SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1740 (51), Wednesday, December 19, 2012
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Polar Cub to Leave Local Zoo
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The polar bear cub born in the Leningrad Zoo last year will leave his mother for Yakutsk, the capital of Russia’s Sakha republic on Wednesday, Dec. 19.
The cub was born in November 2011 into the zoo’s polar bear family of Uslada and her mate Menshikov. The cub was introduced to the public in May, when a competition was held among visitors to the zoo to name the cub. He was given the name Lomonosov in honor of the great Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, as in November 2011, when the bear cub came into the world, the country marked the 300th anniversary of the scientist’s birth. 
The birth of a new polar bear is a much anticipated event for zoos all over the world, as the bears are an endangered species due to global warming. Many zoos do not see the regular births of polar cubs, but the Leningrad Zoo couple reproduces faithfully every two years. Lomonosov is Uslada and Menshikov’s 15th cub, and the zoo has been the leader in polar bear breeding since the 1930s. However, the zoo, whose emblem is a polar bear, cannot afford to keep more bears.
“Our conditions make it possible to look after only two polar bears properly,” said Svetlana Shelgunova, head of the wild mammals department at the Leningrad Zoo. “A year later we would have to separate the cub from his mother and we do not have the opportunity to keep another polar bear in the necessary conditions.” 
A new enclosure for polar bears has been built at the Yakutsk republic zoo. There is already one inhabitant — a female polar bear cub of the same age as Lomonosov.
“These are the main factors that influenced the decision to send Lomonosov to this zoo,” said Shelgunova. “Our polar bear cubs now live in various locations: Moscow, Novosibirsk, [the Estonian capital of] Tallinn, the Czech city of Brno, Australia, China, Japan and Korea,” she added. 
“The bear is being sent there on a temporary basis for reproduction. If the couple get along well together, Lomonosov will most probably stay there. But he still belongs to the Leningrad Zoo,” she said.
The bear is due to leave his home on Wednesday morning and be transported in a specialized zoo vehicle to Moscow. 
“On the evening of Dec. 29, the polar bear cub will fly directly to Yakutsk accompanied by a zoo worker, where they will be met by colleagues from the local zoo,” said Shelgunova.

TITLE: Thwarted March Leaves Opposition Frustrated
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg authorities clamped down hard Saturday on the March of Freedom, despite having authorized the event. 
Hundreds who came to protest President Vladimir Putin’s rule, electoral fraud, anti-democratic laws and politically motivated arrests were made to walk on narrow sidewalks on Kronverskaya Naberezhnaya and Troitsky Bridge under the threat of arrest, with policemen walking next to them, convoy style.
Just before the bridge, the OMON riot police blocked the way of an estimated 1,000-plus protesters carrying a banner reading “Freedom Is Not Given, Freedom Is Taken,” who attempted to walk along the road section of the bridge, while a police officer issued warnings into a megaphone, saying that those who didn’t move onto the sidewalk would be detained. 
Eventually, the marchers crossed the bridge walking in a long line on the sidewalk while the policemen walked on the road, preventing individuals from stepping aside.
Speaking on Tuesday, Andrei Pivovarov, a member of the Opposition’s Coordination Council and one of the March of Freedom’s organizers, said that City Hall had broken its promises. 
“The agreement was that if more than 300 people turned out, we would walk on the road, but in practice it turned into negotiations with the OMON, who said that they had orders not to let anybody walk [on the road],” he said. “It was deception on their part; it showed once again that there’s no point in making agreements with them.”
People were asked to gather near Gorkovskaya metro station by 2 p.m., with the march scheduled for 2:30 p.m., but a City Hall official on the scene said they should not start moving until 3:15 p.m. A number of older people reportedly left at that point because of the freezing weather. Temperatures dropped down to minus 12 degrees Celsius on Saturday.
When the protesters reached the Field of Mars, they were told to disperse by a police officer, as no stationary rally had been planned or authorized for the end of the march.
City Hall authorized the March of Freedom after initially rejecting it on Dec. 10, leaving only four days for the organizers to publicize it. The authorities refused to sanction the suggested route, moving the protest to the Petrograd Side instead of the central district.
Some activists speculated that the march, which was to mark the anniversary of the first massive anti-fraud demo in Moscow last year, might be the last such protest in St. Petersburg, especially in view of the new local bill on holding rallies, which is even more radical than the national law passed in the wake of mass protests in June, and will essentially ban protests in the center of the city, if passed.
“Disappointment is high, up to the point that some said they would not go to such rallies anymore, that’s what [the authorities] have been successful in achieving,” Pivovarov said.
“The commonly held opinion is that the organizers should not make such concessions to City Hall anymore. In the future, they might choose to hold unauthorized rallies instead.”

TITLE: City Reveals Father Frost’s Plans For Petersburg
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Ded Moroz (Father Frost), Russia’s version of Santa Claus, will switch on the lights of the city’s Christmas trees on Dec. 22, the press service of the city’s Culture Committee announced earlier this month.
This year Ded Moroz will not parade along the city’s main street, Nevsky Prospekt, but will instead arrive by sled, riding along the Neva River to the spit of Vasilyevsky Island, where he will switch on the lights on the Christmas tree. He will then cross over to the Bronze Horseman monument on the other side of the river.
In the evening Ded Moroz will arrive at the city’s Palace Square, where a traditional public event dedicated to the fairytale character annually takes place, Interfax reported.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>No Zoo for Yuntolovo</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall has decided to cancel the construction of a new zoo in the Yuntolovo area of the city’s Primorsky district, Interfax reported, citing St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko.
Poltavchenko said the city was currently in search of an alternative site for the new zoo.
One of the options being considered is an area in the Leningrad Oblast.
The main reasons cited for the decision to abandon the Yuntolovo project ecological and geological issues in the area. The land is swampy, which could lead to problems with construction, and some experts have said the animals could become ill in such conditions, Interfax reported.

<b>Life in the Freezer</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Freezing weather is expected in St. Petersburg, the Leningrad Oblast, Pskov Oblast and the republics of Komi and Karelia this week, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said, Interfax reported.
The temperature in the Leningrad Oblast will drop to minus 17 degrees Celsius this week, and in some areas down to minus 22. 
The Emergency Situations Ministry advises people to dress appropriately and not to stay outdoors for long periods of time. It also warns against drinking alcohol before going outside in cold weather and against leaving electrical appliances such as heaters switched on and unattended.

<b>Condolences for U.S.</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Residents of St. Petersburg left flowers, toys and candles outside the U.S. Consulate during the weekend and through the beginning of the week to express their condolences for the victims of the massacre in an American school last Friday.
“We have received many condolences from various people. They are bringing flowers, toys and candles to the building of the Consulate,” the American diplomatic mission said Monday, Interfax reported.
Twenty-six people were killed, including 20 children, as a result of the shooting in the American elementary school Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. 

<b>Bieber to Visit City</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The young Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber will make his debut in Russia at the end of April as part of his “Believe” world tour, Interfax reported.
The singer is due to perform at St. Petersburg’s SKK complex on April 28 and at Moscow’s Olympiisky sports complex on April 30. He will reportedly arrive with 20 trucks full of equipment for his show.
Bieber will perform hits including “Baby,” “Boyfriend,” “One Time,” “Somebody to Love” and “Never Say Never,” the concert’s promoters said.
Bieber’s most recent album, “Believe,” (2011) topped the charts in the U.S., U.K. and Europe.
Eighteen-year-old Bieber shot to fame after videos of him singing songs by well known artists were uploaded onto the Internet.

TITLE: Church Holds Service After Century of Silence
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: About 50 people gathered for a traditional Christmas carol service held by the Anglican Chaplaincy of St. Petersburg in the Anglican church on 56 English Embankment on Tuesday night.
It was the first time an Anglican Christmas service had taken place in the building for nearly 100 years.
The congregation included British people who live and work in St. Petersburg, including British Consul General in St. Petersburg Gareth Ward, as well as many Russians.
“It was very important to hold this service exactly in this church that once used to be the center of the British community for more than 200 years,” said Ward. “And it is very important for the British community to have access to this church again,” he added.
Alexandra Moore, a British student who has been studying Russian in the city for the last three months and who attended the carol service, said she really enjoyed it, “especially close to Christmas.”
“We’re already in a festive mood, and this service gave an outlet for our  mood,” Moore said.
Mollie Arbuthnot, another British student, said attending the service “felt like being at home.”
Adrian Terris, warden of the Anglican Church in St. Petersburg and a native Scot who came to the service with his family and children, said they had been working for many years to have an opportunity to hold events in the historic British church and were “happy” to finally enjoy it thanks to the St. Petersburg Conservatory that currently owns the building and cooperated with them on the issue.
The church is located in the main hall of one of the city’s historical buildings. Mosaics depicting Biblical subjects decorate the walls of the hall, and the original signs are in English. 
The church on the English Embankment hosted its first service for nearly 100 years on Remembrance Sunday last month. Weekly services had been held for years at the Swedish Lutheran church on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa. The next service to be held at the Anglican church on the English Embankment will be at 7 p.m. on Christmas day — Dec. 25 — while services on Dec. 30 and Jan. 6 will return to the Swedish church.
The English Church, originally established in Moscow by the Russia Company, moved first to Arkhangelsk and then to St. Petersburg when it became the new capital in 1712, according to the Anglican church in St. Petersburg’s website. From 1721 until 1917, the church was located in the building at 56 English Embankment, which had been purchased by the British community. In 1815, having fallen into disrepair, the church was remodeled by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi to accommodate the congregation of more than 2,500 people, creating a new columned facade on the embankment.
“The English Church [was] the focal point of the British community’s life in pre-Revolutionary St. Petersburg... Quarenghi’s church in St. Petersburg, like St. Andrew’s Church in Moscow, is a reminder of the importance of spiritual matters for the expatriate British, but the history of the English Church in Russia goes back to at least the seventeenth century,” wrote Anthony Cross, the British author of the book “By the Banks of the Neva” published by Cambridge University Press in 1997.
Sixty years after the building was remodeled, when it again fell into disrepair, the church was remodeled in the Victorian style, with the main new features being a set of stained glass windows and an organ built by Brindley and Foster in Sheffield, England, which was considered to be the finest in northern Europe. In 1917, the church was forced to relocate to Vyborg, then the second city in the newly independent Finland, and then, with the outbreak of World War II, to Helsinki.
During the Soviet period, there were occasional visits to Leningrad by the Helsinki Anglican Chaplain, but there was no regular congregation. Following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the first Anglican celebration of the Eucharist in St. Petersburg took place on Nov. 7 1993, with many members of the Helsinki Anglican Chaplaincy present. Since then, regular Sunday services have been held and currently take place in the Swedish Lutheran Church.
The city’s Anglican church aims to provide an Anglican community for residents of St. Petersburg, international students and visitors to the city.
“We seek to support and care for each other and we offer an open welcome to those only here for a short time,” the church says on its website.
The St. Petersburg church is part of the Anglican Church’s Eastern Deanery within the Diocese in Europe. Its area dean, the Reverand Canon Dr. Simon Stephens, is chaplain of St. Andrew’s Anglican church in Moscow.
“Our services are conducted according to the traditions of the Anglican — Episcopal Church, but we welcome everybody. Our congregation is international, multicultural and multidenominational,” the church says.
St. Petersburg’s branch of the English church does not have its own permanent chaplain; services are instead led by Anglican clergy on short-term visits from the U.K. or by local clergy from the Swedish and Finnish Lutheran Churches.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Budget Bonuses</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko has halved the annual bonuses of the six deputy governors who work at City Hall and scrapped the bonuses of other officials entirely, citing disappointment with the way the city budget was handled in 2012. 
Poltavchenko said that if, by the end of the year, a number of the city’s committees that have failed to spend the budget funds allocated to them for various projects do not carry out 98 percent of the planned work and projects for which the money was allocated, then the bonuses of the heads of the committees, as well as their deputies and heads of internal departments, will be halved, Interfax reported.
Poltavchenko ordered the bonuses of all the deputy governors to be halved, except for that of Sergei Vyazalov.
Vyacheslav Semenko, the former head of the city’s Construction Committee who currently works as the governor’s advisor, will get no bonus at all, along with all the department heads listed as working for the committee as of June 1. The reason cited for the decision was the committee’s poor performance. Andrei Arteyev, the current head of the committee, said that when he assumed the position, the committee had spent just two percent of the funds allocated to it for executing various projects.
Arteyev said the committee would have spent no more than 50 percent of its allocated funding by the end of the year.

<b>Airport Access</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall is to choose between an aeroexpress train, a tram and a metro line to connect the city with Pulkovo Airport.
The transport project is to be selected during the first quarter of the next year, City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko said. 
Poltavchenko said the authorities are considering building a metro line directly to the airport.

TITLE: Zenit Fan Group: No Blacks, No Gays
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Fans of two-time defending Russian champion Zenit St. Petersburg are calling for non-white and gay players to be excluded from the team.
Landscrona, the largest Zenit supporters club, released a manifesto Monday demanding the club field an all-white, heterosexual team. It added that “dark-skinned players are all but forced down Zenit’s throat now, which only brings out a negative reaction” and said gay players were “unworthy of our great city.”
The club, which is owned by state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom, told the R-Sport news agency that it supported tolerance and picked players on athletic ability alone, insisting that “the team’s policy is aimed at development and integration into the world soccer community, and holds no archaic views.”
Zenit had been the only top-flight Russian team never to have signed a black player until this summer, when it acquired Brazilian striker Hulk and Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel for 80 million euros ($105 million). French midfielder Yann M’Vila declined a move to the club in August after receiving death threats.
Fans insisted that “we are not racists and, for us, the absence of black Zenit players is just an important tradition that underlines the team’s identity and nothing more.”
Russia has struggled to deal with racism and violence at its stadiums as it prepares to host the World Cup in 2018. Black players are frequently the targets of monkey chants and some, including Anzhi Makhachkala’s Robert Carlos and Christopher Samba, have had bananas thrown at them by fans.
Officials have at times shown little enthusiasm for targeting racism. When Lokomotiv Moscow fans held up a banner in 2010 thanking an English team for signing their black striker Peter Odemwingie with a picture of a banana, the head of Russia’s World Cup bid awkwardly claimed they were referencing a quaint, little-used Russian expression meaning “to fail an exam.”
Zenit’s fans have long been the country’s most problematic. Dick Advocaat, the team’s former Dutch manager, once admitted that “the fans don’t like black players” and that it would be “impossible” for Zenit to sign one.
Several black players have also singled out Zenit’s fans as particularly racist. Former Russian top scorer Vagner Love told a Brazilian newspaper in April that Zenit was “the most racist team in Russia” and the only one whose fans had abused him in his seven years playing for CSKA Moscow.
Five years earlier, Krylya Sovetov Samara’s former Cameroon international Serge Branco told a local newspaper that Zenit’s management was “the real racists” for not combating the problem, adding that “in a civilized country they’d smack them down to the third division for their fans’ behavior.”
Zenit’s fans have also come under the spotlight recently after one of them threw a firecracker that injured Dinamo Moscow’s goalkeeper during a match in November. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, himself a Zenit fan, called for violent spectators to be banned for life from attending matches. Parliament has drafted a bill that would ban hooligans for a year.

TITLE: Pilot Error Blamed For Air Crash in Indonesia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JAKARTA, Indonesia — Pilot error caused a Russian-made passenger jet to crash into an Indonesian volcano seven months ago during a demonstration flight, killing all 45 people aboard, the National Commission on Safety Transportation announced Tuesday.
Information recovered from the Sukhoi Superjet-100’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated the pilot in command was chatting with a potential buyer in the cockpit just before the plane slammed into dormant Mount Salak on May 9, Commission Chairman Tatang Kurniadi told reporters.
He said that 38 seconds before the crash, instruments inside the cockpit issued a warning saying “pull up, terrain ahead.” Later the warning “avoid terrain” was issued six times, but the instruments were turned off because the crew assumed there was a problem with the database, Kurniadi said. He added that a simulation showed that the crash could have been avoided if the crew had responded within 24 seconds of the first warning.
“The crew was not aware of the mountainous area surrounding the flight path,” Kurniadi said.
The Jakarta radar service was also not equipped with a system in the area where the crash occurred that was capable of informing flight crews of minimum safe altitudes, he said.
Russian pilot Alexander Yablontsev was in charge of the demonstration flight meant to woo potential buyers. He was an experienced test pilot, logging 10,000 hours in the Sukhoi Superjet and its prototypes.
Six minutes after it took off from a Jakarta airfield, the pilot and co-pilot asked air traffic control for permission to drop from 3,000 meters to 1,800 meters (10,000 feet to 6,000 feet) on the scheduled half hour flight.
“The purpose of decreasing the altitude was to make it not too high for the landing process at Halim airport,” Kurniadi said.
However, six minutes later, the plane hit the mountain, he said.
It took more than 17 additional minutes before anyone on the ground realized the plane had vanished from radar screens, and no alerts sounded on the system prior to the disappearance.
Indonesia is one of Asia’s most rapidly expanding airline markets, with growth rates of nearly 20 percent a year. It has a poor air safety record and is struggling to provide qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.
On Sunday, a blackout at Jakarta’s international airport led to a 15-minute disruption of its radar system, causing 64 regional and domestic flights to be delayed, said Bambang Ervan, Transportation Ministry spokesman. The outage has raised questions about the safety of the airport’s 26-year-old system.
Last month, Indonesia certified the Russian Superjet-100 as safe to fly in the country after a thorough validation process unrelated to the crash investigation. This opened the lines for delivery of the aircraft to its first customer in Southeast Asia, the Indonesian airline Sky Aviation, which signed a deal for 12 planes.
The Superjet is Russia’s first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago and is intended to help resurrect its aerospace industry.

TITLE: Bishkek Hit by Power Cuts
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Thousands of households in the capital of Kyrgyzstan have been hit by gas and electricity shortages just as temperatures dropped to around minus 20 Celsius.
Residents of Bishkek and nearby towns, including Kant, which houses a Russian air base, struggled Tuesday for the fifth straight day to keep homes warm.
The shortages are fraying nerves in the cash-starved Central Asian nation, which also hosts a U.S. air base and has struggled to maintain stability since the previous president was overthrown in an uprising in 2010.
Energy Minister Avtandil Kalmambetov said neighboring Kazakhstan is delivering only about 60 percent of the natural gas it promised.
Failure in gas deliveries pushes people into using more electricity for heating, which in turn leads to blackouts.

TITLE: Navy Sends Ships to Med for Possible Evacuation
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Russian navy squadron has set off for the Mediterranean amid official talk about a possible evacuation of Russians from Syria.
The Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the ships would rotate with those that have been in the area since November. Russian diplomats said last week that Moscow is preparing plans to evacuate thousands of Russians from Syria if necessary. The ministry did not say whether the navy ships are intended for an evacuation.
The Interfax news agency, citing unidentified naval sources, reported that the navy command wants the ships to be on hand for the task if needed. It said the mission’s duration would depend on the situation in Syria.
Last week, a senior Russian diplomat said for the first time that Syrian President Bashar Assad is losing control and the rebels might win the civil war, a statement that appeared to signal that Moscow has started positioning itself for an endgame in Syria. But the Foreign Ministry disavowed Mikhail Bogdanov’s statement the next day, saying his words were misinterpreted and that Moscow’s position on the crisis hasn’t shifted.
Russia’s base in the Syrian port of Tartus is its only naval outpost outside the former Soviet Union. Moscow has been Assad’s main ally, shielding him from international sanctions over a brutal crackdown on an uprising that began in March 2011 and turned into the civil war, killing more than 40,000 people.
The squadron of five ships that sailed from the Baltic Sea base of Baltiysk includes a destroyer, a tugboat, a tanker and two large amphibious vessels that could evacuate hundreds of people.
Another group of three navy ships departed Tuesday from Severomorsk, the main base of Russia’s Northern Fleet on the Kola Peninsula. While their official mission is anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden, the ships will sail past the Syrian shores and may linger there if need be.
Earlier this year, Russia sent several ships to Tartus on a mission to evacuate its personnel and equipment, but authorities decided then that the situation in Syria didn’t require such a move yet.
The latest naval deployment comes as the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that two Russians were kidnapped alongside an Italian in Syria and that their captors have asked for a ransom for their release. The three, who worked at a Syrian steel plant, were kidnapped late Monday on the road between Tartus and Homs.
The ministry identified those kidnapped as V. V. Gorelov, Abdesattar Hassun and Mario Belluomo and said the kidnappers have contacted the Hmisho steel plant by telephone and demanded a ransom for their release. It did not specify the amount.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, said “all necessary steps are being taken in Syria and other countries that may influence the situation,” according to Interfax.
The kidnapping of foreigners has been rare, but as Syria descends further into chaos the abduction of Syrians has become increasingly common across many parts of the country.
Most of those kidnappings appear to have sectarian motives, but there have been many cases of gunmen capturing wealthy people for ransom or settling personal scores.

TITLE: Retaliatory Ban of U.S. Adoptions Proposed
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle and Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — State Duma deputies stepped up Russia’s retaliatory response to the so-called Magnitsky Act on Monday by introducing a measure that would ban U.S. citizens from adopting Russian orphans.
The move was roundly condemned by children’s rights advocates, who warned that a blanket ban on U.S. adoptions would disproportionately affect orphans with mental and physical disabilities.
It also seemed to signal a further souring in the U.S.-Russian relationship, which has suffered since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in May.
The measure would ban U.S. citizens from adopting Russians and bar agencies that facilitate such adoptions from operating in Russia. It would also nullify a bilateral agreement aimed at improving oversight and reducing abuses that was signed last year and went into effect on Nov. 1.
“It’s pure politics and an attempt at blackmail,” said Alexander Gezalov, head of the Successful Orphans project. “Children are not rockets or torpedoes” for governments to use against each other, he said.
The Duma’s Constitution and State Affairs Committee approved the ban as an amendment to a bill that would sanction Americans deemed to have mistreated Russian citizens abroad.
The bill, dubbed alternately the “anti-Magnitsky bill” and the “Dima Yakovlev bill,” was introduced last week by leaders of all four Duma factions on the heels of the U.S. Senate’s approval of the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russians believed to be involved in human rights abuses.
U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law on Friday.
The proposed adoption ban appeared to have widespread support among Duma deputies, and Deputy Speaker Sergei Neverov said a majority would back it, Interfax reported.
If approved, it would go into effect on Jan. 1. The Constitution and State Affairs Committee recommended that a second reading of the bill take place Wednesday.
Russian officials have long complained that American officials don’t do enough to protect the tens of thousands of Russian adopted children living in the United States.
An angry statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday contained five cases in which Americans received “light” sentences for crimes against Russian children.
“All these cases are evidence that within the American justice system, unfortunately, the principles of responsibilities and adequate punishment are not always observed when it comes to crimes against adopted Russian children,” the statement read.
Russian lawmakers were particularly angered by the case of 21-month-old Dmitry Yakovlev, who died of heatstroke in July 2008 after his adoptive father left him in a hot car for nine hours.
The father, Miles Harrison, was later acquitted by a Virginia court of involuntary manslaughter.
“What bothers us most aren’t the tragedies, although they are the scariest thing that could happen, but rather authorities’ reaction to them — exoneration. That’s the bad part,” Putin told a group of lawmakers on Thursday, adding that he supported deputies’ efforts to called attention to the abuses, RIA-Novosti reported.
The number of Russians adopted by foreigners fell from 4,536 in 2007 to 3,400 last year, according to official statistics. The United States adopts more than any other country.
Nineteen adopted Russian children have died in the United States in the past decade.
About 1,220 adopted children died in Russia in the 15 years after the Soviet breakup, 12 of whom where killed by their parents, according to RIA-Novosti.
Children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, a close Putin ally, was the only high-level official to criticize the amendment Monday.
Astakhov said scrapping the existing adoption agreement would create “colossal difficulties” in monitoring the welfare of Russians who have already been adopted, Interfax reported.
But he reiterated Russia’s longstanding goal to eliminate all foreign adoptions.
The U.S. State Department rejected the comparison between the Magnitsky Act and the proposed ban.
“I think it stretches the imagination to see an equal and reciprocal situation here,” spokesman Patrick Ventrell said at a press briefing on Friday in Washington, according to an online transcript.
Child welfare experts contacted by The St. Petersburg Times were unanimous in their condemnation of a blanket ban on U.S. adoptions, with many saying that such a ban would hit the most vulnerable orphans.
Orphan numbers in Russia have dropped since their post-Soviet highs in the 1990s, but there were about 650,000 registered orphans of all ages in the country at the beginning of this year, according to official statistics.
While many said that adoptions within Russia were preferable to foreign adoptions, few saw any reason to deny a child the chance of a new life if it was on offer.
“You’ve got the child’s future, and you’ve got a citizen of another country who can give the child a happy future,” said Marina Gordeyeva, director of the Foundation for the Support of Children in Need.
The lack of supervision of Russian children adopted by U.S. families has been one of the key criticisms leveled by the Kremlin. But Dina Magnat, who is raising two adopted children aged 7 and 12, said that once she and her husband collected their children from the orphanage, they had no further contact with state supervisory authorities.
The whole adoption process for her was relatively straightforward and inexpensive, she added.
“As an adoptive parent, I am against any ban on adoptions,” she said. “It’s all politics, and they are all bastards.”
Any moratorium on adoptions to the U.S. would not only affect those in Russia’s mainstream system of orphanages but would disproportionately hit orphans with mental and physical disabilities who are warehoused in Soviet-era orphanages institutions located in remote rural areas.
Existing legislation stipulates that orphans only become eligible for foreign adoption once they have been considered and declined for adoption by Russian families. And there is often a greater willingness to take children with disabilities from foreigners wanting to adopt.
“Children with disabilities will end up in families less often than they could do [if U.S. adoptions are banned],” said Yelena Fortuna, founder of the Kinsfolk magazine for adoptive parents. “In Russia someone with disabilities by default cannot live a normal life,” she said.
There are traditionally few attempts by local authorities to find homes for disabled children.
As many as 99 of Russia’s 143 orphanages for mentally and physically disabled children do absolutely no work to return children to families, according to research conducted by the Levada Center and family-based charity Rostok in 2010.
The Belskoye Ustye orphanage for the mentally and physically disabled, tucked away in a small village about a hundred kilometers from the regional capital of Pskov, has never had a child adopted by Russian parents, said director Yelena Vashchenka.
Two young girls, both aged 5, however, were recently adopted by U.S. couples and the orphanage now regularly receives photographs and reports on how they are progressing.
While many staff were hostile to the foreigners, Vashchenka said she was happy that the children received the opportunity for a new life.
“It’s not all as bad in America as they show on television,” she said.

TITLE: Russia to Send Back Plane Wreckage
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister has promised his Polish counterpart that Russia will return as soon as possible the wreckage from the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.
Warsaw has expressed frustration that it has not received the wreckage more than two years after the plane crashed outside Smolensk in heavy fog. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski last week asked the European Union’s foreign policy chief to pressure Russia on the issue.
At a news conference with Sikorski on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We hope, it’s in our general interest, to complete the investigation as soon as possible and send the plane’s wreckage to the Polish side.”
Polish investigators say Russian air-traffic controllers played a role in the crash, along with pilot error.

TITLE: Police Uncover Massive Counterfeiting Network
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service detained members of a huge counterfeiting ring responsible for producing and distributing over 40 million rubles ($1.3 million) a month in counterfeit bills, police said Tuesday.
Apart from Russian rubles, the counterfeiters also produced fake U.S. dollars and euros — a currency that counterfeiters had never before attempted to forge in Russia.
The detentions marked the end of a security operation that began in July in Dagestan and was carried out by the Interior Ministry’s main directorate for economic security in conjunction with police from the Southern Federal District, the North Caucasus Federal District and the Moscow region.
Police moved the operation to the Moscow region after five of the network’s members were found in Dagestan with counterfeiting equipment, firearms and ammunition. In Moscow, the Interior Ministry and FSB officers detained a 40-year-old Armenian and 29-year-old from Dagestan for distributing 500,000 rubles in counterfeit bills.
The fake bills were distributed across Russia, and some of the bills even turned up in Belarus and Ukraine. Part of the money also went toward the financing of criminal groups in the North Caucasus, RBC reported, citing the Interior Ministry.
The criminal enterprise reportedly began in October 2011.
A criminal case has been opened on charges of manufacturing, storing, transporting or distributing counterfeit money or counterfeit securities, which carry a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to 1 million rubles.
Seven suspected members of the criminal ring have been detained. The investigation is ongoing.

TITLE: City Rejects Social Projects
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva, Maria Buravtseva and Pyotr Tretyakov
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: City Hall is refusing to finance social facilities in new housing projects, as officials believe that too much housing is currently being built in the city.
 No budget funds will be allocated for the construction of schools or kindergartens in new housing projects simply because the owner of the plot of land has decided to build residential real estate on it; if companies want to build, they should build social infrastructure as well, and then hand it over to the city for public use, said deputy governor Igor Metelsky at a press conference earlier this month. 
According to Vyacheslav Semenenko, an advisor to the governor, the budget has already allocated 600 billion rubles ($19 billion) to construction projects that have already been approved. The city will fulfill its commitments to these projects and to those on areas of land bought at auction, said Metelsky.
However, City Hall has no plans to start selling off plots of land intensively, at least for the coming year. “A similar number of plots of land will be put up for auction as were this year, or perhaps more,” said Metelsky. This year, sales of land plots were sporadic occurrences.
There is too much housing being built in the city as it is: 57 million square meters is planned to be built, including six million square meters by 2015, said Metelsky. The market simply cannot sustain that volume, he said. According to Metelsky, St. Petersburg needs no more than three million square meters of new housing per year. Last year, 2.7 million square meters were built.
In projects where public infrastructure will be built at the developer’s expense, prices may rise by approximately 15,000 rubles ($500) per square meter, Metelsky said. The market will determine the prices, but current profit norms leave more than enough room for developers to “tighten their belts,” he added. 
Construction costs, taking into account the cost of the land and mains systems, comes to 50,000 to 60,000 rubles ($1,600 to $2,000) per square meter, said Semenenko.
It’s a dangerous sign when officials start to speculate about proposals and profit trends in business, as these questions cannot be the subject of regulation, said one developer on condition of anonymity. “Schools and kindergartens are the direct responsibility of the government. What are our taxes going toward otherwise?” he said.
Dmitry Uvarov, director of marketing at Normann construction group, said that his company “is not overjoyed at this initiative.” A reappraisal of construction costs will be carried out, but any adjustments to prices will probably not be significant; customers won’t be getting any richer,” said Uvarov. He said it could not be ruled out that developers would find it easier to work in the Leningrad Oblast and could refocus their work on areas neighboring St. Petersburg.
If City Hall has decided to stop funding social infrastructure, then it simply will not be built, since for companies this kind of expenditure is fraught with losses, said Sergei Vetlugin, general director of Glavstroi SPB construction company. Building social infrastructure at the expense of apartment buyers will not work out; increasing the price of housing will only scare them off, he said. Vetlugin estimated the cost of building one kindergarten with a capacity of 180 children at 180 million rubles ($5.8 million). 
It is not possible to raise the price of housing to cover additional costs incurred by building schools and kindergartens, since prices are determined by buyers’ purchasing power, which has a limit, added one developer.

 The Swedish developer NCC will build a kindergarten instead of one of the planned residential buildings in its Eland complex in the Leningrad Oblast, as demanded by regional guidelines. It will be necessary to reduce the number of apartments in the complex by 300, said a spokesperson for NCC.

TITLE: FAS Head Criticizes Deal Between Oil Companies
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The $60-billion purchase of TNK-BP by state-owned energy giant Rosneft that will create the world’s largest publicly traded oil company was criticized Tuesday by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.
“From the point of view of competition it’s a pity that TNK-BP is leaving the market as an independent player,” said FAS head Igor Artemyev, Gazeta.ru reported.
However, the combination of the country’s largest and third-largest oil companies is not likely to prompt any legal objections from FAS, Artemyev said, except in regard to the diesel fuel market, where Rosneft’s presence will now exceed 35 percent.
“When the documents about the deal’s finalization come to us we will issue an order for the preservation of competition,” Artemyev said.
Monopolies controlling the internal fuel market were blamed for gasoline shortages earlier this year when the government was forced to impose a temporary ban on the export of refined petroleum products.
Artemyev also expressed his opposition to the formation of an “oil Gazprom” as a result of the deal between TNK-BP and Rosneft.
Responding to criticism that Rosneft was beginning to resemble Gazprom, which some investors accuse of extreme inefficiency, Rosneft head Igor Sechin said earlier this month that there were qualitative differences between the two behemoths.
Gazprom was formed out of the Soviet Union’s former Gas Ministry, he told industry analysts, whereas Rosneft was always a commercial company.

TITLE: Court Sides With Minority Holder in Dispute With BP
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Eighth Arbitration Court of Appeals in Omsk sided with a minority shareholder of TNK-BP Holding in its dispute with BP, Vedomosti reported Monday.  
TNK-BP Holding is oil major TNK-BP’s largest subsidiary.
The court declined to accept a decision by shareholder Andrei Prokhorov not to sue BP over $3 billion.
The amount of the claim had been estimated by a Tyumen arbitration court. Prokhorov argued that BP directors had not informed TNK-BP about the British company’s planned alliance with Rosneft.
The case was postponed until Jan. 24 after a request by Rosneft,  Vedomosti sources said.
Rosneft might use the case as a bargaining tool in negotiations on its purchase of 50 percent in TNK-BP from BP, a former TNK-BP top executive said.
The state oil company’s request to postpone the hearings was unexpected for BP, one of the sources said.
BP lawyer Konstantin Lukoyanov said Rosneft wouldn’t support Prokhorov’s claim, calling it “absurd.”  
Both Rosneft and BP declined to comment on the situation.
BP has entered into a partnership with Rosneft and is expected to acquire 12.84 percent of the state company’s shares and later acquire another 5.66 percent.
Last week, Rosneft also finalized the deal to buy 50 percent of TNK-BP from the AAR consortium for $28 billion.

TITLE: Metro to Get Fold-Away Seats
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Authorities plan to equip new metro wagons with fold-away seats from 2014 to increase passenger capacity during rush hour.
“We are planning to open a tender for a new batch of wagons in the first quarter of 2013 to attract any interested manufacturers, including foreign [companies],” Ivan Besedin, head of the Moscow metro, said Tuesday, Interfax reported.
Besedin said plans to equip new wagons with retractable seating would cater to growing demand for metro travel. The Moscow metro is among the most heavily used metro systems in the world along with those in Tokyo and Seoul.
“Retractable seating will increase available space and create more comfortable conditions for passengers,” he said.
Once rush hour is over, the retractable seats will be automatically lowered at the last station on the line.
Besedin said the plan to install fold-away seats would not limit seating space for disabled passengers.

TITLE: NTV Outstrips Channel 1 in Ratings
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — NTV has outstripped rival Channel One to become the most-watched channel of the year for the first time since TV audiences have been measured.
Since the beginning of 2012, NTV captured an average of 13.9 percent of TV viewers, while Channel One attracted 13.7 percent, Vedomosti reported Tuesday, citing market research company TNS.
“NTV is fighting for its audience and economic efficiency rather than for being first or second. We were successful at this not only this year but in previous years too,” NTV’s general director Vladimir Kulistikov told the business daily.
But Konstantin Ernst, general director of Channel One, reacted skeptically to the TNS findings, saying his station stopped working with the research company seven years ago and that he doesn’t trust its data — even though Channel One still sells its advertisements based on numbers provided by TNS, according to Vedomosti.
Channel One has its own audience measurement service, which has not reported any abrupt drop in the station’s audience share, Ernst said.
Traditionally, three national channels have dominated the Russian TV market: Channel One, Rossia and NTV. All are owned by the government either directly or through state-owned companies.

TITLE: Central Bank Fails to Satisfy Medvedev’s Demand for Consumer Loan Price Cap
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wants to cap the amount of money that can be charged for consumer loans, but financial authorities have yet to find an acceptable option.
In October, he ordered the Finance Ministry, Economic Development Ministry, Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and Central Bank to prepare proposals for the price cap by Dec. 1, but the decree has not been implemented, Vedomosti has learned.
“We are still not ready to back a proposal for introducing an interest rate cap into law,” said Central Bank first deputy head Alexei Simanovsky. “The result of such a decision is unclear to us, and our doubts lie not only within the economic sphere but also in society.”
Obviously, the public needs to be protected from unjustified burdens proposed by creditors, he said, noting that the Bank of France regularly determines the maximum rates for various types of consumer loans. Those rates range from 9 to 19 percent.
In Russia, Simanovsky said, the comparable level would be about 15 to 25 percent per year.
The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service advocates the Italian practice of calculating loan prices based on the average rate for 20 standard bank loans plus an established interest rate, said deputy head Andrei Kashevarov. Banks can charge interest but have to disclose the rate to the borrower.
The Economic Development Ministry sent materials to the Finance Ministry so that it could summarize all the proposals independently, said a source in that ministry.
He refused to discuss his agency’s proposals, saying that pretty much nothing new had been put on the table.

TITLE: Why Russia Is Trying a Dead Man
AUTHOR: By Jamison Firestone
TEXT: At the end of November, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced the upcoming trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a man who’s been dead for more than three years. Putting a dead person on trial hasn’t been done in Europe in more than 1,000 years. The reason is obvious: a dead person can’t defend himself, no matter how absurd the charges.
The story of this latest twist in the Magnitsky case begins with his death on Nov. 16, 2009. Magnitsky’s death in detention led to the automatic closing of the criminal case against him.
In July 2011, the Kremlin’s human rights council published its conclusions about the arrest and death of Magnitsky. They were unequivocal:
1. Magnitsky’s arrest and detention were in breach of the European Human Rights Convention.
2. Magnitsky was beaten by prison officials before his death.
3. In contravention of the law, Magnitsky was prosecuted by the same officers he earlier implicated in corruption.
4. Authorities resisted full investigation into corruption and fraud uncovered by Magnitsky.
5. The Russian courts failed to provide any legal redress to Magnitsky.
These were not conclusions Russian law enforcement officials wanted to hear. They led to an avalanche of criminal complaints, many of which were filed by Magnitsky’s mother, against those who participated in the theft Magnitsky reported and in his illegal arrest and death. Therefore, in July 2011, the Prosecutor General’s Office decided to legitimize the case against Magnitsky by reopening it.
Under Russian law, a case against a dead person can be continued only at the request of his family for the express purpose of attempting to rehabilitate the reputation of the deceased. Neither Magnitsky’s mother nor any of his relatives have requested that this discredited case be reopened. They demanded that the case against Magnitsky be closed and that the original embezzlement scheme that Magnitsky first disclosed be reinvestigated, along with the officers who arrested and abused him. The complaints filed by the Magnitsky family relied heavily upon the conclusions of the presidential human rights council.
It is clear that the Russian government needs to justify Magnitsky’s arrest. It needs to turn attention away from the fact that corrupt officials from the tax agency and Interior Ministry became wealthy after stealing $230 million from the state and also that they jailed and tortured Magnitsky in an attempt to cover up their crimes. Notably, nobody has been convicted in Russia on these charges. Meanwhile, on Friday U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, which will deny visas and freeze U.S.-based assets of Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death and the related embezzlement scheme.
And to add insult to injury, the government is attempting to try a dead person. Who shall speak for the dead? Boris Kibis, an Interior Ministry investigator, assigned Magnitsky’s mother the status of a “legal representative of a deceased defendant,” which is a legal term that has no basis in Russian law. She refused this role and asked to be removed from this illegal posthumous prosecution, only to be summoned for questioning, where it was made clear that there could be serious consequences if she didn’t cooperate. When she protested, the Interior Ministry tried to replace her lawyer with one of their own.
In the end, starting in January, Magnitsky’s 62-year-old mother will be forced to defend her dead son at his trial in the capacity of “legal representative of a deceased defendant.”
Magnitsky’s mother will not be allowed to introduce any evidence from the presidential human rights council or from any other independent investigation. If she refuses to take part in the cruel mockery and humiliation of being forced to participate in a show trial of her dead son, she could be prosecuted.
This is the real face of President Vladimir Putin’s “dictatorship of law.” Get used to it. It is a sign of things to come.

<i>Jamison Firestone is an attorney and Sergei Magnitsky’s former boss.</i>

TITLE: Too Little, Too Late For Syria
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Frolov
TEXT: Russia is shifting its position on Syria toward more cooperation with the West to secure a settlement in the 21-month civil war. Unfortunately, it may be too late to save Syria as a state.
Moscow has secured its main objective: not to allow a change of regime in a sovereign state through a UN-sanctioned international intervention. It was driven primarily by domestic policy concerns and President Vladimir Putin’s fears of the Arab Spring spilling into Russia and the former Soviet Union.
It is now clear there will be no outside intervention in Syria. U.S. President Barack Obama’s re-election has closed the door on the strategy advocated by some influential Republicans. There are no cheerleaders for a military option in crisis-stricken Europe.
Putin secured Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s assurances two weeks ago in Istanbul that Ankara would not cross into Syria to establish a security zone and would not enforce a no-fly zone over Syria. In return, Putin sent a letter to Syrian President Bashar Assad demanding that he stop using airpower against the rebels.
Moscow sees the war shifting in the rebels’ favor. They have largely managed to ground the Syrian air force and now control over 60 percent of the territory. Last week, Russia’s top envoy for Syria, Mikhail Bogdanov, said Assad’s regime has only 18 months left to survive.
Withdrawing its support for Assad, Moscow now seeks to preserve the multi-confessional and largely secular Syrian state. Russia aims to secure the rights of the Alawite minority and prevent Islamic fundamentalists from gaining power. Moscow demands that the future Syrian army be multi-confessional, not predominantly Sunni.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed on Dec. 6 in Dublin to a series of U.S.-Russia meetings on a plan to form an interim Syrian government composed of pro- and anti-Assad groups with UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s mediation.
It won’t matter. Even with Assad gone, Alawite and their paramilitary units will fight till they secure a safe haven for themselves. The rebels know they can defeat the government forces. The irony, of course, is that saving the multi-confessional Syrian state would have required the insertion of an international military force about a year ago, when Russia and China vetoed the UN Security Council resolution. Now Syria will explode.

<i>Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government relations and PR company.</i>

TITLE: comment: Building BRICS to Fight Corruption
AUTHOR: By Andrei Bougrov and Brook Horowitz
TEXT: Russia will host the Group of 20 summit in September in St. Petersburg. In advance of this summit, the B20, composed of the top business leaders of the G20 nations, will also meet.
This will be a fitting occasion for governments and business from the developed and emerging markets to find solutions to one of the biggest challenges these diverse nations all have in common: corruption.
In developed nations, recent scandals have revealed cases of outright criminal fraud. The debate in the West continues to center on redesigning the regulatory environment.
Among the BRICS countries and other emerging markets, corruption has been part of the political and economic landscape for years and a major obstacle to economic and social development. While some of the smaller nations have had some success in reducing corruption, the large power houses of the BRICS continue to hover around the second and third quartiles of Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index.
But now corruption seems to have become a real concern for these governments, too. President Vladimir Putin has recently intensified his anti-corruption campaign on several fronts, including the firing of high-level public officials. In India, the government has been rocked by corruption scandals, and public discontent has been translated into social unrest. In Brazil, a scandal involving millions of dollars in bribes to members of parliament resulted this year in the largest corruption trial in Brazil’s history. In South Africa, allegations of corruption surrounding President Jacob Zuma have become an electoral issue. In China, the Communist Party is intensifying its battle against corruption among top officials.
It is clear that governments alone will not succeed in reducing corruption. Business, with its overwhelming need for clear rules, economic stability, predictability and growth, must be a critical contributor to changing the culture of corruption and a key part of the solution.
After all, corruption is a problem of supply and demand. If on the demand side, solicitation is a symptom of governments’ inability to impose a credible deterrent, on the supply side, leading companies need to demonstrate that they have the self-discipline to resist offering or paying the bribe. They should introduce effective compliance procedures and awareness programs for their staff, and encourage the same standards in their supply chains and markets, from state-owned companies and small and medium-sized businesses alike. They can support central and local governments in their efforts to clean up public procurement and establish fair and transparent rules for business and public tenders. Companies can also contribute to an effective regulatory framework by monitoring the implementation of anti-corruption legislation such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Anti-Bribery Convention.
At next year’s summit, the first to be hosted by a BRICS country, we hope the G20 and B20 will focus on making sure that such approaches get put into practice.
It’s a massive undertaking and can only succeed if business and government cooperate at every level on creating a fair and level playing field. Only with this type of collective action can we begin to find effective solutions to a problem that is crippling social and economic development in many nations.

<i>Andrei Bougrov is chairman of the board of Norilsk Nickel and chairman of the 20 Working Group on Improving Transparency and Anti-Corruption. Brook Horowitz is director for business standards of the International Business Leaders Forum and is a member of the Organizing Committee of the 20 Working Group on Improving Transparency and Anti-Corruption.</i>

TITLE: Reunited by their roots
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: There was a distinct Russian feel at the Brussels Center for Fine Arts (Bozar) auditorium on Dec. 14 at the premiere of a Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by the Russian-Belgian composer Victor Kissine. 
The evening was in fact doubly Russian. The National Orchestra of Belgium was led by its new principal conductor, Andrei Boreyko, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, who has made a name for himself in Germany as musical director of symphony orchestras in Dusseldorf and Stuttgart. And in another nod to the former Soviet Union, the soloist was Gidon Kremer, who grew up in Riga, Latvia and studied with the legendary Soviet violinist David Oistrakh.
Kremer is considered one of the finest violinists of his generation and has been at the top of his profession for more than 40 years. He first came to the attention of Belgian audiences when he was a 1967 finalist in the country’s prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition. In 1970, he won the first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In 1997 he founded the Kremerata Baltica orchestra that performs all over the world, playing primarily contemporary music, including Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Philip Glass and John Adams.  
Kissine has been collaborating closely with Kremer for some time, preparing arrangements of old masters for him, as well as writing original works. It therefore came as a surprise to few when Kissine dedicated his new concerto to his friend and it was announced that all the upcoming performances of the work will feature Kremer as soloist. 
On the eve of the premiere of his violin concerto at Bozar, Kissine talked to The St. Petersburg Times about how the new piece came to be commissioned and performed there. 
“I have had a longstanding desire to write a proper violin concerto,” said the composer. “In reality, this piece is not the first, not even the second, but the third attempt. I just didn’t call the previous two works concertos. The first premiered in Florida with the New World Symphony at the beginning of 2003. The second, entitled ‘Barcarole,’ was created for Gidon Kremer in 2007. I borrowed the title from Joseph Brodsky’s ‘Venetian Notebooks.’  But the ambition to create a classical concerto for violin and orchestra remained. I wanted to present a piece for a full-scale orchestra that would last 30 minutes, and now my dream has come true.”
Kissine completed his musical education in St. Petersburg. During the Russian period of his career, he was known as the composer of soundtracks for movies and theater productions. His music sets the scene for more than 50 films created by the city’s Lenfilm studios, and the composer worked with many outstanding directors, including Ilya Averbakh, Vitaly Melnikov, Konstantin Lopushansky and Dinara Asanova, whose film “Patsany” (Bad Boys, 1984) was a smash hit with audiences and was awarded a number of international prizes. 
Kissine left Russia in 1990. After settling in Belgium, he established contacts with local orchestras and musicians and received a number of commissions. Over time his reputation grew and his works came to be performed in Western Europe and the U.S. Kissine’s compositions are now a permanent feature of festivals of contemporary music. 
In May this year, Kissine’s “Caprice” was the new musical composition required of all participants in the final rounds of the Queen Elisabeth competition, including, of course, Andrei Baranov, another alumnus of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, who was awarded this year’s first prize. Kissine said after the awards ceremony that he considered Baranov’s performance to be a profound penetration into his creation that fully corresponded to his intent.   
 “The Belgian Symphony Orchestra is very well suited to string works,” said Kissine. “It has accumulated a lot of experience as the house orchestra of the Queen Elisabeth Musical Competition, where they accompany the participants. An important consideration in my decision to do the concerto here was the fact that Andrei Boreiko now heads the orchestra. I know his methods, how he works and I like it. As soon as he invited me to create a violin concerto for them, I did not hesitate.” 
Kissine compared the structure of his new concerto to that of a novel.
“I imagined the piece as a classic concerto, though in contrast to the classic model of three movements, mine consists of one uninterrupted movement. The concerto is built around one dominant idea and I did not want to break it,” he said.
“It opens with a short recitative played by the violin. This recitative is the embryo of the whole concerto. Usually this is the most difficult task for a composer — to find the germ on the basis of which the whole concerto will grow.
“In fact, I composed this concerto like a novel. In a novel the reader turns pages back and forth and in the concerto as well. One can go forward and then come back, stop, listen and continue. The concerto is monothematic but it has three big chapters, which represent the shadow of the classic concerto construction.  
“The first chapter is the double exposition, the second is the development and the third is the coda, where the soloist concludes the narrative and tells listeners what is going on after the cadenza.”  
After the world premiere in Brussels, the concerto will be performed in Berlin next May. 
In the spring of 2013, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra will perform Kissine’s “Postscriptum,” which was written in 2010 for the Symphony Orchestra of San Francisco. The event will take place in the main hall of the Philharmonic, and will mark Kissine’s return to his native city. The composer said he was excited about the prospect of seeing the city again and of acquainting Russian music lovers with his symphonic works.

TITLE: the word’s worth: The word that means just about anything
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Writer A.S. Byatt once said translators are her best readers. They find every little mistake or typo that even the most meticulous copy editors miss. This isn’t because we translators are trying to find mistakes. It’s just because we work so closely with the text that we notice problems that editors and even authors can glance over.
We also tend to notice changes in the language before lexicographers get to them. Suddenly a word that always meant X is used in such a way that X can’t possibly make sense.
Take the word çíàêîâûé, which once meant emblematic but now means — oh, just about anything. To figure out what’s up with this adjective, I thought I ought to start with the noun it’s from, çíàê.
Çíàê doesn’t cause too many problems. It is any kind of symbol or sign, like äîðîæíûé çíàê (road sign), or çíàê êà÷åñòâà (sign of quality), or íîìåðíîé çíàê (license plate). Çíàê can be a more figurative sign, like çíàê äðóæáû (token of friendship). Or it can be a signal, as in the phrase äàé ìíå çíàê (give me a sign). It can be a stand-in for money, like äåíåæíûé çíàê (bank note or coin). In grammar, it’s a kind of punctuation mark, like âîïðîñèòåëüíûé çíàê (question mark). In your Microsoft Word statistic options, it’s a character, as in êîëè÷åñòâî çíàêîâ ñ ïðîáåëàìè (number of characters with spaces). In astrology, it’s the thing you are born under, çíàê Çîäèàêà (Zodiac sign).
Logically, the adjective çíàêîâûé would mean symbolic, emblematic, or indicative. And that’s what the dictionaries tell you it means, illustrated with a sentence like, Ïåðåìåíû â îáùåñòâåííîì ìíåíèè èìåþò çíàêîâûé õàðàêòåð: îíè ïîêàçûâàþò ðîñò êîíñåðâàòèâíûõ íàñòðîåíèé (Shifts in public opinion are emblematic of the rise in conservative views).
But in the late 1980s — specifically 1987, according to Google’s N-gram — the word went off the charts in frequency of usage. And it seems to have taken on a new meaning, or maybe several new meanings. In some contexts, the meaning of çíàêîâûé seems to have flipped. Instead of describing something or someone that is typical of an era, it describes something or someone that defines an era. So çíàêîâàÿ ôèãóðà is a seminal figure, someone who has blazed a trail that others are now following. Îí íå ñòîëüêî ëèòåðàòóðíàÿ ëè÷íîñòü, ñêîëüêî çíàêîâàÿ ôèãóðà, êîòîðàÿ ÿâíî ïðåòåíäóåò íà ìåñòî íîâàòîðîâ (He’s not so much a literary figure as a trendsetter who clearly sees himself among the innovators).
Sometimes çíàêîâûé seems to mean “life-changing”: Ðîæäåíèå ðåá¸íêà — çíàêîâûé ìîìåíò â æèçíè ñåìüè (The birth of a child is a life-changing event in a family). Áðîäñêèé — çíàêîâàÿ ôèãóðà â ìîåé æèçíè (Brodsky played a decisive role in my life). Or it apparently means a landmark event or object: Çàóðÿäíûé ñóäåáíûé ñïîð ïðåâðàòèëñÿ â çíàêîâûé ïðîöåññ (An ordinary lawsuit has turned into landmark court case).
It also seems to be used to describe a significant date or celebration, as if people were thinking of the word çíà÷èìûé (significant) and mixed up their consonants: Çíàêîâûé þáèëåé — íàøåìó çàâîäó 10 ëåò (A significant anniversary: Our factory is 10 years old).
Lately I’ve found completely wacko usages — like a competition for çíàêîâûé ñíåãîâèê. What on earth is çíàêîâûé ñíåãîâèê? An emblematic snowman? An influential snowman? A superlative snowman? A landmark snowman? The snowmaniest snowman? If anyone can figure that one out, please let me know.

<i>Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.</i>

TITLE: Weaving creativity
AUTHOR: By Daniel Kozin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This weekend saw the bustling official opening of Tkachi Smart Space, a colorful and multifarious event that celebrated one of the latest additions to St. Petersburg’s growing creative cluster scene. 
Like the similarly minded Loft Project Etagi and the recently opened Skorohod performance arts space, the location chosen for Tkachi Smart was that of an old factory, in this case an expansive five-story textile factory built in the mid-19th century. 
The factory was part of the old industrial zone along the Obvodny Canal, which is quickly becoming the city’s new art district as creative types flocking to the area open more and more art galleries and studios in the neighboring buildings.
The $15 million invested in the renovation of the building by real estate group Ovental, which leases the space, puts Tkachi in a different ball park to the squatters next door or art enthusiasts in the city’s other clusters. 
The scope of the project is not limited to art, and is as huge as the sums invested and the size of the building itself, whose neat red brick fa&#231;ade now conceals more than 50 businesses, making it reminiscent of a modern shopping mall, but with multinational name brands replaced by innovative local start-up companies. Despite having been open to visitors for more than a year, the project has only now received its official start, with most of the space already occupied. 
According to the brains behind the project, the space is intended to become a center of creative production and innovation in the city.
“The aim was to turn an abandoned industrial complex into a creative space uniting in its walls teams whose activity is maximally correlated to creative processes, built on the talent of its members, innovation, and the uniqueness of services offered,” said Ksenia Yurkova, development director of the Tkachi exhibition space on the fifth floor.
Saturday’s event attracted more than 3,000 guests for dozens of lectures and master classes throughout the space, divided thematically into architecture, ecology and urbanism; fashion and retail; and design marketing, media and creativity: The types of work done here by businesses on a daily basis. 
Other events included a comprehensive job fair, film screenings and a “smart kids” program for the day’s numerous young guests in a space on the fifth floor that will continue to hold creative events for children and their parents alike.
The day’s events were as diverse as the building’s residents, with the first floor representing a collection of showrooms and boutiques offering guitars and DJ equipment, Electra bicycles, Apple products, creative travel packages, rare books and modern furniture, as well as video installation services from the Fabrika video events company. 
“Everyone who is represented here is part of a certain social stratum: These are young, advanced people who are interested in good art and music and literature, and who create interesting products,” said Yelena Filimonova, an organizer for the center. 
Modern offices are rented out on floors 2-4, and include companies such as architectural firms, magazine offices, art and photography studios and music and dance schools, one of which presented the evocative Brazilian dance-martial art mix Capoeira. 
“We are beginning to collaborate, with tenants from the second, third and fourth floors who do office work doing collective projects with the guys from the first floor,” said Filimonova. “It’s like one big family.”
The artistic part of the center is largely restricted to the fifth-floor space, though its enormity poses little in terms of restrictions to artistic freedom. The space is as large as a warehouse, and includes the small intellectual bookstore-caf&#233; Borjes, with a collection of otherwise hard to find English-language books, while the remaining space will be dedicated to exhibitions, performances (such as last month’s avant-garde theater performance “100 Wonderful Dead Men”) and concerts. At the opening, the space housed a number of hanging basket swings made from dried black lava, a ping pong table, and a video projection that took short clips of visitors, who were encouraged to strike creative poses and dance moves; a toy enthusiastically monopolized by the visiting children. 
 “The distinguishing element of this space is that it is huge, so we can only bring large, successful projects because small, chamber-like projects will be out of place,” said Yurkova.
“Planned events include an exhibition from the Venice Biennale, an interactive science exhibition from the Max Planck Institute in collaboration with Siemens, a photography exhibition from the Netherlands Photo Museum in the fall, and an exhibition of Japanese contemporary art in 2014,” she added.
The venue’s first concert was also the closing gig of the day, played by Edinburgh electronic jazz collective the Hidden Orchestra. 
“It’s a great venue. In London there’s a place called The Village Underground that is kind of similar,” trumpet player Philip Cardwell told The St. Petersburg Times. 
“It was a wonderful crowd, I kept looking further and further back and there were still more people, and they all stayed” he said.
 “I think more people should visit Russia because a lot of the time people have stereotypes that aren’t true. They should come and try it for themselves,” he added.

TITLE: Naturally nutritious
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Vegetables take center stage in Alain Ducasse’s new book, “Nature: Simple, Healthy and Good, 190 Recipes from a French Master Chef” that the author presented at a gastronomic dinner in his miX restaurant at the city’s W hotel last month.
“One should not underestimate the role of vegetables — it is a healthy and actually very accessible product that allows you to experience a feast of taste,” said Ducasse, who has 21 Michelin stars under his belt and 24 restaurants in his Alain Ducasse group, at the presentation of the Russian version of his book. The international bestseller was inspired by a series of gastronomic books that the chef had previously published in French.
“It is a serious book; it encourages readers to contemplate gastronomic issues from the lifestyle and health angle, to give a thought to how what we eat affects our well-being,” he said.
In his own kitchen at home, Ducasse and his second wife Gw&#233;na&#235;lle — a vegetarian — employ the same principles that the chef has been so vigorously promoting. The lion’s share of recipes included in the book revolve around vegetables, whole grains and seafood. The noble mission of creating healthy recipes is enhanced by the art of cooking, which results in dishes that are good for you, while tasting heavenly. Savory pumpkin gratin, lightly poached lobster with vegetable macedoine, steamed whiting with seaweed and saut&#233;ed greens, vegetables &#224; la barigoule with vanilla, and rabbit with winter vegetables soaked in anis bouillion are just some of the culinary temptations in Ducasse’s voluminous book. For dessert, think apples and pears gently stewed in a R&#246;mertopf clay cooker.
The future Michelin chef acquired a taste for farm produce as a toddler. Ducasse grew up on a farm in southwest France, and his grandmother served him farm-fresh produce for every meal. For him, the words “granny’s cooking” meant not only delicious but also fresh food. This approach worked well to create the foundation of Ducasse’s now famous philosophy of dining, as well as forming his personal eating habits.
The chef refers to his childhood memories on the farm as nothing less than “a paradise on earth.”
In Ducasse’s opinion, the greatest and most common mistake that people make across the globe today is consuming far too many animal proteins, resulting in an overall heavy disproportion of meat to vegetable dishes.
A self-declared antiglobalist, Ducasse is firmly for the use of regional farming produce. 
“Use as much local, home-grown food as you can, this is the best you can do for yourself,” the world-renowned chef advises. 
“And being a chef, I can assure you that ordering ingredients from the world’s most distant corners is unwise; nor does it qualify you as being creative. Instead, make the most of your local products: Nature is equally generous, wherever you are.”

<i>Alain Ducasse’s book “Nature: Simple, Healthy and Good, 190 Recipes from a French Master Chef” is on sale at Bukvoyed bookstores in Russian. At Bukvoyed’s online store, it costs 1,973 rubles. Retail prices are around 2,200-2,500 rubles.</i>

TITLE: Lanson launches in Russia
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Lanson, the world’s third-oldest champagne house and the official purveyor of champagne to the British royal family since 1900, has began distributing in St. Petersburg — just in time for the festive season.
“Our trademark champagne that gives a clear idea of the taste of a Lanson wine is Black Label Brut, with its floral and fruity bouquet with a hint of toast,” said Jean-Paul Gandon, Lanson’s chief enologist who has worked for the company for an impressive 40 years, making it the longest alliance between an enologist and a champagne house in the region. 
“If there is one non-vintage brut champagne that is universally appreciated, it surely is Lanson Black Label,” he said. 
Lanson produces five million bottles of champagne per year — all branded with the coat of arms of Elizabeth II — and the company’s cellars contain about 20,000 bottles, with the oldest one dating back to the 1910s, according to Emmanuel Gantet, Lanson’s export manager. 
The Lanson champagne house was established in 1760 by Fran&#231;ois Delamotte, whose son, Nicolas-Louis, a Knight of the Order of Malta, succeeded the father as head of the family business in 1798. It was his affiliation with the order of Malta that inspired Nicolas-Louis to put the Maltese Cross on the bottles as the company’s crest.
In 1828, Nicolas-Louis Delamotte joined forces with Jean-Baptiste Lanson, who in 1837 gave his name to the champagne house.
Today Lanson enjoys the reputation of not only one of the most venerable champagne houses, but also one of the most glamorous. Lanson champagnes were served at the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth this summer, marking the 60th anniversary of the accession of the queen to the British throne, and they feature prominently at Wimbledon tennis championships’ social events.
The U.K. wine retailer Oddbins offers a taste of what the Brits themselves think of the brand in an introduction on its website. 
“Do not be fooled by the Maltese Cross and the black uniform that Lanson wears, it is not a member of the St. John Ambulance,” Oddbins’ website reads. “It can’t patch up minor cuts and grazes, it doesn’t know what the acronym DRAB stands for and it’s ineffective at employing the recovery position. However, what this Champagne lacks in basic First Aid knowledge, it more than makes up for in consistency, reputation and quality. Lanson, with its fresh style, puts a smile on any face, but we don’t recommend administering it at the scene of an accident.”
Lanson’s signature feature, which the company has pledged to never compromise, is that the wines do not undergo malolactic fermentation, ensuring a fresh, crisp and ultra-fruity style that makes Lanson champagne stand out.
The brand is especially proud of its Rose Label Brut, which has a lingering rosehip aftertaste and is a bestseller in its category in a number of European countries and in North America. Lanson was one of the first companies to introduce the world to rose champagnes in the early 1950s. 

TITLE: Eating: an issue of class?
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: According to official statistics on food consumption in Russia by various social groups, the pattern that emerges is a surprising one. Polls indicate that while Russians with more modest incomes have improved the quality of their diet and begun to show a greater interest in consuming organic products, their richer compatriots have remained carefree about their culinary habits.
“A typical Russian client is very different from the European visitors to our clinic, in the sense that they refuse to compromise any bad habits or lifestyle that they have; instead, they come to us, demand the most expensive services, and go back home to continue ruining their health,” said the chief doctor of one leading European health and beauty center who asked to remain anonymous. “One of our tasks, as we see it, is to help our clients to avoid our services for as long as possible — through maintaining a healthy diet and exercise.”  
It is with such potential clients in mind that the Russian company Eat2fit, conceived by the dietician Yelena Grigorieva and chef Kirill Muzychenko, has introduced the first tailor-made healthy catering service in St. Petersburg. The duo has developed ten sets of “rations,” ranging from XS, a 900-calorie diet, to XXXL, a 4,500-calorie intake every day.
“The concept of Eat2fit is rooted in the philosophy of services that are already established in Europe,” said Darya Kratnova, a spokeswoman for Eat2fit. “Despite the clear Western origin of the service, all programs have been developed with close consideration for local produce and eating habits. There is a program for vegetarians and diets for pregnant or breastfeeding women.”
The ultimate goal of Eat2fit is to help clients return to a healthier and balanced diet while not exhausting the body’s resources, which is often the case with fashionable diets, said Grigorieva. “The body needs to lose fat, not muscles or water,” she said. “The task is not to stop eating but to consume what is really good for you.” 
According to Svetlana Mishkina, who co-authored the “Farewell to Poverty” report, food consumption among the poorest Russians will soon reach the level of those who are better off, with the “poorest” defined as those earning from $2 to $10 per day. Mishkina, whose comment appeared in the national business daily newspaper Vedomosti, observed that in 2000, people in that group consumed an average of 1,525 calories per day. They now ingest 2,100 calories. The wide gap that once existed between rich and poor Russians in the consumption of protein, vegetables, fruits and berries has been rapidly shrinking during the past 10 years, the expert said.
Official statistics indicate that Russia’s poorest spend 46 percent of their earnings on food, while the richest spend only 18 percent on it. 
Ferran Adria, the world-renowned Catalan chef whose revolutionary approach to cooking gained his restaurant El Bulli on the Costa Brava the title of the most sought-after restaurant on the planet, said that dynamic modern lifestyles are throwing new challenges to chefs and food producers.
“On the one hand, we all want our meals to be cooked fast; unlike in the 19th century, most women are now employed full-time and do not feel like spending hours and hours in the kitchen,” he said. “On the other hand, the general awareness of organic produce and healthy foods is noticeable. Reconciling these goals and making a fast and healthy meal a reality is one of the major challenges for us. Indeed, organic ingredients are not accessible for everyone. Still, it is possible to create new opportunities for local farmers worldwide.”

TITLE: THE DISH: Angle Vert
AUTHOR: By Isabel Makman
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Missing the mark</b>
It’s no secret that it is not uncommon in Russia to come across wildly tacky and ostentatious displays of wealth, from outlandishly expensive sports cars to gaudy jewels and over-the-top fur coats. Angle Vert is another example of this attempt at elegance gone horribly wrong. 
Upon first glance the restaurant seems to have achieved a chic atmosphere. High-backed Victorian chairs stand at those tables that are not surrounded by modern couches and armchairs, and thick maroon curtains adorn the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up one wall. Mirrors of various sizes hang at random around the room, and chrome lamps stand in the corners. Overall the desired atmosphere seems to be sort of chic-modern, with soft jazzy-pop music playing in the background to complete the experience. 
Upon closer inspection, however, the gaudiness of the d&#233;cor becomes glaringly obvious. The maroon curtains, for example, are made from a hideous velvet material and are backlit by tacky purple ceiling lights, like something that might be seen in a nightclub. This is contradicted, however, by the opposing wall, which is covered in grey wallpaper that looks like something out of a hospital waiting room. The effect is that at any given time you either feel like you are dining in a club or a nursing home, depending on which wall you are looking at. 
Despite the rather distasteful d&#233;cor, the menu looked promising. It offers a variety of dishes, including pumpkin soup, veal, various seafood dishes and a 9,000-ruble ($292) plate of lobster. While sipping on two very good cappuccinos (180 rubles each, $6) we made several attempts to order. This turned into something of an ordeal as our waiter kept returning to tell us that the selected dishes were unavailable, in true Soviet style. It was unclear whether they were not being served on that particular day or whether they had been removed from the menu entirely. Either way, it took three tries before we were successful. After rejecting an order for gnocchi with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes and for pelmeni with veal, the kitchen finally agreed to rustle up a bowl of miso soup (250 rubles, $8) and another of borsch (350 rubles, $11). The miso soup was good, boasting homemade tofu and a delicious lemon flavor. Furthermore, it was accompanied by an asterisk that described the dish as a “balanced combination of food that has been specially cooked saving all vitamins and useful properties.” The borsch also received good reviews, although unfortunately it had not been prepared to save all of its “useful properties.” 
The soups were followed by a serving of pasta Bolognese (340 rubles, $11) and lamb with berry sauce (1,210 rubles, $39). The pasta, while smothered in Parmesan cheese, was standard spaghetti Bolognese: Enjoyable but with no extraordinary qualities. The lamb was also decent, although rather bland without the sweet berry sauce, which was similar to fruit chutney. Accompanying the lamb dish was a whole, unpeeled, baked onion, an original and unexpectedly tasty addition to the dish. 
Lunch was followed by dessert in the form of a pear baked with ginger (250 rubles, $8) and accompanied by homemade ice cream. Both the pear and the ice cream were superb, their flavors complementing each other perfectly. 
While the unavailability of our first few choices was disappointing, the meal was ultimately a pleasant one, although not outstanding. Angle Vert is certainly not a bad place to dine. The quality of the food, however, coupled with the lackluster atmosphere and tacky d&#233;cor, leads to the conclusion that there are more interesting restaurants in the city to visit over this one if given the option.

TITLE: Tartu, Cradle of Estonian Culture
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It takes only a two-and-a-half-hour smooth drive (185 kilometers) to get from Estonia’s capital Tallinn to the town of Tartu, even though the south-east route crosses almost all of this small Baltic country. 
The bus speeds past the country’s timeless landscapes of snow-covered forests and fields, with the occasional wooden house to be spied.
Based around Tartu University, with a large proportion of its population being students and teachers, the town is seen as the nation’s intellectual capital. In winter, the large number of young people makes the town perhaps more vibrant and full than in summer, when many are on holiday elsewhere.

<b>A PAGE OF HISTORY</b>
Located on the banks of the Emajogi River (Mother River), Tartu is Estonia’s second largest city and the Baltics’ oldest, being first mentioned in historical documents dating back to 1030. It is the cradle of Estonian culture, where the country’s song festivals — an important tradition that played a major role in uniting the nation — were born. Tartu is also the home of Estonian theater and to some extent, the Estonian state.
The main building of Tartu University, a six-columned, classical affair, is located on &#220;likooli (University Street) in the town’s center. Founded in 1632 by Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, it’s the country oldest. Now one of the world’s top 400 universities, it effectively connects the past and future, as well as Tartu and the rest of the world.
Town Hall Square (Raekoja plats) is Tartu’s center, having historically been the main trading area of the settlement between the castle on Toome Hill and the riverside port on the Emajogi. The buildings in the center mostly date back to the 18th century, older constructions having been destroyed by the wars and fires that swept the town from time to time.
Since 2008, Town Hall Square has been adorned by the Kissing Students fountain, which stands right in front of the Town Hall building and depicts the figures of a young man and woman embracing. Sculptor Mati Karmin was reportedly inspired by the sight of his nephew kissing a girl in the rain.
Although it might not seem like the first choice for a new installation on the medieval town’s main square, it has become a modern symbol of Tartu and one of its main attractions, judging by the groups of tourists having their photo taken in front of it at any time of the day.
The Town Square, with its cafeterias and souvenir shops, has a Christmas tree and a large snow mound, which is popular among children who clamber up it and ride down it on boards or simply crawl over it. 
Toome Hill, located directly behind the Town Hall, is home to a number of monuments, including one to King Adolphus that was destroyed by the Soviets in 1950 and restored after Estonia regained independence, the ruined red-brick Dome Cathedral dating back to the late 13th century and the university-related installations and museums such as the History Museum of Tartu University, the old Tartu Observatory and the Old Anatomical Theater. 
Back in town, an interesting piece of art is “Father and Son,” a sculpture group showing nude, same-sized models of its author, Tartu-born sculptor Ulo Ouna (1940-1988) and his 18-month-old son Kristjan. Located right on the sidewalk, just a brief walk from the Town Hall Square, the sculpture looks unlikely in the summertime, and completely surreal when seen amid snow in winter.  
Conceived in 1977 and cast in bronze ten years later, the sculpture was installed on Tartu on Child Protection Day on June 1, 2004 on K&#252;&#252;ni, the city’s main shopping street.

<b>HI-TECH</b>
The futuristic 7,000-square-meter Scientific Center AHHAA cannot fail to impress visitors, offering them the chance to ride a bike suspended high above the ground, as well as elevators simulating journeys to the center of the Earth. Its cozy Planetarium chamber is  capable of showing over five million stars. 
These are just a few of the center’s dozens of installations, which also include a mirror maze and thermal camera — all of which allow visitors to touch and participate — and a “science shop.” According to AHHAA, the center aims to introduce science to everyone.
“Using interactive and entertaining methods and the scientific excellence of the 380-year-old Tartu University, we try to overcome fear and prejudice toward learning,” it says on its website.
AHHAA began with a laser show in front of Tartu Observatory in 1997 as a special project of the Department of Research and Institutional Development of the University of Tartu, but has since become independent. 
The new center, the biggest in the Baltic states, opened in May 2011, and has become one of the most popular local attractions for children and adults alike, drawing over 10,000 visitors a month. 
In addition to the main building, the center runs a 4D adventure cinema in the Lounakeskus shopping center on the outskirts of Tartu, as well as an exhibition center in Tallinn (1 Sadama, tel: +372 745 6789, www.ahhaa.ee.)
Fifteen kilometers from Tartu, on the shore of Lake Saadj&#228;rv next to the forest, is the fantastic new environmental Ice Age Center, which combines scientific and popular approaches, throwing in some entertainment.
Launched in July, the state-of-the art center dedicates its 2,200 square meters of exhibition space — with a mammoth replica as the central exhibit — to the multiple Ice Ages and how they formed the landscapes and environment of Estonia. 
When visited earlier this month, the tour ended in a room criticizing today’s consumerist society, with the guide passionately arguing against the use of non-renewable sources of energy such as oil in Russia and oil shale in Estonia, Chinese synthetic toys and plastic packaging, with one wall showing a photo of a supermarket packed with various kinds of excessively packaged items.
As a positive example, there is a display showing footage from what looks like a textile shop in Soviet-era Estonia in the 1960s. In it, women are buying pieces of cloth and a shop assistant wraps them in coarse brown recycled paper. (20 Saadj&#228;rve, &#196;ksi alevik, Tartumaa, tel: + 372 59 113 318, www.jaaaeg.ee)
From hi-tech scientific centers to real life, Estonia practices what it preaches, and it is no longer unusual to get an electric cab in Tartu, with the company Elektritakso launching its first electricity-powered vehicle on the roads of the town back in September.
The first charging station opened in Tallinn in June, and 140 stations are due to be operating across Estonia by the end of the year. 
Launched in June with only one vehicle, Elektritakso expanded its fleet up to five electric cars in September and plans to double that number by the end of the year. The electric cabs are slightly cheaper than ordinary, gasoline-powered taxis, charging 2.4 euros at the start of the ride and then 50 cents per kilometer.

<b>NEW OLD MANORS</b>
Estonia is a land rich in historic manor houses, about 100 of which have been renovated and converted to luxury hotels.
According to the website www.mois.ee, devoted to Estonian manors, some of them date to the Middle Ages, but the mass construction of manor complexes began to a wide extent in the 1760s and lasted for more than a century and a half until World War I.
In the early 20th century, there were 1,250 manors in Estonia, but by 2005 this number had dropped to 414. According to the Estonian Tourist Board, nowadays there are about 200 manor houses under state protection as architectural monuments and 100 in active use.
Estonian manors are where closeness to nature is combined with luxury appropriate to the aristocrats who once owned them. During the Soviet era many of the manors fell into disrepair or were used as schools or workers’ hostels.
Kau Manor is located some 40 minutes from Tallinn, 6 kilometers off the highway to Tartu. Located in the Koue parish and first mentioned in 1241, it is one of the oldest Estonian manors, whose first known owner was a vassal of the Danish King Gerhardus de Kouwe (Gerhard from Kau). In the early 19th century Kau was home to the world famous explorer Otto von Kotzebue.
Owned by the Estonia-based award-winning filmmaker Mary Jordan since 2007, the manor has undergone extensive restoration and retains many of its original features. It now houses a boutique hotel, a restaurant and spa, as well as a ballroom in the manor’s coach house. Kau also hosts drama performances and music concerts.
In 2011, Jordan established the Kau Arts Academy with the goal of supporting established and emerging artists working in a variety of media. Every year, the Kau Arts Academy invites between 10 and 15 artists to come to Estonia to devote two to six weeks to creative projects.
Currently, there are plans are to convert four hectares of surrounding land into a sculpture park. In December, visitors were greeted by “Black Object” (a tank on grand piano legs by Estonian sculptor Kirke Kangro), brought there from an exhibition in Riga, Latvia late last month. (Triigi, Koue, tel: +372 644 1411, www.kau.ee)
Halfway between Tallinn and Tartu lies Pohjaka Manor, whose restaurant is famous for its fantastic Estonian food.
Established in 1813 by its first Baltic-German owner Paul Gotthard von D&#252;cker, the one-story manor, which greeted the new millennium in an extremely poor state, was renovated by a team of enthusiasts and reopened in 2010, after more than three years of hard work.
The restaurant at Pohjaka is keen on using local raw ingredients, and has a cellar full of natural items such as genuine brown apple juice and rowan berries in glass jars. 
Pohjaka restaurant was rated the fifth finest in the country in Estonia’s annual top 50 restaurants rating conducted by the Flavours of Estonia program in October. (Pohjaka Mois, M&#228;ek&#252;la, Paide vald , J&#228;rvamaa, tel: +372 5267795, www.pohjaka.ee)
Alatskivi Castle, a gothic-style manor castle set in a 130-hectare dense forest park, is located 42 kilometers northeast of Tartu, close to Lake Peipus, the biggest transboundary lake in Europe, which lies on the border between Estonia and Russia. 
Originally built in the late 16th century but rebuilt in 1880-1885, Alatskivi Castle is said to resemble the royal residence of Balmoral in Scotland, albeit smaller. This is possibly where the inspiration for the Scottish cuisine served in the manor’s restaurant comes from, although Estonian and German dishes are also available.
Alatskivi offers guided tours, describing the life in the manor as it once was. The expositions present an overview of the manor’s history and renovation process, while the cellar exhibition with wax statues of the manor’s workers explains how things were run there. The small Eduard Tubin Museum pays homage to the famous Estonian composer, who lived in the neighborhood.
When attended earlier this month, the museum was hosting a small but lively fair, with local people selling woolen clothing items, handmade souvenirs, and apples and onions, the area’s most famous agricultural product. 
(Alatskivi Loss, Alatskivi vald, Tartumaa, tel: +372 745 3816; +372 528 6598, www.alatskiviloss.ee)

<i>The St. Petersburg Times was a guest of the Estonian Tourist Board, Enterprise Estonia (2 Lasnam&#228;e, 11412 Tallinn, Estonia. Tel: +372 6279 770). www.eas.ee, www.visitestonia.com.</i>
<hr />
<b>Where To Eat</b>
Meat Market Steak & Cocktail
3 K&#252;&#252;tri, Tel: +372 653 3455, 
www.meatmarket.ee
Launched earlier this year in the former premises of a butcher’s shop, the restaurant’s specialty is solid roast beefs roasted to a choice of three degrees according to the customer’s wish and an array of starters titled “Symphony of Meat” served on a wooden board. 
But true to its name, it also promises a range of quality cocktails.

Moka
3 K&#252;&#252;tri, Tel: +372 744 2085, 
www.moka.ee
Located in the same building as Meat Market Steak & Cocktail, the new Moka caf&#233;/restaurant creatively combines Estonian cuisine with international dishes. A large selection of wines is available.
<hr />
<b>How To Get There</b>
From St. Petersburg, a direct Lux Express bus departs for Tartu four times a day (www.luxexpress.eu). Tartu can be also reached via Tallinn, from where there are many regular buses. Estonian Air will stop its flights to Tartu and a number of other destinations this week, with the last flight on Dec. 21.

<b>Where To Stay</b>
Antonius Hotel
15 &#220;likooli, Tel: +372 737 0377, 
www.hotelantonius.ee
A luxury five-star hotel right across the street from the University of Tartu’s main building. First mentioned in 16th-century historical records, the building was completed in its present structure in 1811 and has been carefully preserved. The hotel’s 18 rooms and library are highly individual and fitted out with antique furniture. A 40-seat restaurant is housed in the cellar.

TITLE: U.K. Property Tax Targets Wealthy Russians
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The British government has introduced tax rules that will hit foreign owners and buyers of high-value residential properties in the country, with wealthy Russians living in London being among the main targets.
According to the rules, which are part of the 2013 draft finance bill published Dec. 11, properties worth &#163;2 million and above owned by non-British resident companies, partnerships or collective investment vehicles will be subject to an annual residential property tax.
The policy will take effect in April. Tax rates will vary, from &#163;15,000 for properties valued between &#163;2 million and &#163;5 million to &#163;140,000 for those worth more than &#163;20 million.
“We didn’t notice any decline in the number of high-value property deals made by Russians after March 2012, when the rules became tougher,” said Nelly Trufan, customer relationship coordinator at real estate agency Savills. “What happens after December 2012 is still difficult to say.”
“In general, in 2012 Russians bought more property in the U.K. compared with 2011,” she said. “But most Russians don’t know British legislation and new rules in advance, so they come here and know about it when the deal is already on the way.”
The previous tough tax measure was introduced in March 2012, when high-value corporate property was hit with a 7 percent charge.
In addition to the residential property tax, a 28 percent capital gains tax will apply to people who sell expensive property, and a 15 percent stamp-duty land tax will be imposed on buyers of real estate.
Though the amount of the new taxes is acknowledged to be very high, real estate specialists are positive about the new measure, saying it will eliminate uncertainties for foreigners involved in property deals in Britain.
“The new bill will bring the U.K. in line with the jurisdictions of other countries,” said Damian Bloom, international tax and estate planning specialist at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner.
But the tax rules could adversely affect the London real estate market, Bloom said.
“After April 2013, we expect a decline in the number of transactions,” he said.
According to the financial bill, each year, the tax rates will be increased according to the consumer price index.
“In London, a &#163;2 million house is not a good one, but in north England you can buy a castle for this amount of money. The rates are not fair then,” said Michael Krieger, fellow chartered accountant at consulting company Hazlems Fenton.
Bloom, on the contrary, thinks the new provisions are fairer than the previous ones.
“The news is that there are quite extensive reliefs,” said Neville Wright, taxation expert at Berwin Leighton Paisner.
According to the bill, genuine property rental businesses, properties held for charitable purposes and those run as a commercial business will be eligible for tax breaks on an annual basis.
The bill also excludes real estate developers if land is acquired in the course of a “bona fide” property development business or for the sole purpose of developing and reselling, and if the company had been doing business of that nature for two years before the purchase.
The main purpose of the new rules is to tackle tax evasion, but real estate companies have already discovered loopholes in the measure.
“Like in Russia, politics is in the middle. The government wants to make an impression that it will tackle a problem, but in fact the rules are badly sorted out,” Krieger said.
It’s not difficult to avoid the tax, Bloom said.
For new buyers, the easiest option is purchasing individually as opposed to  through a company. Acquiring real estate through trustees will also allow consumers to avoid the tax, as trusts are excluded from the new rules.
“The best way not to pay [the tax] is not to buy through an offshore company,” Krieger said.
Because offshore companies will be subject to the capital gains tax on the disposal of high-value residential property starting April 6, there is enough time to restructure properties.
But Hazlems Fenton advises people to do this with care because of the risk of triggering a capital gains tax liability under the current rules.
Since tax rates are much lower for individuals than for companies, analysts expect that a restructuring will take place, even though the confidentiality that could be obtained when purchasing through a company will no longer be available.
Berwin Leighton Paisner advises existing companies to review their structures for pre-April planning and clear out gains to nonresident beneficiaries.
“The big change is that properties acquired by April 2013, when the rules come into effect, will be not affected by the bill,” Bloom said.
The most attractive areas for Russians are those in central London: Knightsbridge, Mayfair and Chelsea. But Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire are also popular destinations for Russians to buy premium property in Britain.

TITLE: Cancer Patients See No Relief From State Care
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — When Maria Gritsai was diagnosed with late-stage cervical cancer, she didn’t spend much time grieving. She knew she had to act fast.
With the support of her husband and son, she turned to the Blokhin Cancer Center, one of Russia’s best oncology hospitals, where the diagnosis was confirmed. Doctors there also gave her some devastating news: At such an advanced stage, her cancer was incurable.
But she was determined to fight. She began a series of treatments, including home chemotherapy sessions that came with harsh side effects, and bought a costly medicine a doctor said she needed to stay alive that would have taken four months to get from the public health care system.
The chemotherapy diminished the tumor, but Russian doctors said they could do nothing more after the sessions were completed.
After her chemotherapy treatments, Gritsai was “officially sent off … for pain treatment and to live out the rest of [her] days,” she wrote in a blog entry. 
“For now, they have given up on me in Russia,” she wrote.
She collected donations online and sought treatment in Germany, where doctors said she may have been misdiagnosed because not enough examinations had been done. They said she could have been operated on and cured if her doctors hadn’t missed the early stages of the disease.
Gritsai, 35, died at the Grosshadern Clinic in Munich on Oct. 22 — but apparently not from cancer. Doctors told her husband, Yevgeny, that she had been poisoned by the chemotherapy drugs Cisplatin and Xeloda, which are also used in Germany but are accompanied by supportive drug therapy to diminish harmful side effects and aid recovery.
Gritsai’s case highlights many of the faults with cancer treatment in Russia’s state health care system, which doctors say suffers from problematic legislation, excessive bureaucracy and a lack of financing.
Gritsai’s experience, which she described online and in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times in late September, included lying sick on the floor of the Blokhin center for hours to take a blood test, meetings with indifferent doctors and attempts to perform minor surgery with no anesthetic.
After Gritsai received the grim diagnosis from the Blokhin Center, her husband found a doctor at the clinic who prescribed chemotherapy treatments for Maria “at his own risk.” The treatments were performed at Gritsai’s home by a local doctor, she said at her home in Chekhov, a Moscow region town 60 kilometers south of the capital.
Gritsai spoke briskly while sitting on a stool in the kitchen of her three-room apartment, her eyes lively despite a pale face. Plastic bags hung on her hips attached to 5-millimeter plastic tubes, which she had to have surgically installed after her kidneys failed.
In a public appeal she wrote online, Gritsai wrote that after each of seven chemotherapy sessions, she felt so bad that she could only lie in bed for a week sleeping, throwing up, drinking water and eating nothing.
She wrote that she was put on disability and given monthly payments of 7,000 rubles ($220).
“I have no right to die. I have endured too much,” Gritsai wrote. “I will live to give hope to allegedly hopeless patients.”

<b>Deadly Delays</b>
Cancer treatment is free of charge under Russian law, but patients often have to wait weeks or months to receive drugs or undergo medical exams, Gritsai said, speaking from her own experience at the Blokhin Center and at a local clinic.
Alexander Nikolayev, head physician at the Blokhin Center, said that in many cases, state financing is insufficient to provide high-tech care to cancer patients and that hospitals and patients struggle to collect money for treatment.
Since January, a law titled “On the Basics of Health Care” has limited the amount of free medical services to which people are entitled. The amount of free services is defined by a government program each year. 
At the same time, Russia remains the only country in Europe where patients don’t pay for obligatory medical insurance, Larisa Popovich, director of the Institute of Healthcare Economics at the Higher School of Economics, said at a round table last year.
The Blokhin Center provides free treatment to Russian patients, who receive referrals from their district hospitals as part of an annual state quota for treating patients with high-tech medical aid. Foreign patients must pay for care.
The state quota cannot cover all patients who need care, and state money for treatment at the Blokhin Center is allocated only after a patient’s diagnosis has been confirmed there. As a result, patients have to pay for all the tests, consultations and examinations before that, patients at the center said.
Gritsai said she and her husband repeatedly arrived at the Blokhin Center clinic by 5 a.m., three hours before it opened, to get in line for a blood test with about 200 other patients. Some patients spent the night in cars beside the clinic to get a test before the laboratory closed, Gritsai said.
The Blokhin Center offers paid medical tests along with the free ones for patients covered by the state quota. Paying patients have to stand in the same long line, but the results of their tests arrive sooner, Gritsai said.
In October 2011, the Investigative Committee opened an inquiry based on a tabloid news report in connection with the death of a woman who had been waiting in line at a doctor’s office at the Blokhin Center. The results of the inquiry have never been publicly reported. 
It took Gritsai a month to undergo all the necessary tests and exams before doctors at the Blokhin Center made their diagnosis, Yevgeny Gritsai said. That was a critical delay given that a malignant tumor can advance considerably in just a few days.
Yevgeny Gritsai said doctors at the Grosshadern Clinic could have performed more tests and made a more precise diagnosis in a shorter period, 10 days.
On one morning in mid-November, about 25 people were standing in line for blood tests at the Blokhin Center. An elderly female patient told a reporter that the line is bigger on some days, but she also praised the “quick and clear-cut organization” of consultations, tests and examinations, saying results of blood tests were almost always ready the next day.
A 40-year-old male patient who spoke by telephone said he spent a month confirming he had a malignant tumor through paid tests and examinations at the Blokhin Center. He was then told he could wait four months for a free CT scan or pay for the exam and undergo it sooner.
At the same time, an Israeli clinic the patient consulted told him it could have his diagnosis within a week.
The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he might have to return to the Blokhin Center for treatment, complained that doctors there were “rude” and “never explained anything” to the patients.
He also said he spent hours in line at the doctor’s office every time he needed another referral for an exam or a test to obtain a diagnosis.

<b>Struggles to Get Medicine</b>
By law, authorities must provide free medication to gravely ill patients within 10 days of receiving a prescription, but Gritsai was told she would need to wait four months for the hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, which a doctor said she needed to treat the anemia that resulted when her kidneys failed.
Faced with such long waits, relatives of fatally ill cancer patients often try to buy the drugs on their own. But the prices can be steep: Gritsai said drugs containing erythropoietin cost 80,000 rubles per month for the dose she needed, or more than 10 times her monthly disability payment.
Patients can find it difficult to get a prescription for a powerful drug from a doctor because several stamps from different people are required on the prescription, and doctors can be reluctant to go through all the trouble if they are overloaded with work, especially if a patient seems unlikely to make a full recovery.
When Yevgeny Gritsai tried to get a prescription for the chemotherapy drug Xeloda from a local oncologist, she told him, “Why spend your money on Maria? She is going to die anyway. Meanwhile, I have a lot of work,” Yevgeny Gritsai said. He asked for the doctor’s name not to be published to avoid causing problems with her.
To give Yevgeny Gritsai the prescription, stamps of approval had to be put on it separately by the head of the gynecological department at the local clinic, by a commission of doctors and by local health authorities.
Problems also plague some of the medications themselves. The chemotherapy drugs used in the state medical system are cheap and often have harsh side effects that can kill a patient rather than eliminating the cancer.
When Xeloda and Cisplatin are used abroad, a course of powerful supportive therapy often accompanies the treatment to offset their side effects.
According to its label, Cisplatin can destroy the kidneys and may have side effects on the digestive, cardiovascular and central nervous systems, blood production, metabolism and reproduction and may cause allergic reactions. Xeloda can cause a range of similar and other side effects.
Of the side effects described on the labels of Cisplatin and Xeloda, Gritsai had anemia resulting from kidney failure and a mycotic infection in her lungs.
According to Yevgeny Gritsai, his wife’s doctors at the Grosshadern Clinic told him she had died from the poisonous effects of these drugs, though this information could not be confirmed.
A spokesman at the Grosshadern Clinic refused to comment on the details of Gritsai’s treatment, citing local regulations protecting patients’ privacy, while Yevgeny Gritsai said he did not take any medical documents from the clinic after his wife’s death.
Anatoly Makhson, Moscow’s top oncologist and the head doctor at the city-financed Oncology Hospital No. 62, complained that his hospital was forced to buy cheap, Russian-produced generics for chemotherapy that have potentially dangerous side effects.
Makhson was referring to amendments to the 2005 law on state purchases signed by President Vladimir Putin in July that bar state medical institutions from buying brand-name drugs. 
“Imagine you are given a drug that costs 8 percent of the price of a normal drug,” Makhson said. “Often, patients start taking them [but] react badly to them and stop taking them.”
An inquiry submitted to the Health Ministry by e-mail in early October regarding the amount of budget spending for cancer treatment and the reasons for delays in drug supplies had not been answered by Monday evening.
A spokeswoman at the ministry said several times during an eight-week span that she was busy replying to other media inquiries.

<b>Dispensing Pessimism</b>
Gritsai said she considered one of the worst aspects of Russian cancer treatment to be the pessimism it instilled in many patients.
Those who have no money for treatment abroad and lack the will to endure the side effects of the cheap chemotherapy “give up, lie down on a sofa at home and wait for death,” Gritsai said, citing conversations with other cancer patients.
“The most horrible thing is that people give up on themselves. Cancer is not a death sentence,” she said, adding that she thought a free psychological service specifically for cancer patients would be in demand in Russia.
In October 2011, Russian doctors predicted that Maria would live another two to three months. Instead, she lived for almost a year.

TITLE: N. Korea Displays Kim Jong Il on Anniversary
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.
Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.
Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.
North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.
North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week’s launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.
The launch has been condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology. North Korean space officials say the satellite would be used to study crops and weather patterns.
U.S. officials have said the satellite is tumbling in orbit and not acting as it should. Nevertheless, in North Korea, the launch’s success in getting the satellite into space was portrayed as a gift to Kim Jong Il and also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.
The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.
The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday’s launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il’s nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star,” a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.
Cameras were not allowed inside the mausoleum, and state media did not release any images of Kim Jong Il’s body.
With the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.
His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim’s father and grandfather.
There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.
North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumors even in Pyongyang about whether the country’s first couple is expecting.
To honor Kim’s father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.
Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang’s outskirts.
“Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away,” Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. “But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. ... We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country.”
Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military’s top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it “a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity.”
Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.
The UN Security Council said the test violated a ban on launches using ballistic missile technology.

TITLE: Pakistani Gunmen Kill Aid Workers
AUTHOR: By Adil Jawad and Sebastian Abot
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KARACHI, Pakistan — Gunmen shot dead five women working on UN-backed polio vaccination efforts in two different Pakistani cities on Tuesday, officials said, a major setback for a campaign that international health officials consider vital to contain the crippling disease but which Taliban insurgents say is a cover for espionage.
Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic. Militants however accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the vaccine makes children sterile. Taliban commanders in the troubled northwest tribal region have also said vaccinations can’t go forward until the U.S. stops drone strikes in the country.
Insurgent opposition to the campaign grew last year after it was revealed that a Pakistani doctor ran a fake vaccination program to help the CIA track down al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in the town of Abbottabad in the country’s northwest.
The Taliban have targeted previous anti-polio campaigns, but this has been a particularly deadly week. The government is in the middle of a three-day vaccination drive targeting high risk areas of the country as part of an effort to immunize millions of children under the age of five.
“Such attacks deprive Pakistan’s most vulnerable populations — especially children — of basic life-saving health interventions,” said a statement jointly released by the government and the UN “We call on the leaders of the affected communities and everyone concerned to do their utmost to protect health workers and create a secure environment so that we can meet the health needs of the children of Pakistan.”
The women who were killed Tuesday — three of whom were teenagers — were all shot in the head at close range. Four of them were gunned down in the southern port city of Karachi, and the fifth in a village outside the northwest city of Peshawar. Two men who were working alongside the women were also critically wounded in Karachi.
The attacks in Karachi were well-coordinated and occurred within 15 minutes in three different areas of the city that are far apart, said police spokesman Imran Shoukat. In each case, the gunmen used 9-millimeter pistols. Two of the women were teenagers, aged 18 and 19, and the other two were in their 40s, he said.
Two of the women were killed while they were in a house giving children polio drops, said Shoukat. The other two were traveling between houses when they were attacked, he said.

TITLE: Zuma Win Shows His Dominance of ANC
AUTHOR: By Jon Gambrell
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JOHANNESBURG — Under the bright lights, the corruption allegations and the ethical concerns trailing South African President Jacob Zuma faded away and the master politician basked in his re-election as head of the governing African National Congress party, singing on stage, smiling and waving to cheering delegates.
Whether he can translate his party victory into reassuring the anxious in South Africa, those worried about the nation’s flagging economy, violent criminality and the continued poverty striking those his party once aimed to liberate, however, remains the question.
ANC members voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to keep Zuma as the head of the top political party in South Africa, more than likely guaranteeing the 70-year-old leader another five-year term as the nation’s president in the coming 2014 general elections. Opposition parties don’t receive the same support as the ANC, the party of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela that many in this nation of 50 million people vote for out of that history.
Zuma trounced Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, his only challenger who ran a largely muted and reluctant campaign, getting 2,983 votes to Motlanthe’s 991. A smiling Zuma came to the stage immediately after the announcement, waving to the cheering crowd with both hands.
“We can boast that we’re a leader of our society, that therefore we have something to contribute to the democratic life of this country, to this democratic Republic of South Africa,” Zuma said in brief remarks televised live after his victory. “We are certain that at this course in our democracy we are correct, that what we do at all material times, it is in the interest, not just of our organization, but of our country and its people.”
Motlanthe, 63, a former unionist, declined to accept any other post with the ANC at Tuesday’s meeting. He embraced Zuma after the election results announcement and spoke together on stage in view of delegates.
The ANC must “continue to sharpen its ability to hear the cries of our people,” he later told those gathered at the Mangaung conference, held in the city also called Bloemfontein.
In Motlanthe’s place, the ANC delegates voted to install wealthy businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as deputy president of the party. Ramaphosa is a former union leader who was the ANC’s general secretary during the constitutional negotiations that ended apartheid in 1994. He went on to found an investment empire with interests that include a power plant, McDonald’s franchises, a Coca-Cola bottler and mines. In November, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth to be about $675 million.
Ramaphosa has been a leading figure behind the scenes in the ANC, though he shuns interviews and publicly offered no comments on policy or political matters ahead of the vote.
Across the board, all six candidates associated with Zuma swept the voting early Tuesday morning by some 4,000 delegates. That ease served as a stark contrast to the run-up to the conference, which saw disrupted provincial meetings, threats and shootings of local ANC officials.
Police have a tight security presence at the conference, which began Sunday and continues through Friday. Authorities earlier arrested four white men who were charged Tuesday with treason and terrorism offenses over an alleged plot to attack the conference and kill Zuma and other leaders, though it is unclear how far along their planning was.
Zuma was the favorite heading into the conference after winning the nominations in most provincial ANC polls. He has wide support among Zulus, South Africa’s largest ethnic group, as well as from a loyal cadre of government and party officials.
But many in the public have grown disenchanted with Zuma, who former President Thabo Mbeki fired as deputy president in 2005 after he was implicated in the corruption conviction of close friend and financial adviser Schabir Shaik over a 1999 arms deal. Newspapers have written numerous articles recently about the millions of dollars of government-paid improvements made to Zuma’s private homestead.

TITLE: 4 EU States To Condemn Israeli Action
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — Germany and three other European members of the UN Security Council are preparing a statement condemning Israel’s latest settlement plans in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, a European diplomatic official said Tuesday.
The so-called E4 grouping — permanent council members Britain and France, plus Germany and Portugal — is concerned that such settlements could threaten the possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, the official said. 
Details of the European statement are being finalized in New York, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because the work was not yet completed.
The move stems from a string of recent Israeli settlement announcements, the official said, including one on Monday in which Israel said it will push forward with plans to build 1,500 apartments in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital. 
A Security Council statement, led by Europe, would mostly be symbolic, but nonetheless mark a high-profile show of displeasure with the Israelis.