaya, marketing director at NAI Becar. City Hall must take responsibility for vacating the territory for investors to take an interest in the project, she said.

TITLE: Recovery To Speed Up in 2011
AUTHOR: By Paul Abelsky
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s economic recovery this year will be slower than previously forecast before growth accelerates in 2011, according to the World Bank.
“The recovery is continuing but we now categorize it as a bumpy recovery,” Zeljko Bogetic, the bank’s lead economist for Russia, said in an interview in Moscow on Tuesday. “The new first-quarter data, which were actually quite disappointing compared to our expectations, are the main reason why we are scaling down” the forecast for this year.
Gross domestic product may expand 4.5 percent in 2010, the Washington-based lender said in a report published Wednesday, revising down a March forecast for an expansion of between 5 percent and 5.5 percent. Output may grow 4.8 percent next year, compared with an earlier forecast of 3.5 percent.
The economy of the world’s biggest energy exporter expanded an annual 2.9 percent last quarter, the statistics office said on June 11, after the Economy Ministry earlier estimated that GDP jumped 4.5 percent from a year earlier. GDP may grow 4 percent this year and 3.4 percent in 2011, the government says.
That may not be enough to bring growth into line with rates in Russia’s BRIC peers. Brazil’s economy expanded an annual 9 percent last quarter and China’s GDP grew an annual 11.9 percent in the same period.
Russia lags other BRIC countries because it’s more “sensitive” to swings in oil prices and the shock of capital outflows, Bogetic said. The pace of Russia’s growth “won’t diverge as much” from its BRIC peers as prices for commodities stabilize at a higher level, he said.
The World Bank predicts oil prices will average $78.10 a barrel this year and $74.60 in 2011. 
Last year’s 83 percent increase in Urals crude, Russia’s chief export blend, has helped buoy the country’s recovery from a commodities slump the previous year that precipitated the worst recession on record. The economy shrank 7.9 percent in 2009, its worst performance since communism collapsed.
Russia is trying to wean itself off its commodity reliance to limit swings in growth and ruble volatility. Its dependence on energy, which accounts for about a quarter of economic output, is “primitive” and “humiliating,” President Dmitry Medvedev said last year.
The weak pace of recovery in household consumption, high unemployment and depressed investment demand has constrained economic expansion in the first quarter, Bogetic said. 
Gains in consumer spending will help rekindle growth toward the end of the year, he said.
Still, a full recovery is being hampered by a lack of credit flows as banks curb lending in an effort to protect asset quality on their balance sheets. Bank lending is still at a “low” level, according to central bank Chairman Sergei Ignatiev, who has predicted loan growth of 15 percent this year.
The World Bank reiterated its forecast for Russian inflation to reach between 7 percent and 8 percent this year. The country’s unemployment rate will remain between 8 percent and 9 percent by the end of 2010, the lender estimates.
The unemployment rate in April fell to 8.2 percent from 8.6 percent a month earlier.

TITLE: Experts See Positive Trends in Commercial Real Estate
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As most commercial real estate sectors begin to show signs of recovery, analysts say the next couple of years could be the last opportunity to snap up decent office premises for a reasonable price.
At the beginning of this month, the total Class A and B office space in the city amounted to approximately 1.3 million square meters, according to data from Colliers International. Thirty office centers are currently under construction. Two new Class B business centers have been completed this year, while no new Class A office buildings have been built since summer 2009. 
At the end of the first quarter, the average volume of available space in business centers was 31.4 percent of Class A space, and 12.2 percent of Class B, according to research conducted by Knight Frank.
“There is a demand for quality premises with Class B interiors,” said Oleg Barkov, general director of Knight Frank St. Petersburg. “The lowest occupancy is in large Class A properties situated on the outskirts and also in new business centers.”
The low availability of building sites in the historic center of St. Petersburg will not increase construction in the central business zones during the next three years, predict experts from Colliers International. As a result, the exclusiveness of the center and shortage of representative offices will remain.
The average cost of renting office space is 1,120 rubles ($36) per square meter per month for Class A premises, and 820 rubles ($26) for Class B. Offices in prime locations cost from 1,000 to 2,600 rubles ($32 to $83).
Colliers International experts forecast that take-up volume this year will exceed the launch of new offices, and by 2012 the level of vacant space will decrease back to 2008 levels of five percent. From the beginning of 2012, rental costs will start to grow, but there will be no significant growth in average rent rates before then.
“The next two years are the best time to move to new offices,” said Nikolai Kazansky, general director of Colliers International. “This year, good premises can be found for reasonable rates, in 2011 liquid premises will already have been rented out, and by 2012 there will be an absence of quality offers.” 
“To launch properties in the period of market growth from 2013 to 2014, construction should be started in the next two years,” said Kazansky. “This tactic is being used by international developers who plan to enter our market. The successful realization of new office projects in St. Petersburg will be possible if they have a good location and are easily accessible by any transport, have parking space and an efficient office design.”
The area with the most potential, except for Nevsky Prospekt and surrounding areas, is Moskovsky Prospekt. Analysts predict moderate demand in the Primorsky district, as there are many residential buildings there, making it convenient for office workers. The Petrograd Side and Vasilyevsky Island are no longer popular, mainly due to the problematic transport situation to be found in those districts.
While office real estate is witnessing a trend of frozen projects being resumed, industrial real estate is not following this trend in spite of a stable market, according to experts from Knight Frank. 
“During the first five months of 2010, the average volume of vacant premises decreased to 30 percent, partly due to major deals in the rental of industrial premises of more than 5,000 square meters,” said Kazansky.
In general, average rental rates for Class A warehouse premises amount to $90 to $110 per square meter per year ($80 to $100 for Class B premises).
“The industrial real estate market is slowly recovering, and the trends being seen on the market are desire among tenants to improve conditions, optimize logistics and perhaps become the owner of a logistics center,” said Kazansky.
The retail segment is seeing structural changes. The crisis forced tenants to pay closer attention to the success of each individual store, and many are continuing the optimization of their chains. In high street retail, the number of mid- and low-price stores has increased, according to Knight Frank experts. 
“Premium-class stores on central streets are increasingly giving way to stores of a lower price segment,” said Barkov.
Although no new shopping centers were opened during the first quarter of this year, the volume of customers at existing malls increased. 
“The occupancy of shopping centers is close to 100 percent, and some centers still have waiting lists,” said Barkov.
Rental rates at shopping malls differ from central locations, and generally stand at $60 to $100 per square meter per month.
New players are emerging on the retail market, with the introduction of new retail complexes in 2010 set to equal the pre-crisis levels of 2007. Colliers International experts predict demand for one million square meters of new shopping centers.
Analysts say that new projects should correspond to high standards both in terms of technical infrastructure and the convenient organization of space.
“Enterprising developers should pay attention to the redevelopment of existing properties, for which profits can be increased by 50 percent,” said Kazansky.
The hotel property market is also seeing an increase in activity. As of May, St. Petersburg had 115 hotels offering a total of 16,900 rooms, according to Colliers International data.
Only one hotel was opened in the city in preparation for the 2010 season — a three-star hotel belonging to Cronwell Hotels & Resorts — though Corinthia St. Petersburg launched its new building on Nevsky Prospekt.
“For 2010 to 2011, developers and investors have announced 16 hotel projects with more than 1,900 rooms,” said Kazansky. “We are expecting the arrival of three new international operators — Domina Hotels & Resorts, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts.”
At the same time, 16 projects have been mothballed at different stages of completion, and City Hall has put up about 20 sites for the development of hotel projects, according to data from Knight Frank. 
“In general, demand for hotel services is stable,” said Barkov. “Some hotels have increased their occupancy, however. For example, two Marriott hotels reached 50 percent occupancy, which is an excellent off-season result.”
Accounting rate of return (ARR) in the first quarter of this year decreased by 5 to 15 percent in rubles compared to the same period last year due to the ruble devaluation. The price in dollars remains almost the same.

TITLE: Tele2 Launches New Rates Targeting Corporate Clients
AUTHOR: By Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Mobile phone operator Tele2 is upping the stakes in its campaign to attract corporate clients, with its prime targets being small and medium businesses.
In June the discount operator launched three new rates for corporate clients. One new rate offers calls to St. Petersburg and LenOblast numbers for 0.75 rubles per minute (2.5 cents), while the other two have monthly subscription fees of 400 rubles ($12.80) and 750 rubles ($24). Other operators offer more expensive deals to corporate clients, though they also provide a wider range of services. 
“Tele2 is beginning to work actively in the business segment, and it’s focusing on small companies that are developing and on organizations in the small and medium business sectors,” said Igor Zhizhikin, the regional managing director of Tele2 St. Petersburg. Zhizhikin added that the company would also be undercutting its competitors in this new market segment. 
Tele2’s rates are fairly attractive to companies, but it is held back by its lack of a 3G license, said Vitaly Solonin, chief consultant at J’son & Partners Consulting. 
Corporate clients are less mobile in their ability to quickly change operators, said Lyudmila Chekova, a spokesperson for the northwest branch of Megafon. For corporate clients, factors such as quality, geographical coverage and price are important, but changing the phone numbers of personnel often brings costs that outweigh any other advantages gained in switching operator, said Alla Lemlekh, a spokesperson for the Avers group. 
The average rate per user (ARPU) for corporate clients can be higher than the ARPU for private clients by 20 percent to 50 percent, said Denis Kuskov, general director of The Week in Mobile Phone Technologies publication. Kuskov said that the current marker leader in the provision of corporate services in St. Petersburg is Megafon.

TITLE: Tax Benefits Bar Increased to $25 Mln
AUTHOR: By Alla Tokareva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: A new draft law put forward by City Hall plans to raise the volume of investment that entitles firms to tax benefits and extend the term for which those benefits apply. 
Industrial and transport companies that invest more than 800 million rubles ($25.56 million) during the course of three years in the St. Petersburg economy will not have to pay property tax for five years and will pay a reduced tax rate on profits, said Deputy Governor Mikhail Oseyevsky, discussing the amendments to the Law on Tax Benefits. Producers of high-tech goods will receive the same benefits if investments of 50 million rubles ($1.6 million) are made during the same period of time. 
The draft law will be reviewed by City Hall for one month, and the Legislative Assembly may pass it at the beginning of its autumn session, said Oseyevsky. 
Since 2005, local profit taxes have been reduced to 15.5 percent for companies investing from 150 million rubles ($4.8 million) to 300 million rubles ($9.6 million) in projects, and to 13.5 percent for those investing more than 300 million rubles, while the property tax rate for all of them has been reduced to 1.1 percent. Those investing over 3 billion rubles ($96 million) are fully exempt from all property taxes, and their local profit taxes are reduced by 4.5 percent. These benefits are applicable for three years. 
Since 2007, benefits amounting to a total of about 5 billion rubles ($160 million) have been received by 70 enterprises in St. Petersburg, according to the governor’s press service. According to Petrostat statistics, investment in fixed capital from 2007 to 2009 amounted to 995.1 billion rubles ($31.8 billion).
The changes in tax legislation are not a result of the current financial crisis, according to Oseyevsky. City Hall wants to support enterprises that plan to carry out fairly major modernization programs, he said. The time period given for the investment will be extended from one year to three years, and the limitation whereby tax benefits are removed if tax incomes fall below a certain level will also be removed, he stressed. 
The amendments to the legislation will encourage the realization of long-term, major programs, according to Maxim Kalinin, the managing partner of the Petersburg office of Baker & McKenzie. Kalinin added, however, that the authorities are neglecting small and medium businesses, preferring to help create industrial giants. 
According to Maria Chernobrovkina, the executive director of the St. Petersburg branch of the American Chamber of Commerce, setting the bar at 800 million rubles will cut out smaller investors who have an interest in setting up local production facilities. The amendments will however help IT and computer programming companies which as yet aren’t entitled to any tax benefits. 
The cost of land, construction and connection to utilities infrastructure is as important to investors as tax benefits, said Andrei Korzhakov, general director of Foxconn Rus manufacturing company.

TITLE: Russian Jews’ Missed Opportunity
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: As soon as the news of the Israeli commando raid on the Gaza aid flotilla, in which nine people lost their lives, broke on May 31, I started getting e-mails from my contacts in New York’s Russian-Jewish community. I have many such contacts, since I used to work for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a refugee relief agency that brought half a million of us to the United States.
It was mostly forwarded mass mailings in English and Russian, explaining why the flotilla was a terrorist provocation, how the blockade runners were al-Qaida and how Israeli soldiers showed exemplary restraint while protecting Israel’s right to exist. As an experiment, I wanted to see whether there was any nuanced view of the situation or sympathy for 1.5 million Palestinians being collectively punished by Israeli actions. Needless to say, I found none.
Israeli writer Amos Oz describes in his memoir, “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” how idealistic Zionists looked forward to the creation of a Jewish state — because after suffering discrimination at the hands of others for 2,000 years, Jews would show the world how fairly they could treat an Arab minority living in their midst. Early Jewish settlers in Palestine felt a responsibility not to do onto others what their oppressors had done to them and be a moral light upon the world.
Soviet Jews had a similar responsibility — and an even greater one. In the 1970s and 1980s, the struggle for Jewish emigration was part of a broader Soviet democracy movement. The opposition not only called for Jews to be allowed to go to Israel but placed Jewish emigration into a broader context of religious freedom, human rights and basic decency for all.
Some Jews were allowed to leave — mostly because the U.S. government put pressure on the Kremlin as part of detente between the two countries, but also because Soviet dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov were vociferous advocates of Jewish emigration. By the time emigration was shut down again in the early 1980s, more than 200,000 had departed for Israel and the United States.
The democratic movement wasn’t as lucky. It was quashed by the KGB, and most of its activists were jailed, killed, silenced or pushed out of the country. Those of us who left were the only visible achievement of the heroic dissident movement.
But our responsibility ran deeper. There were many Jews among the founders of the Soviet state and Bolshevik political elite. Jews were disproportionately represented in the dreaded political police, the Cheka, as well as in Stalin’s repressive apparatus in the 1930s. More broadly, Jews were among the greatest beneficiaries of the Bolshevik regime, migrating to Moscow and Leningrad from the old Pale of Settlement. Since the mid-19th century, Jews in Central and Eastern Europe had experienced a burst of national energy that was unprecedented in history. A large number of them now put their extraordinary talents and achievements to the service of the Soviet state in all aspects of economic, cultural and political life. Jews were also among the most loyal Soviet citizens until Stalin unleashed an overtly anti-Semitic campaign against “rootless cosmopolites” in the late 1940s and accused Jewish doctors of murdering Soviet leaders. Stalin reportedly planned a mass deportation of Jews to the Far East — and only his timely death kept this from being carried out.
But under his successors, the Soviet Union never shook off official anti-Semitism. Jews were kept out of universities, prevented from holding responsible positions and generally regarded with suspicion. Ironically, while Jews were seen as insufficiently communist under Leonid Brezhnev, a new brand of anti-Semitism has emerged in post-Soviet Russia that blames Jews for all the Bolshevik crimes — and thus absolves ethnic Russians of all responsibility.
But whether this fact is de-emphasized, as it was during the Soviet era, or savored as it is now by Russian anti-Semites, it remains true that Leon Trotsky, Yakov Sverdlov, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and so many early Bolsheviks who helped Lenin take power in 1917 and ran his repressive regime were Jewish. And so were some of the bloodiest figures in the political police, such as Yakov Yurovsky, who carried out the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family; Rozalia Zamlyachka, under whose political command tens of thousands of White Army officers were drowned in Crimea; and Genrikh Yagoda, the odious head of Stalin’s NKVD in the 1930s.
For the past 65 years, Germany has tried to atone for the crimes of the Nazi regime and to prove that Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann were not an integral part of the German nation and a natural outgrowth of the German culture, but a colossal aberration.
Russia also has a lot to answer for regarding the 70 years of communism. It has begun to do so — for example, by admitting without usual equivocations that captured Polish officers were murdered at Katyn by the NKVD and recognizing this action as a military crime. Russia still has a long way to go.
While Germany and Russia have much to prove to the world, so do Russian Jews. We could have shown that Bolshevik criminals were not an outgrowth of the Russian Jewry by embracing Western pluralism, democracy and tolerance in the United States and Israel, the two liberal democratic countries where we ended up. Instead, we as a group have retained an us-against-them mentality and have continued to live by the famous Stalin-era dictum: “If the enemy doesn’t give up, he must be destroyed.” All we have done is move from the extreme left to the extreme right of the political spectrum. In Israel, we have created the Yisrael Beitenu party led by Avigdor Lieberman, the current Israeli foreign minister and, arguably, the most radical right-wing figure to hold this post in a Western country since World War II. In the United States, where 85 percent to 90 percent of us invariably vote Republican, it is not the Republican Party that is the problem but the almost North Korean unanimity. We have been put to the test by democracy, and we seem to have failed it.

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.

TITLE: Beslan’s Main Terrorist Finally Caught
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Ali Taziyev, a successor to slain Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, was taken alive in the Ingush town of Malgobek. Taziyev — also known as Magas and as Magomed Yevloyev — was the second-most important figure of the so-called Caucasus Emirate after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov. Credit for Taziyev’s arrest goes primarily to Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and, to a large extent, to Vladimir Gurba, regional head of the Federal Security Service. His arrest is the latest in a series of high-profile successes that include the capture of Rustamat Makhauri, whose people killed Russians living in Ingushetia, and the killing of rebel ideologist Said Buryat.
Taziyev’s arrest also shows that in the Caucasus, everything depends on who is in charge. When Ingush President Murad Zyazikov was in power, riot policemen were shot in the streets and the authorities passed the incidents off as suicide. The FSB presence in the region was limited to stray detachments of gunmen who sat in concrete bunkers, occasionally venturing into Ingushetia as a hunter looks for wild animals in the woods, and later labeling anyone they happened to kill as a terrorist.
Once Yevkurov became president, the situation changed markedly for the better. Now, the authorities kill only those who need to be eliminated. They are ruthless in their methods, but fair.
The capture of Taziyev has produced a huge bonus in the form of information that security forces are dragging out of him. But it is also a problem of sorts because Taziyev led the terrorist attack in Beslan in 2004.
In fact, I believe that Taziyev — who shortly before that Sept. 1 assault had been named by Basayev as the commander of the Ingush sector of the Caucasus Front — personally commanded the Beslan siege and left the scene on the evening of Sept. 2, the day before federal forces stormed the school. He left to save himself for future battles. What’s more, I believe that the main goal of the “investigation” subsequently dedicated to the Beslan attack was to conceal Taziyev’s involvement. Investigators have consistently claimed that 32 militants arrived at the school in a GAZ truck. But no more than 25 people can fit in such trucks, and all the evidence indicates that there were two groups — one led by Ruslan Khuchbarov, and the other by none other than Taziyev.
A question: If there were two groups, and one was led by Khuchbarov and the other by Taziyev, who was in charge? For a long time after Beslan, neither hide nor hair was seen of Taziyev. Federal authorities announced that he had been killed in the assault on the school and were in no hurry to admit their mistake in letting him escape. Basayev was careful not to make mention of Taziyev either, so as to forestall a manhunt for him. But in the end, it was the Ingush Interior Ministry that spoiled everything when it announced that Taziyev was behind the killing of Deputy Interior Minister Dzhabrail Kostoyev, a local version of Ivan the Terrible’s notorious Malyuta Skuratov.  
The story of Taziyev marks a low point in the declining professionalism of Russian intelligence agencies. The success in apprehending him is all the more outstanding for showing that, even in today’s government, there are intelligence operatives capable of fulfilling their duty to their country by carrying out what appears to be a doomed battle against the advance of Islamic fundamentalism in the Caucasus. Yet, there is a chilling aspect to all of this. Not one of the militants who has been captured or killed recently — neither Said Buryat nor Anzor Astemirov — was Chechen. Not one of them was fighting for an independent Chechnya. They were all fighting for the Caucasus Emirate.

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

TITLE: Hungarian Photos Show Originality and Innovation
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This month the Russian Center of Photography (Rosphoto) is hanging out the Hungarian flag with two exhibitions dedicated to the work of that country’s most celebrated photographers. Encompassing everything from street scenes to avant-garde experimentation, both shows are certain to fascinate even the most jaded of exhibition-goers with their luminous tones and compelling subject matter. 
First up is an exhibition of the black and white photographs of Gyula Halasz. Better known as Brassai, Halasz became famous for his remarkable images of Paris made during the first half of the 20th century. Perhaps even more than Cartier-Bresson and Doisneau, Brassai is responsible for giving shape to the romantic image of Paris known around the world. Building on the groundbreaking work of French photographer Eugene Atget, Brassai defined not only the way the world saw Paris but also the way Parisians came to see themselves with his photographs of denizens of the more louche corners of the French capital and its distinctive urban landscape.
Like so many other artists between the wars, Brassai was drawn to Paris for its cosmopolitan atmosphere and its love of novelty that celebrated diversity and experimentation in all aspects of art and life. And it was in his adopted home that he would spend the rest of his days celebrating the city he loved so well, working first as a journalist, then as a photographer, filmmaker and sculptor. As part of a group of illustrious artists and writers that included Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Andre Breton, he was nicknamed “eye of Paris” by his close friend, Henry Miller. 
Brassai was infatuated with the Parisian night — by the beauty of its streets and gardens, in darkness and fog, and by the figures inhabiting its shadows. By turns dramatic and sensitive, mysterious and candid, Brassai’s work continues to influence photographers today.
One need only look at his images of the streetwalkers, hoodlums and lovers that he came across in his nocturnal outings to appreciate the transgressive nature of his project for the period which, at the same time, displayed a real tenderness and respect for his subjects. 
The exhibition presents some 60 works that were first published in the book “Paris de Nuit” in 1932, and reveals an artist who was a consummate master of his medium with a remarkable eye for detail. And while many of the images will be familiar to anyone who has browsed for postcards to send home from Paris, the work is a revelation in an age of digitally manipulated images for its inventiveness and sheer variety of moods and effects. It is a testament to his particular genius that the photographs he took nearly a century ago still resonate today. 
Brassai’s compatriots were no slouches either as the second exhibition up this month at Rosphoto will surely demonstrate. “Hungarian Masters of Photography” features more work by Brassai, alongside that of Robert Capa, Andre Kertesz, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Martin Munkasci, all of whom found success outside their native land. They were part of the general exodus westward of young artists from Eastern Europe who, in changing their names, also changed the course of art history along the way.
What distinguished these photographers from many others was their insistence on the primacy of formal qualities; their almost cinematic take on the world. This was at a time when photography was still quite young as an art form and the documentary aspects of the medium often overshadowed its expressive qualities in the minds of the viewing public. Indeed, several of them worked in documenting various conflicts but brought to this pursuit an aesthetic formed by the ideals of Modernism then emerging from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 
It was thanks, in part, to this handful of photographers that new ideas about the role of photography won a place in the establishment. 
The most obdurately experimental, Moholy-Nagy was also the most influential in the history of art as a result. He coined the term “the New Vision” for his belief that photography could bring about a whole new way of seeing the world that was unavailable to the naked eye. His non-objective images, many of which he made without the use of a camera, were closely aligned with the Russian avant-garde. Based on theories of light, shape, texture and color, Moholy-Nagy’s work as an artist and educator helped pave the way for the abstraction and conceptual art that were to play a defining role in 20th-century art history. 
Moving from Hungary to Germany in 1920, Moholy-Nagy joined the Bauhaus as a teacher and created work in photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, and industrial design, finally moving to Chicago where he founded the New Bauhaus school in 1937. His whirling, proto-psychedelic images, bristling with an enthusiasm for the industrial and technical innovations of the day, remain some of the most mysteriously compelling photographs ever made. His Parker pen from 1951 is a classic of elegant industrial design.
Like Brassa?, Andre Kertesz also headed to Paris, but for him it was a stop on his way to the U.S. His images, while exploring the limits of the medium, are mostly concerned with the poetics of composition and serialism. He is also widely credited with establishing and developing the form of the photo essay. 
Beginning his career taking photos in the trenches of WWI, Kertesz became the first photographer ever to be given a solo exhibition when the Sacre du Printemps gallery in Paris exhibited 30 of his photographs in 1927. Despite all his success, the relatively limited range of subject matter that was responsible for the concentrated power of his images was also largely to blame for his relative anonymity as an artist during his lifetime. 
Robert Capa began his career in the Berlin darkroom of a German photo agency but quite literally made a name for himself in France. Born Andrei Friedmann, the name Robert Capa was at first an imaginary American photographer that Friedmann and his wife dreamt up to create demand and help drive up the prices of Friedmann’s own photos. 
Known for redefining wartime photography, Capa photographed numerous conflicts during the first half of the 20th century, ultimately losing his life to a landmine on the Indochina front in 1954. Part of his legacy was the formation in 1947 of Magnum Photos, then as now the only international co-op agency of freelance photographers.
The least known of the group on view at Rosphoto is most certainly Martin Munkasci. Interestingly, he is also the only one not to have changed his name. Widely credited with inventing modern photojournalism, he started by taking pictures at sporting events in Hungary before moving to Berlin in the late 1920s. Once there he added fashion and street photography to his repertoire. His attention to the formal qualities of an image and his consummate technical skills resulted in meticulously composed action photographs that go beyond the documentary nature of their creation. 
Following the Nazi’s rise to power he left Germany for the U.S., where he worked for Harper’s Bazaar, producing photographs for one of the first articles illustrated with nude models ever seen in a popular magazine. Throughout his career, Munkasci created glamorous, theatrical images of Hollywood personalities and took what is arguably the most famous dance photograph of Fred Astaire. 
Back in Paris, the young Cartier-Bresson credited Munkasci’s photograph of a group of young boys on a beach in Liberia as revealing to him the eternal power of photography and being the only image ever to have influenced him. In the U.S., Richard Avedon saw Munkasci’s influence on fashion photography as bringing pleasure and honesty to an art that had hitherto been “a joyless, loveless, lying art.” But all the praise and commercial success wasn’t enough to prevent his dying alone and in poverty with several universities and museums declining to accept his archives; something they probably regret having done now.
Despite the wide array of personal concerns and choice of milieu, the photographers who came from Hungary in the early 20th century can all be said to have shared one major trait: They believed in the transformative power of the image — whether it be the fold of a dress, the shadow of the tines of a fork, or shadows cast directly on the photographic surface in the quiet calm of the darkroom. Each image was seen as a vehicle for personal evolution and transcendence that was accessible to anyone with the eyes to see it.

Brassai: “Paris de Nuit” is currently on view through June 26 and “Hungarian Masters of Photography” runs from June 23 through Aug. 28. Both exhibitions are at Rosphoto, Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa 35, open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tel: 314 1214.

TITLE: Exiled Author Receives Long Overdue Recognition
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In a city with hundreds of museums, many of which are dedicated to literary figures, the recent announcement by the St. Petersburg Culture Committee of plans to open a museum dedicated to Josef Brodsky may not at first seem very significant. That is, however, until one recalls the animosity that the poet faced from Soviet officials who denied his right to call himself an author.
Born in Leningrad in 1940, Brodsky would go on to become, like Nabokov before him, one of Russia’s most celebrated expat authors. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1987 and continued writing in both his native and adopted languages until his death in 1996.
Brodsky’s troubles began when in 1964, at the age of 24, he was hauled before a tribunal and forced to defend his credentials as an author. He asserted his moral right to create art without needing sanction from anyone and as a result was convicted of “parasitism” – a common charge at the time for anyone considered to be useless to the goals of society. 
For his hubris, Brodsky was sentenced to five years of hard labor in internal exile, and served 18 months in the village of Norensky, in the Arkhangelsk region. His sentence was commuted in 1965 following pressure from prominent Soviet and foreign cultural figures including Dmitry Shostakovich and Jean-Paul Sartre. 
Forced to leave Russia, Brodsky emigrated to the U.S. in 1972, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He first began teaching at the University of Michigan and was poet-in-residence and visiting professor at numerous colleges, including Colombia and Cambridge Universities. He was awarded an honorary degree by Yale University in 1978 and was a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He also received a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation and was appointed Poet Laureate by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1991.
That it has taken this long to open a museum in his hometown for such an internationally revered figure speaks volumes about the uneasy relationship the state has had with an author who made the connection between the author and society the subject of his life’s work.
Brodsky was a prot?g? of Silver Age poet Anna Akhmatova, who called his work “enchanting,” and who watched on in horror as Brodsky, like she herself and so many of her friends and family, suffered persecution at the hands of Soviet officials. Brodsky returned the compliment, calling her “the muse of keening.” To this day, the city’s Akhmatova Museum preserves the memory of the author with a display of effects sent from his residence at South Hadley, Massachusetts.   
The chance to finally have a permanent home for the archive of one of Russia’s greatest 20th-century poets and essayists has been met with delight by the directors of the Akhmatova Museum, who have been working tirelessly on establishing a memorial worthy of Brodsky’s talents for years.  
Speaking from the Anna Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House, director Nina Popova said: “Each room will be dedicated to different aspects of the poet’s work, including a room devoted entirely to his Nativity cycle, which held an important place in his oeuvre.” It will also have a room dedicated to the literary life of Leningrad in the 1960s and ’70s, she added.
The museum will become a center for the study of Brodsky’s creative work, a place where various materials relating to him will be stored. Publications of his writings in Russian and foreign languages, articles and books written about him, documentary films and TV programs, pieces of music and art, videos of his interviews and meetings, multimedia presentations and informational programs will also be kept at the museum.
Current plans are to have at least part of the new museum open by the second half of 2011, after spending the first six months of the year renovating five rooms in the Murizi house on the corner of Liteiny Prospekt and Ulitsa Pestelya, where the poet lived for 17 years. The Murizi house, as well as being home to the Brodsky family, was also the site of one of the city’s most famous literary salons at the beginning of the 20th century. It was also the location of The Poets’ Union in the 1920s that was attended by Blok, Akhmatova, Gumilev and other poets and writers of the Silver Age.

TITLE: Apparent Demise of AMG Hits Russia’s Arts Publishing Industry
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Anyone browsing Russian newsstands for an art magazine to read on the long flight or train ride home would be forgiven for thinking that Russians just don’t care about the subject. Among the various interior design and home improvement titles available for purchase — most of which are local outlets for international brands — it is hard to find a single magazine dedicated to contemporary art. 
While nothing new, the situation was made worse recently with the demise of Moscow-based Art Media Group, after owner Valery Nosov was indicted on charges of fraud and embezzlement in connection with a government post he held from 2007 to 2008. Art Media Group was responsible for the publication of Black Square, the online arts portal OpenSpace and the Russian version of Art + Auction. It was one of the flashiest and most visible players on the contemporary art scene and acted as partner to numerous high profile events and exhibitions internationally. 
As a result of the closure, the company’s swanky digs have been vacated, its office equipment sold off and its staff reportedly left waiting to be paid their final wages. Buyers and investors are being sought far and wide to recoup loses and revive at least some of the group’s projects. However, this seems unlikely considering that, according to one source close to the owners, the group had been hemorrhaging $300,000 a month and closed with debts of $1 million still on its ledgers.
The group went quiet after a June 2 letter to readers on the OpenSpace web site saying that the media frenzy surrounding the end of the project “bears no relation to reality,” that the site would “shortly begin to function at its former capacity,” and that the economy is to blame for its woes. Over at the Art Media Group web site, the simple announcement of a Spring 2010 re-launch acts as a placeholder. 
This is not the first time that an important arts publication has gone under, dashing Russia’s hopes for a sustained presence on the international art scene. Just last year Hermitage Magazine (formerly published by this newspaper’s parent company, Independent Media) folded after high production costs and plummeting ad sales as a result of the economic slowdown made the project untenable. More than a year after control reverted to the museum, there has still been no official announcement from the Hermitage of its publication plans. Art Chronica, one of Russia’s few remaining contemporary art magazines, is also said to be feeling the pressures of an indifferent readership and a lack of capital.
Apathy on the part of subscribers and a general dearth of investment means that the prospect for art magazines in Russia is grim indeed. The country is not alone in facing the crisis in traditional publishing, but compared to Western Europe and the U.S., where single countries are able to support numerous publications catering to all sectors of the art-appreciating public, Russia has trouble supporting even one. 
Olesya Turkina, curator of contemporary art at the Russian Museum, sees “the absence of art magazines as symptomatic of the general absence of an infrastructure for contemporary art in Russia.” And while this means that “Russian art has been extremely free since Perestroika, it also means that the mechanisms which support and nurture it have never emerged.” 
Another part of the problem is that in Russia today, art is the province of an elite who are attracted more by the value it ads to their status and the opportunities it provides to display their wealth than by a commitment to social ideals. A far cry, then, from Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), the remarkable turn-of-the-century art journal edited by Sergei Diaghilev and financed by two influential Moscow-based patrons of Russian art who championed the idea of art for art’s sake.
But all is not as bleak as it may at first seem. The latest cause for optimism comes from Daria Zhukova’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, which mounts world-class exhibitions and has been in negotiations with London-based Cultureshock Media to oversee the creation of an own-brand publication to promote its vision of the Russian art world. 
One can only hope that the terrific job the center has been doing with its exhibition program will translate into an inspiring read that will attract people from all walks of life. Without a broad readership, any new magazine attempting to capture the imagination of the Russian public will be doomed to fail. That may not be a problem for a company with unlimited resources but, as recent history has shown, in this age of financial uncertainty nothing can be taken for granted.

TITLE: France to Put  Up Age For Retirement By Two Years
AUTHOR: By Sylvie Corbet and Jean-Marie Godard
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — France will raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 in 2018 in an effort to get the country’s spiraling public finances under control, the labor minister said Wednesday.
Eric Woerth called the measure — already strongly opposed by the opposition Socialist Party — a “real moral obligation,” given France’s burgeoning deficit and its aging population, which he said threatens the viability of the money-losing pension system.
The French budget deficit was at 7.5 percent of gross domestic product last year. The conservative government has vowed to bring it under 3 percent — the threshold set by the European Union — by 2013. The Greek crisis has given added urgency to France’s plans to cut back.
Woerth said the reform will bring France more into line with other European countries, which have raised retirement ages and taken other measures to slash budget deficits.
Still, the French measure pales in comparison with more drastic changes elsewhere in Europe. Germany, for example, is to gradually raise its retirement age from 65 to 67, starting in 2012 and wrapping up in 2029.
“There is no magic in terms of pensions. We cannot at the same time promise to work less long and not have a deficit,” Woerth told journalists. “If we want end our pension system’s debts, working longer is unavoidable.”
The reform will save nearly 19 billion euros ($29.3 billion) in 2018 and should bring the pension system back into the black that year, Woerth said.
He pledged the measure will be “responsible and fair,” affecting workers in the public and private sectors equally. It also makes exceptions for people who had physically tough jobs that took a toll on their health, as well as people who began working young, before age 18. They can still retire at 60.
The reform is to be instituted progressively and will also stretch out the total number of years people have to work to win full pension payments.
Several unions said that aspect of the reform would unfairly penalize women, who often spend more time out of the work force raising their children. The UNSA union said that under the new reform, people in such situations won’t be able to retire until age 67 if they want full benefits.
The Cabinet is to discuss the proposals in July, and they are expected to go before parliament next autumn.
Even before Wednesday’s announcement, the measure had sparked angry reactions from Socialist lawmakers and unions. On Tuesday, tens of thousands of people marched through Paris to protest the plans. Larger protests and strikes are likely starting in September, once much of the country returns from summer vacation.
For many on the left, chipping away at France’s cherished social benefits seems unthinkable.
“The end of retirement at age 60 ... is the end of an era,” leftist politician Jean-Luc Melenchon told France-Info. “It’s the end of a way of life, and the end of happy days.”
Last month, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that tackling 30 years of deficits is now a “national priority.” Other recent measures aimed at getting the deficit under control include a three-year spending freeze and a crackdown on tax loopholes.

TITLE: Iran Says It Will Build More Nuclear Reactors
AUTHOR: By Ali Akbar Dareini
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — Iran stepped up its nuclear defiance Wednesday by endorsing plans to boost its uranium enrichment and to build four new facilities for atomic medical research — less than a week after the latest UN sanctions.
The series of announcements and sharp comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who said the West must come to Iran like a “polite child” in any possible nuclear talks — could encourage calls for more economic pressure against the Islamic Republic.
European Union foreign ministers agreed earlier this week to consider tighter sanctions for Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment. U.S. lawmakers also could press for additional embargoes after last week’s UN Security Council sanctions — which were backed by Iranian allies Russia and China.
Ahmadinejad said he will soon announce new conditions for talks with the West. But first, he wants to punish world powers for imposing sanctions on Tehran and added Iran will not make “one iota of concessions.”
“You showed bad temper, reneged on your promise and again resorted to devilish manners,” he said of the powers that imposed sanctions. “We set conditions (for talks) so that, God willing, you’ll be punished a bit and sit at the negotiating table like a polite child,” he told a crowd during a visit to the central Iranian town of Shahr-e-Kord. His speech was broadcast live on state TV.
The West and other nations are increasingly worried Iran will eventually develop the capacity for nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful energy production and research.
Iran’s parliament speaker Ali Larijani said lawmakers back the government’s push to enrich uranium at a higher level since earlier this year as a response to “bullying countries.”
Iran currently enriches uranium up to 20 percent levels — which is far short the 95 percent plus enriched uranium needed for an atomic weapon, but is a significant advancement from the low-grade uranium at nearly 5 percent level from the early stages of making reactor-ready fuel.
Iran has rebuffed a UN-drafted plan to suspend uranium enrichment and swap its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium for fuel rods. An alternative plan backed by Turkey and Brazil includes the uranium-for-rods exchange, but does not mandate a halt to Iran’s ability to make its own nuclear fuel.
Iran has justified its decision to go to higher enrichment by saying it is needed to create fuel for a research reactor producing medical isotopes.
Iran’s nuclear chief said Wednesday there are plans to build four new medical research reactors, including one “more powerful” than the main facility: an aging 5-megawat U.S.-made research reactor operating in Tehran.
Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted by state TV’s web site as saying the new research reactor is for radioactive isotopes for medical needs of patients in Iran and abroad.
“Designing the reactor will be completed by the year end and two years will be needed to construct it. ... Our plan is to build four reactors in four corners of the country so that, given the short life of nuclear medicine, all patients will get the products throughout Iran,” the website quoted him as saying.
Salehi also said Iran possesses technology to produce fuel rods for such reactors and the first should be ready sometime next spring.
The announcements reflect Iran’s confusing response to the UN sanctions.
Ahmadinejad has countered with insults and dismissive remarks, but also claims the door is still open for dialogue on the nuclear standoff. The huge obstacle, however, is that the talks must be on Iran’s terms.
Ahmadinejad also attacked the U.S., saying Iran needs to save Americans from “their undemocratic and bullying government.”

TITLE: Tragedy Sets Tone In Race for New Polish President
AUTHOR: By Vanessa Gera
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WARSAW, Poland — National tragedy has set the stage in Poland for a presidential election whose outcome could shape the country’s direction on issues like the adoption of the euro, welfare reform and even its mission in Afghanistan.
Two months after President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash along with 95 others, Poles vote Sunday in an early presidential election to choose his successor.
The two main contenders are men whose own fates have been altered by that disaster — the president’s identical twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and Bronislaw Komorowski, the pro-business parliament speaker thrust by law into the role of acting president.
Kaczynski, a former prime minister known for his social conservatism and combative style, has enjoyed a surge of popularity in past weeks as he has traveled the country to meet with voters, striking an uncharacteristically moderate and conciliatory tone. The twins were extremely close — from their time as childhood actors to their activism in the anti-communist Solidarity movement to their co-founding of the Catholic-inspired political party, Law and Justice.
But opinion polls show that Kaczynski, who turns 61 on Friday, still won’t manage to swing the sympathy vote enough to overtake Komorowski, a former Solidarity activist and the scion of a centuries-old aristocratic family.
Komorowski belongs to the moderate and market-friendly governing Civic Platform party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

TITLE: Pakistan: U.S. Vigilante Obeying God’s Orders
AUTHOR: By Munir Ahmed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD — An American construction worker detained in Pakistan while on a solo mission to kill Osama bin Laden claimed Wednesday that he was obeying an order from God to avenge the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Pakistani security officials.
Gary Brooks Faulkner said God revealed the order in one of his dreams, prompting him to travel to Pakistan in search of al-Qaida’s leader, said two security officials, one of whom is part of a team of investigators questioning the American.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Catching bin Laden was 50-year-old Faulkner’s passion, his brother Scott Faulkner said. A devout Christian with a prison record, Faulkner has been to Pakistan at least six times, learned some of the local language, and even grew a long beard to blend in, relatives and acquaintances said.
“Our military has not been able to track Osama down yet. It’s been 10 years,” Scott Faulkner told reporters in Denver. “It’s easier as a civilian, dressed in the local dress, to infiltrate the inside, the local people, gain their confidence and get information and intel that you couldn’t get as an American soldier, Navy SEAL, whoever you might be.”
Gary Faulkner, of Greeley, Colorado, arrived June 3 in the town of Bumburate. He was assigned a police guard, as is common for foreigners visiting remote parts of Pakistan. When he checked out of a hotel without informing the guard, officers began looking for him, senior police official Mumtaz Ahmad Khan said.
Faulkner was found late Sunday in a forest.
“We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden,” Khan said. But when officers found weapons, including a 40-inch sword and a pistol as well as night-vision equipment, “our suspicion grew.”
He said Faulkner was trying to cross into the nearby Afghan region of Nuristan, one of several rumored hiding places for bin Laden along the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border.
Faulkner’s sister, Deanna M. Faulkner of Grand Junction, Colorado, said her brother suffers from kidney disease that has left him with only 9 percent kidney function. “I’m worried about him. I’m worried that in Pakistan they won’t give him his dialysis and if he doesn’t get it, he’s in serious trouble,” she said.
A Pakistani doctor has examined Faulkner and determined his current condition is not life-threatening, the Pakistani security officials said Wednesday.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said American officials were seeking consular access to a U.S. citizen in Pakistani custody and that once given, they could help arrange for medical care.
Gary Faulkner retained vivid memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was serious but rational about his search, his brother Scott said. When Scott Faulkner dropped his brother off at Denver’s airport May 30, the two discussed the possibility Faulkner would not return alive.
“He’s as normal as you and I,” Scott Faulkner said. “He’s just very passionate.”
Scott Faulkner said his brother sold all his tools to finance his trip and was prepared to die in Pakistan. He said Faulkner had a travel visa, obtained his weapons inside Pakistan and only took with him a Bible and plastic handcuffs.
Gary Faulkner, who was being questioned in the main northwest city of Peshawar, has not yet been charged with any crime in Pakistan. Khan noted police confiscated a small amount of hashish, enough for a single joint, from Faulkner.
The American was in and out of Colorado state prisons between 1981 and 1993, serving a total of about seven years in five separate stints for burglary, larceny and parole violations, state officials said.
Bin Laden, who is also reported to have kidney problems, has evaded a massive manhunt since Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, which he is accused of masterminding along with other attacks. The federal government has offered a bounty of $25 million for information leading to his capture.
Khan said when Faulkner was asked why he thought he could trace bin Laden, he replied, “God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him.”