SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1631 (92), Friday, December 3, 2010
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TITLE: PM Slams WikiLeaks Over ‘Mafia’ Allegations
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin defended the honor of Russia after it was branded a “mafia state” in the WikiLeaks memos and he was accused of being aware of a plot to murder a dissident in London.
As the whistleblowing web site’s founder Julian Assange, wanted by Interpol over rape allegations in Sweden, remained out of sight, one of his close associates voiced fears that he could be assassinated.
The United States meanwhile named an anti-terrorism expert to lead a review of security in the wake of the leaks of some 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables that has embarrassed and angered Washington’s friends and foes alike.
Some of the most eye-catching of the latest revelations centered on Russia, with one memo quoting a Spanish prosecutor describing it as a virtual “mafia state” whose political parties operate “hand in hand” with organized crime.
Spanish prosecutor Jose Gonzalez told U.S. officials that “he considers ... Russia to be a virtual ‘mafia state’” where “one cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and organized crime groups,” the memo said. 
Gonzalez, who has been investigating Russian organized crime in Spain for a decade, also agreed with poisoned dissident Alexander Litvinenko’s thesis that Russian intelligence and security services “owned organized crime.”
The memo, sent in February of this year from the U.S. embassy in Madrid, cited the senior prosecutor as claiming that “certain political parties in Russia operate ‘hand in hand’ with organized crime.” 
In a separate leaked cable sent shortly after Litvinenko’s death in London in 2006, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried questioned whether Putin knew beforehand of the plot to kill the dissident.
In a meeting with a senior French diplomatic adviser, Fried asked “whether rogue security elements could operate... without Putin’s knowledge,” given the leader’s “attention to detail.”
The cables have also quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates as saying that “Russian democracy has disappeared” and describing President Dmitry Medvedev as “Robin” to Putin’s “Batman.”
But in an interview with CNN, Putin said Gates was “deeply misled” about Russian democracy and warned U.S. officials not to “interfere” in Russia’s internal politics.
Although relations between Moscow and Washington have thawed in recent months, Putin made clear his annoyance. 
“Our country is led by the people of the Russian Federation through the legitimately elected government,” he said. “The Russian people have unilaterally made their choice in the direction of democracy in the early ‘90s. And we will not be led astray.”
The diplomatic damage of the leaks was also illustrated in Turkey where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was livid at allegations mentioned in the cables that he kept secret Swiss bank accounts.
“I do not have one penny in Swiss banks,” Erdogan said, urging Washington to “call to account” its diplomats for “slander derived from lies and inaccurate opinions.”
As the new leaks piled on embarrassment for his administration, U.S. President Barack Obama named Russell Travers, an anti-terrorism expert, to “lead a comprehensive effort to identify and develop the structural reforms needed in light of the WikiLeaks breach,” the White House said.
The State Department has already temporarily suspended Pentagon access to some documents. WikiLeaks is believed to have obtained 250,000 cables from Bradley Manning, a disgruntled army intelligence officer.
WikiLeaks was thrown off its web host Amazon, best known as a book retailer. After several hours of disruption, WikiLeaks was again accessible in the United States via a European server. 
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley described Assange as “an anarchist” amid mystery over the whereabouts of the shadowy Australian who is the subject of an international arrest warrant. 
Assange’s British-based lawyer Mark Stephens said the authorities knew where he was. 
“The police know how to get hold of him, as does the Swedish prosecutor. Yet no one seems concerned to tell us what is going on,” he said. 
And a WikiLeaks spokesman said Assange feared for his life. 
“When you have people calling, for example, for his assassination, it is best to keep a low profile,” Kristinn Hrafnsson said in London 
Assange’s mother also expressed fear for her son’s safety, saying the forces he was challenging had become “too big.”
“I’m concerned it’s gotten too big and the forces that he’s challenging are too big,” Christine Assange told the Courier Mail, her local newspaper in Queensland.

TITLE: Medvedev Avoids Hot Topics in Annual Address
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev did not say a word about political stagnation or United Russia’s monopoly on power during his annual state-of-the-nation address Tuesday, passing up a chance to elaborate on remarks he made last week.
Instead, the 72-minute speech focused on social issues, mainly demography, child protection and public utilities, treading lightly into territory where the ruling tandem’s dominant partner, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, rules unequivocally.
A gloomy-looking Putin — who was applauded as he entered the Kremlin’s Georgiyevsky Hall moments before the speech began — appeared bored throughout Medvedev’s speech, which was rich in generalities and repetitions of previous initiatives on the economy and social policy.
Analysts had called the speech an opportunity for Medvedev to articulate a clear message to the country’s elite that could serve as a manifesto for a possible re-election campaign in 2012.
“Medvedev plants the seeds in clay, while Putin has long been cultivating the rich soil of the state-dependent electorate,” said Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with the Indem think tank.
The format for the speech to a large crowd of lawmakers and regional leaders is better suited to Putin, he said.
Political analysts agree that Medvedev — whose core constituency is Westernized, urban young people — has been trying in recent months to extend his appeal in a country where most people and many businesses rely heavily on state support.
Opening the address before the two chambers of the parliament and leading government members, Medvedev said he would not add to the 20 demands for modernizing the economy and political system, which he formulated in his two previous addresses.
Those speeches, along with infrequent video blog posts and last year’s “Go, Russia!” article, had instilled hopes among the Russian liberals and many foreign commentators that Medvedev is genuinely seeking to re-hash the country’s ossified political system, which relies heavily on the so-called power vertical created by Putin and is glued together by a cobweb of informal agreements and corruption.
Modernization of the economy has become the core of Medvedev’s leadership agenda over the past two years, although his rhetoric has occasionally included references to the political system as well.

Tepid Results
He admitted on Tuesday that progress in diversifying the economy away from its dependence on the extraction of natural resources had been slow, while the anti-corruption campaign is off to a sputtering start.
Medvedev only briefly touched upon the political system, when he suggested expanding the proportional and mixed systems of elections into local councils for small towns and municipalities, which are traditionally formed by single-mandate candidates.
The move would boost the influence of the Putin-led United Russia at the lowest levels of the power vertical, where it is still often challenged by single-mandate candidates representing local interests or other parties.
Interestingly, Medvedev lashed out at United Russia’s stranglehold on decision making, saying in his video blog on Nov. 23 that the lack of competition was leading to a degradation of the political system.
More than the half of the address, which was covered by nearly 340 journalists, was dedicated to the plight of children.
Calling children Russia’s “No. 1 task,” Medvedev proposed tax breaks and giving free land to families with three children or more. He pledged 100 billion rubles ($3.3 billion) to develop children’s medical care over the next two years, promised a tougher law for the sale of alcohol and tobacco to minors, and tax breaks to charities helping children.
“Pedophiles should be kept a canon-shot’s distance from institutions for children,” Medvedev said. Measures against pedophiles are a favorite topic for Russian politicians, with parties in the State Duma regularly competing to draft the harshest anti-pedophile laws.
Medvedev, who has a 15-year-old son, Ilya, spoke at length about improving conditions in orphanages, opening more kindergartens, supporting talented students and assisting children with physical disabilities.
NATO and Foreign Policy
Moving on to foreign policy, Medvedev warned the West that if NATO doesn’t reach a deal with Russia over the joint development of an anti-missile shield over Europe, a new arms race would start within the next decade and Russia would be forced to build up its offensive strategic forces.
He made similar warnings at a NATO-Russia summit in Lisbon earlier this month.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing unidentified U.S. officials, that Russia has moved short-range tactical nuclear warheads to facilities nearer the borders of an unspecified NATO member this spring.
Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, dismissed the report, telling Bloomberg that Moscow would not jeopardize trust with Washington by taking such a provocative step without informing and consulting with Washington.
Russia and NATO agreed to consider cooperation options at the Lisbon summit, though security analysts agree that the United States will not allow Russia to be an equal partner in the missile shield. Washington argues the shield is needed to protect NATO allies from potential missile strikes by Iran.
Medvedev also said he expected approval soon from Western partners for Russian entry into the World Trade Organization, as well as the eventual introduction of visa-free travel between Russia and the European Union.
The ongoing rapprochement with the West, which Medvedev indicated he hopes to continue, is clearly a credit to the president, not Putin, said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.
Continued efforts to boost ties could be taken as a hint that Medvedev is preparing to run for the presidency based on his achievements for Russia abroad, he said.
Medvedev also called for further expansion of financial punishments, in place of prison terms, for non-violent crime, which is part of his efforts to make the Russian justice system more humane and less corrupt.
But analysts said the address offered few suggestions that Medvedev was preparing to continue working on his priorities in a second term as president.
On Friday, Putin once again told journalists in Berlin that he and Medvedev would decide ahead of the next elections who would run for presidency in 2012.
He and Medvedev have been equally vague about their plans, and Medvedev even suggested in passing earlier this year that a third person could run with the ruling tandem’s backing.

TITLE: Russia 
To Host World Cup In 2018
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ZURICH — Russia has been chosen over England and joint bids by Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium to host the 2018 World Cup, marking the first time the country will host the event.
The 22 voters on FIFA’s executive committee, some accused of corruption in the weeks leading up to their meeting, chose the tiny desert nation of Qatar as the 2022 World Cup host, beating out the United States, with FIFA brushing aside doubts about blistering heat to bring soccer’s showcase event to the Middle East for the first time.
Qatar, an oil-rich nation that has been independent since 1971, has a population of about 1.7 million — 500,000 less than Houston. At 4,416 square miles, it is smaller than Connecticut.
“We go to new lands,” FIFA president Sepp Blatter said.
Qatar, which has promised to overcome heat of up to 50 degrees Celsius with air conditioned outdoor stadiums, won out over the U.S., Australia, Japan and South Korea in a secret vote Thursday.
The U.S. Soccer Federation, which spent millions of dollars on its bid and brought over former President Bill Clinton for its closing presentation, was hoping to bring the World Cup back to America for the first time since 1994 and boost the steady but slow growth of the sport in the U.S.
Russia was chosen over England and joint bids by Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium. “We cannot really express how happy we are,” said Alexei Sorokin, CEO of Russia’s bid. “It’s a great victory.”
Following corruption allegations that led to two executive committee members being excluded from the final votes, the decisions were bound to be controversial even before they were made. And American sports executives will now be left to wonder what they have do to host another major international event.
“Basically, oil and natural gas won today. This was not about merit, this was about money,” former U.S. national team star Eric Wynalda said in a telephone interview. Qatar “is a country that is really going to struggle to host this event. A successful World Cup would mean the attendance would be twice the population.”
Qatar, which has never even qualified for a World Cup, used its 30-minute presentation to underline how the tournament could unify a region ravaged by conflict. Presenters also promised to dismantle the stadiums built for the tournament and give them to needy nations.
The nation promised to spend $50 billion on infrastructure upgrades and $4 billion to build nine stadiums and renovate three others. One advantage of having the tournament in a small country is that the stadiums will all be within an hour of each other.
Qataris and others — including workers from south Asia — immediately started dancing in the streets along Doha’s Gulf waterfront. Some blew the vuvuzelas that became synonymous with the World Cup in South Africa.
The 2018 vote was especially crushing for England, the motherland of soccer, which has not hosted the World Cup since winning it for the only time in 1966. England’s final presentation Thursday included Prince William, Prime Minister David Cameron and Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder David Beckham, a former captain of England’s soccer team.
“You will never regret” the decision, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. “Let us make history together.”

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>India-Russia Seminar</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A seminar devoted to Emerging Global Powers in Contemporary International Relations will take place at St. Petersburg’s School of International Relations on Monday and Tuesday.
The seminar, arranged in conjunction with the Consulate General of India, will attract Indian and Russian scholars who will discuss topics including emerging global powers in world politics, international security challenges to transforming global architecture and international socio-economic stability in times of a reforming global political economy system, as well as India-Russia bilateral relations.
Participants will discuss issues including Asian security in 2030 from a Russian perspective, and prospects for bilateral cooperation between Russia and India in the spheres of economics, energy, hi-tech and defense.

<strong>Putin Last on King Show</strong>
MOSCOW (SPT) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the last public figure to be interviewed on Larry King Live, with the 40-minute talk aired on CNN at 5 a.m. Thursday, Moscow time, RIA-Novosti reported.
Putin appeared on Larry King Live shortly after becoming president in 2000. The interview is remembered for Putin’s answer to a question about what happened to the nuclear submarine Kursk, lost in the Barents Sea in August that year. Putin, who was criticized for his handling of the sinking, responded at the time: “It sank.”
King, 77, said in June that he would end his talk show after interviews with some 40,000 public figures during the course of his career.

<strong>180-Day Holiday</strong>
MOSCOW (SPT) — Vladislav Skvortsov, mayor of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky whom the ruling United Russia party has recently advised to resign, took a 180-day vacation starting Tuesday, Interfax reported.
Skvortsov, whom federal officials lambasted for the dismal state of utilities in his city, said he wanted to finish his doctoral thesis on utilities infrastructure.
He added that he does not plan to resign and will appeal his expulsion from United Russia to the party’s Supreme Council, the report said.

TITLE: Small Businesses Get $3.3 Bln Tax Holiday
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday ordered $3.3 billion in tax relief for small businesses and called for the sale of more state-owned assets, including news media, by likening officials to a wealthy U.S. businessman from a Soviet poem.
Delivering his annual state-of-the-nation address, Medvedev also outlined measures to stimulate regional economies, fight corruption and improve the system of state purchasing contracts.
Announcing the tax move, Medvedev said he felt compelled to mitigate the effects on businesses of an increase in payroll taxes that comes into effect in January to finance retirement pensions and health care. Small businesses that work in industrial and social areas should have a two-year transition period to the higher rates, he said.
The government must let them pay the 26 percent rate during that time instead of the 34 percent rate that takes effect next year, he said.
The measure, if approved by the loyal parliament, would save businesses 100 billion rubles over the two years, Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters after the address. The government may submit legislation for the tax break later this week and is hoping it will come into force before the new year, he added.
Under existing legislation, Dvorkovich said, the tax burden would rise so dramatically that many businesses would be unable to pay.
“I don’t think we should consider this money as losses for the budget,” he said in comments after Medvedev’s speech. “It seems to me we wouldn’t get that money either way.”
The amendments proposed by Medvedev will need to set criteria to -differentiate industrial and social businesses from financial or retail businesses, Dvorkovich said.
Boris Titov, chairman of the Delovaya Rossia association of small and medium-sized businesses, welcomed the move but said it was not enough. The businesses favored by Medvedev represent just 5 percent of Russia’s small business, while the others will still take a huge blow from the tax increase, he told The St. Petersburg Times.
Hard pressed by the higher taxes, they will hide their accounting from the authorities, he warned, citing a recent poll by the group.
“The tax base will get narrower,” Titov said. “Most entrepreneurs will use various tax evasion schemes.”

TITLE: Russia Marks World AIDS Day With Protests, Burials
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: World AIDS Day on Wednesday saw an unusually high number of protests in Russia as activists across the country joined forces to combat the epidemic and campaign for the protection of patients’ rights.
Protests by people living with HIV/AIDS have escalated in recent months as more and more of them fall victim to medicine shortages. A mock funeral march was held at the protest meeting in St. Petersburg on Wednesday to emphasize the seriousness of patients’ dilemmas.
“There’s a special atmosphere at these meetings that have burial ceremonies and funeral marches as frequently used themes, whether they take place in St. Petersburg, Moscow or Tver,” explained Alexandra Volgina, head of the Svecha charity foundation which helps those who have tested postive for HIV, and who is herself HIV-positive. “As an old Russian saying has it, hope dies last. During these meetings we try to show that the situation has become so desperate that we are burying our hopes.”
During a similar protest in Moscow which was held outside the Russian government headquarters, nine activists were detained by police.
At least every third HIV-positive person in Russia is unable to receive treatment owing to shortages of medical supplies, said Boris Pokrovsky, head of the Russian Federal Center for HIV/AIDS Research, speaking at a news conference in Moscow on Wednesday.
Severe medicine shortages have been registered in 18 Russian regions, including St. Petersburg,  Moscow, Kaliningrad, Kazan and Krasnoyarsk. Activists have created a special web site, www.pereboi.ru, to document the scale of the problem.
“These street protests are really the last resort for us, like a cry of despair because we have tried everything we can to make sure that all of us get access to treatment,” Volgina said. “At this stage, this has come down to the issue of the right to live being threatened. The authorities ignore our protests, and their silence is affecting many of us directly. The officials are leaving people to die.”
In 2010, more than 11,000 HIV-positive people died of AIDS-related illnesses. The figure has remained stable for the past several years, despite the efforts of the Russian government, which has officially announced that it will provide free access to treatment for anyone diagnosed with HIV.
Russia’s Health Ministry insists that there are no shortages in the supply of medication and treatment for HIV-positive patients. The country’s Health Minister Tatyana Golikova has made reassuring statements in recent months, saying that the state has provided 10 billion rubles ($319 million) for HIV treatment programs, and arguing that the situation is stable.
Lawyer Irina Khrunova, a lawyer with the Agora human rights association, said her pressure group is encouraging HIV-positive people who are unable to receive medications to file court cases against the authorities. She said nine cases have already been filed in Moscow and other Russian cities.
According to the 2010 report of the global AIDS monitoring agency UNAIDS, Eastern Europe remains the only region in the world where the number of new HIV cases keeps growing, and Russia and Ukraine are responsible for the largest outbreaks of the virus.
According to official statistics, from January to October this year, more than 45,000 new HIV cases were registered in Russia. Currently, Russia has 529,828 officially registered HIV cases. However, according to UN estimates, Russia has over 1 million people living with HIV, suggesting a high number of latent cases.
“The state is not doing anything to prevent HIV from spreading, not even minor things such as installing condom machines in student dormitories, clubs and bars,” said Anastasia Doronina, an activist with the youth branch of the liberal party Yabloko in St. Petersburg and a co-organizer of a meeting in support of people living with HIV organized by Yabloko on Wednesday. “In fact, on most student campuses in the city a condom is something of a luxury — they are simply not sold on site, and the nearest pharmacy is a long way away.”

TITLE: Yandex Compiles Top Searches List
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russians will remember 2010 by the terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro, the record heatwave, and the dismissal of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, judging by the list of top search queries for the past year’s events published by Yandex on Wednesday.
The annual list, which is based on queries for Yandex, the country’s largest search engine with 64 percent of the market, does not include regular events like holidays and movie premieres.
The public’s interest in Russian current events peaked in late March, with 1 million requests daily, when two suicide bombers set off explosives in the Moscow metro, killing 40 people, Yandex said in a statement.
The summer wildfires, which swept through more than 20 million hectares of forest, destroyed more than 2,000 houses and blanketed cities in acrid smog, came in second.
The record-breaking heatwave, which some experts said was responsible for a higher mortality rate in Moscow, was the year’s third biggest topic, as Internet users rushed to their computers to check forecasts and find out where to get air conditioners.
The Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where Russia had its worst post-Soviet finish ever, came in fourth on the list, beating September’s sacking of Luzhkov, which was the fifth most popular search topic among Yandex users in 2010. 
The relocation to a new address of Russia’s most popular torrent tracker, which moved from Torrents.ru to Rutracker.org following a police crackdown in February, was the longest running top search, generating 100,000 to 250,000 requests a month through September, Yandex said.

TITLE: Optogan LED Plant Opened At Old Elcoteq Premises
AUTHOR: By Sophie Gaitzsch
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The first light-emitting diode (LED) production plant in Russia and the largest in Eastern Europe and the CIS was launched Monday in St. Petersburg by the Optogan Group with overall investment of 3.35 billion rubles ($106 million). 
The factory will employ up to 800 people at its 15,000-square-meter site on the Tallinskoye Shosse in the south of the city. The plant is housed in the former premises of the Finnish electronics manufacturer Elcoteq. According to Interfax, Optogan, a Finnish-based LED maker founded by Russians, bought the building for 16 million euros ($21 million). 
The shareholders in the project are Onexim investment fund, the state-owned fund for technology projects Rosnano, and the Republican Investment Company of the Sakha Republic. 
LEDs are semiconductor light sources used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for lighting, being more ecological than incandescent or fluorescent lighting. They emit more light per watt than incandescent bulbs, have a longer useful life and are less fragile. Unlike fluorescent lamps, they do not contain mercury. On the downside, LED devices are currently more expensive than conventional lighting technologies, but Alexei Kovsh, Optogan’s executive vice president, predicts that the price of a 60-watt LED bulb will be decrease four-fold to six or seven dollars during the next five years.
At the factory’s opening ceremony, which was attended by prominent figures including Rosnano CEO Anatoly Chubais, Onexim president Mikhail Prokhorov, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, Chubais described the plant as “a step toward a new energy efficient economy and the development of the lighting industry in Russia.” 
“We believe that thanks to this kind of innovative project, our country has all the opportunities to claim its right to a new niche in the world’s economy,” said Prokhorov. 
“The decision to open a factory in St. Petersburg is the result of a combination of factors,” Markus Zeiler, general manager of global sales and marketing for the company, said during the ceremony. Optogan already has three factories in Finland and Germany. “The city boasts a highly educated workforce and good facilities, which will enable us to react rapidly to the market. All three of the company’s founders studied in St. Petersburg and have strong ties to the place. Highly automatized equipment and a skilled workforce will make it possible to produce at a low cost and compete with Asian manufacturers,” added Zeiler.
The first production line has an annual capacity of 360 million LEDs, but the company’s management is optimistic that it will be able to open new production lines by the end of 2011. 
“The factory’s turnover should amount to 3 million rubles ($95,000) this year and reach 30 to 40 million rubles ($950,000 to $1.2 million) in 2011,” said Kovsh, adding that “major contracts” had already been signed.
LEDs produced in St. Petersburg will be sold in Russia and abroad. “We will first export our production to Asia and Europe and will also soon enter the U.S. market. But our key market is Russia,” said Zeiler. 
Kovsh clarified, however, that Optogan only plans to start selling its products in Russia in about three years, with potential clients including new infrastructure projects and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. City Hall has already expressed an interest in the new technology. 
“Energy waste is a disaster, and LEDs offer us a way to become more energy efficient,” said Matviyenko. “The city will set an example and be a buyer of those products.”

TITLE: Antiques Exhibit Targets Investors
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Oil is old. Metals are outmoded. Securities are pass?. The latest area attracting investment in Russia is antiques, as illustrated by the third international Collector exhibition currently showing at St. Petersburg’s Manezh exhibition hall.
More than 200 exhibitors from 12 countries including the U.S., U.K., France and Germany are presenting their antique and vintage collections, which include antique furniture, porcelain, sculpture, rare books, paintings, stamps, cards, coins, weapons, icons and jewelry.
“We can say that we have a mature, formed antique market in St. Petersburg,” said Igor Poltorak, president of the Association of Antique Dealers in St. Petersburg. “The first antique shop was opened in the city in 1988, launching the market. Now there are more than 100 antique shops in St. Petersburg.” 
The exhibition brings together representatives of the market in order to strike up new contacts and advertise antiques, a goal shared by the Russian Auction House, which holds its first auction in St. Petersburg on Dec. 9. The catalogue comprises 59 paintings, among which is Ivan Aivazovsky’s work “Calm,” appraised at 24 to 27 million rubles ($765,000 to $860,000), making it the most expensive item in the auction. 
The auction also features 95 arts and crafts items and jewelry, including objects made by the celebrated jeweler to the tsars, Carl Faberge. A bracelet belonging to Grand Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna of Russia, the daughter of Emperor Alexander III, is one of the auction lots. The bracelet, which was given to celebrate the birth of her son Andrei, is engraved with his date of birth and is appraised at 1.2 to 1.5 million rubles ($38,000 to $48,000).
“St. Petersburg is the cradle of auction traditions; there were auctions in pre-Revolutionary times, and we wish to revive them,” said Andrei Stepanenko, the general director of the Russian Auction House.
“A market can be created only within the conditions of existing auction houses … and the first such event in December will be the starting point in this trend,” he said.
The next stage of developing the antiques market will be educational programs that teach people how to become collectors, as many people in Russia simply do not know how to start this business. The project also aims to find uses for collections.
“There is a real problem when people do not know what to do with their collection if their children do not share their knowledge and interest,” said Mikhail Voronin, a collector and member of the exhibition’s organizing committee. “At the same time, they do not want to sell them. The optimal decision is to loan their collection to a museum. We want to invite museums to take part in the exhibition and give people the opportunity to get in touch with museums.” 
Museums can also buy items at such exhibitions. For example, the Russian Auction House has already had a bid from the State Pavlovsk Museum for a set of shot glasses produced by the Imperial Glass Factory in the early 19th century.
As part of the Collector exhibition, an auction of vintage clothing will be held at the Grand Hotel Europe on Saturday. The auction will introduce items from European and Russian designers of the early and mid 20th century.

TITLE: City’s Ties With Japan Grow
AUTHOR: By Olga Khrustaleva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian-Japanese relations are not what they were in the 18th century, when most Japanese citizens in Russia were fishermen who had been shipwrecked and were unable to return home, nor what they were in the 1970s, when the Soviet Union was Japan’s biggest trade partner.
Yukio Asazuma, director of St. Petersburg’s Japan Center, talked to The St. Petersburg Times about why Japanese people visit Russia in the 21st century and what advantages St. Petersburg holds over the Russian capital. 
“It’s not the same as in the ’70s, when the volume of trade with the Soviet Union was the biggest in Japan,” said Asazuma. “But investment is increasing and, if at the beginning of the ’90s, Russia occupied the 18th place, in 2008 it was already in eighth place.” 
Founded in 2001, the Japan Center in St. Petersburg exists to help Japanese companies start up in Russia and increase business communications between the two countries. “When in Japan, I always visit St. Petersburg’s twin-city, Osaka, to meet with the city government and heads of business associations there,” said Asazuma. 
Asazuma was appointed head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Japan Center in 2008, and since that time, the volume of Japanese money invested in local business has reached 15 million dollars. 
“Eighty to ninety percent of Japanese businessmen refuse to come here because they don’t know the Russian market, so they prefer to work with the partners they know well, for example, Chinese,” he said. 
In this respect, the country’s image is crucial, says Asazuma. “There’s too much negative information about Russia in the press,” he said. “It’s a very promising market, so journalists should highlight its strong points as well.” 
Asazuma recently made a presentation of Petersburg’s most interesting projects in order to try to attract more investors to the region. “There are now 49 Japanese companies here, and most of them are manufacturers such as Nissan, Toyota and JTI,” he said. “This is the big advantage of St. Petersburg. Moscow is a huge market, where the circulation of money is certainly bigger, but Petersburg has a real economy and industry that are a firm basis for economic development.” 
There are many other areas with potential for cooperation and exchange of experience between the two countries, including hospitality and construction. 
“The Japanese were very surprised when they found out that some buildings in St. Petersburg are 300 years old and that we reconstruct them,” said Lyudmila Erzhanova, a senior manager who went to Japan for a short internship. “The lifespan of most Tokyo buildings is 15 to 30 years. But the technology that the Japanese use to build their skyscrapers on reclaimed land might be very useful for Petersburg companies.” 
Asazuma believes that the balance of three components — commerce, culture and industry — creates unique conditions for business here. “It’s a tourist city,” he said. “Many Japanese businessmen come here on holiday after visiting Moscow to hold business negotiations. But it’s not just about tourism; St. Petersburg is an excellent platform for business, and not only in commerce, but in industry as well.”

TITLE: 60,000 .ðô Domain Names Unblocked by Coordinator
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — About 60,000 Cyrillic domain names improperly processed by registrar Ru-Center were unfrozen Tuesday, according to the national domain coordinator, which had ordered the temporary blockage. A special commission will be assembled to look into the matter.
The main problem with the domains in question is that they were registered in violation of the “first application” rule, according to which a name goes to the first individual or organization to apply for it. Registration companies are prohibited from taking names for themselves, but it seems some of the firms skirted that rule, resulting in the freeze.
“We are [unblocking the domain names] in the interests of the end users who in this situation are held hostage to auctions.  Most of them … are conscientious buyers and they should get the opportunity to use the domains for which they have applied,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, director of the Coordination Center for TLD RU, which drove the creation of .ðô and has oversight responsibility for registration.
Several registration companies, foreseeing the demand for popular and “vanity” domain names, registered such domains under their own names through partner companies, and then organized  auctions to sell them.
Over 60,000 Cyrillic domain names registered by Ru-Center were blocked last week, said Olga Yermakova, information projects manager with the Coordination Center.
“This registrar caught the Coordination Center’s eye because of users’ complaints,” Yermakova told The St. Petersburg Times. The complaints came from individual domain users who had applied early and rule-abiding registrars.
Ru-Center was not the only one to draw complaints, she said.
Users also complained about the registrar Netfox breaking the registration rules, but the company canceled all auctions following a warning from the Coordination Center, Yermakova said.
The newly formed commission to investigate the violations and resolve ownership of the domain names will consist of representatives from the Internet community, State Duma deputies, representatives of the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the communications ministry.  
It will be studying registration documents for disputed domains “within the legal framework and taking into account, first and foremost, users’ interests,” Yermakova said.
The anti-monopoly service also launched an investigation into the matter and already filed lawsuits against six domain registrars including Ru-Center, Registrator and Elvis-Telecom. Court decisions are expected in December.
Cyrillic domain registration opened to the general public on November 11. In the first week alone 500,000 new domains ending  in .ðô were registered.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev highlighted Cyrillic domains as a national  accomplishment in the state of the nation address on Tuesday.
“This year we ‘taught’ Russian to the World Wide Web.  This is important for our country,” Medvedev said.

TITLE: WTO Accession to End Fees
AUTHOR: By Derek Andersen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian airlines look ready to weather the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of overflight fees from European airlines. An agreement to eliminate the charges was announced Monday by Fernando Valenzuela, head of the EU delegation to Russia.
Foreign carriers have been paying Russia to use its airspace, particularly for flights from Europe to Asia, since the 1970s.
The deal is part of preparations for a joint Russian-EU document on accession to the WTO, to be signed at the Russia-EU summit on December 7.
The European Commission claims that the fees cost EU carriers about $420 million in 2008. They may now be around $200 million, said Uralsib analyst Anna Kupriyanova.
The details of the agreements are not made public. “Everything about them is confidential,” said Kupriyanova.
Nonetheless, Kupriyanova estimated in an equity research report she authored that Aeroflot received the lion’s share of the proceeds — $194 million a year, or 6 percent of its revenue, from the fees in 2009.
Kupriyanova said this proportion has been going down over time, as Aeroflot’s revenue grows. The rest of the fees go to other Russia carriers.
“There are commercial agreements with various companies,” Aeroflot spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said when asked about the fee agreements. She declined to comment further.
“Transaero has never had and does not now have agreements with any airlines from EU countries that would envisage any payment for flight over the territory of Russia,” said Transaero director of corporate communications Sergei Bykhal.
Kupriyanova suggested in an equity report that Transaero was the recipient of such fees as well.
A Volga-Dnepr Airlines spokesman said the company would only comment after the decision is finalized.
The European Union considers the overflight agreements unfair competition. By using the Siberian route, airlines save a significant amount of fuel when flying to Asia.

TITLE: Sites Tracking Banknotes Gain Popularity
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Many of us put pencil marks on banknotes when we were kids, hoping to get them back someday. Thanks to the Internet, tracking bills online has become possible and is gaining popularity in Russia due to two special web sites.
Founders of Cupura.ru and Roobex.ru said they got the idea from a similar American web site called WheresGeorge.com, which was launched in 1999 and is still popular.
“Everything started in the United States when a $20 bill with a note saying “learn my story on WheresGeorge.com” wound up in my hands,” said Roobex.ru founder Anatoly Rakhmailov, who lived in the United States for six years before returning to his native Russia.
Rakhmailov, 29, said he was surprised to see “a huge number of people” on the U.S. web site, “who really wanted to know … who owned the bills they had once held in their hands.”
Rakhmailov launched the Russian analogue of WheresGeorge.com in March 2009 “just for fun.”
On Roobex.ru interested users can register bills by inputting serial numbers and leave comments on how the money was spent.
“I wanted to diversify the process of entertaining and communicating in the Internet amid common fanatical interest in social networks,” Rakhmailov said in e-mailed comments.
Kirill Sorokin, who created the other tracking web site, Cupura.ru, together with his two friends, said the project had been launched “for pleasure” as well.
Cupura.ru and Roobex.ru, which currently have 1,489 and 1,907 regular users, respectively, were launched as noncommercial projects. But while Roobex.ru provides an opportunity for placing banner advertisements, Sorokin said his web site would never be commercialized.
“No advertising, no commercialization was planned for this project initially. And we don’t plan to commercialize it in the future,” he said in an interview.
Roobex.ru currently brings no profit, said Rakhmailov, who lives in Rostov-on-Don.
To start tracking, users register bills and get notifications by e-mail when the next user registers the same bill. The logic is simple: The more bills a user registers, the higher the probability he’ll hear about one of them again.
More than 60,000 bills are currently registered on Cupura.ru, while the figure for Roobex.ru stands at almost 49,000.
Dmitry, who works at a car service center in Khabarovsk, has registered a total of 1,676 bills on Cupura.ru since the beginning of the year, which has made him second in the top-20 users rating.
Dmitry, 30, who didn’t want to provide his surname, said he had started registering bills as a matter of hometown pride, to compete with neighboring Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Khabarovsk region.
“I was registering more and more bills, and finally noticed that I was in fifth place. Second place was sort of a personal ambition,” he said by telephone.
Cupura.ru users in Khabarovsk registered a total of 2,070 bills as of Dec. 1. The figure for Komsomolsk-on-Amur stands at 711.
Moscow and St. Petersburg with 9,870 bills and 4,560 bills, respectively, top the list of active cities.
Rakhmailov said tracking movement of bills wasn’t a breathtaking process by itself, “but if we add each user’s personal participation … an element of intrigue is added to the game.”
Users of the sites are interested in what the bills were spent on, while some say they get a rush just out of registering bills.
Boris, a 23-year-old Cupura.ru user who has registered 1,364 banknotes as of Dec. 1, said tracking bills had “turned into a sport” for him.
“I register bills almost every day, as soon as I get them,” said Boris, who has been using the web site for about two months, after seeing a television report about the project.
“I got involved in the process and specially set aside bills of different denominations. I try to change big bills in a store,” he said in e-mailed comments. He also said there had been no confirmed sightings of his bills yet.
He said he didn’t want his surname mentioned in the newspaper.
Another user of the web site, Andrei, 24, who lives in Chelyabinsk, said he had 14 hits already, having registered 1,031 bills. He said Cupura.ru had brought him back to his childhood.
“I remember that I was writing down serial numbers of bills as a kid just in case I got them back,” he said in e-mailed comments. He refused to provide his surname as well.
To make the game more interesting, most users leave amusing comments while registering their bills.
“The bill has clearly seen better times in its life … I got it for change in the No. 12 minibus. There’s a note: Find it on Roobex.ru,” said Futurama, a user of that site, in comments about a 10 ruble bill. “Taking this into account, I’ve brought it back to life by means of an iron,” said the bill-tracking enthusiast, who lives in Omsk.
The champion banknote on Cupura.ru is a 100 ruble bill, which has been registered three times and traveled a distance of 2,355 kilometers from Belgorod to Ulyanovsk, Sorokin said.

TITLE: For Russia, Global Warming Benefits Outweigh Negatives
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Global warming in the next 40 years will allow Russian authorities to save on central heating, increase agricultural production and extend sea navigation in the north, a leading Russian climatologist told a Russian-German conference Wednesday.
But authorities will have to fork out money to reconstruct several big Siberian and Far Eastern cities to prevent them from collapsing as a result of a warmer climate, Vladimir Klimenko, head of Laboratory of Global Power Engineering Problems at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute told the conference co-organized by Alexander von Humbolt Foundation.
However, “the reduction of heating alone outweighs all the negative results [of the global warming] by many times,” Klimenko said. If the money saved through reducing heating “is spent sensibly, then something can be achieved,” he said.
Klimenko based his English-language report on the findings of his laboratory.
Climate was discussed elsewhere Tuesday. The World Meteorological Organization said during the annual UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, that scorching heat waves that killed thousands of people in Europe in 2003 and that choked Russia earlier this year were set to appear like an average summer in the future as the Earth continued to warm.
Klimenko said the heating season in central Russia will be two weeks shorter by 2050, which will allow Russian authorities to reduce energy consumption by 3 billion tons of oil by that time. The season will shorten further by 2150, which will save 17 billion tons of oil by then.
In agriculture, the duration of the growing season will increase and the land area potentially suitable for agricultural use will increase by 33 million hectares by 2050 and 46 million hectares by 2150.
The duration of ice cover along the Arctic shoreline will decrease, resulting in a longer navigation of 50 days by 2050 and 105 days by 2100.
Also, by the end of the century, the Barents and Pechora seas will be ice-free the whole year round and summer transpolar voyage will become possible.
Permafrost will considerably retreat within an area of 3.6 million square kilometers by 2050 and 5.6 million square kilometers by 2150, which will require authorities to replace many dilapidated buildings in such Siberian cities as Vorkuta, Chita and Magadan.
Andrei Shmakin, head of the Laboratory of Climatology at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the global warming’s impact on agriculture could be harmful in Russia’s southern regions because of the threat of harvest-destructive droughts.
Shmakin also said navigation could become more dangerous because the global warming could increase the number of icebergs for several dozen years, which would also be potentially harmful for oil rigs.
Authorities can prevent dilapidated buildings from collapsing by driving pillars, on which the building’s foundations rest, deeper into the permafrost, Shmakin said.
Another potential effect of the global warming will be heavier snowfalls in Siberia, which will be good for harvests but bad for driving on the roads, Shmakin said.

TITLE: A Triumph of Aimlessness
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: President Dmitry Medvedev’s annual state-of-the-nation address could be held up as an exceptional illustration of his recent musings on how, without political competition, Russia’s leadership runs the risk of “becoming bronzed,” like a statue, and “degrading like any living organism that remains motionless.”
The country’s lack of a political opposition capable of challenging the acuity of decisions made by the authorities, including through the delivery of a parallel address in rebuttal, has clearly taken a toll on the quality of the proposals coming out of the Kremlin. Even more problematic, apparently, is the creeping paralysis within the leadership itself, both structurally, as a result of the dual leadership, and temporally as the 2012 presidential elections approach. What kind of strategy could be expected, then? Just campaign promises to voters.
Medvedev’s address did not have a pivot, not even a “conditional” one, like in past years when he focused on modernization of the economy, fighting corruption and political reforms. The words were all still there, but they rang hollow, like a child’s rattle. There was no sense of purpose behind what he said, as if everything substantial had already been decided and accomplished. Speaking of which, that was also evident in the weak structuring of the address, which lacked any sense of organization within topics or internal logic. As a result, Medvedev was forced to rattle off a near-endless list of points and subpoints: five on Russia’s demographic decline as a call to action for the nation; six on education; four on effective management of the environment; 10 relating to improving the state’s efficiency; and eight about providing national security and defense.
Thus, the address is a collection of fairly random and awkwardly assembled topics plus a handful of proposals on specific industries, with a particular focus on issues handled by the Health and Social Development Ministry. That’s not to say that children in general or encouraging families to have a third child are not relevant issues for Russia. They are. But it does mean that the president is operating without a clear system of priorities, or at least that he is unwilling to share them with the public.
The speech also lacked any analysis of the real challenges facing the country. He didn’t talk about the North Caucasus, which is essentially caught up in a low-intensity civil war, nor did he propose a solution to the collapsing Soviet-era infrastructure beyond a passing nod to the degradation of public utilities. He skipped over the country’s rapidly degrading system of governance. Consequently, Medvedev also failed to provide any information on the status of the measures he proposed in his two previous state-of-the-nation addresses: a presidential envoy to the North Caucasus, a reserve of talented young personnel, changes to the country’s system of time zones, and so on. Instead of nurturing the seeds he planted in years past, the president is focused only on new ideas.
While insignificant — or even nonexistent — successes related to domestic policy or the economy are inflated however possible, foreign policy achievements, which on the surface seem far more obvious and concrete, were simply passed over. But even here, many major challenges remain, including with Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea. There is even confusion in Russia’s union state with Belarus.
Regional policy was a noticeably prominent component in this year’s address; as the elections approach, the federal center is reaching back out to the regions. And yet, if I were a member of the regional elite somewhere, I wouldn’t be too excited about the two important proposals he made: on the need to reconsider how much money is sent back to regional and municipal governments and the importance of stimulating regions that are increasing their revenue base. Medvedev’s phrasing was too general, and the idea of sending more money back to regions and municipalities runs absolutely contrary to the numerous promises to boost spending and his call to reduce the federal budget deficit. It’s nothing more than a typical pre-election campaign trick.
Meanwhile, the idea of finding the best regional policies to stimulate business is interesting. It’s too bad, however, that the Kremlin is looking for policies that will best help it illustrate the point of the initiative, rather than those that will do the most to stimulate regional economies.
Medvedev’s public speeches often seem somehow removed from time and space, but never more so than in this state-of-the-nation address. He could have given the exact same address a year ago, or two years ago; at most, he would have needed to fire a police chief from a different region. This year it was Krasnodar. The text was thoroughly cleansed of the specific names and events that most effected the country this year: Kaliningrad, Katyn, the Khimki forest, Luzhkov’s firing. Instead, we got euphemisms and sidesteps.
The timing of the address is also important. Former President Boris Yeltsin used to give them in February, at the start of the year, like in most other countries. Under Vladimir Putin, the annual presidential address was pushed forward to the spring, while Medvedev has moved it all the way back to late autumn. We’ve gone from spring to fall plantings, all while hoping for the same harvest. That means the state-of-the-nation addresses are not setting out an agenda for the government, but rather trying to keep up with the decisions that have been made and implemented by the government. As a result, Medvedev’s next address might not even take place. What would it be about? On the eve of the elections?
If anyone had any doubts about whether Medvedev would do something to stay on for a second term, this address should put them to rest. Not because the president didn’t look stately enough while delivering his speech, and in fact, just the opposite. He looked like a talking portrait, with the equally pale podium and background running together visually. Medvedev’s time appears to be up because this was not the address of a president, the leader of a country, but rather a report by a first deputy prime minister responsible for the government’s priority national projects. A first deputy prime minister who is now also responsible for modernization in five specific areas.
The president does have a strong voice, but he is not showing any political ambitions for the future, at least not publicly. That doesn’t mean that he couldn’t somehow end up as president for a second term. It just means that he still would not be a self-made president.

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

TITLE: Promises, Promises
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: It must be nice to be president. Could you imagine if every half hour Ekho Moskvy radio announced, instead of the news: “Tomorrow at this time you’ll be able to hear the news on this station. We’ve set a goal and a plan: to provide you the news. It’ll be incredible. Amazing. Fantastic. The world’s best. And, don’t forget, tomorrow. We promise.” How long could that continue before everyone stopped listening to Ekho Moskvy?
But President Dmitry Medvedev continually promises to start working and never does. Not only does everybody listen to him, they even deem his statements worth discussing.
Medvedev promised to take care of the people responsible for the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose killers stole more than $200 million from the state. And they were taken care of. The top suspects in his death were given promotions.
Do you think Medvedev was outraged? Not in the least. Medvedev made another promise — to get to the bottom of the February car crash on Leninsky Prospekt involving a LUKoil vice president. The result: the two women who died were conveniently blamed for the accident.
Do you think Medvedev was outraged? Again, not in the least. He just made another promise — to investigate allegations of bribery related to construction projects for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. This was in response to businessman Valery Morozov’s claim that a certain Vladimir Leshchevsky, deputy head of construction at the Office of Presidential Affairs, extorted from him 1.5 billion rubles ($48 million).
Morozov filed a complaint with the Interior Ministry’s economic crimes department and even videotaped the transaction to catch the bribe taker. The result? The video and the money disappeared. Morozov took his story to The Sunday Times and Novaya Gazeta.
And what happened next? The authorities came down hard — on Novaya Gazeta. Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Office for Presidential Affairs, filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper for insulting his honor and dignity, and last Friday won the case. The court valued Kozhin’s honor and dignity at 100,000 rubles.
Do you think Medvedev hauled in Kozhin to demand an explanation? Or that he fired him? Far from it. Medvedev simply made another promise — this time to find out who was behind the beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin.
And do you suppose Kashin’s assailants have been brought to justice? Guess again. Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko and state youth agency head Vasily Yakemenko, the two primary suspects, remain in their posts. True, we don’t know whether Kashin’s beating was Strelchenko’s work. But we do know that everyone who regularly opposes the mayor ends up with a busted skull. And this isn’t happening in the North Caucasus or some remote corner of Siberia, but in Khimki, just a couple kilometers beyond the Moscow Ring Road.
And how has Medvedev responded? He made yet another policy speech, this time promising to deal with the stagnation in the country’s political life. Political analysts rushed to comment, saying, “Oh, what bold things for Medvedev to say. What will he do now? He’ll show them a thing or two!”
The situation reminds me of an old joke. A violinist is constantly late to his orchestra’s practices, and the conductor is constantly making the same threat. “If you’re late one more time, I’ll take you out and rape you!” Well the violinist was late once again, and the conductor made his usual threat.
The violinist responded, with a little smile, “Oh, Ivan Ivanovich, you’re always making promises!”

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

TITLE: Bright young things
AUTHOR: By Olga Khrustaleva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year’s German Film Festival, which starts Friday and runs through Monday, showcases a new generation of film directors pinpointing the most pressing social and political issues in Germany, tackling the question of self-definition and exploring eternal topics such as human feelings and dignity. 
And, as cinema and other visual arts gradually replace the role of books in the lives of many, the choice of worthy, thought-provoking movies rather than digital bubble-gum is most welcome. In this respect, the festival organizers have succeeded, picking very different but very vivid samples that are each worthy of particular attention and analysis. 
“In terms of formal features typical of German cinema, I would first of all mention its authenticity,” says Yekaterina Gromova, a PR coordinator at the Goethe Institute in St. Petersburg, one of the festival’s organizers. 
“Characters, situations, emotions and human relations are all life-sized, as if the action was taking place in the next street. It’s not about subjects or the director’s ideas, but about the way of narration.”
Film directors have the privilege of sharing their ideas with the world, telling people about their concerns and fears, attracting the public’s attention to issues they believe to be important. The film “When We Leave” by Austrian director Feo Aladag takes a good shot at tackling the issue of migration in Europe. 
 “Human relationships are the same everywhere,” Aladag told Pakistan’s The Express Tribune. “We have to remind ourselves of our similarities, not differences, and this is what this film does.” 
“When We Leave,” which has been selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in February, portrays a 25-year-old Turkish girl who escapes with her son from Istanbul when her marriage becomes too difficult to cope with. She goes to Berlin, where the rest of her family lives, looking for their support and hoping to start a new life, only to discover that the laws of the Turkish community in Berlin are not very different from Turkey itself, forcing Umai to make tough, complex and fateful choices.
Another film on the festival’s program is “Nanga Parbat,” which is based on real events and tells the story of Reinhold and Gunther Messner, two alpinist brothers who long to reach the peak of Nanga Parbat — the ninth highest mountain in the world. But climbing to the top is only the first half, and the second is no less difficult. 
The real Reinhold Messner described his solo climb of Everest in his book, “The Crystal Horizon:” “Is it evening already? No, it’s 4 p.m. Now. Time to leave. No sense of greatness of the moment. But this very moment will acquire very special meaning for me later and become a final accord in some way. Maybe it will fasten in my mind the idea that I’m Sisyphus and all my life I can roll a boulder, i.e. myself, up a hill without reaching it, because there’s no top when exploring yourself.”
In the subtle psychological drama “A Year Ago in Winter,” director Caroline Link shows how the tragic death of one family member changes the lives of the others, forcing them to reveal new facets of their own personalities and to reconsider their relationships with people around them. 
“There are many successful debuts among German feature films, which means the level of education in film colleges around the country is quite high,” said Gromova. 
The festival includes a project titled “Next Generation 2010,” which consists of 12 feature, documentary, animation and experimental films shot by young directors in art-house style. The topics are very diverse — from the formation of post-war Germany and the lives of immigrants in Berlin to relationships between men and women, and ecological problems. 

The German Film Festival runs from Friday through Monday at Rodina cinema, 12 Karavannaya Ulitsa, 
tel: 314 2827. For a full program, 
see www.germanfilms.ru

TITLE: Word’s  worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: ×åñòü: honor, reputation, credit

I’ve become a bit obsessed with ÷åñòü (honor). Just about every major Russian thinker and philologist wrote about it. True, they wrote different things. Depending on who you read, ÷åñòü came from the same root word as ÷àñòü (part, portion) and originally had the notion of partaking in the family bounty, or it came from an Indo-European word that meant thinking, intention or understanding. It was either a local pagan notion or a largely imported Western concept.
What most people agree on, however, is that ÷åñòü and ñîâåñòü (conscience) are the two main behavior regulators for Russians. ×åñòü seems to be used in Russian more frequently than honor is used in English, where behavior is also — or more often — regulated by notions of fairness, honesty, justice or the law.
Of course, there are similar usages of ÷åñòü/honor. We both name or do things â ÷åñòü êîãî-òî (in honor of someone), even if they are sometimes ridiculous: Ïðåçèäåíò ÑØÀ Áàðàê Îáàìà «ïîìèëîâàë» äâóõ èíäååê â ÷åñòü Äíÿ áëàãîäàðåíèÿ (U.S. President  Barack Obama “pardoned” two turkeys in honor of Thanksgiving). We both talk about ÷åñòü as something that brings honor: Ýòî áîëüøàÿ ÷åñòü äëÿ ìåíÿ (This is a great honor for me). When the honor is bestowed by people, we often describe them as a source of pride: Ýòîò ñòóäåíò — ÷åñòü íàøåãî èíñòèòóòà (This student is the pride of our institute).
And although we both talk about äîëã ÷åñòè (a debt of honor), ëè÷íàÿ ÷åñòü (personal honor) and ÷óâñòâî ÷åñòè (a sense of honor), ÷åñòíî ãîâîðÿ (to be honest), I can’t remember the last time I referred to anyone’s debt of honor. In the Russian media, I found an article about the financial crisis called, Ïðîáëåìíûå êðåäèòû — äîëã ÷åñòè èëè ïðîáëåìà îáùåñòâà? (Bad credit: a debt of honor or society’s problem?). In U.S. publications about the mortgage and foreclosure crisis, the notion of honor doesn’t come up. Instead they speak about what’s fair or legal.
In many cases, Russian ÷åñòü is the American reputation or good name. For example, the expression âûéòè èç ïîëîæåíèÿ ñ ÷åñòüþ is literally “to get out of a situation with honor,” but in English it might be more commonly “to get out of a situation with your good name/reputation intact.” Or here’s a surprising example: Russian bikers have a êîä ÷åñòè (a code of honor), which states: Íèêîãäà, íè ïðè êàêèõ óñëîâèÿõ áàéêåð íå ìîæåò çàäåòü ÷åñòü êëóáà (A biker should never, under any circumstances, tarnish the reputation of the club). Hats off to Russian bikers!
Îêàçûâàòü/îêàçàòü ÷åñòü is to do someone an honor, which can sound delightfully old-fashioned in both Russian and English: Òû îêàçûâàåøü ìíå ÷åñòü, êîòîðîé ÿ ïîêà íå äîñòîèí (You do me an honor of which I am not yet worthy). 

Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, whose collection of columns, “The Russian Word’s Worth,” was published by Glas.

TITLE: Russia’s Arnold Schwarzenegger
AUTHOR: By Joy Neumeyer
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: After 15 minutes of talking, Alexander Nevsky — aka “Mr. Universe” — is hungry. Really hungry.
“Mind if we take a break?” he asks, his fork hovering eagerly over his brunch.
Granted permission, Nevsky dives into the mammoth plate of five eggs before him. The self-proclaimed “Russian Arnold Schwarzenegger” is still celebrating his return to cholesterol after the punishing diet that helped earn him his bodybuilding title in late October — and flaunting the critics who say his “Mr. Universe” mantle is not the one that Nevsky’s idol first captured in 1967.
At an imposing 6 feet 7 inches, with hulking biceps and a broad smile, it’s hard to believe that Nevsky once favored books over barbells. Born in Moscow in 1971 to an engineer and a professor, Nevsky says that as a child he didn’t play sports.
“I didn’t understand my friends — they were all running around with a ball, and I was sitting with a book,” such as the Anna Akhmatova poetry beloved by his mother.
When he sprouted up to a beanpole-like 200 centimeters, the 14-year-old Nevsky encountered problems with his peers. “Boys who’d basically never read any poetry didn’t like that ‘skinny pencil neck’ was getting more attention from girls when [I] couldn’t even do push-ups,” he said. “So they started picking on me.”
To fight back, he began training at a boxing gym. Soon, “all the bad guys in our school, they were surprised,” he said. “Suddenly that ‘pencil neck’ started to fight with them and put them in their place.” But while his self-confidence soared, his appearance remained the same. Frustrated, he asked his mother for money to buy dumbbells and began lifting weights on his own.
Nevsky may have remained a mere at-home fitness enthusiast if it weren’t for one singularly muscled inspiration. When he saw Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star-making turn in “Conan the Destroyer” in 1986, Nevsky knew he had found his life’s dream. “Schwarzenegger was at his prime, muscle-wise, in the movie. I was in shock,” he said. “As soon as the movie finished, I knew what I should do.
“I should start bodybuilding.”
Nevsky worked on his training in between classes at the State Academy of Management. Though bodybuilding had gained global popularity in the ‘60s and ‘70s — thanks in large part to Schwarzenegger — in the ‘80s it was still illegal in the Soviet Union. Nevsky says that at the time, there were only two bodybuilding gyms in Moscow, and they operated under strict discretion. “You couldn’t even put a Schwarzenegger poster on the wall.”
In the early ‘90s, the Soviet Union’s collapse was accompanied by an explosion of Russian bodybuilding; at last its buff practitioners could bare their chests and compete openly. As his biceps expanded, Nevsky’s star began to rise. At 25, he changed his last name from “Kuritsyn,” which in Russian bears an unfortunate resemblance to “kuritsa,” or “chicken,” to the more robust “Nevsky,” reminiscent of the Russian medieval hero. (Nevsky says it’s also his mother’s maiden name.)
Nevsky seized upon the wave of consumerist self-reinvention that accompanied Russia’s shift to capitalism, marketing fitness as a lifestyle. In 1996, Nevsky penned his first book, which combined self-help advice with exercises, and called it “How to Become Arnold Schwarzenegger in Russia.” A television show called “Self-Made Man” and several more books followed.
In 1999, Nevsky moved to Los Angeles to pursue a film career. According to him, in 2000 he had the opportunity to meet his idol when he presented Schwarzenegger with a book signed by Mikhail Gorbachev. (Nevsky says he befriended Gorbachev after defending him from a heckling Communist on a Russian political talk show in the ‘90s.) “He likes my films, by the way,” Nevsky said.
After improving his English and studying acting, he has produced and starred in several English-language action movies filmed in Moscow, including “Moscow Heat” with Michael York and “Treasure Raiders” with David Carradine. So far, Nevsky’s films have been widely panned in Russia, and have gone straight to DVD in the United States.
Though Schwarzenegger’s international movie stardom has eluded his grasp, Nevsky finally got a shot at one of his idol’s crowning achievements: the Mr. Universe title. In June, Edmundas Daubaras, head of the World Bodybuilding Federation (WBBF) and World Fitness Federation (WFF), which sponsor the tournament, approached him with an offer to compete in this year’s 60th anniversary competition.
Three and a half months later, Nevsky and Oksana Sidorenko (Nevsky’s recent “Dancing With the Stars” partner and now-girlfriend) took the stage in Brusno Kupele, Slovakia. They dressed as Hercules and Aphrodite, posing alongside their competitors. On Oct. 29, Nevsky’s press agency announced that he was anointed Mr. Universe, Sidorenko won World Champion in Model Fitness, and together they took the pairs crown.
However, some fitness buffs claim that the WBBF/WFF event has no relation to the Mr. Universe competition in which Schwarzenegger participated, which was sponsored by the National Amateur Body Builders’ Association (NABBA). Russian bodybuilding web site Powerlifting.ru led the charges, proclaiming: “Nevsky, the king of bodybuilding, has turned out to be ‘naked,’ since he won a competition that has conferred global status on itself and has no relation to the prize recognized by the best sportsmen.”
In a press release issued by Nevsky’s PR agency, WBBF general secretary Andrei Basov denied the claims, asserting that the WBBF competition is the current official Mr. Universe competition, and that the current NABBA Mr. Universe is not registered. For his part, Nevsky shrugs off the allegations. “When you’re successful, other people are jealous,” he said.
Despite the doubts surrounding his title, Nevsky is seizing on publicity from the event to promote his new film projects, starting with a remake of Schwarzenegger’s 1977 biographical film, “Pumping Iron.”
Unlike his hero, Nevsky says that for now he has no designs to run for office. However, he does believe he has a special political mission of his own. As he polished off the last morsels of his toast, Nevsky said his ultimate goal is to foster better relations between his native and adopted countries. “I’m kind of like a bridge between Hollywood and Moscow,” he said. “I’m trying to show that Russia and America, they can work together. They can fight evil together. They can be friends.”

TITLE: Souped Up
AUTHOR: By Johannes Ruhl
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Steadily, the waiter loads our table with a stove, ladle, rice, noodles, cabbage, leeks and large shiitake mushrooms. Just when there is no space left, a plate with three kinds of sliced meat arrives. The stove is lit, and a black cast iron pot set upon it. After a few more minutes of patient anticipation, the lid is taken off the pot and a mysterious, lemony scent escapes from it. This is daishi, a Japanese broth. The excitement is growing, as demonstrated by a slight rumbling from the stomach. And then everything is ready: The waiter mixes the vegetables into the broth and explains how to cook the meat in it. Each slice is poached for about two minutes in the boiling soup, and comes out impregnated with herbal and vegetable aromas, ready to be devoured along with aromatic chunks of mushroom and cabbage. The broth spices up the accompanying rice and noodles. The beef, of the prime wagyu variety, is a particularly good match for this preparation: Tender to the bite and as juicy as a fresh peach, these hearty pieces will, bite by bite, bring a smile to any customer’s face. And, of course, it is a perfect starting point for some pleasant banter around the table about who gets to eat the last piece.
Shabu-Shabu, a recently opened Japanese restaurant on Ulitsa Belinskogo, takes its name from this dish, which is essentially a Japanese fondue. The restaurant serves both a meat version (1,400 rubles, $47 for two; 750 rubles, $25 for one person) and a fish option (1,900 rubles, $64 for two; 1,000 rubles, $33 for one person). While the former is deemed the classic recipe, the seafood option, consisting of oyster broth and slices of fish for dipping, is no less intriguing.
Before the fondue, proceedings were opened with a couple of oysters from Marennes-Ol?ron (100 rubles, $3 per piece), followed by a shi salad, consisting of bulgur, iceberg, rucola, black sesame and seabass sashimi (250 rubles, $8). The latter, one of a number of Japanese salads on the menu (200 to 500 rubles, $7 to $18) offers an appealing combination of flavors: the dominant bass is pierced by splitters of bitterness (from the rucola) and nutty crunchiness (from the sesame). 
For those who do not want to cook their own dinner when at a restaurant, the menu offers many other items, such as miso soup (140 rubles, $5), many types of vegetable and fish tempura (100 to 450 rubles, $3 to $15), sushi rolls, teppanyaki and sashimi (600 rubles, $20 for 100 grams of Kobe beef). Wok dishes, based on either noodles or rice, are also on hand, including several vegetarian options (380 to 700 rubles, $13 to $24, half portions available). 
Luckily, the wine card — very long on bottles — also features several high-quality options that are served by the glass, including a lovely Bordeaux AOC from Entre-Deux Mers (250 rubles, $8 for 150ml). For true Japan aficionados, there is Asahi beer (150 rubles, $5 per half-liter) and three varieties of rather pricey sake (240 to 300 rubles, $7 to $10 for 50ml). 
The restaurant is warm and cozy, with wooden planks and black furnishings making for an elegant interior. Low arches and half-open curtains separate the five small rooms, giving patrons welcome privacy and dampening the other diners’ conversations. There are about a dozen tables, spaciously arranged, furthering the feeling of privacy. Great attention is paid to small details, which make the dining experience more fun: bright bursts of color light up both the dark furniture and the beautifully decorated plates, and diners are handed warm, refreshing towels before the meal. In sum, Shabu-Shabu is conducive to both an upscale business lunch and a romantic dinner. In addition, a small in-house shop sells Italian specialties such as olive oil, balsamic vinegar and pasta.
After the outstanding starter and main course, expectations were obviously very high for a sweet finale, but the waiter announced that the kitchen had already closed. The disappointment was severe, since the tiramisu (220 rubles, $7) and the ice-cream tempura (230 rubles, $8) had been subjects of conversation and anticipation throughout the meal. In a restaurant with such a high standard of food and service, patrons should certainly be informed beforehand of their last chance to order dessert.

TITLE: Iraq Calls for Swift Execution of Terror Suspects
AUTHOR: By Bushra Juhi and Qassim Abdul Zahra
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — Iraq’s interior minister called Thursday for the death penalty for a group of 39 detained al-Qaeda-linked suspects, even before they have been put on trial for allegedly plotting to bomb targets in Baghdad.
Showing off the handcuffed suspects at a Baghdad press conference, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told reporters he is confident the men will be found guilty, citing their alleged confessions, documents and video found at their homes that he said showed their earlier attacks and plans to carry out new ones.
He did not say when the men were arrested, but described them as operatives of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida wing, who were based in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated western Anbar province.
“Today, we will send those criminals and the investigation results to the courts that will sentence them to death,” al-Bolani, a Shiite Muslim, told reporters. “Our demand is not to delay the carrying out of the executions against these criminals so that to deter terrorist and criminal elements.”
The prisoners, who were wearing orange jumpsuits, were silent throughout the news conference.
Al-Bolani, who is lobbying to keep his job as Iraq’s leaders vie for top ministry posts in the new government, said sentencing the men to death quickly would ensure they are not released by security forces.
He said swift execution, as many Iraqis demand for terrorists, also would serve as a deterrent to insurgents. Al-Bolani wore a black-and-white tribal headdress at Thursday’s announcement — a nod to several Anbar sheiks who were in the audience.
His comments appear to belie millions of dollars the U.S. has spent trying to implore the rule of law on Iraq, in part by making sure detainees get a fair trial.
Abdul-Rahman Najim al-Mashhadani, head of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization that has been helping reform Iraq’s judicial system, scoffed at al-Bolani’s comments and predicted at least some of the suspects would be found not guilty.
“Verdicts should be issued by courts, not by ministers who should be confined to the powers given to them only, especially if they are in the outgoing government,” al-Mashhadani said.
Authorities said one of the suspects was tasked with recruiting foreign fighters to launch attacks in Iraq, such as the Oct. 31 siege on a Catholic church in Baghdad that left 68 dead and is believed to have been carried out by men with north African accents.
Iraq had earlier announced the arrests of 14 suspected in the bloody church siege. Officials said those detainees were related to Thursday’s 39 suspects only through shared support of al-Qaeda.
Al-Bolani said the recruitment was unsuccessful, adding: “Al-Qaeda in Iraq has failed in recruiting non-Iraq or Arab members who used to come from different countries.”
His remarks came as the Defense Ministry spokesman announced the capture of a Moroccan fighter in a raid in the northern city of Mosul. The spokesman, Major General Mohammed al-Askari, said two fighters who were killed in the Thursday morning raid were not from Iraq.
Also in Mosul, police and hospitals officials said gunmen killed a young man and an 18-year-old woman in separate attacks in the city, a former al-Qaida haven. And in the western Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, police said gunmen killed the wife of a member of the Sahwa, or Awakening Council — a Sunni militia that is backed by the government.
Two employees of Abu Ghraib’s water treatment plant were killed and a third was injured in a morning bomb there, police said. And separate rush-hour roadside bombing in Baghdad wounded 12 people, including five policemen, authorities said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Violence has dropped dramatically but bombings and shootings still occur almost every day, and Iraqi security forces have faced heightened threats across the country as U.S. troops prepare to leave.

TITLE: Vatican Keen On Electric Popemobile
AUTHOR: By Nicole Winfield
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VATICAN CITY — Anyone have a fast, solar-powered electric popemobile for his holiness?
The Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI would gladly use one as another sign of his efforts to promote sustainable energy and take care of the planet, but one has yet to be offered.
Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who runs the Vatican City state, said Wednesday Benedict would certainly prefer an electric popemobile to a traditional, petroleum-powered one given the priority he has given to making the Vatican a leader in green energy.
His comments came during a presentation of a book on the Vatican’s ecological efforts: “The Energy of the Sun in the Vatican.” The book documents the 2008 installation of photovoltaic cells on the roof of the Vatican’s main auditorium and the 2009 installation of a solar cooling unit for its main cafeteria.

TITLE: U.S., China Move Closer 
To Deal On Emissions
AUTHOR: By Arthur Max
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CANCUN, Mexico — Prospects for a limited deal at the latest climate talks appeared to brighten with the U.S. and China narrowing differences on a key element: how to monitor greenhouse gas emissions.
But other issues that go to the heart of a new global warming treaty — long-term commitments for cutting emissions — proved stubbornly unmoving, and out of reach for any resolution during the annual two-week conference.
Nonetheless, analysts said an understanding on measuring emissions would be an important step that could help break the long-standing deadlock on reducing pollutants that scientists say have caused global temperatures to steadily rise over recent decades.
The World Meteorological Organization is due to present data Thursday on worldwide temperatures this year, and scientists say they expect 2010 to turn out to match the hottest years on record.
The Cancun meeting is the first since the Copenhagen summit last December, which defied early hopes for a broad treaty prescribing emissions reductions and instead ended with a brief statement of principles that fell short of the unanimous approval required.
After a series of acrimonious meetings since then, the tone at the 193-nation Cancun conference appeared markedly improved, especially between the U.S. and China. Over the past year they had repeatedly exchanged accusations of reneging on commitments and undermining the talks.
The ultimate objective of the talks is a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 countries and the European Union to cut emissions by 5 percent by 2012. The United States rejected the accord, partly because it made no demands on rapidly developing countries like China and India.
This week Japan said it was not interested in negotiating an extension of the Kyoto targets, arguing it was pointless unless the world’s largest polluters also accepted binding targets.
The fate of the Kyoto Protocol, or the shape of any agreement that succeeds it, is one of the most divisive issues in the negotiations, and no one expected it to be settled at the Mexican conclave.
However, an agreement on measurement, reporting and verification of emissions — MRV in negotiating parlance — would be a morale booster for negotiators, although the details remain to be worked out. The much disputed issue involves how nations account for their actions to limit emissions and to what extent they will allow other countries to review their books.
It also is only one of several elements that negotiators want to adopt as a package in Cancun that has something for everyone.
China’s chief negotiator, Su Wei, said the differences with the U.S. over MRV “are not that huge. In general, both countries would like to promote the process” and emerge from Cancun with a deal.

TITLE: U.S., China Move Closer 
To Deal On Emissions
AUTHOR: By Arthur Max
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CANCUN, Mexico — Prospects for a limited deal at the latest climate talks appeared to brighten with the U.S. and China narrowing differences on a key element: how to monitor greenhouse gas emissions.
But other issues that go to the heart of a new global warming treaty — long-term commitments for cutting emissions — proved stubbornly unmoving, and out of reach for any resolution during the annual two-week conference.
Nonetheless, analysts said an understanding on measuring emissions would be an important step that could help break the long-standing deadlock on reducing pollutants that scientists say have caused global temperatures to steadily rise over recent decades.
The World Meteorological Organization is due to present data Thursday on worldwide temperatures this year, and scientists say they expect 2010 to turn out to match the hottest years on record.
The Cancun meeting is the first since the Copenhagen summit last December, which defied early hopes for a broad treaty prescribing emissions reductions and instead ended with a brief statement of principles that fell short of the unanimous approval required.
After a series of acrimonious meetings since then, the tone at the 193-nation Cancun conference appeared markedly improved, especially between the U.S. and China. Over the past year they had repeatedly exchanged accusations of reneging on commitments and undermining the talks.
The ultimate objective of the talks is a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 countries and the European Union to cut emissions by 5 percent by 2012. The United States rejected the accord, partly because it made no demands on rapidly developing countries like China and India.
This week Japan said it was not interested in negotiating an extension of the Kyoto targets, arguing it was pointless unless the world’s largest polluters also accepted binding targets.
The fate of the Kyoto Protocol, or the shape of any agreement that succeeds it, is one of the most divisive issues in the negotiations, and no one expected it to be settled at the Mexican conclave.
However, an agreement on measurement, reporting and verification of emissions — MRV in negotiating parlance — would be a morale booster for negotiators, although the details remain to be worked out. The much disputed issue involves how nations account for their actions to limit emissions and to what extent they will allow other countries to review their books.
It also is only one of several elements that negotiators want to adopt as a package in Cancun that has something for everyone.
China’s chief negotiator, Su Wei, said the differences with the U.S. over MRV “are not that huge. In general, both countries would like to promote the process” and emerge from Cancun with a deal.

TITLE: Egypt Opposition Parties Abandon Seats Won in Vote
AUTHOR: By Hamza Hendawi and Sarah El Deeb
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO — Egypt’s top two opposition movements on Wednesday pulled out of parliamentary elections after they were all but shut out in a first round of voting, in a surprise response to widespread allegations of fraud.
The move by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood — the country’s strongest opposition force — and the smaller, secular liberal Wafd party is a blow to this top U.S. ally’s efforts to portray itself as a democracy. Egypt’s government has staunchly defended the fairness of last Sunday’s election, despite reports by independent rights groups of blatant rigging in favor of the ruling party.
The result will likely be a 518-seat parliament almost entirely made up of the ruling National Democratic Party, with a few seats going to independents and smaller parties.
“The headline of the Sunday elections is how the NDP brought down the outlawed group. This is the most important result of this first round of the elections,” said Ahmed Ezz, a senior ruling party official.
The boycott was an unprecedented step by Egypt’s opposition, which has for decades participated in elections that were consistently rigged, eager for the few seats they took each time. The move suggested deepening frustration with the domination of power by President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling power despite promises of reform.
“The ruling party is declaring itself as the only party in the country,” said Abdullah al-Sinawi, an analyst and editor of the opposition Al-Arabi newspaper. “There is now a widespread sentiment that there is no use in trying to get this regime to reform.”
The government was widely seen as determined to purge the Brotherhood from the legislature — particularly ahead of presidential elections next year. There are questions over the future of the country’s leadership, after 82-year-old President Hosni Mubarak underwent surgery earlier this year to remove his gallbladder.
The Brotherhood, which is banned but runs candidates as independents, came under a heavy crackdown ahead of the vote, with some 1,400 of its activists arrested during the campaign.
The Brotherhood held 88 seats in the outgoing parliament — a fifth of all seats. But results announced Tuesday showed not a single candidate from its ranks won a seat in the first round. Fewer than 30 Brotherhood candidates made it to the run-offs.
Those will pull out and the Brotherhood will boycott the second round, the movement announced Wednesday.
“What happened has shown that the regime is a usurper of power and a forger of the will of the nation and is continuing on the path of corruption and tyranny. By not participating in the run-off round we are declaring our protest,” the Brotherhood said in a statement posted on its website.
The Wafd party, which had six seats in the outgoing parliament, also announced its withdrawal because of “fraud and thuggery” during the first round.
“This is a message to those rigging elections,” its spokesman Moataz Salah Eddin said. Two Wafd candidates who won in the first round will take their seats as independents, he said.
NDP Secretary-General Safwat el-Sherif said the Wafd’s decision is not final, and dismissed the Brotherhood’s withdrawal as sour grapes, saying it “does not affect the legitimacy of the elections.”
“They might not want to continue in a competition that’s not in their favor because society has spoken now,” he told a news conference.
Ezz, who organized the NDP election campaign, said the groups were trying “to steal our success,” but said the election had shown “the true extent of their grassroots power.”