SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #622 (0), Tuesday, November 21, 2000
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Blair in 1-Day Moscow Trip
AUTHOR: By Susan Cornwell
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday he believed Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin had the right approach to tackling Russia's problems and suggested progress could be made on disputed arms control issues.


Embarking on a lightning visit to Moscow, his fifth meeting with Putin this year, Blair said he understood the Russian president was a strong leader. But he was not threatening in any way.

"I do personally like him," Blair told reporters on the plane en route to Moscow. "It is necessary to be a strong leader to sort his country out."

Blair said the president, elected in March on a platform of restoring Russia's greatness, held several trump cards - solid economic growth two years after a financial crisis, a tax code being put in place and active restructuring policies under way.

Blair, accompanied only by a small group of advisers, immediately set off to dine with Putin at a Moscow restaurant. He was due to get down to formal talks on Tuesday with both Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.

He said he saw opportunities to narrow differences between Moscow and Washington on a proposed U.S. anti-missile shield.

Russia's long standing position is that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States must remain intact.

The prime minister's stay in Moscow, less than 24 hours, was deemed too short for businessmen who had originally planned to hold talks on trade and economic cooperation with their Russian counterparts.

TITLE: Opinions Fly Over Anthem
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova and Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After 10 years as a forgotten item on the government's "to do" list, Russia's wordless anthem has edged back onto the political agenda.


The fledgling State Council, an advisory body made up of regional leaders, is scheduled to discuss the problem at its upcoming meeting Wednesday. And public figures - from politicians to pop singers - are voicing their opinions on the best tunes and texts. 

Last month, President Vladimir Pu tin ordered St. Petersburg Gov. Vla di mir Yakovlev to come up with a set of national symbols - first and foremost, lyrics to the tune of "Patriotic Song" by 19th-century composer Mikhail Glinka, declared the new anthem by then-President Boris Yeltsin in 1993.

Last week, the pro-Kremlin Unity party announced its preference for the tune of the Soviet anthem composed in 1944 by Alexander Alexandrov, fueling earlier rumors that Putin himself favors this tune. 

State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov likewise backed the Stalin-era score, saying he hoped Russians would ring in 2001 with a new anthem combining updated lyrics and "the music with which our people associate many of their achievements." 

Meanwhile, a Yakovlev spokesman said last week that the governor would back Glinka's melody.

"The Soviet tune is ... backed by the majority of governors, but Gov. Yakov lev said ... he would support Glinka's melody," said spokesman Alexander Afanasiyev.

Over the past decade, Glinka's hard-to-hum and hard-to-remember score has failed to rouse the patriotic fervor of most Russians.

A recent poll conducted by the Public Opinion Fund showed that only 15 percent of respondents were happy with the existing anthem, while 49 supported the revival of the Soviet-era melody. 

Nonetheless, Georgy Velinbakhov, head of the State Heraldic Service and of Yakovlev's working group, said the official search concerns new lyrics only and Glinka's tune is here to stay. 

"I see no reason to change the tune," Velinbakhov said by phone Monday. "The Soviet melody is the anthem of an absolutely different state; Glinka's melody is ... the symbol of a country that has existed for 10 years."

Velinbakhov said his office is considering various lyrics, including dozens of submissions by "enthusiasts" from across the country. Selected texts are then sent to be recorded by vocalists with the St. Petersburg Admiralty Orchestra. The recordings, Velinbakhov said, will go to Yakovlev's office and the presidential administration. 

Though Velinbakhov's mission is to help select lyrics, he believes that, for an anthem, music is pre-eminent. "No matter what the words are, the essence of an anthem is always the music," he said.

Velinbakhov dismissed complaints by some athletes, primarily soccer team Spartak Moscow, who appealed to Putin over the summer, saying the "unsingable" anthem has led to a drop in morale and to poor performances.

He recalled that the Soviet anthem remained wordless for over 20 years after the denunciation of Stalin - until a new version with no references to the totalitarian dictator was introduced under Leonid Brezhnev in 1977.

"I would like to remind [athletes] that their colleagues were in the same position for some 20 years and their achievements were no less spectacular [than they were with lyrics]," Velinbakhov said. 

Besides Alexandrov's Soviet-era anthem, two other tunes have been cited most often as potential replacements: the old imperial anthem "God Save the Tsar," used by Pyotr Tchaikovsky in his "1812 Overture" and Glinka's "Glory" from his opera "A Life for the Tsar," which sounded at Putin's inauguration last May. The tune of the latter was often considered a second, unofficial anthem in tsarist and post-Revolutionary years. 

The recommendations that eventually come out of the State Council will ultimately have to be voted on in the Duma. The previous Duma tried several times to push through a law on state symbols, but the Communist majority always managed to block the proposals. In 1998, the Communists proposed a bill to return the Soviet anthem and Soviet red flag. The motion failed, winning 242 votes - under the 300 required for passage.

The history of the national anthem has never been particularly smooth. The first version appeared in 1833 under Nicholas I; "God Save the Tsar" was composed by Alexei Lvov to the lyrics of the tsar's childhood tutor, poet Vasily Zhukovsky. Although Glinka composed his Patriotic Song the same year, he did not submit it for consideration. The notes were found in his archives only after his death. 

After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the new anthem became the socialist "Internationale," which was succeeded in 1944 - at Stalin's request - by Alexandrov's tune, with lyrics by Ser gei Mikhalkov, which were later altered to remove the references to Stalin.

In recent months, the renewed dispute has provoked a number of parodies.

In a short-lived musical program hosted by Nikolai Fomenko on NTV, the audience was invited to write lyrics using the tune of "The Slav's Farewell;" the recurring themes in the texts were abundant oil and male libido.

Novaya Gazeta newspaper published its take on the Soviet anthem, skewing the familiar lyrics to read: "Sing to the Motherland, home of the wealthy, bulwark of oil and natural gas."

TITLE: Starovoitova Case Given 'Real Chance'
AUTHOR: By Masha Kaminskaya
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After two years of investigation into the assassination of prominent State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, the Federal Security Service said this week that there is a "real chance" that the case will be solved.


The announcement, which came on Wednesday, followed a report in an Estonian paper last week that said detectives had traced the weapon used to kill Starovoitova to a criminal gang operating in Estonia.

With both Estonian and Russian officials playing down the report, however, some of those who have followed the investigation are skeptical of the latest development, saying that similar statements have been made before with no results.

Sergei Kuznetsov, deputy head of the investigative department of the St. Petersburg branch of the FSB, said Wednesday that the investigation "is going according to plan, and [the case] has a real chance of being solved," in remarks reported by Interfax.

Kuznetsov's statement was backed up by Alexei Vostretsov, head of the St. Petersburg FSB's press service, on Monday.

"Yes, there is a good chance of solving the case, meaning that not only the assassins, but the possible mastermind or masterminds of the murder will be apprehended as well," said Vostretsov by telephone.

"There are as yet no specific suspects, but the investigative team has collected enough material to start connecting leads to possible killers."

Starovoitova, who would have been 54 years old this year, was shot three times and killed on the night of Nov. 20, 1998, on the stairwell of her apartment at 91 Canal Griboyedova.

Starovoitova's aide Ruslan Linkov - now the head of the Democratic Russia faction's St. Petersburg branch - was with her at the time but survived the attack, despite being shot in the head and neck.

Investigators on the case - who include detectives from the FSB, the City Prosecutor's Office, the Prosecutor General's Office and St. Petersburg police - say they have interrogated around 800 witnesses. Kuznetsov said that the team had extended its investigation beyond Russia's borders. Vost ret sov refused to elaborate beyond the official statement. 

On Monday, the team received permission from Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov to keep the case open until May 20, 2001.

Linkov was not impressed by the FSB statement.

"For two years now we have heard about these 'real chances,' but there have been no real results as yet," he said in a telephone interview Monday.

"They weren't able to track the killers down [in 1998], and the only thing that could help them now is a lucky break. If they set one up themselves, we'll see they're real professionals."

Following the murder, several possible motives were sounded, ranging from political extremists angered at Sta ro voitova's stauch pro-democracy stance, to speculation that she was killed to stop her running for governor of the Leningrad Oblast. Rumors also flew that Starovoitova was in possession of a large sum of cash. None of these motives has so far been established, at least not publicly.

Much speculation centered on the two weapons used to kill Starovoitova. Es tonian daily Eesti Paevaleht reported on Thursday that both weapons - a Croa tian-made Agram-2000 submachinegun with an internal silencer, and a Ber retta Gardone handgun, which were left at the crime scene - had apparently been bought from an Estonian crime gang operating in the northeast of the country. The paper cited a source in a special anti-crime squad in St. Petersburg.

And it also quoted Estonian police commissionaire Alexander Zhegulov as saying that he and his colleagues were invited to consult Russian investigators shortly after the murder.

According to Zhegulov, a month before the assassination, St. Petersburg police seized three people - one of them a native of Narva, a town on the Estonian border - as they were trying to sell an Agram-2000, two pistols and a revolver. The fourth member of the gang, named Igor Kii - a reputed Estonian criminal ringleader and gunrunner - managed to escape and is still at large.

Neither Vostretsov nor Oleg Rozh kov, a spokesperson for the St. Petersburg Anti-Organized Crime Division, would comment on the article.

Rozhkov said, however, that while gun trade in Russia's northwest was quiter than in the past, there was a big increase in weapons trafficking in the mid-1990s, when the borders of the former Soviet union were less strictly guarded. Estonia, he said, had been among the major sources for illegal guns coming into Russia.

Terry Gander, editor of Jane's Infantry Weapons, said in connection with another shooting in 2000 that the Agram was a product of one of "several backyard industries in Croatia." Gander said the most likely reason for such weapons to end up in St. Petersburg was that a batch was left over "and flogged to the highest bidder."

He added that gun-running could have followed drug routes in Europe.

"True, international routes for weapons included Estonia in the mid-1990s," said Hannes Kont, an officer at the Estonian Public Safety Police in Tallinn, who also deals with illegal guns.

"But there were no Agrams that I know about. As for the story in the Eesti Paevaleht, I guess it's just speculation."

TITLE: Kudrin, Ivanov in Fight for PM Spot
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has been summoned to the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office for interrogation about the city's finances from 1992 to 1996 - years when Kudrin and Vla dimir Putin were two top deputy mayors - in a case that many observers see as politically motivated.


It is hard to know what to make of the Friday summons to Kudrin, who did not respond to it because he was in Novosibirsk traveling with President Putin on Friday. 

But one likely explanation is that Sergei Ivanov, head of the Kremlin Security Council, is headed for the prime minister's chair - and Kudrin is in the way. 

"Kudrin has clearly been bitten by the siloviki [power ministry officials], who are clearing the way for their man [Ivanov]," speculated Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with the INDEM think tank.

Kudrin, a liberal St. Petersburg economist, and Ivanov, a career KGB man, are widely seen as likely replacements for Prime Minister Mikhail Kasya nov, who has for weeks reportedly been on the verge of being fired. 

But it seems Putin is less than enchanted with Kudrin these days. 

On Friday, during the visit to Novosibirsk, President Putin threatened to sack the entire government unless it sorted out an incident involving the theft of non-ferrous metals from a nuclear physics institute there. Putin then specifically charged Kudrin with bringing in improvements.

On Monday, Kudrin and his Finance Ministry were again berated by President Putin - this time for being slow organizing social welfare payments for servicemen.

"[Servicemen] are being thrown out of trams, trolley-buses, buses and trains," Putin stormed at a Defense Ministry meeting. "We have turned them into beggars. Federal organizations must pay everything on time - but they either don't pay, or cash is being spent on other goals."

Speaking to the finance minister, Putin warned, "We are going to improve you." 

Ivanov's star, meanwhile, seems to be rising. 

This month the Russian media have carried several favorable profiles of the little-known former espionage agent. 

Ivanov himself also asked Putin to dismiss him from his rank of lieutenant general in the SVR foreign intelligence service, prompting some observers to suggest he was donning civilian clothes in preparation for the premiership.

And then there is the overnight investigation of St. Petersburg city finances and Kudrin.

The invitation to be questioned Nov. 17 "in connection with possible financial machinations in St. Petersburg at the time of [Anatoly] Sobchak's administration" was faxed last week to the Finance Ministry, said Gennady Yezhov, Kudrin's spokesman. Yezhov said Monday his boss has no idea what he is to be questioned about.

The official case number is 31913 and it was opened Nov. 13 - just a day before case No. 31914 was opened involving a single bad loan given to a local official, according to Kommersant newspaper. Case No. 31914 was used as justification for raids last week of St. Petersburg's Promstroibank - a bank with close ties to the Sobchak administration, and where Putin has even held a small amount of shares.

On Monday, no one in St. Petersburg officialdom seemed to know much about either case. Officials with the St. Petersburg Finance Committee and the city's Audit Chamber all professed ignorance.

Gennady Ryabov, a spokesman for the City Prosecutor's Office, said he knew nothing about the Kudrin case and had no comment. Natalya Vish nyakova, a spokesperson for the federal Prosecutor General's Office, also said she knew nothing about the cases in St. Petersburg.

Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly who also used to work for the Finance Committee, said in a telephone interview that the Kudrin summons has an obvious political shading. 

"Why else would they open a case now into what took place four or six years ago?" he asked rhetorically. "They obviously want to deal a blow to Kudrin. I am absolutely positive that our Prosecutor's Office got an order from power structures in Moscow. They could not have done that by themselves."

Politics-watchers have talked about three separate lobbies fighting for influence in the Putin Kremlin: the liberals, the security services and the so-called "Family" of public figures associated with the Yeltsin regime, including men like financier Boris Berezovsky and privatization tsar Chubais.

Putin has ties to all three groups: He is career KGB and proud of it; he was a key figure in the Sobchak administration; and he owes his presidency to Yeltsin's blessing.

Upon his election as president eight months ago, Putin mostly kept the same government he had inherited from the Yeltsin team. 

But Berezovsky has since declared himself a political emigrant, while Chubais has worried aloud that Putin is too much under the influence of writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

All of which suggests he is feeling his way toward a truly Putin team - only what will it be?

TITLE: Prosecutors Call In NTV's Top Anchor
AUTHOR: By Ron Popeski
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - One of Russia's most prominent journalists appeared before prosecutors on Monday and his colleagues said the encounter could be a pointer to the state of press freedom under President Vladimir Putin.


Yevgeny Kiselyov, anchorman for private NTV's flagship analytical programme Itogi, was answering questions in what the prosecutor's office said was a probe into the security service of media empire Media-MOST, which is alleged to have spied on other companies and on some government agencies.

The summons served on Kiselyov was the latest blow in a battle pitting Russian authorities against media magnates who grew wealthy in the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet rule.

But Kiselyov is the first journalist to be summoned in connection with attempts to rein in the oligarchs.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Media-MOST's chief executive Vla di mir Gusinsky on embezzlement charges. Another media boss, Boris Be re zovsky, has been summoned for questioning in a separate case. Both remain abroad and refuse to return to Moscow.

"There are two versions to be considered. One is that they are trying to revive this old story about the security service, which is nonsense and can produce nothing," Sergei Parkhomenko, editor of Media-MOST's weekly magazine, also called Itogi, said by telephone.

"The other is that we may be seeing a new stage in applying pressure and intimidation to editors and journalists."

Kiselyov's summons was made public two days after NTV all but lost its status as Russia's only independent national television channel, when the state-dominated natural gas monopoly Gazprom announced it had become the station's largest shareholder.

Kiselyov, NTV's general director, enjoys one of the highest public profiles in Russia. His program has frequently been critical of Putin and his administration.

He made no mention of the summons during his program on Sunday, but launched a strong attack on what he saw as a tendency to revert to authoritarian methods.

"There was a rather effective system of running the country based on a strong, unified central authority. I personally cannot help feeling that our new president quite liked that system and that he will gradually come back to it," Kiselyov said in an item on the new ownership of Media-MOST.

"You have to realise that neither real opposition political parties nor influential media independent of the state, particularly electronic media, fit into this system."

The polemic over Media-MOST's security service was the reason given for a search conducted at the group's office earlier this year by armed, masked police.

Kiselyov told reporters that Media-MOST did not have and never had had a security service.

NTV was Russia's only independent television channel with nationwide reach - and by far the most influential source of news outside the Kremlin's control - until Friday, when Gazprom said it had become the station's largest shareholder.

TITLE: Dovgan Helps You To Help Yourself
AUTHOR: By Yelena Evstigneyeva and Olga Promptova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - Vladimir Dovgan, the flamboyantly buoyant entrepreneur, is lurching into a new project: selling inspirational and self-improvement audio recordings via an army of fanaticized recruits.


Dovgan made his fame by putting his own face on bottles of everything from ketchup to glue, supposedly as a mark of quality.

Eventually he was squeezed out of his own company - or bought out, depending on who is telling the story - and lost the rights to his own beaming, tuxedoed image, which even today stares down from thousands of vodka bottles across Russia.

Since then, Dovgan has dabbled in a bit of everything, including politics. And now, he has gotten into the business of recording the advice of doctors and psychologists - and, of course, of Dovgan - on themes such as "How to Get a Better Figure," or "How to Quit Smoking."

Those inspiring messages will be sold via a system known as network marketing, or multilevel marketing (MLM). MLM companies build loyal armies of salespeople, or "distributors," who buy goods from the parent company, then sell them - usually to other salespeople they have recruited. Those new salespeople in turn recruit - and sell to - even more salespeople, and so on indefinitely.

The world's largest MLM concern is the U.S. company Amway, with millions of salespeople. In Russia, a better-known MLM company is another American import, Herbalife.

Amway sells everything from water purifiers to cosmetics, while Herbalife is more narrowly focused on dietary supplements and weight-loss products.

MLM companies have been criticized as too aggressive in their chain-letter sales tactics. They have also been called pyramid schemes, which make victims of their enormous staffs of buyer-sellers - or even as cults, which manipulate and brainwash those people.

But for Dovgan, the aggressive sale is a thing of beauty. His Vladimir Dovgan Service employs 3,000 people today, and Dovgan hopes to triple that to 10,000 by the end of the year. Many of his salespeople have come from Herbalife's Russia operation.

"These are radiant, charismatic people. They work 12 to 13 hours a day. They are amazingly fanatical," Dovgan said of the Herbalife salespeople he has taken on. In this, he said, they differ from 90 percent of the population, who are "pen-pushers by nature."

Herbalife and other "MLMers" have "opened up a new world" for Dovgan. In the spring he launched a blitzkrieg television advertising campaign - Dovgan said it cost $500,000 - to attract recruits to two new MLM companies, the Vladimir Dovgan Service and the Vladimir Dovgan School.

The service will promote herbal medicines from a biological factory in Kursk, while the school will push "personality development methods" on audiotape and CD.

Dovgan has recorded 16 such tapes. The first half of each consists of a consultation with a specialist, while the second plays soothing music with a voice-over by Dovgan and an actress.

The "How to Conceive the Child You Want" audio, for example, comes on two CDs. On the first, Dovgan chats with Professor Vera Sidelnikova, a top doctor with the Russian Academy of Science's Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Prenatal Care.

The second is simply two voices, one male and one female, repeating at 20-second intervals the words "tenderness, love, desire."

The doctors themselves don't earn much for their pains. Marina Bezrukikh, director of the Institute of Physiology at the Russian Education Academy, said that she was paid a "joke of a fee" for recording two CDs with Dovgan, "Your Child the Young Pupil."

Bezrukikh said she had decided to participate in the project because it seemed interesting and important.

The self-help recordings were originally to retail for $5. But Dovgan said he quickly realized that his products would not be taken seriously at such a bargain, and prices were hiked to $25 and then to $40.

Dovgan also organizes MLM training for would-be salespeople, and also for those who are simply curious. Entry to such training is 100 rubles ($3.60) for the potential recruit and $50 for everyone else. Training videos for would-be salespeople, due to appear at the start of next year, will cost around $100, Dovgan said.

Dovgan says he could have asked for $300 or $400 for training, but he decided that it was "still early for this."

As of October, turnover at the Vladimir Dovgan Service was $400,000 and at the school $100,000, Dovgan said. He added that sales are soaring - increasing at a rate of 30 percent to 45 percent per month.

Television advertising for the training classes first began to air last week. One session features Dovgan's friend Anatoly Klimin - the founder of the Tom Klaim clothing line and another recent convert to MLM. Klimin plans to build an army of MLM recruits to push his new collection of Tom Klaim tights.

TITLE: Dry-Law Faces Challenge From Prosecutor
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: City Prosecutor Ivan Sydoruk has filed what is most likely to be a winning protest with the Legislative Assembly over a semi-dry law introduced on certain parts of Vasiliyevsky Ostrov last month. 


At the basis of his complaint, filed Thursday, is the disparity between local and federal laws: Local law says the local authorities can set the times during which alcohol is sold. Federal law, however, says only federal mandates can set or change the times during which alcohol is sold. 

The Vasiliyevsky Ostrov incident reached a head when local residents began complaining of drunken brawls, urine-soaked entry ways and late-night revelry which they said was due to the late-night sale of hard liquor. 

The Vasiliyevsky Ostrov Municipal Council responded by clamping down on late-night liquor sales, saying only beer could be sold at any retail outlet after 9 p.m. 

Stores revolted: Some threatened law suits against the city, some simply ignored the mandate while still others applied for special - and easily obtainable - licenses from the city government allowing them to sell hard alcohol late into the night. 

On Oct. 31, Sydoruk filed an official protest with the Legislative Assembly saying the municipal council on Vasiliyevsky Ostrov had overstepped it bounds by usurping what is strictly federal territory. As such, he demanded that article 5 of city law - the one giving alcohol sales local jurisdiction - be expunged from the books. 

According to Gennady Ryabov, Sydoruk's press secretary, most Legislative Assembly deputies agreed with Sydoruk and transferred it to the State Power Commission, which will correct the law next month. 

"The [assembly's] juridical department confirmed [Sydoruk's] protest," said Marina Zshuravleva, press secretary to assembly Speaker Sergei Tarasov, in a telephone interview on Monday. "It was filed as just a part of cleaning the law, to bring it in accord with federal law."

Meanwhile, Igor Polovtsev, deputy chairman of Vasiliyevsky Ostrov Municipal Council, protested that the local law was in accord with the federal one. 

"Whatever happens, our council will ask the Legislative Assembly not to change the city law," he said in a telephone interview.

TITLE: Sunk Trawler Captain Dies in Hospital
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Yury Kresanov, captain of the Nortlandia trawler that capsized after an accident and spilled several tons of fuel into Kronshtadt harbor on Nov. 15, has died of injuries sustained during the incident. He was 45 years old. 


According to Alexander Rysakov, head of the Kronshtadt Administration Health Department, Kresanov died because of a rib that broke and punctured his lung, filling it with blood, after his crew of 11 abandoned ship. Nine of the crew were treated on the spot and sent home without injures. Only Kresanov and his first mate were sent to the hospital. The first mate, whose name has not been released, is in stable condition. 

"All this is a very sad situation for us," said Andrei Markyelov, a deputy at the Sea Port Administration. 

"Besides, the fact that a crew member died during the accident makes the situation legally worse." 

The refrigerator-equipped trawler capsized a mere 50 meters from its berth and partially sank in 30 meters of water after it was rammed at about 5 a.m., Nov. 15, on the port side by the Panamanian-registered cargo ship, the McKinley. 

When it was hit, the Nortlandia which was carrying 50 tons of fuel before the accident, spilled what Kronshtadt ecological authorities believed at the time to be about three tons of diesel fuel. During cleanup efforts, however, it turned out to be significantly more - closer to 10 tons of fuel.

According to Galina Belkinam, an ecologist with the Kronshtadt Administration, two skimmers and two ships - in addition to the two already there - had added a third containment fence and removed about 15.5 tons of diesel fuel mixed with water and about 12 cubic meters of debris. 

"At this moment the situation with water pollution is much better," she said in a telephone interview Sunday. "Yesterday they even installed a third fence around the spot. The cleaning actions were very rapid this time."

She also said water samples taken by ecologists were improving. 

Despite that, Markyelov said no blame had been assigned in the accident, although a representative of AO Gi ros, which owns the Nortlandia, had arrived from Murmansk.

"Now O.A. Giros has to find a company to repair the Nortlandia," he said. "They are in a hurry because the Nortlandia is blocking other ships [in Kronshtadt harbor]," he said.

Whoever is found responsible for the accident, Markelyov said last week, will have to fund the cost of the clean- up and the repairs to the vessels. The McKinley, which has a slightly damaged bow, is now in St. Petersburg harbor awaiting the verdict, which could take up to 25 days.

TITLE: Putin's Guards Involved in Public Brawling
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Presidential bodyguards beat up several dozen people in two incidents in the Black Sea resort of Sochi while President Vladimir Putin was vacationing there in late October, according to a witness and news reports.


The incidents - one at the Sochi Adler Airport and the second at a local nightclub - were discussed in the local Sochi media and reported nationally by Novaya Gazeta. Local law enforcement agencies made no official statements.

"In any normal country, this could become a serious political scandal," said Novaya Gazeta's Sochi correspondent Sergei Zalovkin in a telephone interview Friday. "Here we have dead silence."

Zalovkin, a former police investigator, said he had interviewed many of the people who suffered in the brawls, but he refused to disclose their names, saying he feared for their safety.

Sergei Devyatov, spokesman of the Federal Guard Service in Moscow, said he could not comment before an internal investigation was completed. But he questioned the fairness of the Novaya Gazeta reports.

The first brawl took place Oct. 20 after four Federal Guard Service employees were beaten at an airport cafe, which is frequented by "tickets speculators and the taxi Mafia," Novaya Gazeta reported. Thirty minutes later, a busload of the service's officers arrived to avenge the beating, some of them carrying machine guns and others, clubs. As police watched, they beat up people who happened to be in the cafe, including one elderly Greek national and a woman, the paper said.

The following day, 27 drunken guards went nightclub hopping. In two clubs, they forced the patrons to lie face down on the floor and demanded free vodka, Novaya Gazeta said, citing barmen.

They then arrived at the club Ekipazh 2000, where they flashed their Federal Guard Service IDs, ordered vodka and refused to pay, the newspaper said. When club owner Alexander Frolenkov demanded they pay, a fight started, the report said.

Frolenkov, the only participant in the brawls who has agreed to go public, confirmed the circumstances of the fight, which he said left 10 people injured. However, he said his security guards and the police were able to resist the drunken presidential bodyguards.

Contrary to the newspaper report, Frolenkov said law enforcement officers and the Federal Security Service have investigated and he has been paid the damages. "We have sorted out the situation and I am satisfied," he said.

TITLE: Museum To Honor Galina Starovoitova
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two years after Galina Starovoitova was gunned down by assassins still unknown, a museum has opened in St. Petersburg in her memory. 


The site chosen for the museum was her old office at 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul., in the city where she did much of her legislative work for the country. 

The museum is only one room, but it features displays that represent her entire lifetime - from the professional to the personal.

The walls are covered with photographs of Starovoitova - a Duma deputy whom many saw as one of Russia's strongest advocates of democracy - at political and democratic meetings, as well as a personal archive, including letters to former President Boris Yeltsin. Juxtaposed with this officialdom are Starovoitova's personal effects - necklaces, rings, a fan, a black summer boater hat and a book of Boris Pasternak's verse.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is Starovoitova's desk - complete with a fax machine, telephone directories, unfinished documents and a pen - suggesting their owner is expected to return any minute.

According to Yelena Kostyusheva, who came up with the concept for the museum, the most important element was for visitors to get not only a sense of Starovoitova's political life, but a sense of her personality as well. 

Starovoitova was shot to death in her doorway two years ago. She was killed instantly and her aide, Ruslan Linkov, suffered head injuries but made a remarkable recovery in hospital. It was one of the most high-profile political murders of the last decade in St. Petersburg, and the outpouring of grief was matched only by frustration that the murder remains - but for tiny advances - unsolved. 

Galina Markelova, the museum's director and a former aide to Starovoitova, said that finding funding for the museum was a major obstacle. 

"We have managed all this simply because people worked on a voluntary basis, not asking for payment," she said.

Sergei Stankevich, a member of the Democratic Russia party, and formerly an aide to ex-President Boris Yeltsin, said he is encouraged by the latest news about some of the progress made in the Sta rovoi tova murder investigation.

Stankevich, who joined Democratic Russia after Sta rovoitova's assassination, welcomed the opening of the new museum.

"Galina Starovoitova numbered among contemporary Russia's most high-minded and incorruptible politicians," he said. 

Also on Monday, former aide Linkov announced the winner of the annual Starovoitova Prize, a prize that was set up in her name for outstanding defenders of human rights. 

This year it went to the former mayor of St. Petersburg, the late Anatoly Sobchak, who died of heart complications in February.

Anatoly Sobchak was awarded the prize for his input in developing Russia's 1993 Constitution - particularly the parts concerning human rights.

Sobchak's widow, Lyudmila Na ru so va, is out of town, but will receive the $1,000 in Sobchak's name sometime in December, Linkov said. 

Past recipients of the prize have been human rights advocates Gleb Yakunin and Larisa Bogoraz, and the St. Petersburg Soldiers' Mothers organization.

Starovoitova's sister, Olga, said she gets a lot of moral support from ordinary St. Petersburgers.

"I often visit my sister's grave, and I feel such great support from the ordinary people who gather there," she said. "I find it encouraging that so many people remember her. "



The Galina Starovoitova Memorial Museum can be visited on Tuesdays and Saturdays, from noon to 4 p.m.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: FSB Raids Newspaper

MOSCOW (SPT) - The Federal Security Service raided the offices of the Versia weekly on Friday, seizing documents related to a recently published story about the Kursk disaster.

Correspondent Dmitry Filimonov wrote in the story that the Kursk sank after colliding with a U.S. submarine. The newspaper published photographs showing what it said was a U.S. sub docked for repairs in a Norwegian port shortly after the Aug. 12 sinking. U.S. Navy officials have said the photograph was taken years ago. 

Filimonov said that the FSB is trying to track down the origins of the photographs, which, he said, were obtained from an anonymous source. The FSB first seized papers from Versia on Nov. 10, after the story was published.


Army Shells Rebels

NAZRAN, Ingushetia (AP) - The military unleashed unusually intense artillery attacks on four areas of Chechnya where rebels have a strong presence, while insurgents put federal forces under heavy fire, an official said Friday.

Late last week, two local Chechen officials were shot to death in an apparent assassination, nine federal servicemen died and 12 were wounded, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen civilian administration said on customary anonymity.

The shelling of the Itum-Kale, Urus-Martan, Nozhai-Yurt and Vedeno districts was the fiercest reported over the past 1 1/2 months. Rebels meanwhile opened fire on federal positions


Berezovsky Eyes TV6

MOSCOW (SPT) - Boris Berezovsky is negotiating with major European media holding KirchGruppe over the sale of a stake in the second-tier TV6 television channel, Vedomosti reported.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said that Berezovsky is looking to sell a large stake in order to attract investment to polish the channel's image and improve its programming, the paper said.

"We are interested in a company that will come to Russia not simply to set up its own subsidiary here but also develop a specifically Russian channel with foreign capital," said TV6 general director Alexander Ponomarev, as quoted by the paper. 



Attempted Riga Attack


RIGA, Latvia (Reuters) -Three youths threatened to blow up a church in Latvia on Friday unless a jailed former KGB officer and four members of a Russian ultra nationalist group were freed, but police managed to arrest them.

The Russian-speaking men, apparently armed with hand grenades, entered St. Peter's church - a tourist attraction - and hung Soviet flags from the spire, a police spokesman said.

Friday was Latvian independence day. On Thursday, the Interior Ministry said that it had detained nine members of another far-left ethnic-Russian group suspected of planning terrorist attacks. 


Grenades Found

MOSCOW (SPT) - Police in Yekaterinburg found two grenades in a building housing the offices of the pro-Kremlin Unity party and took the party's local chairman in for questioning, news reports said Friday.

Police searched the building after an anonymous caller said explosives were being stored there, NTV reported.

Along with Unity's Vladimir Ki cha yev, officers from the organized crime unit also took in for questioning Andrei Ba zhenov, identified by NTV as the head of a company called Granat - "grenade" in Russian - which also has its office in the building.

TITLE: Deputies Unite To Mind Their Language
AUTHOR: By Anna Dolgov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - For years, Russians have complained about politicians who pepper their speech with puzzling terms derived from English or Latin, words like "keeler," "defolt" and "impeech" - or contract killer, default and impeach, as they're better known to native speakers.


Others bemoan the gangster-style talk of many Russians - from the working classes to public figures - who litter their language with unprintable swear words.

Now a group of lawmakers in the State Duma wants to outlaw both kinds of talk: The 12 deputies have proposed a bill that would mandate the use of Russian words instead of imports and make the use of swear words in any public comments a criminal offense.

It is unclear how wide-ranging the bill would be, and whether it would apply to just politicians and the media. But under the bill, politicians talking about defaulting on debts would have to say nevypolneniye obyazatelstv instead of taking the common foreign shortcut, "defolt."

The text of the draft has not been published yet, but excerpts were given to The Associated Press by one of authors, Alexei Alexeyev of the pro-Kremlin Unity party.

"Unfortunately, there are no legal norms in our current legislation on the purity of the Russian language," Alexeyev said Thursday.

The legislation was proposed by Unity but also backed by several of parliament's Communists, who are known for a nationalist dislike of imports, linguistic or otherwise.

Many prominent government and public figures are notorious for mangling Russia's complex grammar. President Vladimir Putin himself could become a target of the bill: He is known to resort to rough speech at times, and at least once crossed publicly into the unprintable.

Speaking to families of the sailors killed in the sinking of the submarine Kursk, he used an obscenity that prompted him to add: "May the women forgive me."

The lawmakers' effort is not the first crusade for the Russian language.

The Press Ministry has set up a literacy Web site with dictionaries and a survey of common language mistakes in the Russian media.

"Language is not simply a communication tool, but a creative force that forms, preserves and modifies the national perception of the world," the site says.

Punishment for violators of the proposed language law has not been specified yet, Alexeyev said. He said the authors are still putting the finishing touches on the document.

TITLE: Gazprom, Media-MOST Reach Final Agreement
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After months of wrangling and a sudden breakdown earlier this week, state-controlled Gazprom-Media and Vladimir Gu sinsky's Media-MOST signed a contract Friday settling the media empire's debts to the gas giant, both companies said.


"We are satisfied, because we very well understand the difficulties that both Gazprom and Media-MOST have faced on the way to the agreement," Media-MOST spokesman Dmitry Ostalsky said.

In essence, the deal is the same as the one signed last Saturday ahead of a court hearing Tuesday, but a different legal system is employed. Gazprom-Media general director Alfred Kokh, who unexpectedly withdrew his signature from the deal late Monday, said at a news conference Friday that the new agreement is a straightforward contract which does not require the court's validation.

He said that in its current form, the agreement has more guarantees for Gazprom-Media, first of all because it is the companies and not Gusinsky personally who are parties to the contract.

On Monday, the Prosecutor General's Office charged Gusinsky with fraud in his dealings with Gazprom. On Friday, the Prosecutor's Office announced it had revived the Russkoye Video case, over which Gusinsky was briefly jailed in June. The charges were later dropped after Gusinsky agreed in July to hand over his media empire to Gazprom. But in September, he backed out of the deal, saying he had been pressured.

Media-MOST called the charges "absurd" and "illegal" in a statement Friday.

Kokh said he decided to withdraw his signature Monday after Gusinsky was charged with fraud and a warrant for his arrest was issued.

Under the agreement, Gazprom-Media receives a blocking stake - 25 percent plus one share - of all Media-MOST companies except for its flagship NTV as compensation for a $211 million debt. Another 25 percent of these companies is given over as collateral against a $262 million loan, which matures in March.

As far as NTV is concerned, Gazprom-Media will receive an additional 16 percent, raising its total stake to 46 percent, plus 19 percent as collateral. A 25-percent-plus-one stake in NTV, including the 19 percent used as collateral, is to be sold to an unspecified international investor through Deutsche Bank AG London for at least $90 million.

Since Gusinsky continues to vote with the shares that are given over as collateral, all Media-MOST managers will keep their positions for the time being, Kokh said.

"The settlement is such that NTV will be truly independent from both the state and the oligarchs because no one will have a controlling share," Kokh said. He said Gazprom-Media will start an audit of Media-MOST companies next week.

TITLE: Russia-IMF Deal Still on Hold
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth LeBras
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The outcome of an International Monetary Fund delegation's visit to Moscow, scheduled to end Tuesday, is predicted to be inconclusive and it remains unclear whether Russia will reach a new agreement with the IMF. 


IMF representatives have expressed strong dissatisfaction with Russia's program of structural reforms, Vremya Novostei reported Monday.

The main items on the agenda included restructuring of state-owned monopolies and banking reform. The monopolies include gas giant Gazprom, national power grid Unified Energy Systems, and the Railways Ministry. Regulation of the banking system has changed little since the 1998 financial crisis. 

"The IMF has not seen considerable progress [on these issues] and needs to see concrete action," said Yaroslav Lissovolik, economics and fixed income analyst at Renaissance Capital brokerage.

He said the lack of progress means the government is unlikely to achieve its aim of persuading the IMF to let Russia draw funds in the event of a sharp deterioration in the nation's favorable macroeconomic situation, which is largely based on oil exports fetching high prices.

Interfax quoted Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying Monday that the government is seeking an agreement that would let Russia receive IMF loans if oil prices sharply drop.

Gerard Belanger, the head of the IMF delegation, said Nov. 13 that because of the country's large trade surplus, Russia does not need new loans or restructuring of its $43 billion Soviet-era debt to the Paris Club of sovereign creditors.

Meanwhile, talks between the government and the Paris Club on the restructuring of debt are tentatively scheduled for December 2000 or January 2001, Interfax quoted Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Kolotukhin as saying Monday. 

A UFG report said the government needs the IMF program in order to meet conditions for Paris Club rescheduling. 

Last week, the government attempted to persuade the State Duma budget committee to allocate 70 percent of revenues excess to the 2001 federal budget to the paying of the country's debts, Vedomosti reported.

The draft 2001 budget makes no provision for debt repayments, but its predicted oil price of $18 to $19 per barrel is considered conservative and likely to lead to considerable excess revenues.

TITLE: Ombudsman: UES Cuts Violate the Constitution
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Human rights commissioner Oleg Mironov has appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office to "check out the legality of cutting off electricity to citizens who pay for it," Interfax reported Monday.


Mironov, the people's ombudsman, is unhappy with the steps taken by national power grid Unified Energy Systems (UES) in response to a protest letter he sent Oct. 31. Mironov said in that letter that when UES cuts off power to debtors, it violates the constitutional rights of citizens.

Interfax quoted Mironov as saying that often an entire apartment building is starved of electricity because a single company in the building fails to pay.

"The Constitution says that the Russian Federation is a social state. A state where old women, men and children do not have light or heat, where maternity hospitals, kindergartens and schools have their power cut off, cannot be termed 'social'," said Mironov.

UES spokesperson Yury Melikhov said Monday that UES agrees with Mironov about the power cuts, but that the ombudsman was appealing to the "wrong addressee."

UES only supplies energy to its subsidiaries, Melikhov said, putting blame for the cuts on regional subsidiaries, which are responsible for distributing energy and maintaining the grid.

TITLE: MinFin Looks To Scrap Forex Taxation
AUTHOR: By Natalya Neimysheva and Boris Safronov
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Finance Ministry is preparing a draft law to abolish the tax on buying hard currency.


In addition, officials intend to cancel the 0.8 percent tax on transactions with securities.

The ministry's proposal to cancel the 1 percent tax on currency purchases will most likely be opposed by the left, though their influence in the legislative body is minimal.

The Federation Council proposed a draft law to the State Duma in spring, suggesting that the tax rate be doubled and that the difference be spent on the agricultural sector. Governors suggested that the tax should be charged for all currency transactions, including those that do not involve cash. It is unlikely that this suggestion will be adopted by the Duma in its present form, however.

Market participants were reserved in their response to promises made by the Finance Ministry.

Dmitry Klushin, deputy chairman of Vi zavi bank, said that canceling the taxes would not have much impact on the market, but could be useful to the state.

"People are going to continue treating the dollar as one of the main means of saving," Klushin said.

"Consequently, the actual size of the market will remain the same, but formally it will get a lot bigger," he said. "Canceling the tax will make transactions done beyond the state's control less tempting, so the state will have more information about the true amount of funds circulating in this area."

He also noted that currency rates would not be affected by canceling the tax.

"Currency rates depend on other factors, like bidding on the exchange," Klushin said. "The difference between sale and purchase quotations may be reduced. At the moment, when a bank purchases currency from citizens it pays this tax, but this is reflected in the rate."

The tax on issuing securities is 0.8 percent of the nominal issue amount. However, the circulation term is not considered when calculating the tax.

As a result, while bonds issued for one year are 0.8 percent more expensive annually, securities issued for only three months to which the same rate is applied would be 3.2 percent more expensive annually.

Andrei Makogon, director for commercial and banking transactions with MFK Bank, said the tax may be acceptable to big companies, but is exceptionally harmful for mid-size companies, especially those coming onto the securities market for the first time.

"It would be more appropriate if this tax were to be calculated as an annual percentage of the funds raised," Makogon said.

Vladimir Nikolkin, head of the information and analysis department with the Region company, said the tax should be pegged to the Central Bank refinancing rate, or current market rates, and to the securities' circulation term.

A similar draft law appeared in the Duma a year and a half ago, but it was never adopted.

TITLE: Ancient Tomb Yields Clues to Old Kingdom
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ABU SIR, Egypt - Archaeologists excavating a 4,000-year-old tomb near Cairo found an empty sarcophagus on Monday that they said could yield vital clues about the collapse of the pyramid-building era in ancient Egypt.


Zahi Hawass, director of the Giza Plateau, said a team of Egyptian and Czech archaeologists discovered the stone coffin in a sixth dynasty tomb at the pyramids of Abu Sir southwest of Cairo.

"This sarcophagus was found empty. It means some people entered this tomb after it was built 4,200 years ago," said Hawass. He said he expected more sixth dynasty tombs to be found there soon.

The sarcophagus came to light as archaeologists explored a burial chamber about 20 meters underground.

"This is a private tomb from the Old Kingdom, belonging to Inti, a judge and keeper of the city of Nekhen," said Bretislav Vachala, director of the Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University in Prague and joint leader of the mission.

He said the whole area south of the Abu Sir pyramids was packed with tombs of the Old Kingdom elite.

"Here we can witness the period more than 4,000 years ago, the clue to understanding the period when the age of pyramid builders came to an end before the collapse of the Old Kingdom," Vachala said.

"The tomb was robbed in ancient times. The stone coffin is broken from one corner and the bones are scattered all over the burial chamber," he said.

Vachala and his team began excavating the tomb in October and expect to finish documenting it next month.

TITLE: Judge: Firestone Must Stop Destroying Tires
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CHICAGO - An Indianapolis judge said Bridgestone/Firestone Corp. must halt the systematic destruction of its recalled tires until it is clear some will be retained as evidence in lawsuits against the beleaguered company, the Indianapolis Star reported on Saturday.


Firestone has already taken back 5.2 million of the total 6.5 million recalled ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT brand tires and has destroyed a portion of those as part of its recall program, lawyers for plaintiffs in more than 100 cases being consolidated against the tire maker said at Friday's hearing.

U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker ruled the tire destruction must cease until the matter is resolved with attorneys for the plaintiffs, the Star reported.

Firestone legal counsel contended elimination of the recalled tires is needed to ensure they can not be used again and said the company has no room to store the tires.

Officials at Bridgestone/Firestone could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 119 U.S. highway deaths and more than 500 injuries linked to the tires, which were standard equipment on the Ford Motor Co.'s Explorer sports utility vehicle.

TITLE: UES Gives Go-Ahead To Own Restructure
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW -Just a month before the Kremlin is to present a plan to overhaul the power sector, national power giant Unified Energy Systems decided to strike out on its own with a revamp of some operations.


The UES board decided late Thursday night to set up a subsidiary holding company in the Volga River valley to manage local power companies, to establish a wholesale supplier, and to buy a luxurious office building in Moscow.

UES said the formation of the Samara-based holding company, the Mid-Volga Interregional Management Co., would streamline operations in the region and improve collection rates.

"The company will make use of the positive experience accumulated by Samaraenergo, one of the best regional power companies," UES said in a statement.

Samaraenergo increased cash collection of its electric bills to 100 percent in October from 44 percent a year ago, the company said in a statement Friday.

Its operating margin was 22 percent over the first nine months of this year, a drastic increase from 8 percent over the same period in 1999.

Samaraenergo may be bundled together with power-generating companies in the Penza, Ulyanovsk and Saratov regions, but the decision is not final, Samaraenergo spokeswoman Irina Sur ko va said.

"There will be a fight for leadership in the [new holding] company," Sur ko va said by telephone from Samara. "Governors will not be happy to let the plug out of their hands."

The proposal to group several regional power firms into a holding company was drafted by a team at Samaraenergo.

Political pull held by UES chief Anatoly Chubais in the Volga River valley regions no doubt played a role in the decision as well, said Andrei Abramov, a utilities analyst with NIKoil brokerage.

"It is clear that the Volga valley companies have been chosen because UES has political clout in the region," he said.

The Volga Federal District is headed by Sergei Kiriyenko, one of the Kremlin's seven super-governors picked by President Vladimir Putin to oversee the regional governors. Kiriyenko is also one of the leaders of the Union of Right Forces, a right-wing pro-liberal political faction that is believed to have been sponsored in part by UES in the 1999 parliamentary elections.

Dmitry Vinogradov, a power analyst with Brunswick Warburg, said he was baffled as to why UES chose to restructure now when the government will soon declare its own overhaul plans.

"It is not clear why they are moving ahead with their plan ahead of the program that the government promised to draft by year-end," Vinogradov said.

The government has been pushing UES for much of the year to improve cash collection and clear up its own multimillion-dollar debts to suppliers.

UES has been plowing ahead with restructuring for almost two years and has led a handful of local power companies to team up with coal producers in a bid to cut costs.

Samaraenergo's Surkova said the plans approved Thursday had nothing to do with the government's restructuring plan.

"This is a simpler development," she said.


Marina Oganesyan, a power analyst with the Aton brokerage, said UES's plans should be taken in stride.


"There is nothing extraordinary about the proposal," she said.

A group of industry insiders bitterly attacked the plans Friday, saying they would come at the expense of minority shareholders and only increase the opaqueness of the company.

"We now believe that UES is unlikely to protect the interests of its minority shareholders during the restructuring process," the United Financial Group investment house said in a research note Friday.

UFG head Boris Fyodorov, who represents foreign shareholders on the UES board, voted against the plans at the meeting Thursday, as did NAUFOR's Ivan Lazarko, who represents minority shareholders.

"They are just creating another layer of decision-making that makes the company even less transparent," said William Browder, managing director of Hermitage Capital Management.

Browder said UES passed out the plans in a several hundred-page proposal just a week before the vote.

In the other decisions Thursday, the board voted to set up a wholesale supplier called Energostroikomplekt to take care of equipment purchases for the power industry.

It also agreed to purchase a 75 percent plus one share stake for $35 million in the upscale Oil House office building on Prospekt Vernadskogo.

While most brokers called the acquisition of the 45,639-square-meter building insignificant, Browder of Hermitage Capital Management said it would inevitably hurt UES's corporate value.

"In a corporation that has just lost $350 million on an operating basis in 1999, how can they possibly buy a building where each employee will have 200 square feet of space?" he said.

TITLE: BUSINESS AND THE LAW
TEXT: ONE of the primary concerns of just about every businessman and company throughout the world is how to protect their commercial secrets, or "know-how," from unauthorized use by other parties, especially their competitors.


This especially affects businesses, which prefer to protect their commercial secrets as know-how, rather than as patented inventions. Many companies prefer not to patent their commercial secrets as inventions, because the commercial secrets must be disclosed adequately in the patent application, which is filed as a public document in the patent register, which is available for full review by the public after the granting of a patent. Moreover, inventions can only be patented for a limited amount of time.

In Russia, a patented invention is no longer available for use exclusively by the patent holder after a maximum period of 20 years. The term of legal protection of commercial secrets, on the other hand, is generally unlimited.

In accordance with Article 139(1) of the Russian Federation Civil Code, information may be regarded as a commercial secret if: (1) such information has commercial value because it is not available to third parties; (2) there is no legal basis for free access to such information; and (3) the owner of such information takes certain measures to protect and secure its confidentiality.

Therefore, in order to ensure that its commercial secrets are protected, a company must: (a) establish a special list of commercial secrets, which it intends, under no circumstances, to make available to the general public; (b) make sure that all of its employees are familiar with that list; and (c) take all possible measures to protect this information from being disclosed.

If the owner of a commercial secret takes the measures described above, then Russian law provides protection for the ownership of such commercial secrets.

For example, if an employee discloses a commercial secret illegally, then the owner may: (1) impose disciplinary measures against that employee in accordance with Russian Federation labor legislation and (2) require that the employee compensate the owner of the disclosed commercial secrets for all of the damages, which result from that disclosure, in accordance with Article 139(2) of the Russian Federation Civil Code.



For more information or advice, please contact James T. Hitch, Igor Gorchakov or Alexey Trusov at Baker & McKenzie's St. Petersburg Office (telephone: 7(812)325-83-08, fax: 7(812)325-60-13).

TITLE: Municipalities To Decide On Corporate Profits Tax
AUTHOR: By Scott Antel and Andrei Sergeyev
TEXT: Amid the general tax-cutting fanfare announced in Part II of the Tax Code this past summer (2001 reductions to the individual, social and turnover taxes), there was some less-hyped enabling legislation, which will allow municipalities to introduce a 5 percent local portion to the corporate profits tax. 


This local addition would raise the overall profits tax rate from 30 percent to 35 percent (including the federal 11 percent and regional 19 percent portions).

This enabling legislation was aimed at offsetting the impact to local budgets of repeal, effective Jan. 1, 2001, of the much-maligned local 1.5 percent Social Infrastructure Tax on turnover. If enacted by municipalities, the increased rate could commence Jan. 1, 2001.

For the local portion to come into force, each municipality must formally enact its own local profits tax legislation, although the enabling legislation in Part II of the Tax Code allows the Moscow and St. Petersburg Legislative Assemblies to regionally enact the tax for all municipalities in their regions.

The St. Petersburg Assembly has not yet adopted local profits tax legislation. Moreover, for it to do so would blatantly contradict the two-year Moratorium on Tax Increases, which it passed earlier this summer. Going back so soon on the moratorium would undermine St. Petersburg's credibility insofar as keeping to its word on investment legislation.

The Leningrad Oblast, on the other hand, has 29 municipalities, each of which must separately pass any local profits tax legislation. To date, a number of these municipalities, including the Lomonosov and Vyborg Districts and the City of Svetogorsk (i.e., the districts boasting the lion's share of foreign direct investment), have approved municipal profits tax legislation for 2001. Moreover, the consolidated Leningrad Oblast budget has already appropriated this tax revenue in spending projections even though a number of localities have not yet passed their legislation.

There are several problems here. First, the legislation so far passed by various municipalities does not provide for exemptions to the local profits tax. This absence may lead some localities to argue that no local exemption applies to taxpayers currently enjoying oblast concessions on the regional profits tax portion or to taxpayers seeking future concessions.

However, there are strong arguments supporting extension. 

For those municipalities in the Leningrad Oblast and other regions which have yet to introduce local legislation, time is short if the tax is to be in place for 2001. This is because Article 5 of the Tax Code provides that for any new tax legislation to be valid, it must be approved and officially published one month prior to the first day of the next tax reporting period (i.e., Nov. 30, 2000, for the 2001 tax year). Those that miss this deadline must wait until, at the earliest, Jan. 1, 2002, to enact a local profits tax. Recognizing that time is short and that many municipalities have not yet enacted local legislation, the Tax Ministry recently issued a letter reminding municipalities of the deadline and, seemingly, encouraging them to adopt the tax.

Traditional Russian legislative inertia suggests that many localities will miss the deadline. Moreover, if past experience is anything to go by, it can be assumed that many of these delinquent localities will still try to impose the local profits tax in 2001.



Scott Antel is the partner in charge of Andersen Legal St. Petersburg and Andrei Sergeyev is an associate with the firm. They submitted this column to The St. Petersburg Times.

TITLE: Ukraine Brewery Sells Stake
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KIEV, Ukraine - Sun Interbrew, a joint venture of Belgian brewing giant Interbrew and Sun Group, bought a stake of about 80 percent in Ukraine's Rohan brewery, Rohan president Hennady Bilokur said Thursday. 


"Sun Interbrew has purchased a stake of around 80 percent from portfolio investors," Bilokur said in a telephone interview. "Yesterday, an [extraordinary] shareholders meeting approved the deal." He declined to disclose the terms. 

Analysts estimate the deal at $30 million. 

Rohan, located in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, is one of the leading domestic beer producers, accounting for 14 percent of Ukraine's market. 

Bilokur said Sun Interbrew, which operates in Russia, Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union, pledged to invest millions of dollars in Rohan to build a local malt to reduce imports and upgrade production. 

Sun Interbrew has previously said it will invest some $120 million in Russian and Ukrainian breweries in 2000. The company said $100 million would go to the Russian operations with the remainder invested in Ukraine.

TITLE: Key Oil Players Are Still Divided
AUTHOR: By Anwar Faruqi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - After three days of talks, oil producers and consumers failed to agree on the two key issues that divide them: oil supplies and a fair price for the fuel that drives their economies.


Energy officials and other experts at the Seventh International Energy Forum in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, agreed on the need for "greater stability and transparency in the oil market to reduce price volatility," Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi told reporters at the close of the forum.

But disagreements continued on "the specifics of prices, as well as on environmental issues and supplies," Naimi said, without elaborating on the environmental disputes.

Prices of more than $30 a barrel have raised complaints and protests among consumer nations. At the forum, major consumers such as the United States were adamant that production needs to go up and prices need to come down.

Producers argue that supplies are adequate, and fuel taxes, which can account for as much as 70 percent of the price of a gallon of gas in some consumer nations, should be cut.

One of the main aims of the conference was to open a dialogue between producers and consumers to avoid the wild swings of the last two years, which have seen prices plummet to $10 a barrel, then shoot up to their current levels.

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the United States, the world's largest energy consumer, wants a price between $20 and $25 a barrel. Naimi reiterated Sunday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in which his country is the largest producer, prefers prices of $22 to $28 a barrel.

Richardson told reporters Sunday that he has asked representatives of the European Union at the conference to reiterate to producers the need to bring prices down.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Ali Rodriguez, who last week was chosen as OPEC's new secretary general, said the cartel would add or cut production depending on where it thought the market was going.

Because of fears within OPEC that prices will bottom out in the spring, when demand for heating oil falls, some - including outgoing OPEC Secretary General Rilwanu Lukman and oil ministers from Iran and the United Arab Emirates - have said the cartel may end up cutting production next year.

Presently, all OPEC countries except Saudi Arabia are pumping out all the oil they can - and worries have been raised over producers' ability to meet demand.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that U.S. sanctions against Iran, Iraq and Libya had prevented them from getting the investment and technology needed to boost output.

In a report to the conference, the International Energy Agency said significant investment in OPEC countries will be needed to ensure oil production can meet future demands. The report said demand is expected to grow from 75 million barrels a day in 1997 to 115 million barrels per day in 2020.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Coke Looks To Expand

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co. is in intensive talks to buy Quaker Oats Co., offering about $15 billion in a deal that would put leading sports drink Gatorade in the hands of the world's largest soft drink maker, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Sunday.

A deal, which would value Quaker at about $115 a share, could be announced within the next few days, said sources, who did not want to be identified. It could not immediately be determined if Coca-Cola would pay cash, stock or a combination of both.

It was said that talks between Coca-Cola and Quaker were at a fragile stage and the sources warned that it was possible no deal would be reached.


Brazilian Bank Sold

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Spain's Banco Santander was the surprise high bidder for Banespa on Monday, claiming the resurrected state bank for an unexpectedly high $3.6 billion.

Santander's offer was well above the bid of $940 million necessary for the 76 percent stake in Banespa, which the government brought back from near financial death to become the prize of the country's biggest privatization ever.

Brazilian banks Unibanco and Bradesco were the only others to submit bids for Banespa, which serves the country's richest state, Sao Paulo and is the country's sixth-largest by deposits. But neither came close to Santander, which passes Unibanco to become Brazil's third-largest bank.



Wahid Meddling Again

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - President Abdurrahman Wahid moved quickly to end more uncertainty for Indonesia's troubled economy on Saturday by nominating a new head for the central bank less than 24 hours after most of its board quit.

Wahid called on the parliament to appoint Anwar Nasution, who just resigned as acting chief of Bank Indonesia, Senior Economics Minister Rizal Ramli said.

Wahid has been accused of meddling in the affairs of the bank, which is supposed to operate independently from the government, and he also has been the target of increasing criticism among disgruntled lawmakers on wide range of other issues.

TITLE: Wall Street Rally May Be Brief
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK - Wall Street bulls will pounce once the long-running presidential stalemate is settled, but they may have to sit it out this holiday-shortened week.


"If there's no resolution, Monday and Tuesday will be under that cloud," said Larry Wachtel of Prudential Securities, who expects a rally once the nagging question of who will become America's next president is put to rest.

In the latest twist in the elections soap opera, a Florida court late Friday barred certification of election results in the pivotal state. This poured cold water on hopes of a weekend resolution of the race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

"The market has switched from the Three Es - Energy, the Euro and Earnings - to the Three Fs - Forecasts regarding earnings, the Federal Reserve and the Florida elections debacle," said Peter Cardillo, Director of Research Westfalia Investments.

The election picture may change soon. But even if there is a knee-jerk move higher when the question is settled, the jury is still out as to whether that rally will be sustainable.

"The market is continuing to look through this set of [election] circumstances to the more critical issues of Federal Reserve policy and earnings trends which continue to be somewhat troublesome," said Tom Madden, chief investment officer for U.S. equities at Federated Investors Inc., which manages $130 billion.

The Street is already looking ahead of the curve to a time when the Fed, as the powerful U.S. central bank is known, will quit raising interest rates or even cut them. That would bode well for the market, as lower rates cut companies' borrowing costs and stocks become more attractive as an investment.

But the specter of corporate America's deteriorating profit growth still looms large over the market, experts said.

This has not been brought to bear this week, barring any nasty surprises from the handful of big companies due to report their results. And the bulk of any corporate warnings about slowing profit growth will come only near the quarter's end.

November, December and January are typically the best months of a market year, Wachtel said, echoing other analysts' views. This is in large part due to an inflow of money into the stock market from funds amid a flush from year-end bonuses and 401k pension plans.

But not every one is so upbeat about an election rally.

"It's boring me to tears," Bill Meehan, the chief market analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. told clients in a note.

Meehan worries about squeezed profits due to higher labor costs, soaring energy prices and rising interest costs. That's why he advised clients to take profits if a rally ensues on election news.

"That will be the time for the bears to pounce," he said.

That, indeed, has been the recent pattern in the market: brief rallies followed by further drops. And the technical picture indicates bulls need a strong rally to gain the upper hand.

The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average and the tech heavy NASDAQ Composite must break out above the key 11,000 and 3,500 watermarks respectively, said Bob Dickey of Dain Rauscher Inc. The indices had stalled at about these levels in early November after they last rallied.

About 17 major companies have not yet handed in their third-quarter scorecards, including Agilent Technologies, a maker of high-tech products, medical device maker Medtronic and heavy equipment builder Deere & Co. that report on Monday and Tuesday.

No major disasters are seen. But longer-term, the earnings jitters are likely to continue, especially since there is already an above-average increase in warnings for the coming quarter, says market tracker First Call/ Thomson Financial.

TITLE: Inuit Tribe Says It Can See Global Warming
AUTHOR: By H. Josef Hebert
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - While governments and scientists debate climate change, Inuit tribal members on Banks Island in the northern Canadian Arctic are convinced the world is getting warmer.


The evidence is in the land and ice that surrounds them, they say: The permafrost is thawing, there are fewer seals and polar bears to hunt because of thinning sea-ice, and warmer weather has brought more mosquitos that stay longer. In the fall, it's freezing up later and later every year.

"We can't read the weather like we used to," said Rosemarie Kuptana, an activist among the 130 Inuit people who live in Sachs Harbor, the only community on the island that covers 73,000 square kilometers in northwestern Canada.

The Inuits' experiences, recorded in interviews by researchers during four visits to the island last year, are the focus of a study being presented this week at a climate conference in the Netherlands.

There has been growing evidence of an Arctic thawing, from receding glaciers in Alaska to reports of an accelerated melting of Greenland's ice sheet. Computer models indicate that if the earth is warming, the amount of warming likely would be greatest in the higher latitudes such as the Arctic region.

But scientists have yet to determine whether the changes observed in the Arctic reflect the early stages of a permanent warming due to manmade, heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere or a natural, cyclical climate blip.

Still, the Inuit people who live along the southwestern coast of Banks Island are convinced their climate is changing.

"It provides strong support for the conclusion that climate change is not just a theory," insisted Graham Ashford, who headed the Inuit research project for the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Kuptana, 47, who grew up in Sachs Harbor and raised three children there, served as liaison between the researchers and the tribal elders and others in the community, and she is certain that global warming is already having an impact.

In interviews with researchers, she and some of the other Sachs Harbor residents described how their environment has changed.

Autumn freezes now occur a month later and spring thaws come earlier. The winters, although harshly cold, are not as cold as they once were. One community member said there was a time when it was not unusual for temperatures to reach well below minus-40 degrees celsius; now such temperatures are rare.

Inuit hunters complained to the researchers that a thinning of the sea ice has made it more difficult to harvest seals and hunt polar bears because both have now migrated farther away. Kuptana said the thinner ice and thawing land has made it more difficult and dangerous for hunters and trappers to move about.

"What's scary is the uncertainty," she said. "We don't know when to travel on the ice and our food sources are getting farther and farther away."

She is not swayed by the scientific uncertainties.

The Inuit people have lived in the region for centuries, she said. "The weather, the animals, the migration patterns, the changes we've seen is knowledge. ... It's our scientific knowledge."

TITLE: Robot Arm Responds to Monkey Brain
AUTHOR: By Alex Dominguez
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Researchers have wired the brains of monkeys to control robotic arms - a feat that could one day allow paralyzed people to move artificial arms and legs merely by thinking.


The wires fed electrical impulses from the brains of two monkeys into a computer linked to robotic arms. When the monkeys reached for food or manipulated a joystick, the robotic arms mimicked those motions.

For people who are paralyzed because of spinal cord injuries or diseases of the central nervous system, such wiring could one day enable them to bypass the damage and send impulses directly to their muscles.

"It is in the realm of reality. It is not science fiction any more," said Duke University researcher Miguel Nicolelis.

In the experiments, 96 wires, each half the thickness of a human hair, were connected to six areas of one animal's brain, while 32 wires were connected to two areas of the second monkey's brain.

The robotic arms performed simple to-and-fro movements similarly with each monkey. But they performed three-dimensional movements better when directed by the monkey with more implants.

The Duke researchers' findings were reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Dr. Roy Bakay of Rush Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, who helped develop a system to allow a paralyzed human to control a computer cursor with brain implants, said devices to enable people to perform routine tasks could be developed rather quickly.

But it will be a long time before artificial limbs can be made to perform more complex tasks, he said.

Such devices would have to be designed with fail-safe systems that would turn the device off during sleep or if the patient had a seizure. The equipment would also have to be made small enough to be portable.

"I would imagine in the next decade we'll see some prosthetic devices that are going to give patients the ability to do simple things, turn on the TV," Bakay said. "And then in a few more decades, to be able to get up and move around independently."

Current prosthetic devices for amputees can read electrical impulses from the remaining muscles and operate mechanical hands, arms and legs, but devices have not been developed yet for those paralyzed from the neck down, said John W. Stephenson, clinical coordinator of the prosthetics department at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas.

In March, researchers in Belgium announced an experimental system that allowed a man paralyzed from the waist down to walk using electrodes attached to leg muscles. The electrodes were connected to a chip that mimics signals sent by the brain.

Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, a researcher at Northwestern University Medical School, said that while the Duke researchers were able to transmit information from brain to robot arm, a method also needs to be developed to transmit information back again.

"Which is something we still don't have a clear idea how to do," Mussa-Ivaldi said. "The problem is when you think about your arm, it's not just receiving commands. It also sends information back because you have touch information being sent."

TITLE: Commission Completes Tariff Review
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - In a move to curb illegal imports of foreign cars, import tariffs on all automobiles will be reduced from 30 percent to 25 percent as of Jan. 1, 2001, Prime-Tass reported Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying Monday after a meeting of the Foreign Trade Commission.


Kudrin said that the tariff on light automobiles was "an exception" since four principal rates of 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent and 20 percent will replace the seven rates currently in use. 

The meeting concluded the committee's work on determining and unifying import customs tariffs. With the decision the highest import tariff will be reduced next year from 30 percent to 25 percent. 

Kudrin said that the tariffs on 3,500 categories of goods would be reassessed. 

Prime-Tass said the rate on importing technical equipment would also be reduced, but Kudrin did not reveal what exactly the new rate would be.

A government resolution ratifying the committee's decision is to be adopted before Dec. 1 this year.

TITLE: Honda's Domestic Robot Goes Through Makeover
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TOKYO - Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. shrunk its two-legged humanoid robot and gave it a new name on Monday, but said the company had no plans to commercialize the machine.


"ASIMO" is a smaller and more versatile successor to a prototype unveiled in July, and has shed almost 70 kg in weight and 40 cm in height to weigh 43 kg and stand 120 cm tall.

Developers say ASIMO's size is ideal for operating household switches, turning doorknobs and performing tasks at tables and benches. It can now better negotiate turns, climb stairs more naturally and be operated from a handy-sized remote control, the company said.

The move to downsize and rename the creature after 14 years of research and development indicates the company is moving ahead with its vision of robots performing daily household tasks.

However, plans to commercialize the robot business, as Sony Corp has done with its second-generation "Aibo" pet-robot, are not planned, a company spokeswoman said.

TITLE: MARKET WRAP
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: Local Markets Edge Up Ahead of U.S. Decision 


REUTERS


MOSCOW - Russian shares closed a touch up last week despite turbulence on the NASDAQ that was partly due to speculation that a decision on the winner of the U.S. presidential election could send global markets jumping, traders said. 


The RTS index closed up 0.32 percent to 178.73 on volume of $21.2 million. The Reuters Russian composite was up 0.75 percent at 1,387.90. 

"That the election results have been drawn out so long has made global markets very edgy," said a trader. 

"They may not make a long-term difference on our market, but there's a likelihood it would benefit somewhat from a global jump, so some people have been putting their money on the table. 

UFG salesman Michael Stein said strong industrial output data for October "confirming that September's disappointing data was just a one-off event" and good nine-month financials at Surgutneftegaz oil had boosted sentiment. 

Olma trader Alexei Bistrov said the bourse still suffered from a lack of Western investors, as most have been sidelined in Russia and other emerging markets by global turbulence. 

"Over the last few days, the NASDAQ has made much sharper moves than our market. ... [The lack of investors] has been especially noticeable over the past few days," Bist rov said. 

Traders noted high activity on national power grid Unified Energy Systems, but said they doubted it had much to do with a flurry of news from the company in recent days, including six-month International Accounting Standards results. 

By the end of the day Friday, nearly 90 million UES shares had changed hands, pushing volume up on the RTS. UES is generally considered to be a domestic market bellwether. 

"But I am not really sure that it would be right to pay too much attention to this activity," Bistrov said. 

"While in the next year, the threat of restructuring comes closer, right now, it is sufficiently far away and only a question for the future." 

UES ended up 1.03 percent at $0.1173 while utility Mosenergo MSNG.RTS was flat at $0.0301.

TITLE: Cell Phone Virus Threat: Fact or Fiction?
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Viruses, the destructive little programs striking fear in the hearts of all computer users, may be finding their way into a new field of technology - cell phones.


While the first case of a cell phone in Russia being infected has yet to be reported, the Norwegian company Web2Wap, which produces software for Internet transfer to mobile phones, said in August that Nokia brand phones in Norway have ceased to function after receiving certain types of text messages.

At the beginning of September, Finland's F-Secure Corporation, which designs security software, announced the existence of a virus passed through wireless Internet transfers, portable computers or personal organizers, which operate on the Palm operating system. 

According to InfoArt, an Internet news agency, the virus is called Phage, and gets into a computer's memory, infecting the computer in a few seconds. The result is that all symbols and letters on the computer's display disappear.

Fortunately, eliminating the problem from the system is not a very involved process, with a simple anti-virus program - F-Secure Anti-Virus for Palm. 

But the appearance of the virus has brought concern that more lethal strains might appear. Industry experts disagree on the level of danger these types of viruses pose.

With the introduction of Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) technology allowing information on the Internet to be accessed on cell phone screens, there is the possibility of transferring viruses, which have infected computers in the past, to cellular phone units.

"Like computers, cell phones have their own operating systems, so any mobile phone connected to the Internet is open to the possibility of infection," a technical specialist at the St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications, who asked not to be identified, said in telephone interview on Monday.

"However, I don't know anything about cell-phone infections so far in Russia," he said. "There are still only a small number of subscribers using mobile Internet." 

But a spokesman for the city's largest cell-phone operator says there are no operational systems in mobile phones which the virus could harm. 

"We don't have any information about viruses in phones," Alexei Ionov, press secretary at North-West GSM, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "They could probably occur in some mobile computers or palm organizers that include a telephone function, but not in simple phones."

This point of view is shared by another St. Petersburg cellular operator, St. Petersburg Telecom, which operates under the Fora Communications brand name. 

"Our technical specialists have heard about the difficulties with the Nokia phones," said Anna Ivanova, press secretary at St. Petersburg Telecom on Wednesday. "But it can't be called a virus, because it doesn't infect the main operating system in the phone."

Kaspersky Laboratories, a Moscow-based company which develops anti-virus software, also says that the Nokia case has nothing to do with a virus. 

"We think that some Short Message Service [SMS] messages can end up jamming the phone's numberpad," Yevgeny Kaspersky, the head of the anti-virus research department at the company, said in an interview with InfoArt in September. "This isn't the first bug that has occurred in the security systems of mobile phones, but that doesn't make it a virus."

"All of this talk is really a false start to a new breed of viruses targeted at cellular phones," said Mikhail Ka li ni chenko, technical director at Kaspersky Laboratories, in September. "Even so, it's entirely possible that a new strain of cell-phone viruses could appear in the near future."

Kalinichenko's opinion seems to be supported by the simple fact that software producers are actively involved in creating anti-virus software for mobile devices. 

According to Sotovik.ru, a Russian-language Internet magazine which covers cell-phone technology extensively, a week ago McAfee, a company which develops Internet security systems, unveiled a new product for detecting viruses in wireless devices, called VirusScan Wireless for Mobile.

Earlier, on Aug. 9, the F-Secure Corporation announced the release of F-Secure Anti-Virus - a product for the Symbian EPOC platform. Symbian, a London-based company jointly owned by Ericsson, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia and Psion, develops software and tools for Wireless Information Devices such as Communicators and Smartphones. 

"The next generation of mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) bring the Internet to your pocket.," Risto Siilasmaa, CEO and president of F-Secure, said in a message posted in the company's Web site. "The openness of wireless information devices poses new security issues which must be addressed."

TITLE: COMMENT
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: Super-Region Heads Awaiting Their Moment 


By Boris Kagarlitsky 


ABOUT six months ago, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree creating seven federal districts and named the men who would oversee them. Ever since, the nation has awaited the inevitable conflict between the new president and the old regional governors. But nothing of the sort has happened.


The Federation Council was quietly reformed, and the regional leaders were smoothly shuffled off into the State Council, seemingly satisfied with this consolation prize. The new council doesn't have the power to legislate, but that was never what the governors wanted anyway. They merely want an organization to serve as their base in Moscow to allow them to lobby their interests and to maintain contact with one another. What that organization is called doesn't matter.

It is more important, however, that the governors lost their immunity from prosecution. The Kremlin never hid the fact that this was its main motivation in pushing the reform. Nonetheless, no criminal cases against regional governors have been filed, although one might fairly suppose that there exists plenty of material for a number of high-profile prosecutions.

It would seem that the Kremlin, having taken away the governors' legal immunity, has granted them a kind of political immunity in exchange for their loyalty. This arrangement no doubt suits the governors, since in Russia political guarantees always have more value than legal ones. Those governors whom the Kremlin doesn't like are thereby sentenced to the worst form of punishment - having to live according to the law. For our leaders, such a punishment is worse than any prison or even death.

As an example to the others, the Kremlin dealt with former Kursk Governor Alexander Rutskoi, whose re-election bid was stymied last month when his name was struck from the ballot just hours before voting began. This was done not because Rutskoi was a particularly independent governor, but simply because someone had to be used to demonstrate Putin's willingness to flex his new muscle.

Maybe the Kremlin will decide that a few more examples would help make its point even more clearly. The general message will be, "Neither a step to the left nor a step to the right will be tolerated."

So, the governors will continue to pillage as usual, but only on the condition of political loyalty to the Kremlin. This is the decisive step from former President Boris Yeltsin's "democracy" to Putin's "dictatorship of the law."

The governors have been quick to learn this lesson. The exception has been Nikolai Fyodorov, the president of Chuvashia, who has been public in his criticism and has even filed a suit in the Constitutional Court. Strangely enough, nothing has happened to Fyodorov so far, which leads to the suspicion that he and his appointees actually may not be stealing! If so, then there is nothing the Kremlin can do until the next election rolls around next year.

The Chuvash situation notwithstanding, even the Kremlin has been amazed at how quickly the remaining governors have fallen into line.

Paradoxically, Putin's new super-governors have been left more or less with nothing to do. They were, after all, created as a weapon in the struggle between the center and the regions. But instead of a struggle, we see only a touching unanimity.

However, things may yet look up for the super-governors. If the regional energy crisis continues or if the center resumes the policy of not paying wages on time, the governors may once again become rebellious. And then we'll see why Putin appointed generals to keep them in line. 


Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.

TITLE: EDITORIAL
TEXT: Leave the Lingo to the Experts, Blin! 


THE news that a group of lawmakers has decided to defend the Russian language proves one thing for sure: As the New Year approaches, the State Duma is going a little stir crazy.


This kind of initiative has cropped up periodically throughout Russia's history. Boris Yeltsin made pronouncements on it, Stalin weighed in with "Marxism and Questions of Philology," while Mikhail Gorbachev was known more for mangling Russian than protecting it.

Large chunks of the 18th century were taken up with the fight between two opposing camps, one seeking to revitalize Russian so that it acquired its own literary style, and the other insisting on a return to Church Slavonic as the root of all Russian words.

Whether default should be "defolt" or the inelegant nevypolneniye obyazatelstv is merely the latest round, but you can be sure that the debate will be as fierce as it has ever been. There are even advocates of punishment for those who violate the language's purity, or who swear in public.

(Quite what that punishment will be is anyone's guess: being forced to write out irregular verbs 500 times, perhaps, or having the mouths of cursing politicians washed out with soap.)

The influx of foreign words, which are irking the deputies, has occurred to a great extent since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with business and technological terminology leading the way. Computers and the Internet are responsible to a great extent, by churning out jargon such as byte, hacker and www faster than an equivalent in Russian, French or Hutu can be found.

In fact, it is possible that the new lexicon "invading" Russian today is the largest since Russia's conversion to Christianity a thousand years ago, when a whole wave of new concepts found expression by pinching words from other Slavic languages.

When and to what extent language should embrace change has occupied many great Russian minds. The great academic Mikhail Lomonosov devoted years to the formation of the Russian language; writers like Nikolai Karamzin adapted entire French and German phrases in their literature, and Alexander Pushkin largely resolved the questions of his day through sheer genius (although he did advise women to speak French, just in case the complexities of Russian overheated their fragile brains).

Politicians getting involved, however, is mostly a sign that they have absolutely nothing else better to be doing. Neither Yeltsin nor Stalin will be remembered for the brilliance of their linguistic input; the smart money has it that this latest group will fare no better.

TITLE: Without Money, Caspian Oil Route Is a Pipe Dream
AUTHOR: By Hooman Peimani
TEXT: LAST month's announcement of a feasibility study on the proposed oil pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean coast created a wave of unwarranted optimism in Turkey. As major beneficiaries, the Turks hailed the news and exaggerated its significance by equating it with the first step toward actual construction. 


However, the news did not generate much excitement elsewhere. The existence of many shelved feasibility studies on various proposed Caspian oil and gas pipelines cautions analysts against overestimating their significance. After all, the main political, economic, and security considerations that have discouraged oil developers from opting for the Turkish route are still well in place. Far from solving the Caspian export route dilemma, the recent announcement merely reminded us of its persistence. Unfortunately, the continuation of this deadlock will likely have negative consequences for the stability of the Caspian region. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union left myriad problems in the poorly developed Central Asian and Caucasian countries. Moscow no longer met their needs, and they were unable to develop their economies on their own. Coping with many transitional problems that exhausted their limited resources, these countries faced endless delays in implementing necessary development projects. However, the vast oil and gas resources in the Caspian region offered hope to Azerbaijan, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan that they would be able to overcome their immediate difficulties and even enjoy a bright future. The expected energy bonanza in these Caspian countries encouraged other Central Asian and Caucasian countries to hope that they would share in that prosperity. 

A decade after independence, however, the predicted economic boom is yet to come since most of the Caspian oil and gas reserves are still underdeveloped. The difficulty of finding a long-term export route has been the main reason for this situation.

The three land-locked Caspian countries can only export their fossil energy through their neighbors. Geographical realities offer them only five possible export routes. The Chinese route is too long and too expensive to be realistically considered. The Pakistan route is out of the question because it passes through highly unstable Afghani stan. The Georgian route through its Black Sea ports has been used for the limited exports currently being shipped, but is not a long-term solution for several reasons, including Georgia's own instability and Turkish objections to increased oil-tanker traffic through its Black Sea straits. Also, assuming that a pipeline across the Caspian itself is not constructed, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan have access to Georgia only through Russia or Iran. This fact presents numerous complications.

The route through Russia is accessible by all three Caspian countries, which have already been using it to some extent. Apart from their concern about over-reliance on Russia and its high export fees, the main problem with this route is also its uncertain long-term stability since it passes through the unstable Northern Caucasus. The route through Iran is the safest, shortest and cheapest option for Caspian exporters, but comes with its own political problems. The Russian and Iranian routes are the logical choices for energy exports to Europe and Asia, respectively, but American opposition to their use has practically removed them from consideration. As a result, these routes so far have only been very minimally used in a few barter deals with Iran and limited exports through the Russian port of Novorosiisk. 

The politicization of the export-route selection has itself become a major obstacle to the development of Caspian energy resources. The Georgian route that is currently operational can only handle a fraction of the region's exports. The Iranian and Russian ones are potentially suitable for long-term exports and can facilitate them with minor investments in their export infrastructure. However, given the expected low volume of exports for at least a decade and the as-yet uncertain extent of the region's commercially viable energy, investments in major pipeline projects such as the Baku-Ceyhan proposal have not been considered justifiable. 

The Baku-Ceyhan route is a long (1700 km) and expensive option, the estimated cost of which is from $3.5 billion to $5 billion. Since it runs through Georgia, it has all the drawbacks of the Georgian route, plus it presents its own security dilemma by passing through Turkey's rebellious Kurdish region. Moreover, it cannot be economically feasible unless all the Caspian oil producers commit themselves to its long-term use and to increasing their exports significantly. Neither of these conditions seem to be achievable in the foreseeable future. It seems clear that the only reason this project is proceeding is because of American opposition to the Iranian and Russian variants.

Although political pressure may be able to keep the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline alive as a proposal, it cannot make it a reality when its construction lacks even the backing of American oil developers. After all, the Caspian oil developers need strong economic justifications for committing to such an expensive project when they have other, less costly options. 

Continued American opposition to the Iranian and Russian routes will deny energy developers the only realistically available routes and further delay the overall development of Caspian energy resources. In turn, continued underdevelopment of these resources will only worsen the current dismal economic situation in Central Asia and the Caucasus and add fuel to their fundamental instability. Instead of automatically excluding from any export projects the only two countries with the ability to influence the pace of events in the region, the United States should actively seek to engage Iran and Russia in such projects. 


Hooman Peimani is a professor of International Relations and an independent analyst of Central Asian and Caucasian Affairs. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.

TITLE: Global eye
TEXT: Speech Impediment 


While Americans played presidential ping-pong this week, across the Atlantic the "world's oldest political party" was gearing up for a ballot battle next spring. The shock troops of the teeny tiny Tory Party received their marching orders from their fearless, hairless leader, little bitty Billy Hague. And what is the domed one's formula for victory? 


Dumb it down. 


Hague told his shadow cabinet this week that they should be able to describe their plans and policies "in no more than six words," the Financial Times reports. These bold and visionary statesmen, who hope to recapture the ancient Mother of Parliaments in elections likely to be held in May, were ordered to "think in headlines." Anyone remotely familiar with the typical headline of the typical English paper - "Blair Bites Big One!" "Greedy Immigrants Are Eating Us Alive!" "Liam Slams Robbie: Yer a Fat Gay Git!" - will be fairly shivering in anticipation of the profound and elevated political discourse that lies ahead. 


Hague has already been setting an example for the troops. In recent months, he's made a heroic effort to shed his image as an urbane Oxford-educated sophisticate with a lifelong passion for politics and ideas, and instead take on the mantle of a dim-witted, Bible-thumping punk: touting his youthful drinking binges, his distrust of foreigners, his hatred of government, his distaste for homosexuals, and his belief that "faith-based organizations" should take over the state's social services. 

Sound familiar? It should. Hague and his Conservative minions made many pilgrimages to Republican shrines in America during the recent campaign. It must be said, however, that little Billy's dumbing-down efforts fall far short of the Master's. While Hague still needs six whole words to convey the Tories' campaign themes, George W. Bush was able to reduce his entire political philosophy to just one syllable: "Duh." 


Blood Ties 


The electoral nightmare in America turns out to be even more of a family affair than we thought. It's well known, of course, that the state of Florida - where ballots go bump in the night - is controlled by Governor Jeb Bush, brother of runner-up presidential candidate George W. But it was revealed this week that the man who first "called" the election and triggered the rush of network TV reports that prematurely awarded the presidency was Fox executive John Ellis - Jeb and George's first cousin. 


Ellis, incredibly, was in charge of the "decision desk" for the Fox network on election night, making the final choice on projecting the winner in each state, The Washington Post reports. Fox was the first network to call the race for Bush, at 2:16 a.m.; they were quickly followed by NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC. The premature call chimed perfectly with the Bush campaign's end-game strategy of projecting an aura of swaggering inevitability about the outcome. 

Ellis also acted as a mole for the Bushes, feeding them insider updates on the vote count, including confidential exit-poll data. In fact, Ellis bragged that he was on the phone with "Jebbie" and George throughout the night. "Jebbie'll be calling me like 8,000 times a day!" he gushed to The New Yorker. 

Fox officials (or as they are better known, "errand boys for right-wing media baron Rupert Murdoch") dismissed concerns about having a Bush cousin in charge of their objective, nonpartisan newscast. "Appearance of impropriety?" sniffed Fox VP John Moody, who okayed Ellis' Florida call. "I don't think there's anything improper about it as long as he doesn't behave improperly." Well, it would be hard for a Murdochian to see anything wrong with heavy-handed political interference with the news, wouldn't it? 

Strangely enough, at least one Fox executive did see a conflict of interest in such cousinly arrangements: a certain Mr. John Ellis. Last year, Ellis discontinued a column for The Boston Globe, writing, in an access of journalistic nobility: "I am loyal to my cousin. I put that loyalty ahead of my loyalty to anyone else outside my immediate family. That being the case, it is not possible for me to continue writing columns about the 2000 presidential campaign." 

But we all know that journalistic nobility flies out the window when Rupert (not to mention George and Jebbie!) comes knocking at the door. 



Mouths Wide Shut 


While the world's attention was focused on the downtrodden wards of South Miami and Palm Beach this week, there was another corner of the United States where that delicious mix of dumbing down and constitutional infringement was being served: Evanston, Illinois. 


Or more specifically, the James L. Allen Center of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. That's where the G.W. Bush of American popular culture, Oprah Winfrey, is teaching the secrets of her success to a lucky group of select students. 

So select, in fact, they have to pass through armed guards, display special ID cards and take an oath never to reveal what they have heard under Professor Winfrey's tutelage. Any miscreants who dare exercise their rights to free speech face severe disciplinary measures, even expulsion, Editor & Publisher reports. 

While Oprah preaches the gospel of personal freedom through her TV show, her new magazine and innumerable books, videos and movies, it seems there are just some things the good common folk don't need to know - like the inside tricks of her media mogulry trade. 

So while Oprah dishes the big-time dirt with guest lecturers like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Warren Buffett and that friend of freedom everywhere, Henry Kissinger, the students have to keep their mouths shut, or else. 

An Oprah spokeswoman first said the classes were simply "off the record" because "students sometimes talk about their personal problems" with Auntie Oprah. When it was pointed out that in fact they must sign a ban with strict enforcement of penalties for revealing anything that transpires in the classroom, the spokeswoman consulted the oracle and came back with this wonderful pearl of personal freedom: "We have no further comment regarding this story." 

You go, girlfriend!

TITLE: Peruvians Express Relief as Fujimori Says He'll Resign
AUTHOR: By Rick Vecchio
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LIMA, Peru - President Alberto Fujimori, besieged by an escalating corruption scandal surrounding his fugitive ex-spy chief, is calling it quits, ending the 10-year reign of one of Latin America's most revered and vilified leaders. 


Fujimori, on a visit to his ancestral homeland Japan, announced in a written statement early Monday that he would resign within 48 hours. 

His decision took into account the fact that opposition lawmakers won control of Congress last week, the statement said. It did not elaborate, but a motion was before the 120-seat legislature to remove Fujimori as president on constitutional grounds of "moral incapacity." 

Although many Peruvians said they were indignant about the way Fujimori chose to announce his resignation, many also felt relief. 

"I have been praying to God for Fujimori to go. He has gone but he left behind a country in ruins with people who are hungry, impoverished and without jobs," said Patricia Cerna Egoavil, 36, an activist in women's political groups. 

Fujimori's communique was issued to reporters in Tokyo, with no further comment. It confirmed announcements made hours earlier in Peru by Prime Minister Federico Salas and Second Vice President Ricardo Marquez. 

Marquez said Sunday that he was ready to assume the presidency and lead Peru to special elections on April 8, but the issue of succession was already clouded by controversy. 

Under the Constitution, the first vice president takes over when the president resigns. But First Vice President Francisco Tudela resigned after former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos returned to Peru on Oct. 23 following a failed asylum bid in Panama. 

But analysts pointed out that the legislature has yet to accept Tudela's resignation. Meanwhile, opposition lawmakers questioned Marquez's democratic credentials. 

"Marquez is a person linked to Fujimori's inner circle," said Congresswoman Milagros Huaman. "We are going to ask for Marquez's resignation." Congress has no constitutional authority to expel either vice president. 

Opposition lawmakers left an emergency meeting Monday saying they planned to reject Fujimori's resignation and to throw him out of office instead. 

Fujimori, 62, has seen his rule crumble since the release in September of a videotape showing Montesinos, for 10 years his closest aide, apparently bribing an opposition congressman. 

The video prompted Fujimori to announce two months ago that he would step down next July after new elections in April. 

"Why is Fujimori resigning now? I believe the foremost reason is that he is involved up to his neck in the corruption," political scientist Fernando Rospigliosi said. 

Investigators said they discovered foreign bank accounts containing at least $58 million in illicit funds allegedly laundered by the ex-spy chief. 

Montesinos faces criminal complaints in Peru ranging from directing state-sponsored death squads and torture to skimming profits from the narcotics trade during his 10 years as Fujimori's top aide.

TITLE: Father Wrestles With Antichrist
AUTHOR: By Raul Llamas
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - It was good against evil, mano-a-mano: a wrestling priest looking to win money for God's work against an opponent with glam-rock makeup and a devil of a name - Damian 666. 


And it wasn't just professional wrestling showmanship, either. The priest - Fray Tormenta, or Brother Storm, a real Roman Catholic cleric - has spent much of the last quarter-century in the ring raising money for charity. 

"The blows are hard," said Fray Tormenta, whose wrestling costume includes a clerical collar. "Even though I'm a priest, I've suffered a broken nose, a couple of broken ribs, an ankle and an arm." 

Fray Tormenta, whose real name is Father Sergio Gutierrez, uses proceeds from his fake fights to help fund the 200-bed home for underprivileged boys he opened 15 years ago in Tulancingo, south of Nuevo Laredo in Mexico's Hidalgo state. On this day he was passing his unlikely tradition on to a younger man. 

"I don't want to be a full-time wrestler, but this was an opportunity that popped up to raise some funds," said the wrestler-in-training, Father Manuel Raul Ortega, 28. 

Professional wrestling has been popular in low-income neighborhoods in Mexico since the 1950s. As in the United States, it mixes largely staged throws and body slams with occasional outbursts of real violence. 

Gutierrez and Ortega are apparently the only pro-wrestling priests in Mexico, where many fans see the sport as a kind of morality play: good takes on evil. 

In front of a crowd of nearly 10,000 in this border city, the less-battered Ortega got into the ring this week for his first match, wearing the karate black belt he earned before entering the priesthood. He looked threatening, but when the opening bell rang it was turn-the-other-cheek time: The bishop of his diocese prohibits his priests from engaging in any kind of violence. 

So Ortega stood there as Damian, with the number 666 on his forehead and flames painted around his eyes, mocked his courage and his creed: "You ain't got the guts! I am God!" 

The crowd was booing the antichrist, but they wanted some action. They got some when Gutierrez stepped into the ring: He's from a diocese where headlocks are not so unholy. 

But Fray Tormenta was still recovering from a recent operation to remove his gall bladder and was not at his stormiest, so another wrestler took on Damian - and lost. 

Still, evil did not triumph. Damian donated his half of the ticket receipts, estimated at $5,000, to help Ortega build his parish church, a modest single-story building in a poor Nuevo Laredo neighborhood.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Gaza Bomb Kills 2

GAZA STRIP (Reuters) - A bomb exploded in front of a Jewish settlers' school bus in the largely Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip Monday, killing two adults and wounding nine others including children.

Israel's security cabinet swiftly began an emergency meeting and the government and army vowed to respond to the first fatal bomb attack on settlers in Gaza in almost two months of clashes with Palestinians seeking independence.

Medical relief workers said at least four children were among the wounded. 

The blast took the death toll to 243 in the clashes between Israeli troops and the Palestinians. Most of the dead have been Palestinians and one in four of them were teenagers.


Syrian Amnesty

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria has begun to release some 600 political prisoners on the orders of President Bashar al-Assad, amid calls for a national political debate including the opposition.

Officials said on Sunday that Assad had also ordered the closure of Mazzeh prison that used to hold opposition politicians, former presidents and ministers who led or participated in failed coups or anti-government movements.

The prison had already been emptied and the remaining small number of prisoners freed, they said. Other prisoners, pardoned Thursday by Assad, were being freed in batches of 50 to 100 per day.

They said they included Islamists, communists and others opposed to the country's ruling Baath Party, and some prisoners who were arrested only a few months ago after opposing the peace process with Israel.

Assad promised reform of authoritarian Syria after succeeding his father Hafez al-Assad, who died in June.


China Camps Deal

BEIJING (Reuters) - United Nations human rights chief Mary Robinson signed an agreement with China Monday which she said would tackle the labor camps to which Beijing consigns anyone it considers a threat to communist rule.

"This is a very significant move by China and I'd like to acknowledge it as such," Robinson told reporters after signing a memorandum of understanding with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya.

The pact, calling for programs in human rights education and police and judicial training, would build a "stronger culture of human rights here in China" and bring the country closer to international norms, she said.

Human rights groups say Beijing has used labor camp sentences to banish hundreds of political dissidents and more recently, thousands of adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, to the Chinese gulag without trial.


Cease-Fire Rebuffed

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Three front-line Kashmiri militant groups and the Himalayan region's separatist alliance reacted coolly Monday to India's temporary cease-fire.

The pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen said it would match New Delhi's unprecedented gesture only if it was the start of a larger peace process in Kashmir, a running sore in relations between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.

"This limited cease-fire in respect of Ramadan has no meaning or utility for the people until it is set up to initiate a meaningful dialogue for the ultimate resolution of the Kashmir conflict," Hizbul's supreme commander, Syed Salahuddin, told Reuters in Islamabad.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee announced on Sunday that security forces would suspend combat operations against Kashmir guerrillas during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins at the end of November.


No More Beaver

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Beaver College, aiming to shed a source of ridicule and boost enrollment, unveiled Monday a new school name that's seemingly satire-proof: Arcadia University.

The decision was announced just after midnight at a surprise pajama party for students, who were rounded up from residence halls with less than an hour's notice.

"Arcadia University reflects our foundation and the kind of learning environment we aim to foster," President Bette E. Landman said.

Landman said in a letter earlier this year that the old name "too often elicits ridicule in the form of derogatory remarks pertaining to the rodent, the TV show 'Leave It to Beaver,' and the vulgar reference to the female anatomy."


Thai Beauty 'Queen'

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) - Kesaraporn Duangsawan captured the hearts of the judges and walked away with 6,000 baht ($138) as first runner-up in a Thai beauty contest this month - until organizers discovered the beauty queen was a man. 

A police officer told reporters some of the contestants had complained of unfair competition saying Kesaraporn was actually male. 

The disgraced 22-year-old beauty queen handed back the prize money through a friend on Thursday, five days after the annual Loy Krathong festival beauty pageant in the central Thai province of Ratchaburi. 

Kesaraporn had asked only to keep the Miss Media runner-up sash as a momento, the police officer told reporters.

TITLE: U.S. Election Hangs on Lawyers
AUTHOR: By Eun-Kyung Kim
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: The differences in Florida vote totals remained paper-thin Monday as attorneys for Al Gore and George W. Bush fought before the state's Supreme Court over a manual recount of ballots that could determine America's next president. 


Republicans want to stop the hand recounts in three heavily Democratic counties. Democrats, looking for new votes to whittle down Bush's 930-vote lead, are pressing to have them included in the final official tally. 

About 6 million votes were cast overall in make-or-break Florida. 

Gore spoke Monday from the White House via satellite to an annual family-policy conference he was to have attended at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University. "I appreciate this chance to speak to the Florida Supreme Court," he deadpanned. 

The forum was put off from last summer because of the campaign. 

Bush, the Texas governor, went to the Capitol in Austin for several hours of work Monday morning, breezing in with the words, "Feeling great." 

His brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had his state's image in mind Monday morning. "Don't be left with the impression that because we can't count votes we are not a progressive state," he said. 

A weekend tally of overseas absentee ballots stretched Bush's official lead. But uncompleted hand recounts over the weekend in Broward and Palm Beach counties cut Bush's lead to 834 votes as of midnight Sunday. The hand counting resumed Monday in those counties and started in Miami-Dade County. 

Gore narrowly won the nationwide popular vote and holds a slight edge over Bush in the Electoral College tally. But neither man will reach the required 270 electoral votes to be declared the nation's president without Florida's 25 electors. 

On Monday, a circuit court judge turned down a request for a new election in Palm Beach County, where some voters complained that they were confused by the ballot and did not cast their votes for Gore as they had intended. Judge Jorge Labarga said he didn't have the authority to order another vote. 

Prospects for an abrupt end to the election deadlock were highly uncertain; Gore's allies were not ruling out pressing ahead on other fronts if the state Supreme Court did not support them, and Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who is close to the Gore campaign, said on the morning talk shows Monday that the state's entire vote should be counted again by hand. 

"What we're trying to achieve here is an election that has credibility by the American people," he said on ABC's Good Morning America. "That credibility would likely be enhanced if all Florida voters had their ballots hand counted." 

Sensitive to Republican charges that Democrats were systematically challenging absentee ballots from military personnel overseas, Graham said military votes should not be discounted simply because they lacked a postmark.

Election officials should "bend over backward" to have military votes counted, he said on NBC's "Today Show." "The federal law provides that a postmark is not required for overseas stationed military personnel." 

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate, said Sunday that election officials should "take another look" at discarded military ballots. He said he and Gore "would not tolerate a campaign that was aimed specifically at invalidating absentee ballots from members of our armed services." 

Montana Gov. Marc Racicot complained anew on NBC about using hand tallying instead of machine counting as final arbiter of the Florida vote. "There's inadvertence, there's negligence, there is exhaustion that's involved in this process," he said. 

Lawyers for both sides filed legal briefs Sunday with the Florida Supreme Court, which on Saturday told Secretary of State Katherine Harris not to certify the state results until it decided whether to allow the hand recounts to be included. 

Bush's lawyers said it would be unfair "to keep the state and the nation on hold" during interminable recounts, while Gore's attorneys argued that some counties should get more time to complete hand tallies. 

The Bush campaign said Harris, a Republican, has the authority to certify election results without accepting hand counts. It also said that allowing the recounts to continue in scattered Democratic-leaning counties would violate the constitutional rights of voters elsewhere. 

"The selective manual recounts authorize county boards to engage in arbitrary and unequal counting of votes, and result in the disparate treatment of Florida voters based solely on where within the state they happen to reside," Bush's lawyers argued. 

"It seems they're doing everything they can to stop the recounting of votes because they're slightly ahead and they fear that after the recounting they won't be," said Lieberman, who appeared on all five major TV news shows Sunday.

TITLE: Russians Nearly Sweep Medals on Home Ice
AUTHOR: By Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: What little difference a year makes.


In the 1999 Cup of Russia Grand Prix of Figure Skating event, Xue Shen and Zhao Hongbo of China performed a technically impressive free skate program, only to finish in second place behind the Russian pair of Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov, who posted higher marks for presentation.

This year, the Chinese pair was even stronger, bringing greater artistic appeal to their final program, but to no avail.

Another Russian pair - this time Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze - energized the crowd with a comic and lighthearted routine to grab the top spot.

And the Russian pair were the only new faces at the top of the podiums over the weekend, as Russia's Iri na Slutskaya and Yevgeny Plu shen ko repeated their victories in the individual categories of a year ago, while Barbara Fusar-Poli and Mau rizio Margaglio repeated as ice dance champions.

The Chaplinesque program skated by the Russian pair, especially the second half, was a big departure from more romantic and classical programs they have skated in the past.

"The new program wasn't our idea," Sikharulidze said later. "It was our coach's idea and, at first, we were against it."

"It seemed too difficult to put these tough elements together with a light-hearted approach," he said. "But in the end it paid off."

That the Russians believed that it had paid off was clear immediately. After the virtually flawless performance of the routine, which contains a number of unusual and difficult lifts - skated while the Chinese pair stayed to watch from rinkside - Sik ha rulidze pumped a fist in celebration as the crowd roared along with him.

The disappointment for the Chinese pair was clear after the event.

This was the first time that we thought we had skated the routine perfectly," Zhao said. "But we still have to work on our presentation and the flow of our program."

Slutskaya, whose win last year was a big step in revitalizing her career, wasn't perfect in her free skate, landing a couple of her jumps shakily, but was strong enough to hold off the performance of compatriot Yelena Sokolova.

Sokolova attempted, and landed, the most difficult combination attempted in the women's competition - triple-toe, triple-toe, double-loop.

"It was the first time in three tries that I landed that in competition," So ko lova said. "I've become the champion of jumping in practice, but now I want to be the champion of jumping when it counts."

Fifteen-year-old Sarah Hughes finished in third place, ahead of fellow American Sasha Cohen.

The 16-year-old Cohen, whose mother is from Odessa, Ukraine, became a crowd favorite as a result of her energy and diminutive size. But she finished fourth largely as a result of skating a less challenging routine than the top three.

Plushenko's repeat win in the men's competition came as a result of the strongest individual skate of the weekend. Plushenko landed his jumps cleanly - including a quadruple-triple combination - while showing a character in the routine different from those he has skated in the past.

Eschewing the traditional folk themes, which had been standard fare in earlier performances, Plushenko went with a new feel - including music from the "Mortal Kombat" soundtrack.

He even likened the character in the routine to that of Superman. "I guess it's more like Superman, but it's not bad to be Superman," he said. "It's better to be more like yourself."

Russia's Ilya Klimkin, the only other skater to land a quad, jumped to second place after being in fourth following the short program. Andrew Savoie of the United States finished third.

The free skate in the ice dance competition was held on Sunday, and Fusar-Poli and Margaglio performed the distinct type of program for which they are known, leaving Margaglio shirtless on the ice at one point.

Russia's Irina Lobacheva and Iliya Averbakh finished second, while Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovsky of Israel took third place.

TITLE: Tennis' Newest Star Keeps On Winning
AUTHOR: By Jocelyn Gecker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Bloodied and bandaged, Marat Safin emphatically showed why he is the world's No. 1 player.


He won the $2.95 million Paris Masters in five sets against Mark Philippoussis on Sunday in a final featuring one screaming serve after another.

The match lasted 3 hours, 28 minutes and went down to a final tiebreaker, with the top-seeded Russian winning 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8) for his sixth title of the year.

"He's played very well all season and that's why he's No. 1," Philippoussis said.

Safin will have battle scars to remember this victory. In the third set, down 4-3, he dove headfirst for a backhand return, hitting himself with his racket as he fell.

He lay face down on the court. Philippoussis crossed the court and tapped a motionless Safin on the shoulder. Two physicians tended to the Russian. Eight minutes later, Safin returned to the court with a butterfly bandage taped to his eyebrow.

"I think I need stitches," he said. "It hurts a lot."

An emboldened Safin came back to break serve and take the set 6-4. Philippoussis said the delay threw off his game.

"I lost a bit of concentration," he said. "It was very frustrating."

But the 13th-seeded Australian knew there was more to his loss than that.

"He's got so much confidence at the moment," Philippoussis said. "He's just a big hitter of the ball and is tough to play."

This was Safin's second title in eight days. He had moved to the top of the ATP Champions Race when he won in St. Petersburg, Russia on Nov. 12.

The U.S. Open winner heads into this month's Masters Cup in Lisbon, Portugal, leading second-place Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil by 75 points.

Safin is trying to become the first non-American to finish No. 1 since Stefan Edberg of Sweden in 1991. Since then, the honor has gone to Jim Courier (1992), Pete Sampras (1993-98) and Andre Agassi (1999).

In the fifth set, Safin and Philippoussis held every serve. In the tiebreaker, Safin squandered a 6-3 lead and lost five match points, stretching the score to 6-6 before he won.

"It's extremely disappointing," Philippoussis said. "It's been a long tough week for me. To come all that way and get to 6-all in the fifth. But that's tennis. That's how things go."

The final was battle of aces, with each player producing 22 and Philippoussis beginning the match with three aces, one reaching 203 kilometers per hour.

After dropping the first set, Safin came back to win the second-set tiebreaker. After squandering two set points, the Russian looked to the roof and fired a serve that Philippoussis fed into the net.

Philippoussis made a strong comeback in the fourth set. Down 4-2, he broke serve at love to take the game and went on to win the next two, making it two sets apiece.

"He was playing so well today, I was just lucky," Safin said.

Safin earned $434,000 for the title. Philippoussis, who upset Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Kuerten en route to the final, won $228,000.

The Paris tournament was the last of the nine-event Tennis Masters Series, the most important events after the Grand Slams.

Safin will be joined in the eight-man Masters Cup by the three other Grand Slam champions - Kuerten, Sampras, Agassi - plus Kafelnikov, Magnus Norman, Lleyton Hewitt and Alex Corretja. 



q

NEW YORK - When the final tennis ball was struck at Madison Square Garden, a smile broke out on Monica Seles' face while Martina Hingis cried.


At first glance, it was hard to tell who had won the final Chase Championship of the Sanex WTA Tour.

In a way, they both were winners, although Hingis finished on top with a 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4 victory.

"This is like the fifth Grand Slam, and to be able to win it and to come through with great tournaments, and winning here, I think I deserve now the respect of being No. 1," Hingis said after winning the season-ending title for the second time in three years.

Seles has refused to play in Germany, where the Chase Championship will be played beginning next year, since being stabbed by a spectator while playing in a tournament in Hamburg in 1993 and her assailant was never jailed.

This is only her fourth Garden appearance since winning the last of her three titles in 1992. And it is the first time she had reached the semifinals - let alone the title match - since those days when she dominated women's tennis.

Hingis is no longer dominating the way she was in 1997, when she won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments. And while she has been so consistent that she remains on top of the women's rankings, this was her first major title since winning the Australian Open in 1999, two months after she won here for the first time.

"Today I was very defensive, in a way," Hingis said. "She had so much power, she took her chances, and she also served very well."

Hingis and Seles engaged in a classic in the final New York edition, with one getting the momentum only briefly before the other edged ahead.

Seles served for the first set in the 10th game, but was broken. Hingis had three set points in the 12th game - a 24-point miniature of the afternoon's competition - before they played the tiebreaker, which Seles won 7-5.

In all, there were 14 breaks of serve. Seles finished with 53 winners - four more than Hingis - but had 31 unforced errors - five more than the champion.

Serving for the match, Hingis double-faulted on the first championship point. But she followed with her fifth ace of the afternoon, then began crying with joy when a forehand service return by Seles found the tape, attempted to climb over but failed.

"I'm happy it's done. It's behind me," Hingis said of the 2-hour, 22-minute marathon. "But it was definitely a very good match. I mean high level. It was a long one, too." 


(AP)

TITLE: Tiger Seals 10th Victory of the Season in Record Fashion
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BANGKOK, Thailand - Geoff Ogilvy gave Tiger Woods a run in the Johnnie Walker Classic with one of the best rounds of his career.


It still wasn't enough to prevent Woods from winning his 10th tournament this year.

Woods shot his third consecutive 7-under-par 65 for a 25-under 263 total and a three-stroke victory on Sunday. Ogilvy shot a closing 64 for 266 and was runner-up for the second straight year. He had eight birdies and barely missed two eagles in the final round.

"I've never started the weekend being two behind, shot a 67 and then a 64 and lost by three," the Australian said. "It's ridiculous and that was as good as I could have played. All credit to him.

"My goal was to win the tournament, to shoot low and to make [Woods] have to play. ... To do a 64 today and to chase Tiger at the back of the back nine, making birdie for birdie, that was a fantastic feeling.

"However, finishing second to Tiger is almost like winning."

Woods' winning score was the lowest four-round total of his career in relation to par and a record for the tournament, beating the 268 of South Africa's Ian Palmer in 1992. But it wasn't Woods' lowest total - he shot a 21-under 259 at the par-70 Firestone Country Club in the NEC Invitational this year.

"It's special any time I can come back to my Mom's country and win," Woods said. "I had a lot of family and friends out there."

Defending champion Michael Campbell of New Zealand shot a 69 and was third at 270 over the par-72, 6,989-yard Alpine Golf and Sports Club course.

Woods began the tournament with a 68 and was tied for fourth. He surged into the lead on the second day and kept it.

Woods could have finished further ahead Sunday. At the par-5 14th, his eagle putt stopped on the edge of the hole, as did his birdie putt at the 15th. Then, at the par-5 17th, he just missed chipping in for a three.

"He's the best, he's the king," Ogilvy said.

The victory meant Woods maintained his unbeaten record as a professional in Thailand. He first won the Johnnie Walker Classic in 1998 on Thailand's Phuket Island, and in 1997 he claimed the Asian Honda Classic in Bangkok.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Indians Sign Burks

CLEVELAND (AP) - Ellis Burks became the first free agent hitter to change teams this off season, agreeing with Cleveland on a three-year deal worth nearly $21 million.

The deal could be announced as early as Monday, two sources close to the negotiations said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Burks hit 344 with 24 home runs and 96 RBIs in only 393 at-bats last season for the San Francisco Giants. The NL West champions, however, did not make a firm, multiyear offer to keep him.

Burks plays the same position Ramirez held for Cleveland. Ramirez sought a $200 million, 10-year contract from the Indians, who countered with a $119 million, seven-year offer to the free agent slugger, a deal that included a large amount deferred without interest.


Devils Ink Holdouts

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (AP) - The New Jersey Devils' lineup may soon look like the one that won the Stanley Cup last season.

The last two unsigned players on the roster reached contract agreements on Sunday when defenseman Scott Niedermayer and center Jason Arnott ended holdouts that saw them miss the first 19 games of the season.

Niedermayer, who gained notoriety for being suspended for 10 games last season for hitting Florida's Peter Worrell over the head with a stick, had sought a $13.5 million, three-year contract.

Arnott, who scored the Stanley Cup-clinching goal against Dallas in June, had been offered a two-year contract worth $5.1 million. He made $1.8 million in each of the last two seasons.


Graduation Rate Drops

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) - The graduation rate for football players at the nation's major colleges dropped from 51 percent to 48 percent, the lowest since 1985, according to the latest NCAA study.

But overall, the graduation rate for all Division I athletes remained at 58 percent, the same as the last survey by the NCAA a year ago.

The data were for the athletes who entered college in 1993. The overall graduation rate of 58 percent remained 2 percent higher than the rate for the general student population.

Since higher eligibility standards were set for incoming freshmen in 1986, graduation rates have been between 57-58 percent, Dempsey said.

Among the increases noted by the NCAA were the ranks of black females, which rose from 53 percent last year to 57 percent in the latest study, ending a three-year decrease. The rate for black female basketball players was 52 percent - 3 percentage points better than the previous year.

The overall graduation rate for female basketball players rose from 62 percent to 63 percent.

Division I male basketball players also showed an increase from 41 percent to 42 percent overall and from 33 percent to 34 percent for blacks.


Saints' Prayers Fading

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - One week after losing 1,000-yard rusher Ricky Williams, the New Orleans Saints suffered another devastating blow when quarterback Jeff Blake fractured and dislocated his right foot on Sunday.

Blake was hurt when he was sacked by defensive end Lance Johnstone late in the first quarter of game against the Oakland Raiders. He will miss the rest of the season.

New Orleans, now 7-4, entered the contest with a six-game winning streak and one game behind the first-place St. Louis Rams (8-2) in the NFC West. The Saints visit St. Louis next week after the Rams host the Washington Redskins on Monday night.

After using four quarterbacks last season, the Saints signed Blake to a four-year, $17.2 million contract to lead the offense. He entered Sunday's game ranked fifth among NFC quarterbacks with a passer rating of 83.0, completing 61 percent of his passes with 13 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

TITLE: European Leaders Suffer Upsets
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON - Sedan and Hertha Berlin, the league leaders in France and Germany, both lost badly over the weekend but AS Roma and Manchester United stretched their leads at the top in Italy and England.




Italy. AS Roma moved two points clear at the top of Serie A after a double from Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta helped them to a 4-1 win at Verona. Roma has 18 points, with Udinese second after a 3-0 win over Reggina. Unbeaten Atalanta had to settle for a 0-0 draw at lowly Napoli but it stays third with 15. A 54th-minute goal from Andriy Shevchenko earned AC Milan a 1-1 draw at champions Lazio, while Inter Milan beat Perugia 2-1 and Juventus drew 0-0 at Brescia. 




England. Manchester United extended its lead to five points after beating Manchester City 1-0 in the first league derby between the two rivals for four years. A stunning free-kick after 96 seconds by David Beckham sealed the win for the champions. Second-placed Arsenal, unbeaten in 12 league games, lost 2-0 at Everton. Arsenal has 28 points to United's 33 after 14 games. Leicester City moved into third with 26 points after winning 3-0 at Middlesbrough while Liverpool remained fourth following a 2-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur. 


France. Bottom-placed Toulouse turned the form book upside down with a 2-0 win over leaders Sedan. Argentine midfielder Alfredo Cascini and Colombian striker Victor Bonilla scored the goals as Toulouse recorded only its second win in 15 matches this season. Paris St. Germain missed the chance to return to the top, slumping to a 2-0 defeat away to Monaco leaving Girondins Bordeaux as the new leaders after a 3-0 home win over Stade Rennes. Bordeaux has 29 points with Sedan second with 28. Lille is third with 26 and PSG and En Avant Guingamp have 25.




Spain. An own goal from former Barcelona midfielder Guillermo Amor handed Real Madrid a 1-0 win at Villarreal and takes it back up to within a point of the Spanish first division leaders Deportivo Coruna and Valencia. The top two both drew away from home as Deportivo was held to a 1-1 draw at relegation candidates Osasuna, while Valencia came back to draw by the same score at Alaves. Barcelona lost again, 3-1 at Real Zaragoza and is ninth. Valencia continues to lead the standings with 21 points after 11 matches, ahead of Deportivo on goal difference.


Germany. Two goals from Paulo Rink helped Bayer Leverkusen beat Hamburg SV 3-1 in the German first division and celebrate Berti Vogts's first game in charge with a move to the top of the table. Leverkusen moved one point clear of Schalke 04, which crushed overnight leaders Hertha Berlin 4-0 with a hat trick from Danish striker Ebbe Sand. Leverkusen has 25 points after 13 matches. Schalke is second with 24, ahead of Hertha Berlin on goal difference. 


The Netherlands. Feyenoord moved up to second after defender Brett Emerton scored twice to end NEC Nijmegen's 12-match unbeaten Dutch league run with a 3-1 defeat. Vitesse Arnhem scored a 2-1 victory over RBC Roosendaal to remain on top with 29 points after 13 matches. Feyenoord has 28 points from 11 matches while PSV Eindhoven is third with 27 points from 12 games.