SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #641 (8), Friday, February 2, 2001
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TITLE: Kursk Advice Surfaces From All Over
AUTHOR: By Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Chinese junks; cables pulled by tanks; creating a giant cone of ice: These are but three of the more outlandish suggestions received by St. Petersburg's Rubin submarine design facility as proposals to float the Kursk submarine to the surface of the Barents Sea.


According to an open letter from Rubin's chief designer Igor Spassky, published in Thursday's issue of Izvestia newspaper, these are three of the 500 suggestions received from around the world as possible methods of raising the sub, which sank Aug. 12 after military exercises, killing all 118 crew members. As yet, it is not clear what sank the sub -either an on-board explosion, as Western research suggests, or a collision, as many on the Russian side say.

Earlier efforts to recover the remains of the sailors who perished in the accident by international diving teams were scrapped with the coming of winter, but the Russian government has vowed to raise the vessel in the spring. Joint Russian-Norwegian deep-sea efforts recovered 12 bodies, but Vice Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov ordered that the entire sub be brought back to the surface -and put Rubin in charge of the efforts.

Spassky said in his letter that Rubin is now exploring the question of how to bring the 300-meter Oskar-class sub - and the two nuclear reactors on board - up from the sea's bottom. The wreckage of the Kursk is presently under 108 meters of water just north of Murmansk.

"While analyzing the suggestions, we were surprised not just by the great interest people showed in the difficult problem of raising the nuclear submarine, but also by the wide variety of methods suggested as solutions," Spas sky wrote.

"Some of the suggestions were comparable with Jules Verne fantasies. But there is the possibility that we will use some of the technological elements suggested in the letters."

While Rubin press official Gennady Sorokhin said that a number of the proposals were, indeed, far-fetched, he said that a surprising number were well-conceived.

"The methods suggested ran from what I would describe as the fantastic to others that were much more technologically sound," Sorokhin said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Of the fantastic variants, the most far-fetched - and least-likely - was received from China, suggesting that the submarine could be raised by a flotilla of junks - or traditional Chinese sailing barges - which would lift it to the surface.

Another suggestion was that the submarine be dragged out of the sea by cables pulled by a large number of tanks.

That the submarine's bow could be covered with ice, which would in turn float it to the surface was yet another proposal.

But Sorokhin said that even suggestions that seemed over the moon were still being considered in a positive light.

"All the same, we have taken them seriously," he said. "We understand that these letters have come from the heart."

Sorokhin refused to give specifics about the more feasible suggestions.

"These letters were sent directly to us, and were meant only to be seen by us," he said. 

"It wouldn't be proper to divulge specifics about their content without the consent of those who sent them. Some of them involve rather advanced techniques and a level of technology that it would be wrong to make public without the author's consent."

Sorokhin said that the majority of the letters had been written by Russian citizens, with neighboring Belarus and then Israel as the next two most common points of origin.

Israel is home to a large number of Russian Jews, including a large number of Soviet-trained scientists and engineers, who emigrated to the country during the late Soviet period or following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He said that letters were also received from Europe and the United States.

While the specialists at the design bureau were impressed with the ingenuity and level of technology involved in a number of the proposals, Sorokhin said that it was unlikely that they would figure significantly in the methods which will ultimately be used.

"For the present undertaking, it is unlikely that any of these would be sufficient," he said. 

"It's not that they wouldn't or won't be used in the future in other situations, it's just that what we're trying to lift here weighs about ten times more than any of them could handle."

TITLE: Brain Institute Fighting Manager's Syndrome
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: It may not be difficult for a select few to learn to work under pressure, consistently meeting grinding deadlines and then making the right decision within seconds.


But it may come as a surprise - or relief - to hear that those same people can't learn to relax, and meet nothing but desperation just trying to relax. They try and they fail - the tension builds, fatigue and stress take over and they develop what some local doctors are calling "manager's syndrome."

Working under stressful conditions but untrained to cope with stress, many people with demanding occupations develop this syndrome, which includes symptoms such as the inability to relax, memory lapses and irritability. Relaxing trips to the dacha, dancing the night away, psychoanalysis, alcohol and drugs may help some, but they are no panacea.

For the rest, who have tried everything, only to remain owl-eyed and frazzled, the St. Petersburg Institute of the Human Brain offers a new solution - a method based on the principle of "biological feedback," which enables the skill of managing one's own emotions.

"Everyone knows that a body needs physical training, and many people go to gyms," said Yury Kropotov, head of the neurobiological laboratory at the institute.

"But the human brain needs just as much training to stay healthy."

Training starts with a spider web of electrodes attached to a patient's head. These feed into an encephalogram - a device that monitors brain activity -and the patient and doctor observe this on a computer screen.

At first, the patient sees a fluctuating vertical column indicating brain activity. The newer the patient, the more this column will fluctuate. The goal, say doctors at the institute, is to gain a degree of control over one's own brain activity such that the fluctuating bar reaches higher plateaus on the screen, which indicate levels of stress control and concentration.

In order to obtain higher and higher levels of stress control, doctors at the institute examine possible calming influences for the patients: For some, it is simply closing their eyes, for others, the recollection of a calm place or experience helps them remaster their emotions. The key, say doctors, is the search for these highly subjective calming methods, which they say are present in all of us - even the stress-laden executives they treat.

As patients explore which calming methods work - or don't work - for them, the bar on the encephalogram will illustrate their progress.

The more positive results that occur, the more confident a patient becomes in mastering his or her own stress. This leads to the application of these methods in everyday life for the patient, and - hopefully - a more stress-free and balanced life overall.

The St. Petersburg Institute of the Human Brain has had so much success with this, say doctors, that they have begun applying the method to children who suffer from attention deficit disorder, a stress-related neural abnormality that prevents children from concentrating, and makes them disruptive in the classroom and restless in general. They often have similar symptoms to many of the stresses their adult counterparts experience.

The results have been, well, calming to say the least.

Vera Grin-Yatsenko, a researcher for the neurobiological laboratory, works with 8- and 9-year-olds who fit this psychological profile, and says that most of them take to it with "great enthusiasm."

The treatment costs 300 rubles per visit and lasts half an hour per session. Grin-Yatsenko said children needing the full course of treatment normally require 15 to 20 sessions.

By comparison, the adult course usually runs for 10 sessions.

But there are impressive results. Of the 60 adult patients treated so far, all have completed the course. 

Slightly fewer children have completed the course: of the 40 patients Grin-Yatsenko has taken, two thirds have stayed for the whole treatment.

"Only every eighth child cannot cope with the tasks," Grin-Yatsenko said. "If the child repeatedly fails we usually stop after the fifth time."

Nina Borisovna - who asked that her last name not be used - is the grandmother of 14-year-old Misha who is undergoing the therapy.

She said she has noticed much progress in his condition and is so far happy with the outcome.

"He goes to a school with a very intensive program, and he has been having difficulties in class and with doing his homework, because he couldn't concentrate," she said. "It was impossible for him to focus [on his studies], something distracted him all the time."

Nina Bo ri so v na said she was initially skeptical about the method used by the Brain Institute, but the results were impressive enough for her to reconsider.

"There are so many clinics and doctors offering their services," she said. "We decided to take a risk because we didn't want Misha to drop out of school. After the first visit I could see how much he has changed. Now he can manage to get deep into his studies and is learning to concentrate."

Yelena Olegovna, mother of nine-year-old Vanya, brought her child to the institute for a test. 

"He is definitely hyperactive, and recently he has been in fights at school," she said. "I heard about the positive results [at the Brain Institute] and find the method interesting. I think we'll go for it if the doctors say it can help Vanya."

The principle of biological feed back, developed by American neurophysiologist Neal Miller in the 1960s, has been successfully used by local medics before.

Yevgenia Popova, doctor of medical science at the Pavlov Institute of Physiology, has been using the principle of biological feedback in her method of curing phobias and fears since the 1980s.

"The principals of biological feedback enable people to cope with stressful situations, restore self-confidence and learn to organize their life," she said.

TITLE: Austria To Pay Russian Victims of Nazi Camps
AUTHOR: By Daniel Mclaughlin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russian survivors of Nazi-era slave-labor camps are now eligible for a share of some $415 million in compensation, which is to be offered by Austria's government and industry, a Vienna-based reconciliation fund said on Tuesday afternoon.


Fund representatives told reporters in Moscow, however, that about 150,000 East European victims of Adolf Hitler's forced labor programs in Austria would not receive any payouts until U.S. courts dropped ongoing litigation against a a number of Austrian firms.

"We have above all a moral responsibility to the people who suffered but also a responsibility to the people who are paying Austrian taxpayers and firms," said Ludwig Steiner, diplomat and chairman of the Austrian Reconciliation Fund.

"We have signed an agreement today with [the Russian] Fund for Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation as one of our partners in Central and Eastern Europe to help find those eligible for compensation," Steiner said.

The Austrian fund's secretary general, Richard Wotava, said that the country's business community was fully prepared to provide the vast majority of the 6 billion-schilling ($478 million) fund, but not as long as survivors' U.S. lawsuits are still threatening a number of Austrian companies with multi-billion-dollar lawsuits.

"This is an act of solidarity in the Austrian economy," Wotava said. "But the first condition is that legal action in the U.S. is withdrawn and we get judicial safety for Austrian enterprises.

"We are not talking peanuts, and they want to be sure they are not paying now only to be cited again in a U.S. court."

A New York court last week deferred a decision on the dismissal of a major class-action lawsuit against several leading German banks, which is delaying payments from a 10 billion-mark ($4.69 billion) fund that was set up by Germany's government and industry to compensate almost 1 million Nazi victims who are scatter all around the world.

Under an international accord signed last year, all of the outstanding lawsuits against German firms regarding their Nazi-era forced labor must be resolved before the payment of any compensation can begin.

There are believed to be about 150,000 East European survivors of Nazi forced-labor projects, which were set up in Austria after Hitler incorporated it into his Third Reich in 1938.

Wotava said that victims of concentration-camp regimes are supposed to receive up to 105,000 schillings ($8,360), and that forced factory and farm workers would get between a quarter and a third of that.

TITLE: Upper House Vetoes Prison Bill
AUTHOR: By Sarah Karush
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A bill aimed at easing conditions in the country's overcrowded jails, which had been passed unanimously by the State Duma, was stopped in its tracks Wednesday when the upper house of parliament heeded the Prosecutor General's last-minute protest.


The bill, which the Duma passed in December, was predicted to sail through the Federation Council and the Kremlin. Ironically, it was the Federation Council that submitted the bill, which was written by Justice Ministry experts, to the Duma.

But on Tuesday, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov sent a letter to Federation Council Speaker Yegor Stroyev, urging him and his colleagues to block the bill's passage.

Ustinov's deputy Sabir Kekhlerov on Wednesday came to the Federation Council to lobby in person, telling the session that the bill was "fraught with dangerous consequences for society."

The part of the bill that the prosecutors said they objected to would have shortened the amount of time a person can be held in jail during the pre-trial investigation to one year. Currently, investigators can, with the prosecutor general's permission, hold a defendant up to 1 1/2 years before the case goes to trial.

Oleg Filimonov, deputy head of GUIN, the Justice Ministry department that runs the prisons, said he was shocked by the prosecutors' 11th hour protest.

"I am surprised by the demarche of the Prosecutor General's Office," he said in a telephone interview. "The members of the Federation Council apparently gave in to the mood of panic".

The bill is the second piece of legislation aimed at reforming the Soviet-era Criminal Procedural Code to be blocked this month, apparently in the face of disapproval by law enforcement agencies. 

The first would have required arrests and searches to be sanctioned by a court. That bill was introduced by President Vladimir Putin in early January and withdrawn two weeks ago.

Wednesday's bill was expected to reduce the prison population by 200,000 to 300,000. Much of the decrease would have taken place in pre-trial detention centers, where tuberculosis is rampant and it is not uncommon for prisoners to sleep in shifts because of overcrowding.

Leonid Troshin, spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, said in a telephone interview that if passed, the bill rejected Wednesday could have led to the pre-trial release of "350 specific individuals accused of murder, rape or banditism."

He said those people had been held for more than a year, but investigators had not completed the investigations because they were counting on having 18 months.

But Alexander Urmanov, an aide to Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the Duma's committee on legislation and a former justice minister, said the limits on detention would not affect those arrested before the bill had become law.

"They're being very deceitful," Urmanov said of the prosecutor's office.

Stroyev denied that the Federation Council had caved to pressure from Ustinov.

"This law was ours from the beginning and it was aimed at decreasing the number of people held in pre-trial detention centers and prisons who are serving time for small violations. For example, for stealing a bag of grain," Interfax quoted Stroyev as saying. 

"The bill we introduced was 80 percent distorted by the Duma deputies, and instead of defending people who are not very guilty, they are asking us to defend criminals and murderers."

But Urmanov said the bill was not conceptually altered by the Duma. He and Filimonov from the Justice Ministry said the Prosecutor General's Office had participated in discussions of the bill at the Duma and had never raised such serious objections.

Troshin said they had objected, but nobody had listened.

In theory, the Duma could simply override the Federation Council's rejection with a two-thirds vote.

But Urmanov said that was unlikely. "Nobody likes to fight," the Duma aide said, adding that the Duma would likely take up the offer to form a conciliatory commission.

Filimonov expressed doubt that the Federation Council and the prosecutor's office really intend to compromise. "I'm afraid they are against the law altogether," he said.

It was unclear whether Putin supported the prosecutors' position.

TITLE: Studios Fight To Tell Story of Submarine
AUTHOR: By Molly Graves and Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: For 30 years, the crew of the K-19 Soviet nuclear submarine were forced to keep silent on the tragic accident that crippled their vessel and led to the deaths of eight of them.


Now, Hollywood wants finally to tell their tale. But two competing studios are fighting over who has the rights to reveal what happened in the North Atlantic on July 4, 1961.

In the middle of last month, a group of former K-19 crew members composed a statement objecting fiercely to a script proposed by Kathryn Bigelow, ex-wife of director James Cameron and the producer of blockbusters such as "Point Break" and "The Weight of Water."

Bigelow announced plans for her film, entitled "K-19: The Widowmaker," in September last year. The film's cast includes Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson.

However, Inna Gotman, a Russian-born American producer and president of Drawbridge Film company, is claiming she had been preparing to make a similar movie since 1994, when she first met the captain of the K-19, Nikolai Zateyev, and allegedly signed a deal with him for the exclusive rights to his personal story.

Lev Slavin, Gotman's co-producer in St. Petersburg, said in an interview on Thursday that Gotman first met representatives from Bigelow's Intermedia films International at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Gotman, he said, was looking for financial backing from the wealthier Intermedia company, and hoped they might collaborate on the K-19 project.

However, such a deal was never struck. Instead, not long after the Kursk submarine disaster in August, Gotman heard about Bigelow's plans to pursue her own project, which she claimed to have thought of long before Gotman's approach. 

Last December, Bigelow came to St. Petersburg with Ford and Neeson on a low-profile trip to meet the sub's crew and discuss details of the accident ahead of filming, which is due to start on Feb. 19, with film sites to include locations in Russia, Iceland, Canada and Norway. The visit was, by all accounts, a friendly one, crew and cast drinking together and toasting each other and the prospective film.

But after the meeting, when the crew saw the script of "K-19: The Widowmaker," they were horrified.

The statement from the K-19 crew reads: "Let Mr. Harrison Ford know he is participating in a shameful enterprise."

" [The script] is disgusting!" said crew member Yury Mukhin in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It portrays our crew as a bunch of stupid, disrespectful, eternally drunk Soviet sailors who played cards as the alarms were sounding." Mukhin added that drinking was in fact prohibited on board the submarine.

Igor Kudrin, head of St. Petersburg Submariners' Club, said that the atmosphere on the K-19 as the Intermedia script has it is "totally wrong."

"In the text, the submariners swear, beat each other, and show a total ignorance for their jobs," he said. 

Several scenes contained material that, according to Kudrin, described fictitious events, while the tone of the script in general was negative toward the Russian characters.

Bigelow could not be contacted this week for comment. Intermedia representatives said they did not know anything about the complaints.

By contrast, Mukhin said that the Drawbridge script, by Australian writer Michael Brindley, conveyed the true atmosphere of the K-19.

"We are real Soviet sailors in [his version]," Mukhin said, although he added that some technical corrections were necessary as well.

Meanwhile, Drawbridge and Intermedia have gone to court to pursue their respective claims, and to try and bar the other from releasing a film.

The battle centers on the rights to the stories of 13 key members of the crew, including Zateyev himself, who were most closely involved in saving the submarine - later nicknamed the Hiroshima - when its cooling systems suddenly began to leak, causing an abrupt drop in pressure and setting off the reactor's emergency systems.

Capt. Zateyev and his crew of 139 managed to deal with the problem, but only after subjecting themselves to severe radiation exposure, causing the deaths of eight crew members. The submarine was carrying ballistic missiles at the time.

Both companies filed lawsuits on Jan. 22 and 23 with the Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming exclusive rights to the personal stories. Intermedia also accused Drawbridge co-producers Gotman and Slavin of bribing crew members and telling them that they would go to prison if they cooperated with Intermedia - accusations Slavin denied.

Adam Siegler, of Beverley Hills law firm Siegler and Sexton, representing Drawbridge, said by telephone Thursday that Gotman and Slavin had exclusive contracts with Zateyev, his widow "and at least 12 crew members."

"Drawbridge has invested a great deal of time and effort into this project. The captain and his crew are heros, and their story should be properly told."

Siegler refused to say if production of "K-19: The Widowmaker" could be influenced by legal proceedings.

An attorney for Intermedia, Carla Christofferson, said Thursday that she believed Intermedia would be shown to have the rights necessary to make the film. She added, however, that she hoped the two studios would come to some sort of settlement.

If "K-19: The Widowmaker" is released - and Susan Phillips, Intermedia's production coordinator, said by telephone on Wednesday that as far as she knew, "everything is going ahead according to schedule" - it would not be the first time Hollywood has been accused of mangling the facts and putting forward Russian stereotypes.

The depiction of the lone drunk cosmonaut aboard a creaking space station apparently based on Mir in the film "Armageddon" had a number of State Duma deputies, including ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, up in arms.

Films such as "Red Heat," "Red Dawn" and the James Bond flicks have also been criticized for their vodka-and-bears approach to depicting Russians.

K-19 crew members said that Bigelow had promised a reworking of the script, but that numerous requests to receive a revised copy in Russian had been ignored. The said they therefore doubted a new version of the script actually exists.

TITLE: Prosecutors Formally Charge Mirilashvili
AUTHOR: By Masha Kaminskaya
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Mikhail Mirilashvili, a prominent Russian-Israeli businessman and vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress, was formally charged with kidnapping by prosecutors on Wednesday.


"The charge remains the same," said Gennady Ryabov, spokesman for the City Prosecutor - that Mirilashvili organized the abduction of two people last September. "Our preliminary investigation may take up to six months, but [we] hope to finalize the case earlier."

Mirilashvili's lawyer, Yury Novolodsky, called the charge "unsubstantiated, absurd and having no [chance in court]."

"I am 100 percent sure that the charge - which is more than vague - will fall to pieces in court," said Novolodsky on Thursday. "I expect prosecutors to provide more details. No court would accept the charge in its present state."

More prominent local citizens came to Mirilashvili's defense this week as another letter was circulated in the press Wednesday. The letter was addressed to the City Prosecutor's Office, and was signed by such figures as Andrei Petrov, head of the St. Petersburg Composers' Union, actors Oleg Basilashvili, Mikhail Boyarsky and Mikhail Svetin, poet and singer Alexander Rosenbaum and singer Lyudmila Senchina.

"We are especially worried to learn of the illegal methods of investigation applied to suspects [in the case]," it read. "Society will not accept the use in criminal proceedings of physical and psychological pressure, which we consider to be a serious violation of human rights."

"I don't know Mirilashvili personally, but I know of his [philanthropic] activities and of his kindness," said Basilashvili in a telephone interview on Thursday. 

Supporters of Mirilashvili have repeatedly pointed to his charitable work in St. Petersburg.

"Until [prosecutors] come up with a concrete charge, he should be released, even if he is placed under house arrest."

"I don't know if prosecutors are right, but it is unlawful to put pressure on suspects," Basilashvili added. 

Allegations of undue pressure surfaced earlier this week when supporters of Mirilashvili claimed that one of his associates was beaten while being questioned. The associate was Andrei Demyenko, deputy director of the Conti Group chain of casinosthat belongs to Mirilashvili. He was detained in connection with the kidnapping case last week.

According to Ryabov, prosecutors have started an investigation into the alleged beating. He said, however, that the allegations were "groundless." "The investigation will probably be finished soon, and according to its results it will be revealed there was no beating," he said.

Novolodsky said he will ask the court to have Mirilashvili released on bail or a guarantee he would not leave the city.

"Russian prosecutors typically keep a suspect in pre-trial detention [for more than two years]," he said. "I've heard investigators threaten suspects with [exactly that]."

Prosecutors are still refusing to reveal the identities of the two people who were allegedly kidnapped, or if they are still alive. According to Novolodsky, however, the two "must be alive and well, since somebody is giving evidence against my client."

Ryabov said that prosecutors also detained on Wednesday Mirilashvili's three bodyguards, who, he said, are suspected of taking part in the kidnapping.

If convicted, Mirilashvili could face up to 20 years in prison.

TITLE: Lawmakers, City Hall Bargain for a Legal Charter
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After months of exhaustive work, the Legislative Assembly finally passed its final version of the 100-plus City Charter amendments aimed at bring the document into accord with federal legal standards. 


But the process was characterized by last-minute amendment bartering between City Hall and Assembly deputies that extended the lawmakers' jobs by moving back their election date from December 2002 to April 2003. In exchange, the governor of St. Petersburg will be called the "Supreme Executive" when referred to on official state stationary. 

The last-minute paper chase is what lawmakers and City Hall hope will be the end of a procedure to bring the most significant piece of local legislation, the Charter, into accord with Federal legislation - using federal legislation as the yardstick.

This has been one of President Vladimir Putin's pet projects since he took office on New Year's Day 2000.

Although many more laws remain to be changed, the official deadline for such legislative revamps Russiawide was Jan. 1 - though it appears to be more a deadline of good faith than a sword of Damocles. 

Nevertheless, chaos reigned on the floor of the assembly, and at one point, lawmaker Oleg Sergeyev had to ask journalists what amendment was in fact being debated. 

Other events attending the final passage of the amendments were pre-vote sprints through the legislature by lawmakers who were trying to gather the signatures of their colleagues to attest falsely to their presence at this or that meeting, regarding this or that amendment. 

"Lawmaker [Alexei] Kovalyev was running around in the Legislative Assembly corridors trying to convince me to sign a protocol of a meeting that I did not attend," said Mikhail Amosov, head of the local Yabloko faction. 

" I don't even know if the meeting really took place," Amosov said.

Speaking for the Yabloko party, Amo sov said in a telephone interview Wednesday that: "We did not take a part in these negotiations, and we didn't even try to." 

During session, lawmakers twice recessed to consult with City Hall representatives who were charged with overseeing the amendment process. 

"City Hall agreed to make many concessions," said Mikhail Mik hai lov sky, head of the City Hall legal committee. 

"But the lawmakers tried to ruin everything that had been achieved."

All agreed however that the sand was slipping thought the hourglass - had it not passed the amendments, the Legislative Assembly could have been disbanded.

"The clock was ticking," said Mikhailovsky. 

Lawmakers seemed pleased with the passage of the amendments but some thought the election-date amendment may present later legal difficulties. 

"The decision looks to be fine, although there are some doubts concerning the legal grounds for the date of election, which could be reconsidered later [in court]," said Andrei Korchagin, a lawmaker from the Our City faction, in a telephone interview on Thursday. 

Nonetheless, City Hall was willing to capitulate on that point because, as lawmaker Leonid Romankov put it: "Yakovlev really wanted to have the title of the Supreme Executive." 

Among the things that have to be considered to solidify the new election date for lawmakers are a draft law that would reduce elections from two rounds to one. Other changes the draft law envisions is the notion that candidates who run for office put down a deposit of 90,000 rubles ($3,200) - instead of gathering the currently required 1,500 rubles - to become a Legislative Assembly candidate.

TITLE: Russia's 1st President Turns 70 in Hospital
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - On the eve of Boris Yeltsin's 70th birthday, a Russian magazine ran a full-page cartoon of the ex-president - slouched lethargically in a chair, eyes closed, head adorned with a tsar's crown. 


The man who once rallied millions is celebrating his 70th birthday Thursday virtually alone. Yet despite his seclusion, Yeltsin remains a compelling presence in Russia. 

Yeltsin is seeing in his 70th birthday in a government clinic in Moscow's western outskirts. He was hospitalized Tuesday with an acute fever and a suspected viral infection. 

"Some will always admire him for demolishing the communist empire, introducing democratic freedoms and liberalizing the economy," wrote Vlast magazine, which published the cartoon of Yeltsin-the-sleeping-czar. "Others will hate him for the same things." 

"For all of Yeltsin's faults, since he left there still has not appeared on Rusia's political stage a person with a personality that could compare to his." 

Among his first visitors at the hospital Thurday was his successor, Vladimir Putin, who came to power after Yeltsin resigned on New Year's Eve 1999.

A Kremlin spokesman gave no details of Putin's greeting but Interfax news agency said the two met for 40 minutes and were joined by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Putin's Chief of Staff, Alexander Voloshin.

Putin, is admired for his youth and vigor, and public opinion polls indicate he has restored Russians' hope for an economic and political revival. 

But Putin lacks his predecessor's flair for dramatic, populist gestures, his forceful style and his unpolished, man-of-the-people charm. Where Putin seems more of a steady builder, Yeltsin swept across Russia's landscape like a hurricane - at least until he was sidelined by ailments in the later years of his presidency. 

This week, two of Russia's major television channels are broadcasting in-depth documentaries on Yeltsin, and leading Russian magazines and newspapers have assessed his legacy. 

"Yeltsin was loved in a way that Putin, with his [popularity] ratings cannot even dream about," wrote Rustam Arifdzhanov, chief editor of Versiya weekly. "And Yeltsin was later hated and despised in a way that Putin will never have the talent or force to be."

Since his abrupt resignation a year ago, Yeltsin has been living quietly at a country residence outside Moscow, rarely appearing in public. He apparently has cut ties with most of his former allies. 

"We were all very attached to Boris Nikolayevich," said his former spokesman Vyacheslav Kostikov. "If Boris Nikolayevich so much as hinted he wanted us to drop by for a shot [of vodka] or for a cup of tea, of course we would have come and of course we would have been grateful. But it looks like Yeltsin has preserved no warm feelings for us." 

Yeltsin has seemed content in retirement and before his latest hospitalization, he said he felt healthier and more relaxed than he has in years. Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Dyachenko told the Interfax news agency Wednesday that he "might miss the Kremlin, its offices and corridors, miss the people working there a little bit, but not the power." 

Yeltsin released a remarkably emotional, personal memoir last fall, in an apparent attempt to counter the wave of hatred that engulfed him during his last years in office. 

Yeltsin is blamed for the bungled privatization efforts that enriched a few businessmen and impoverished millions of ordinary citizens, for Russia's defeat in the 1994-1996 war with Chechnya, for the loss of Russia's superpower status and for widespread corruption. 

After Putin became acting president, he signed a decree protecting Yeltsin from prosecution for acts committed in office. But the Russian parliament has approved a bill that could strip Yeltsin's immunity. 

Two weeks ago, former Kremlin property chief and Yeltsin ally Pavel Borodin was arrested in New York. Swiss authorities are seeking his extradition - and Russians are speculating about the secrets he could divulge about Yeltsin. 


- AP , Reuters

TITLE: Voloshin Handed Super-Region Reins
AUTHOR: By Sarah Karush
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Kremlin Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin, who is credited with orchestrating the rise of Vla dimir Putin, appeared to become even more entrenched in the Kremlin Tuesday when Putin gave him control over his representatives in the seven federal districts.


The move comes after weeks of wrangling between the representatives, who were appointed in May, and the Kremlin's old guard. Although recent reports had predicted the conflict would end with a victory for the presidential representatives, on the face of it they have lost. 

Putin decreed Tuesday that the Kremlin chief of staff should coordinate cooperation between the presidential representatives and the rest of the administration. The decree also states that the representatives must heed instructions issued by the chief of staff.

Previously, the representatives were accountable only to Putin.

"The representatives, who were hand-picked by Putin, have lost out to the old team," said Andrei Ryabov, a political analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center. "This is an acknowledgment of Voloshin's influence."

The representatives, most of whom come from the ranks of the military and law enforcement agencies, are seen as enjoying Putin's trust. In contrast, many see Voloshin as somebody Putin would like to get rid of if he could.

Ryabov said Voloshin, who was appointed Yeltsin's chief of staff in March 1999, was simply too entrenched for Putin to do anything about at the moment. Sidelining him would involve replacing dozens of people who are loyal to him, he said, and Putin does not have those kinds of personnel reserves.

"Politically things are going pretty well for Putin," Ryabov added. "Why rock the boat?"

Sergei Markov, director of the Center for Political Studies and editor of the Web site Strana.ru, said Putin has every reason to trust Voloshin, whom he called "a great professional."

"Not only was he the person who brought Putin to power - it's no secret who ran the election campaign - but he has been very loyal," Markov said, noting that Voloshin had broken off with tycoon and erstwhile Kremlin insider Boris Berezovsky. "How could you not value that?"

Voloshin was once considered Berezovsky's man in the Kremlin, and both were part of Yeltsin's powerful inner circle known as the Family. 

In 1993, Voloshin co-founded with Berezovsky the AVVA investment fund, which promised to develop a "people's car." The fund sold $50 million in shares, but few shareholders saw any returns.

Voloshin was reportedly behind the reappointment of Vladimir Ustinov, another figure with alleged links to the Family, as prosecutor general last year. Putin reportedly had been leaning toward appointing Dmitry Kozak, an old St. Petersburg ally and now a deputy of Voloshin. Many in the media have been predicting that the decree giving Voloshin control over the representatives would be accompanied by other reforms that would get rid of the main Territorial Directorate, the Kremlin department in charge of regional policy. According to media reports and regional policy analysts, the presidential representatives and the Territorial Directorate have been engaged in a months-long power struggle.

Markov said Tuesday the Territorial Directorate would likely continue to exist but would be streamlined. He called the reorganization a small victory for the representatives.

TITLE: Moscow Tries To Sort Out Diplomat-Defection Story
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it was seeking a meeting with one of its diplomats missing in the United States and criticized U.S. officials for raising the issue publicly.


Tretyakov, a first secretary at Russia's UN mission, was said on Tuesday to have "defected" to the United States by a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity. 

The official said that Tretyakov had inquired about remaining in the United States and defected last October with his wife, Yelena, and other members of his family. 

State Department officials said they did not know whether Tretya kov had applied for asylum. They also said they had no details about the legal basis for defecting from Russia, which is no longer considered a totalitarian country.

Yevgeny Voronin, deputy head of the foreign ministry's information department, said by telephone that officials had been trying to arrange a meeting with Sergei Tretyakov since he left his post in New York in October in "unexplained circumstances."

Voronin said Russian diplomats had been trying, under standard diplomatic practice, to arrange a meeting with Tretyakov to "ensure that he and his family were not coerced and that nothing happened to them."

"Rejecting our legal rights, the U.S. side at the same time for unknown reasons raised this question with journalists. We are somewhat surprised at this 'new style' shown by an anonymous representative of the U.S. State Department," he said.

He added that Moscow hoped the incident was just a result of the "inexperience" of the new administration of President George W. Bush in which we know staff changes are taking place."

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Almost Epidemic 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City health officials warned on Wednesday that St. Petersburg's flu and cold level of 7,412 infected people was rapidly approaching official epidemic proportions of 9,000, Interfax reported. 

According to the city branch of GozEpidNadzor, which monitors the spread of infectious illnesses, 30 to 50 people, mostly children, are hospitalized daily with the flu and severe colds, Interfax quoted the organization as saying. Currently 4,744 children are suffering from the flu, the agency said.



No Trial Yet

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office said the case of lawmaker Viktor Novosyolov, assassinated October 1999, will be passed to the court in about two months, Interfax reported. Last week, prosecutors said they would be charging four men with Novosyolov's assassination. 

Prosecutor's Office spokesman Gennady Ryabov said in an interview Thursday that a court date has not yet been set because police are still clarifying details about the roles the suspects played in the murder, though he would not elaborate. Ryabov also said police are still investigating who ordered the assassination.



Borodin Case

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors Wednesday renewed invitations to Swiss colleagues to come to Moscow to investigate allegations against Pavel Borodin, a former top Kremlin aide now jailed in New York, Interfax reported. 

Russian investigator Ruslan Tamayev spoke to Geneva prosecutor Bernard Bertossa by telephone and offered to host Swiss prosecutors looking into the case, Interfax said. 

Swiss prosecutors accuse Borodin, who ran the Kremlin's huge property holdings under former President Boris Yeltsin, of laundering millions of dollars in kickbacks received in exchange for construction contracts from Swiss firms.



Judges Get Life

MOSCOW (SPT) - The Federation Council agreed Wednesday to abolish the age limit for Constitutional Court judges and allow them to keep their seats for up to 15 years. 

Previously, judges appointed to the court after 1994 could serve for 12 years and had to retire when they reached 70. Critics of the legislation, introduced by President Vladimir Putin and passed last week by the State Duma, called it a "one-man bill" designed to prolong the tenure of the court's 69-year-old chairman, Marat Baglai. 



Heat Hits Gov.'s Heart

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vla dimir Putin turned up the heat Wed nesday on the Primorye region governor, blaming him for the plight of thousands of people left to shiver in sub-zero temperatures.

Yevgeny Nazdratenko, governor of the energy-starved region, was taken to the hospital with serious heart trouble hours before he was due to face fellow governors in the Federation Council.

Putin also lashed out at power monopoly Unified Energy Systems and the Energy Ministry for turning a blind eye on dramatic fuel shortages in the region.

Nazdratenko's spokesman said the governor collapsed because he took people's suffering too close to heart.

TITLE: Spy Book Finds 'True' Moscow Publisher
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A second publisher for the memoirs of former British spy Richard Tomlinson came forward Tuesday, saying previous announcements of the book being published in Russia may be "an English joke."


Two weeks ago, a man calling himself Sergei Korovin said that he had organized the publishing of the book, which tells of Tomlinson's time in the MI6 foreign intelligence service, through previously unknown publisher Narodny Variant. 

Even though 10,000 copies of the book "The Big Breach" were supposedly published, the book has been almost impossible to find. Korovin has never been seen in public. MI6 says Korovin is a member of the Russian foreign intelligence service.

New publisher Shota Kakabadze told a packed news conference Tuesday that Tomlinson gave him approval to publish the book last week and that Korovin and Narodny Variant were probably fictitious names.

"What is Narodny Variant? When I tried to answer this question for myself, I thought that maybe it is an English joke by the author," Kakabadze said. 

Insisting that his firm, LCIC Ltd., was genuine, Kakabadze said the book would be published in English by the end of February and soon after in Russian. 

Refusing to say where Tomlinson was, Kakabadze pulled out his mobile phone and tried to phone him during the news conference, but got no answer.

"Maybe he's out walking the dog," joked Kakabadze. Tomlinson was sacked by MI6 in 1995 and decided to author a book of memoirs not long afterward. 

He was jailed in 1997 for breaching Britain's Official-Secrets Act with the proposed book, and he later fled abroad. 

Britain slapped an injunction on the book, but last week reversed itself after the Sunday Times newspaper published extracts and challenged the court order.

Journalists scrambled to get one of five copies of the book left by Kakabadze after the news conference, and organizers decided to draw lots. 

The first winner was a man from the U.S. Embassy.

TITLE: EU Ambassadors Invite NTV Over for Talks on Russia's Media
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - European Union ambassadors met journalists from NTV on Wed nesday in what the reporters said was a gesture of support in their battle against prosecutors and a hostile takeover bid.


NTV's parent company, Media-MOST, is seeking a Western investor to stave off a takeover bid by Gazprom-Media, which it says would be fatal for press freedom in Russia. 

Sven Hirdman, the Swedish ambassador to Moscow, greeted the journalists invited to lunch at his plush embassy.

"We in the European Union pay considerable attention to the media and support independent media," Hirdman said in carefully worded remarks at the outset of the embassy meeting. "We therefore thought we should meet and exchange ideas and get your assessment of the situation." 

In the latest blow to the embattled NTV, a court ruled Tuesday that it must retract a report about the prosecutor general's alleged wrongdoing in obtaining a luxury apartment from the government. 

NTV General Director Yevgeny Kiselyov, speaking to reporters after the Tuesday verdict, said NTV might challenge the verdict before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France - making the EU Ambassador's invitation on Wednesday all the more poignant. 

Before meeting with Hirdman, Kiselyov - who led his team into the Kremlin on Monday - said he would explain "why the state is trying to establish tougher control over independent media and the consequences for Russia and the rest of Europe." 

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov had filed a lawsuit against NTV and anchorman Kiselyov, urging them to rescind reports alleging that he hadn't paid taxes for the apartment. The Moscow City Court ruled in Ustinov's favor Tuesday, obliging Kiselyov and NTV to apologize. 

"Today's decision makes each of us, and, I hope, society in general, ponder the fact that the prosecutor's office here is above the law and the courts," Kiselyov said after the verdict. "This is alarming and dangerous." 

NTV reports broadcast in July and September implied that Ustinov had received an apartment from Pavel Bo ro din, the former head of the Kremlin's property department. The reports questioned whether he'd paid the necessary taxes and called his independence into doubt. 

Ustinov insisted that he was exempt from paying taxes on the apartment because of a law on the relocation of expert state officials to Moscow from elsewhere. He asked the court to defend his "honor and dignity." 

Last month, Ustinov's office closed an investigation into allegations that Borodin had received tens of millions dollars in kickbacks from Swiss construction companies that had renovated the Kremlin, citing a lack of evidence.

But Swiss prosecutors have continued the investigation, and issued a warrant for his arrest. Borodin was detained in New York earlier this month and is in jail awaiting an extradition trial. 

NTV, the only one of the nation's three main television stations that is independent of the government, has run numerous exposes on Borodin's case and other instances of alleged high-level corruption. 

NTV and its parent company, Media-MOST, have been locked in a long battle with prosecutors who accuse their chairman Vladimir Gusinsky of fraud. 

With Gusinsky under house arrest in Spain pending a hearing on a Russian extradition request, prosecutors have carried out a series of searches and interrogations at Media-MOST and NTV and recently jailed one of its financial managers. 

Gusinsky told a Spanish court on Wednesday that he would fight extradition to Russia to face fraud charges, reiterating that he was a victim of a political campaign.

"It is clear to everyone in Spain and elsewhere not just that the trial has obvious political undertones but that it is...without substance," Gusinsky told reporters after appearing before Judge Baltasar Garzon. The case now goes to the High Court in Madrid.


- Reuters, AP, SPT

TITLE: Proposed Press Law Threat to Reporting
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A group of State Duma deputies have drafted a raft of amendments to the law on mass media that, among other things, would forbid journalists from shielding their sources and would outlaw any reports that could be perceived as instigating riots.


While some liberal lawmakers said the proposals, which are now under discussion in the Duma, would never stand a chance of making it into law, they warned that the draft was a trial balloon to see how such restrictive measures would be greeted.

The bill was drawn up by five deputies from the pro-Kremlin Unity party, Fatherland-All Russia and Vla di mir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party.

None of the deputies was available for comment Monday.

Under the proposed amendments, a section of the current law that prohibits open calls for riots is changed to sound more like the instigation of riots. The language used in the draft could be interpreted to apply to anything from open calls for riots to criticism of the authorities.

An article in the current law that grants and describes the status of a journalist would be eradicated. That section of the law allows journalists to protect their sources and gain access to areas otherwise closed to civilians.

Sergei Ivanenko, the deputy head of the liberal Yabloko faction, said Monday that depriving journalists of their special status would simply end any kind of reporting from areas such as war zones.

"It is as simple as being detained for interviewing a Chechen rebel and having to report everything to the authorities," Ivanenko said in a telephone interview. 

"Erasing the formal right of access via accreditation would make journalists equal to civilians who are often prohibited from entering dangerous zones on the grounds that it is unsafe," he said. "This will mean that no journalist will ever again be able to go to Chechnya."

In another proposed amendment, journalists would be held liable for any reports that could potentially harm a person's business or political image. 

News of the draft is triggering an outburst from liberal politicians in the Duma. 

Even the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia factions were quick to distance themselves from the initiatives of their deputies, stressing Monday that they had nothing to do with the amendments.

Unity leader Boris Gryzlov called the amendments "a technical hitch" made by the authors, saying that while the media law may be in need of an update, the deputies' proposals would undermine the freedom and independence of the press.

Ivanenko said, however, that the amendments were more than just an accident. Instead, he said, the proposals were a trial balloon to test how alert the parliament and the general public are to attempts to limit freedom of speech.

"These amendments, which are unlikely to go anywhere this time, show that the atmosphere is not terribly good in terms of protecting free press," Ivanenko said. 

"I am sure there will be more attempts to tighten the screws in the upcoming months."

TITLE: Study: Expat Managers Ethical, Big-Headed
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The ties are off.


Expat managers suffer from a false sense of superiority. They ignore local traditions. They fail to learn from new experiences. And they insist too much on doing things the "Western" way.

Russian managers have an over-acute sense of nationalism. They are mistrustful and cynical about the future. They prefer form over substance. And they are ready to take bribes at the drop of a hat.

These are the kinds of things that the bulk of Russian and foreign business people think about each other, according to a new study carried out by professional headhunters Slava/IIC Partners, which polled 40 international companies working in Moscow.

The primary purpose of the study was to look at prevailing trends in the local labor market and compare what employers look for in choosing a native over an expatriate manager or vice versa, said Slava/IIC Partners director Vya cheslav Volkov.

The study, which was presented to the European Business Club on Wed nesday, pinpoints a number of misperceptions on both sides of the business community's nationality divide.

For instance, 74 percent of Westerners feel that their Russian language skills aren't good enough to do their job well. At the same time, only 28 percent of Russian managers felt the same about the linguistic proficiency of their Western colleagues.

Another misconception is how native managers view their own education. Of those questioned in the study, 33 percent said they are "generally better educated and cultured" than their Western peers.

Only 1 percent of expats share that point of view.

But on the good side, expatriate managers were impressed with the adaptability, work ethic and low cost of their Russian counterparts.

Westerners, from the viewpoint of Russian managers, have a strong sense of business ethics, take proactive stances, manage people well and excel at strategic planning.

Volkov's study also reveals that the number of Russian employees in key positions at Western firms has doubled to 41 percent since the 1998 crisis.

There are some positions, however, that remain almost an exclusive playground for expats - general manager, chief financial officer and head of marketing. In human resources it is a 50-50 game, while in logistics and sales expats win by a narrow margin.

Another interesting conclusion from the study is that Russians do not view a job in marketing as a path toward a top position in a company - which might explain why 62 percent of people in that field are female, while in all other fields the majority are male, Volkov said.

However, on a case-by-case basis, it is difficult to draw any generalizations. In such a fast-changing business environment, many Russian professionals don't stay at one company long enough to climb the traditional corporate ladder.

Alexander Chernov left Coca-Cola after four years in 1999 to join Yukos, only to switch to rival Tyumen Oil Co. as its PR director.

Chernov is now working on a book contrasting his experiences in the two different working environments.

"Foreigners often try to keep away from local culture," Chernov said. "As for locals, they often fall into two extremes - either taking as law everything that foreigners say, or disagreeing with every word."

TITLE: Steel Cos. Push for WTO Deal
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's largest steelmaker, Severstal, has a bone to pick with its potentially most lucrative customers, Europe and the United States.


The company is eager - and able - to produce hundreds of millions of dollars worth of steel each year for these markets but has found its access forcefully capped.

And there is nothing Severstal can do about it.

The steel giant's hands are tied because more than 20 years after Russia took its first steps to join what is now the world's main regulator and arbitrator of trade - the World Trade Organization - it still isn't a member.

"It would be easier to carry out trade talks if we were a member of WTO," said Yury Chernikov, head of research at Severstal.

Chernikov's longing for Russia to be accepted into the fold of WTO nations is echoed these days by a growing number of companies. They want to boost their competitiveness in the global economy by operating on par with other countries under WTO's clearly defined rules of the game.

The largest exporters - oil and aluminum giants - couldn't care less about WTO membership because their commodities are easily tradable on international exchanges.

But the cost of being excluded from WTO's playing field for many other industries - like steel - is estimated to run into billions of dollars each year.

Government officials agreed in 1999 to limit exports to the United States in a preemptive strike against seeing anti-dumping sanctions slapped on domestic steel producers. The European Union followed suit in early 2000 by lowering Russia's steel quota to 12 percent amid anti-dumping concerns.

Steelmakers find the rulings hard to swallow but they have little recourse.

However, with every advantage WTO membership would offer comes a downside. The flipside on gaining access to other markets is that Russia would be forced to lower its protectionist trade barriers. Such a prospect strikes fear into the heart of some industries and has compelled Russia to take baby steps in its membership bid for the past five years.

Take, for example, the makers of Moskvich and Zhiguli cars. They have seen sales flourish in the current customs regime under which tariffs of more than 25 percent are levied on imported Fords, Mercedes and Toyotas.

Even steelmakers are concerned when it comes to cars. About half of their output is snapped up by domestic consumers, the largest of which are the automobile and pipe industry.

"A drop in demand on the part of carmakers could outweigh all other potential benefits [of WTO membership]," said Chernikov at Severstal.

"We need some protective measures to defend the domestic market," he said.

The Economics Ministry says Russia will certainly pay a price by joining the WTO, but no one knows for sure what the cost might be.

"None of the countries [that have joined] are able to make an exact count of what the WTO membership cost," said Alexander Orlov, a departmental head at the Economics Ministry who is involved in WTO negotiations.

Two of Russia's close neighbors - Kyr gyzstan and Georgia - brought their import tariffs down to zero and immediately saw their WTO applications get the green light. But both countries subsequently saw their economies slow down.

So Russia has instead opted for a tedious bargaining path.

Even the Soviet leadership back in 1978 was forced to recognize the advantages of being a member of WTO's predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. A committee was set up that year to look into the Soviet Union's application into the organization. But attempts to join over the next decade were blocked by GATT members who objected to the lack of a free market economy.

A newly democratic Russia filed an application with GATT in 1994 and entry talks began. GATT was transformed into the WTO the following year, and negotiations have stretched on ever since.

Russia's interest in entering the WTO gained momentum last year under the administration of President Vladimir Putin. The president courted world leaders at a summit in Brunei last November over Russia's entry.

The government is scrambling to draw up laws bringing Russian legislation in line with that of WTO members.

In the meantime, the Economics Ministry is carrying out bilateral talks with 50 WTO members over obtaining the highest levels of import duties possible on a wide range of products.

In a bid to show its goodwill, the government cut tariffs at the start of 2001 on 3,500 items.

"The move to lower tariffs this year was aimed to demonstrate that we are eager to open our markets up," said Alexander Vodyanov, deputy director of the Economics Ministry's Institute of Macroeconomic Research.

TITLE: Europe's Air Regulations May Bar Russian Planes
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russian-built passenger and cargo jets without airborne collision-avoidance systems will be banned from the European skies as of April 1.


The requirement, which was set three years ago by Europe, could keep many of the aging workhorses - Tu-134, Tu-154, Il-62 and Il-76 jets - of Russian aviation out of the continent.

Russia's State Civil Aviation Service could not say Wednesday how many airlines or how many aircraft will be affected.

One aviation service official said that while the needed ACAS-2s collision-avoidance systems have been installed on some aircraft, not all would be able to make the April deadline.

Major air carriers like Aeroflot and East Line said they are not worried since they have been busy upgrading their fleets and have all but a handful of aircraft left on the waiting list.

Even though the airlines had three years leeway, many have procrastinated or simply not found the funds to install the needed ACAS-2s.

Sergei Masterov, from the Flight Safety Department of the Federal Aviation Service, said that the system costs about $200,000, depending on the manufacturer.

While the price tag is steep, major carriers do not seem overly upset.

Aeroflot spokesperson Alexander Lopukhin said most of the airline's fleet of more than 100 jets have the collision-avoidance system installed.

Aeroflot has 26 Tu-154Ms, 13 Il-62s, 12 Tu-134s and 11 Il-76s.

"We learned about the requirement 1 1/2 years ago and have been dealing with it since," Lopukhin said. "This is not a problem for us. We are ready."

The Volga-Dnepr cargo giant said that it would try to be ready to meet the deadline. Volga-Dnepr operates a fleet of mostly An-124-100s.

"It's only the smaller carriers that will face difficulties," said Volga-Dnepr's spokesperson Alexander Ste pa nenko. "For us, upgrading is routine work. They [other carriers] may not have the financial resources to do it."

After the April deadline, airlines will have to deal with a couple other requirements that will come into effect next year.

One rule will require an altimeter upgrade at a cost of about $100,000 per plane.

Another will require aircraft to meet noise-level standards set in 1995 by the International Civil Aviation Organization, which come into effect Jan. 1, 2001.

ICAO spokesman Denis Chag non said that airlines around the world were given seven years to bring down engine noise levels.

Airlines could be forced to pay about $1 million per jet to meet the new rules, according to Moscow-based aviation analyst Paul Duffy.

This is a much more costly upgrade, one airline representative fretted Wednesday.

"Only Tu-204, Yak-42 and Il-96 craft will comply with it," he said.

TITLE: Telecom Gives Axe To Ericsson Agreement
AUTHOR: Leonid Konik
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The reorganization of St. Petersburg's telecommunications companies has led to the cancellation of a contract Ericsson of Sweden originally signed with St. Petersburg Intercity and International Telephone (SPB MMT) for the supply of $2 million worth of "intelligent network" equipment.


Intelligent networks control tele communications services through computer-based, service-independent platforms rather than from traditional telephone exchanges.

Vladimir Akulich, the director of long-distance services at St. Petersburg Telephone Network (PTS) confirmed that the contract with Ericsson had been canceled. SPB MMT, along with St. Petersburg Telegraph (SPT) will ultimately be absorbed into PTS as a result of the merger agreement which was finalized at the end of last year.

Officials at Ericsson and SPB MMT signed a letter of intent for the deal in February of last year and the contract was signed at the beginning of June. The deal called for the delivery of the equipment to begin in August 2000 and for it to be operating by the end of the year.

The installation of the intelligent networks would have expanded the range of services offered between cities. The most valued ability of intelligent networks is their ability to provide complete information about services offered to subscribers calling toll-free and the installation of a link for collect calls, teleconferences, and telephone polling.

The merger of SPB MMT along with SPT into PTS raised warning flags for the Swedish company. In contrast to SPB MMT, which was operating using basic equipment supplied by Ericsson, over the last five years PTS has been purchasing telephone station equipment from Lucent Technologies and NEC. 

On Monday Ericsson's representative office in Russia confirmed that it has received a written cancellation of the contract from SPB MMT.

Akulich said that the agreement had been terminated because Ericsson had failed to attain proper certification for its equipment within the time stipulated by the contract. Ericsson's office said that the certification of the intelligent networkswas in the process of being finalized.

Ericsson's management has expressed their hope that PTS will be interested in continuing to work with the equipment.

"We believe that the platform for intelligent networks is already in place now, and that the role of these services will grow with every year," Alexander Nikolayev, the director of Ericsson International's Investor Relations Department said.

But PTS management regards the perspectives for the new technology with some skepticism.

"These intelligent networksare kind of like nuclear technology," Akulich said. "It's like using a sledgehammer to crack nuts."

Akulich said that many of the functions of the new system would be difficult to utilize given the obsolete character of the PTS network that would be called on to support them.

TITLE: 'Missing Cargoes' Stall Trucking Deliveries
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A flap over $36 million in cargoes that Russian customs authorities say were never delivered has brought work by 1,300 of the 2,500 trucks in the northwest branch of Russia's International Truck Drivers Association (ASMAP) to a halt over the last two weeks.


And Yury Romanov, chief of St. Petersburg's external transport committee said that this will definitely be a blow to the amount of transport activity to the city.

The heads of 187 of the 337 trucking firms that are members of the region's branch of ASMAP met last Thursday to protest an astronomical hike in the cost of carrying freight into Russia from abroad.

At the center of the controversy is the Carnet-TIR form which must accompany each truck carrying cargo across the border into Russia. The document contains information about the truck as well as its cargo, route and destination.

More importantly, it provides the operator with cargo insurance of up to $50,000 from the International Insurance Pool (IIP) - a European organization made up of major insurance providers.

In Russia, Carnet-TIR forms are issued by ASMAP - the Russian chapter of the International Route Union (IRU), which is based in Geneva. ASMAP and IRU are both nonprofit organizations set up to represent the interests of carriers of international freight. The main function of the organizations is to provide insurance guarantees for the freight they carry, and IRU extends this insurance to ASMAP through an agreement with IIP.

In the past, drivers or companies applying for the Carnet-TIR forms needed to carry freight from abroad were required to provide $7,500 as an insurance guarantee and pay $60 for the card itself

A letter to all members of ASMAP dated Jan. 15, from the organization's general director, Mikhail Nizov, contained an attachment from the ASMAP central council, which is based in Mos cow, outlining the changes in the process.

One change states that "those drivers of leased or rented trucks who wish to be covered by the Carnet-TIR process must provide a guarantee of funds of $20,000 to cover each transport unit or to furnish a guarantee from a bank for the same amount."

Only these trucks are covered, as in cases where the operator owns the truck, the value of the vehicle itself is used as collateral to guarantee the cargo.

Further, "Those truck drivers with less than two years of experience working within the Carnet-TIR system, in addition to that mentioned above, must furnish ASMAP with a guarantee from a bank of $50,000."

"This addition to the rules makes it impossible for a significant number of truck drivers to continue operating," Alexander Kuzmin, a lawyer at Ispitatel holding, which is an ASMAP member, said Wednesday.

The trouble began in July 2000. According to statements made at last week's meeting by Mikhail Nizov, an audit of archived documentation from 1998 conducted by the State Customs Committee (GTK) concluded that out of 150,000 cargoes carried by Russian drivers from abroad to Russia in that year there were 887 cases where the cargo was never delivered. GTK says that the value of the cargo was $36 million.

Valter Velsman, the head of the Northwest branch of ASMAP, said that the customs committee then filed a claim with IIP for $36 million.

At the meeting Nizorov said that ASMAP's own investigation had determined that in 99 percent of the cases the Carnet-TIR forms had been issued by the association's Northwest branch.

As a result, IRU and IIP, which are responsible for covering the claims against their Russian branch, on Dec. 15 sent an order to stop the issue of Carnet-TIR forms in the Northwest Region. 

Then, on Sunday, IRU sent a special commission of six specialists from their head office in Geneva to carry out an audit of the Moscow and Northwest offices of ASMAP, which was to take seven days to complete. The commission arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, but members of the commission refused to comment on what they are looking for or what they expect to find.

According to Valery Volkov, who chaired Thursday's meeting and is the general director of Nevsko-Baltiiskaya Transport Company, a member of ASMAP, in this case the term "nondelivery" has a special meaning.

"Russia's customs service monitors each truck and cargo from the moment it crosses the border," Volkov explained last Friday. "When the truck crosses the border it is assigned a customs terminal, depending on the destination of the cargo where the duties must be paid."

"The duties are paid by the consignee, as the cargo belongs to him," Vol kov said. "The problem is that the truck driver or the transport firm is legally responsible for payment of customs duties, while whether the consignee pays or not isn't under the driver's control." 

"The truck drivers and transport firms involved have all the necessary documents bearing the stamp signifying that the duties were paid," Volkov said. "But the customs officials are claiming that the stamps were falsified."

As a result, GTK filed the claim with IIP over 887 cases of nondelivery because they say duties were not paid.

But Volkov said that no consignees have filed claims for the "undelivered" cargoes.

"I can't understand where the $36 million figure came from."he added.

TITLE: Global eye
TEXT: Party Poopers


"Tories Admit Failure to Attract Women." - Headline, The Daily Telegraph, Jan. 26.

In a shocking confession of amatory impotence, Britain's Conservatives hung their collective head in shame last week as the party's leaders reportedly lined up to catalogue their shortcomings in the sack.

The shaved head has been a dismal failure, says Conservative leader William Hague. "I thought the gals would really go for the Telly Savalas suave thing, but all I get is, 'Ooh, let me rub that cute little peach fuzz,'" the embittered Tory chief reportedly said. "I haven't pulled a bird in donkey's years."

Even the nattily attired, Iberian-descended shadow chancellor Michael Portillo is suffering from romantic drought. "They say Spanish blood runs the hottest, but boy howdy, am I getting the cold shoulder these days," Portillo reportedly moaned. "I don't know what it is. I mean, look at these pouty lips. Check out these shoulders. And this damn fine Saville Row suit, for God's sake. What the hell do these women want, anyway?"

The same litany of woe was heard from other luminaries in Hague's high-profile team of major political players. "Dry spell? My love life is the bloody great Sahara Desert, mate," Francis Maude, shadow minister of something or other that has to do with trade or foreign policy or whatever, reportedly said. "Let's face it, we're just rat poison to the babes, the whole lot of us. We couldn't get laid at a Roman orgy."

Next Up: "Tories To Increase Intraparty Breath Mint Allocations." - The Sunday Times, Feb. 24.



Chain Reaction


An elderly French woman faced a spot of bother in court last week for an ancient practice that seems to be making a comeback these days, with the restoration of "old-fashioned values" so much in the air.

Slavery.

Former haute couture hawker Francoise Saunier, 76, was given a one-year suspended sentence in Versailles last week for keeping Anne-Pierette Drossard in an unheated shack in the bottom of her garden for 30 years, BBC News reports. Drossard lived as an unpaid servant, sewing away on Madame Saunier's pricey frocks in exchange for one meal a day - a bag of scraps hung on a nail outside the door - and access to the garden hose for water. No money was allowed to sully Saunier's noblesse oblige, however.

Undaunted by the court's judgement (which, admittedly, was not that daunting for a serious crime of 30 years' duration), Saunier said she had actually performed a great act of Chavezian mercy, taking in Drossard in 1969 when she had lost her mother and had no place to live. The fact that Drossard was allowed to wither away in miserable isolation - she was almost dead when she was found by neighbors - is just so much merde compared to Madame's great generosity, Saunier insisted.

"I tried to help that woman," the benevolent slave owner told the press. "All that trouble I went to, all those years, and what have I got out of it? Bother and worry, that's all, bother and worry. It has left me disgusted with humanity."

Our sentiments exactly, Madame Saunier.



Manufacturing Consent


Ever wonder how a mean-spirited, revenge-minded, hard-right multimillionaire ideologue with a public record of sweetheart-dealing, special-interest toadying, environmental spoilage, pseudo-religious humbuggery and legalized slaughter on an unprecedented scale was somehow transformed into warm, folksy "guy of the people" with a big heart and a twinkle in his eye?


One clue might be found in a message sent last week to an inquiring citizen by Fox News anchorman Brit Hume. The Murdoch jabber-jockey gave a highly effective lesson in modern media message management, demonstrating the fabled "Tunnel Vision" principle that guides so much of our informed journalistic discourse these days.

An unnamed viewer sent a blanket e-mail to several political reporters, condemning the networks' inauguration coverage for mostly ignoring the mass protests - the largest since the Vietnam War - that marked the proceedings, The Washington Post reports. "Why have you not covered the grass-roots anti-inaugural protests as much as the Bush-sponsored inaugural events?" the viewer wrote. "Why have you chosen instead to serve as a public relations arm for the Bush presidency?"

Hume - who had been tipped for a top job in the public relations arm of the Bush presidency but has evidently decided to sit tight at his big-bucks post with Rupert - zinged back this message to the upset citizen: "Do you seriously think a news organization should ignore the swearing-in of a new president in favor of scattered protests around the country?" Hume wrote, conveniently eliding the citizen's plea for equal coverage into an unreasonable demand that the inauguration be "ignored," while also downgrading the presence of 20,000 protesters in Washington alone as a "scattering" of malcontents out in the boondocks.

"Besides," continued Hume, whose network hired Bush's cousin for a key role in its election-night coverage, "we knew that covering it the way we did would infuriate you personally, and that was an added plus."

Now that's the kind of state-media synergy we like to see! Look for lots more of this in the great days ahead!



Offered Without Comment


"During almost all of recorded human history, the overwhelming majority of mankind has been governed by rulers determined by heredity, or selected by a powerful aristocracy, or imposed through sheer force of arms. This is not entirely the result of the application of superior force against the multitudes. There is something in human nature that wants a 'leader' [the old German word is Fuhrer]." - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Wall Street Journal column, Sept. 7, 1999.

"AUSTIN, Texas - A national textbook publisher has bowed to pressure from Republican lawmakers and agreed to remove a picture and reference to former vice president Al Gore in a fifth-grade reader that will be used in Texas schools." - The Dallas Morning News.

"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if the people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance." - Walt Whitman.

TITLE: CITY STATE
TEXT: Cherkesov as a Putin-Gogol Collaboration 


WHEN Viktor Cher kesov first came up to take charge of the Northwest Region, he didn't seem to be up to much.


As one of the seven governor generals tasked by President Vladimir Putin to keep regional authorities under the federal thumb, Cherkesov's initial actions were more farcical than fearsome: commandeering Wedding Palace No. 3 for his offices, and moving a beer tent a bit further away from his dacha in Sestroretsk.

To begin with, nobody was sure exactly what he was up to - and sometimes one got the impression his own staff didn't know, either. The usual response from his press office was to claim ignorance, feigned or genuine, even when a question would seem to concern the governor general directly.

Replace the word "governor" with the word "inspector," however, and one starts to see why the authorities here were treading carefully. Every time Cherkesov put in a public appearance, city politicians could see Putin's face looming over his shoulder. And by not appearing too often, Cherkesov maintained an aura of menace and mystery in the minds of local officials. As in Gogol's plat, The Inspector General, they are thinking: "We don't know who he is, but he looks damn important, so we'd better get on his good side."

Unlike the government inspector, however, Cherkesov silently undermined Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev's influence in various areas as the year wore on. He moved on from petty local laws to business, diplomatic and security issues, to the point that now people prefer to deal with the governor general rather than the governor. Newly arrived consuls meet Cherkesov first, and only then talk to Yakovlev - if they talk to him at all.

Yakovlev took it all calmly, apparently indifferent to the waning of his powers and happy enough to enjoy what was left. After all the talk of the Kremlin being bent on forcing Yakovlev out of office, Yakovlev is still in a job, and grateful for it.

In local political circles, the talk is that Yakov lev saved his position by agreeing to toe the Mos cow line and let Cherkesov - former head of the Leningrad KGB - and his cronies take over. It certainly looks that way: All law-enforcement bodies, the police, the FSB, the City Prosecutor's Office and even the courts, have a new chief now, and they know it.

Take Tatyana Gunko, the City Court judge who in late 1999 made a clearly erroneous ruling on moving gubernatorial elections forward - a decision overturned by the Supreme Court for equally political reasons.

But Gunko, once on the governor's side, is now issuing dire warnings about how the president has the right to dismiss Yakovlev if he issues decrees that contradict federal legislation.

What influence Yakovlev still has could be removed by quietly appointing him to some decorative position in the Russia-Belarus Union - a sideways move if ever there was one. A name that has come up as a possible replacement is Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of the presidential administration, who once worked for Yakovlev.

Alexander Afanasyev, Yakovlev's spokesman, has tried to put a brave face on things, saying that there is nothing to worry about, nothing has changed, and everyone is getting on with their jobs.

But the governor can't be happy with Cherkesov in his backyard. The inspector general has turned out to have more bite than expected, and Yakovlev is left holding only a broom.

TITLE: PALACE INTRIGUE
AUTHOR: By Barnaby Thompson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Why Inner-City Schools Are Like Our Legislature 


THIS week's session at the Legislative Assembly gave some indication why the Speaker's chair was left empty for a 1 1/2 years. Not, as you might think, because of what happened to the last speaker, Yury Kravtsov, who was ousted by Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev for trying to turn the assembly into a more powerful body, but more probably for the same reason that there are teacher shortages in unruly inner-city schools.


The rowdy classroom atmosphere of parliaments in many countries is a fact of life, and the behavior of St. Petersburg's lawmakers on Wednesday was pretty much in that vein: lots of jumping up and down, queues for the microphones to make pointless interruptions, and Speaker Sergei Tarasov beseeching deputies to shut up and get on with it. "Gentlemen, please, stop talking and get voting!"

What made Tarasov wish he'd never taken the job, however, was one of the many amendments to the City Charter that deputies were trying to push through before close of session. Unfortunately, somebody then proposed an amendment to the amendment, which was subsequently and inevitably opposed by somebody else.

By the end of the voting on whether the amendments should be voted on, the voting on the amendments themselves, and voting on whether it would in fact be a better idea to give up and come back on Monday, most deputies had literally forgotten what they were discussing. It got so bad that deputy Oleg Sergeyev even turned to the journalists at the back of the hall for help. "Excuse me, I got distracted for a minute - what are we voting for now?" he asked. Nope, we didn't know either. "Voting for amendment 5856," boomed Tarasov. "Ah right," Sergeyev said, and left the hall.

As Tarasov was burying his head in his hands, deputy Stanislav Zhitkov - who sports a natty little hammer-and-sickle lapel pin - was reading off more proposed changes to the charter. "Amendment 3857," he said. 

Just then, Vice Gov. Mikhail Mik hailovsky - the class snitch - interrupted on behalf of City Hall. "A word has been removed from the text of this amendment," he whined.

If Tarasov wore spectacles, he would have peered over the top of them. "Did you take that word out?" he asked Zhitkov. "Yes," said Zhit kov, looking as if a quick confession would save him a detention and having to write out "I will not amend amendments and hope that nobody notices" 500 times after school.

"You don't have the right to do that!" said Tarasov. Zhitkov was all innocence. "It's only a word!"

It was a nice try, but he was sent to the back of the class in disgrace.

TITLE: LETTER FROM FAR EAST
AUTHOR: By Russell Working
TEXT: Black Beauty of an Ashed City 

VLADIVOSTOK, Far East - Recently while heading home on the city's major north-south street, I glimpsed a curious sight in the oncoming lane. A truck was approaching in a great cloud of ash, followed by a line of cars doing their best to stay out of the way.


As we passed the truck and entered the cloud, chips of coal ticking off the windshield, my driver muttered, "What the devil is this?"

It was the first time I had seen in action a phenomenon everyone has been aware of all winter. The same City Hall geniuses who brought us unheated apartments and 20-hour-per-day blackouts have decided to apply coal ash on the streets to prevent skidding on the ice.

When it snows these days, the city doesn't plow most streets. Instead, workers at Power Plant No. 2 load coal ash into trucks and drivers cruise the metropolis, spreading the industrial waste. The wind blows the ash and coats the snow. Pedestrians tromp it into restaurants, schools, workplaces and hospitals. Never has this town seemed so filthy, so cold, so black. The coal dust is also moving us all a step closer to lung cancer.

That's the down side. The good news is that coal ash is free, and there is a lot of it. Just as not providing electricity offers incalculable savings to a fiscally prudent administration, blackening the streets instead of plowing the snow is a great way to cut costs. Moreover, it provides a lesson in Hobbesian philosophy to the city's street vendors. As an ash truck rumbles past, everyone surely must reflect that life is nasty, brutish and short.

Alas, Luddites will be blind to progress even when it hits them in the face in a bracing, gritty blast. In Russia, a strong government has always had to knout its recalcitrant citizenry into the future. Just as some peasants, their faces scalped in midwinter, failed to comprehend the need for Peter the Great's policy of forcible debearding, so today some troglodytes can't see the beauty of ashing the city.

For one, Boris Preobrazhensky, a professor of mineralogy at the Pacific Institute of Geography, complains that coal contains radioactive compounds that are concentrated upon burning. It is also a carcinogen, and will wash into the sea. Cities everywhere are trying to dispose safely of coal by-products, he notes. In Vladivostok, City Hall dumps the ash on its people.

"It looks ugly, black, dirty," he said. "It is spread all around, and it is very harmful to breathe."

The city responds to such backward thinking in an irrefutable manner: by issuing documents. Irina Angarskaya, a Moskovsky Komsomolets reporter, contacted City Hall about the ashing, and Mayor Yury Kopylov's specialists released papers stamped with official seals proving that a good dose of burned coal is actually healthful. The city's deputy chief physician, Galina Yakovets, was trotted out to argue that burned fossil fuels are so good for you, you ought to spread it on your garden. Soon they will be handing out documents showing that the British have requested shiploads of coal ash to sprinkle on their toast in place of their tarry national sandwich spread, Marmite.

Perhaps fearfull of industrial espionage, Yakovets refused to comment, saying that the health benefits of coal ash were not a matter for a telephone conversation. 

Doubtless foreigners would steal the idea and start ashing their own streets, schoolyards, churches and vineyards.

If that is her fear, I regret to say the word is already out. My work is regularly printed not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in Tokyo and Hong Kong. It doesn't snow in coastal southern China, but still, urban officials there will probably steal the plan as an efficient way of increasing consumer spending. Dirty clothes, after all, must be replaced more often.

The media, whiners all, will grouse. Moskovsky Komsomolets' Angarskaya had a blindingly simplistic alternative to ashing Russia's window on the Pacific: plow the snowy streets. "Then the city won't have to be sprinkled with anything," she wrote. "We won't have to wash black floors in all the stores and offices.

"We, the taxpayers, just want the janitors and snowplows to remove the snow. We don't want anyone to convince us that ash is not dangerous, but indeed pleasant, especially for our eyes. That's all."

Then again, if somebody would just shut off the power again, we won't notice how dirty the floors are.

TITLE: All Politics Is Indeed Local
AUTHOR: By Marina Konnova and Ilya Malyakin
TEXT: RUSSIA'S political picture is looking increasingly like typical feudalism. President Vladimir Putin is a monarch trying to turn a patchwork of fiefdoms into an empire, and the governors are barons, feeling their traditional privileges imperiled by those efforts.


The monarch has many means by which he may clip the wings of regional barons, one of which is by manipulating laws regulating local self-government within their regions. The monarch creates conditions that encourage petty vassals to rise up against their masters. However, some vassals discover to their dismay that merely having the law on their side is not enough. In a feudal system, the law has little independent force.

December's mayoral elections in the city of Balakovo in the Saratov region are an excellent illustration of this vassal-rebellion model. Traditionally, the heads of local administrations have been selected by local legislative assemblies, with decisive input from Saratov Gov. Dmitry Ayatskov. In Balakovo, however, a popular referendum was held last year that changed that system to one of direct popular voting.

As the Dec. 24 election date approached, tensions between the local and regional leaderships grew noticeably. Incumbent Balakovo Mayor Alexei Saurin claimed in a speech that Ayatskov's team had needlessly exacerbated Balakovo's energy crisis. And, in fact, instances in which heat, electricity and gas were shut off seemed to increase mysteriously in the election run-up, and popular anger was clearly directed toward the governor.

Balakovo is a city of about 300,000 with an enormous industrial base that in many other regions would be a capital. But, situated next to huge Saratov, it is fated ever to be a "second city." Locals sometimes show signs of a peculiar inferiority complex with regard to their "big brother," and Saurin skillfully manipulated popular dissatisfaction with the Saratov authorities in his campaign.

The results of the first round were as follows: Saurin got 49 percent. Vladimir Solovyov, president of the Balakovo Entrepreneurs Association, came in second with 18 percent. Sergei Denisov, general director of the Khimeksmash factory and widely seen as the "pro-Saratov" candidate, came in third with just 14 percent. This round was characterized by constant conflicts between the regional and the local elections commissions that culminated when the regional commission demanded that ballots be turned over to it before being counted. By the time the conflict was settled, the chairman of the local elections commission had been hospitalized with a heart attack.

The second round was set for Jan. 14. That's when the real war began. Earlier, one of the minor candidates had filed a suit against Saurin claiming that he had not formally declared some improvements to property he owned (a banya and a veranda attached to his dacha) and a used car (which Saurin claimed belonged to the city) in his income statements. Initially the local court rejected the suit, but the regional court overturned that verdict and, on Jan. 9, ordered that Saurin be disqualified.

However, the local elections commission was at a loss to comply. Not only was Saurin a candidate for mayor, but he had also been elected a deputy of the municipal council, for which elections had also been held Dec. 24. The case has since proceeded to the Russian Supreme Court (where it is set to be heard on Feb. 5). In the meantime, the local court's order was suspended.

On election day, regional election commission representatives, supported by police units from across the Saratov region, appeared in Balakovo and tried to change the ballot papers. Instead of the ones offering a choice between Saurin and Solovyov, the Saratov version listed Solovyov and Denisov as the candidates. However, despite the show of force, 60 of the city's 98 polling stations refused to comply.

Saurin received 74 percent in this round, but the local elections commission had no choice but to annul the vote because of the two different ballots. A new second round has been set for April 8, but the regional election commission has not commented on the Jan. 14 vote or endorsed the new date.

The baron, then, had no choice but to remove his insubordinate vassal by fiat. This occurred at a meeting of the municipal council on the night of Jan. 16-17 that was held at municipal power station No. 4. That meeting resulted in the appointment of Va len tin Timofeyev - director of municipal power station No. 4 - as acting mayor. The council also passed a resolution annulling the referendum on direct mayoral elections and returning to the old scheme.

Events then unfolded furiously. The regional prosecutor appealed the governor's order suspending Saurin, while the municipal council went ahead (under its new-old selection system) to name Timofeyev mayor and appoint former candidate Solovyov as the council chairman. Then Ayatskov reversed himself and annulled his order removing Saurin, leaving Balakovo effectively with two mayors. Saurin promptly announced his intention to create an "alternative" municipal administration.

In the State Duma in Moscow, Saurin's interests are represented by Deputy Vyacheslav Volodin, a disgraced ex-deputy governor of Saratov and now deputy chairman of the Fatherland-All Russia faction. He has written an appeal to the prosecutor general. In Balakovo, citizens have begun collecting signatures for another referendum - this time asking for Balakovo to be formally transferred from Ayatskov's Saratov region to neighboring Samara.

Nonetheless, Ayatskov's press office has declared that the process of selecting a mayor for Balakovo is finished. The matter is settled, the governor declared. And he is right. For now, at least, the vassal's rebellion has been suppressed and the baron is victorious. At least until the monarch speaks.


Marina Konnova and Ilya Malyakin are reporters for the Saratov-based Volga Information Agency. They contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.

TITLE: EDITORIAL
TEXT: Two Steps Forward - Then Trip 


THOSE still struggling to hope that the Kremlin is seriously interested in serious legal reform have suffered yet another blow. And a devastating one.


Just over a month ago we wrote optimistically in this space about the State Duma's unanimous passage of a bill that would reduce the maximum period a person could be held in pre-trial detention from 18 to 12 months. We applauded parliament's and the Kremlin's determination to address this barbarous practice and to alleviate the hellish conditions in remand prisons. "Legal reform is off on the right foot," we trumpeted.

Well, now it has tripped. And fallen flat on its face. And we don't know whether it will be able to get up again.

The Federation Council on Wednesday rejected the bill under pressure from Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov. His deputy, Sabir Kekhlerov, told lawmakers before the vote that the measure must be rejected because it was "fraught with dangerous consequences for society."

This setback came hard on the heels of the recent withdrawal of a Kremlin-sponsored bill to require court-ordered search and arrest warrants - a withdrawal that also resulted from lobbying by prosecutors. That bill, it should be noted, did little more than bring the Criminal Procedural Code into line with the constitution, leading to the bizarre situation of the nation's law-enforcement community defending unconstitutional statutes.

Neither of these reforms is "fraught with dangerous consequences for society." What is dangerous for society, however, are prosecutors who think that the provisions of the constitution are optional or somehow do not apply to them. Dangerous, also, is the fact that the prosecutor general can so easily stymie a reform that was drafted by legal experts in the Justice Ministry, backed by the president and unanimously adopted by the Duma.

Living in a country where any prosecutor can arrest you and hold you in an overcrowded and disease-ridden prison for at least a year and half without bringing you to trial also seems dangerous to us.

Perhaps most dangerous is what all this says of President Vladimir Putin's commitment to reform. A dictatorship of the law might be a good thing, if the laws themselves are good and if the enforcers are strictly bound by them. Otherwise, it is totalitarianism plain and simple. 

It is high time for Putin to take a stand. Imagine him addressing a joint session of parliament and explaining why both of these fundamental reforms must be enacted immediately. That would be the kind of inspiring leadership that we just haven't seen from him yet. And it wouldn't come a moment too soon.

TITLE: Mailbox
TEXT: Dear Editor,

How many more times must we hear the bleating of the foreign community on the subject of entry prices for St. Petersburg's museums, theaters and concert halls? Tom Masters' article ["No End in Sight for Dual-Pricing System," Jan. 30] could easily have been condensed into a one-line whine of "I want to pay less for my culture." The ranting about constitutional rights and "penalizing people for their nationality" is entirely superfluous.


Any 16-year-old student of economics will know all about the well-trodden theory of "price discrimination," or (in layman's terms) charging two different consumers two different prices for the same product. This happens in supermarkets throughout the world, where an own-brand bottle of beer, can of beans or tin of pasta is likely to be on sale at a significant discount to the exact same product in its branded form. The goods will probably even be in the same aisle and on the same shelf as each other.

Price discrimination is backed by solid economic theory, and it extends well beyond supermarket shelves. Witness the plethora of different tariffs established by airlines, hotels, travel agents and indeed theaters throughout the globe for essentially the same product. Even in London, one can pay less than half the standard ticket price for a theater seat by getting in line at a booth in Leicester Square a few hours before the scheduled performance. We are not talking here about a purely Russian phenomenon.

Should we not be encouraging entities like the Hermitage and the Mariinsky Theater to adopt free-market ways, such as by charging realistic prices for their tickets? Is this not a central tenet of the move from a centralized to a free-market system within Russia? Tom Masters seems to advocate a socialist-era planned pricing system for this city's cultural institutions. Does he also want the foreign community to set prices for bread, beer and mineral water in St. Petersburg? This is a logical and arrogant extension of his tenuous argument.

Most foreigners can easily afford the prices charged by the aforementioned cultural institutions. For those that cannot, it only takes a little initiative and planning to obtain a student card or proper long-term residency documentation (let's face it, we should have the latter anyway), and therefore obtain the discounts on offer. Stating that the present system discriminates against those from the ex-Soviet republics is ridiculous. Most of these people speak perfect Russian and are easily able to sneak in on Russian-priced tickets.

However, the most preposterous section of the article describes the current system as "racist, unfair and reflecting a now-defunct financial dichotomy between rich foreigners and poor Russians." The word "racist" is rarely used properly, and here it is way out of place. Foreigners are not a race, and therefore any action that discriminates against them cannot be racism.

As for the comment that the financial gap between Russians and foreigners is now defunct, I can only assume that Tom Masters has spent very little time in this country, and socialized predominantly with a nouveau riche Russian minority (or alternatively with foreigners on Russian wages). 

Extreme dual-pricing is common in developing countries, as my travels in places such as Egypt, India and Indonesia have shown me. As a "rich foreigner," I support this wholeheartedly, and do not begrudge the much-needed funds that entities such as the Russian Museum obtain as a result. Besides, 250 rubles is a small price to pay for even 15 joyous minutes in the Impressionist gallery of the Hermitage.

Foreigners should not resent the pricing system of the Russian culture industry. But if one does wish to boycott dual pricing, one can always pay the Russian ticket price of 40 rubles to watch Zenit football club play any of its home games throughout the season. Unfortunately, the entertainment value of this spectacle cannot be guaranteed.

Stephen Ogden,

St. Petersburg



Dear Editor,

I think human rights are facing enough of a threat in Russia that meetings such as the latest conference ought to be cheered on loudly [Rhetoric Is a Bad Defense of Rights," editorial, Jan. 23]. I can understand your point about taking issue with some participants' tactics - and certainly that's something that ought to be examined and would make a good feature or analytical piece. But I thought there were many more positive things that could have been praised in an editorial given the movement's weaknesses (which I think are chiefly a result of external political factors). 


In these Kafkaesque times, when so many members of the so-called intelligentsia have thrown themselves behind Putin in a wave of nationalistic mythmaking, it's almost unbelievable that an auditorium of like-minded people can come together - however imperfectly - and simply present evidence of the abuses to individuals' freedom and dignity that are fast becoming a crucial part of Russia's political ethos once again.

Gregory Feifer,

Moscow



Dear Editor,

I am deeply disturbed by an incident in which a Russian diplomat has committed a very serious crime ["Canada Requests Immunity Waiver for Russian Diplomats," Jan. 30]. Andrei Knyazev, thanks to criminal neglect and alcohol consumption, has killed one of our citizens. 


Knyazev has not shown any remorse for this sad situation. Instead he has with haste exercised his diplomatic right to run away. I certainly hope that the Russian government will take appropriate action and not let this crime go unpunished. 

It is inevitable that the citizens of Canada are at this point are feeling very negative and angry over this incident. The good citizens of both our nations deserve justice.

Ron Burnett,

Calgary, Canada



Dear Editor,

Yulia Latynina is right ["The Complex Battle Against Corruption," Jan. 26] when she says, "If foreigners think the arrest of two or three bribe-takers is going to put an end to corruption in Russia, they are sadly mistaken." Corruption in Russia is endemic, and foreigners should indeed stop trying to "fix" the country. Russia is not the West.


But Russians should stop whining when one of their "businessmen" decides to go for a jaunt to the United States, knowing full well that there is an international warrant out for his arrest, and then gets thrown in jail. The West is not Russia.

Dan Vexler,

Moscow

TITLE: small masterpiece is major highlight for petersburg opera
AUTHOR: by Giulara Sadykh-Zade
TEXT: On Monday at the Chamber Theater of the St. Petersburg Opera, the premiere of Alexander Smerklov's "Star of Emrein" took place. In fact, it would be more accurate to describe the event as a revival, as it was first performed 10 years ago on the miniature stage of the Yusupov Palace's own theater, as "The Skewbald Dog Running Along the Sea's Edge," to a libretto based on Chingiz Aytmatov's story of the same name.


The opera's text was written by the conductor and leader of the St. Petersburg Opera, Yury Alexandrov; who produced the version as a showpiece for the new theater.

The Star of Emrein remains a small chef d'oeuvre, for the theater, as the piece brought it recognition and success. It was Vladimir Galuzin, who was invited by Alexandrov from Novosibirsk, who originally sang the part of Mylgun 10 years ago. The singer's brilliant career can be said to have started from that episode, plucking him from relative obscurity and placing him on the best opera stages in the world.

In the current production, all the singing roles have been comprehensively revised. Mylgun is sung by the gifted tenor Viktor Aleshkov, the leading singer in Alexandrov's theater; the boy Kirisk is performed deftly by Volodya Semagin; the part of his father, Emrein, is performed by Alexander Bobin-Schmidt, while his grandfather is sung by the brilliant bass, Alexander Toradze. The mermaid's complex coloratura is successfully performed by Larisa Ivanova and the part of the mother by Yelena Severina.

The opera's subject is both simple and profound. Three generations of fishermen from the northern Nivkh tribe set out by boat. Grandfather Organ, his sons Emrein and Mylgun and his grandson Kirisk, for whom the trip is his first out to sea. During their trip, a thunderstorm causes them to lose their orientation, and, unable to see the stars they are unable to find their way back to the shore. Dying of thirst, one by one the elders give up their valuable water in the name of saving the young Kirisk. When the storm finally lifts, Kirisk manages to navigate his way home, directed by the polar owl, Agukuk.

Artist Semyon Pastukh has come up with a laconic set for the opera, placing just two or three objects on the stage, united by the universal, unseaworthy vessel. The details of the set are, however, so loaded with meaning that they seem to cave in under its weight. The long and sharp mast of the boat is multi-functional - Kirisk clambers up it to search for his way, and the panic-stricken Mylgun observes the storm from it. The white, rolled-up sail doubles when unraveled as the crashing waves of the tumultuous sea, as a shroud for the perished as well as being the material through which the horrible ghosts of the dead grandfather, uncle and father appear.

On this scant expanse of stage, all the concentration is focused on the actors, on their actions and behavior. The dramaturgy of the opera itself is such that the audience is kept in a constant state of tension.

Alexander Smelkov's music is bright, theatrical with many orchestral effects and a kaleidoscope of melodies, recalling the characteristics and leitmotifs pre-eminent in the best traditional Russian opera. The picturesque and beautiful orchestration in the spirit of Rimsky-Korsakov permits the composer to intricately toy with timbre, painting every character with his own color.

The vocal side of the opera was delivered with diversity. Every role has its own song, and often more. Particularly good are the Song of the Mermaid, Organ's aria and Kirisk's leitmotif. The song about the boat is also very beautiful, sung by the three fishermen one after the other, at the same unhurried tempo as the rowing.

The work of Alexandrov's actors is generally considered to have no equal, and this production serves to confirm this. Nobody else seems to be capable of extracting such emotion from their singers, such authentic expression or such liveliness of method. One can only hope that this new version of the Star of Emrein will become a permanent part of the St. Petersburg Opera's repertoire.

TITLE: el toro is kitsch dining delight
AUTHOR: by Barnaby Thompson
TEXT: El Toro has been open since April last year, but until recently has been keeping a relatively low profile. On being confronted the other day with an entirely empty restaurant, I was tempted to think that it needed to up its advertising campaign considerably if it is to stay in business.


As the evening wore on, however, a steady stream of guests proved that the public are indeed getting used to this pleasant addition to the city's mid(ish)-range eateries, located on Ul. Marata just off Nevsky Prospect.

There are no prizes for guessing that El Toro is a Spanish restaurant, complete with the predictable kitsch: statuettes of snorting bulls, muzaky classical hits playing gently in the background (it was the first time I'd heard Mozart symphonies arranged for guitar and castanets), and a little fountain near the bar that may or may not have been an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of sultry Andalucia. The tiled floor is also in dubious taste.

But the saving grace of the interior is that it's cozy, and the best tables are private without being closeted off (being shunted off into a side room is one of my pet peeves, although there may be good reasons for it in my case).

The menu is impressively extensive, and contains most of the favorites - loads of paella, for example, and lots of hunks of meat. We kicked off with that Iberian special, gazpacho soup (75 rubles), which is fine as long as you're in the company of people who are broad-minded about garlic. 

The gazpacho comes, in fact, only as a creamy garlic soup, to which you add cucumber, tomato, peppers and croutons as you wish. The Fideos soup (90 rubles), a sort of chicken-and-noodles combination, was less spectacular, however. It was a lesson that the best approach in El Toro is to choose the obviously Spanish dishes.

On to the main course, and because the soups were pretty filling, we passed on the paella and went for the steaks, trusting to luck that the beef was home-grown and that we could ignore the scourge of mad cow disease currently sweeping Europe. (Our attempts to play it safe and go for the lamb, which sounded more appetizing, were foiled since the they were out of lamb.)

The Palencia steak (220 rubles) was a disappointment all round: tough meat, watery rice and the kind of sauce you can cook up at home with a carton of mayonnaise and a tub of mustard, although I'm not suggesting that this was the case here.

The El Toro special (199 rubles), however, was in a different league, and I awarded it both ears and the tail: chunks of tender, marinated beef, the kind of dish that makes you settle back in your chair, grasp that glass of Coronas Torres dry Spanish red and dig in for the evening.

As a matter of fact, the quality of the wine list is without doubt the highlight of El Toro, and the only barrier to this source of enjoyment is the price. The aforementioned Coronas Torres was one of the cheapest options at 728 rubles, but if you really want to splash out there is a special section of hideously expensive wines, some of which reach five figures (rubles, not dollars). But even our selection, which was motivated entirely by price, turned out to have been an excellent one. Spanish wine aficionados will be delighted.



El Toro, 1 Ul. Marata, Tel: 311-26-02. Open daily 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. Dinner for two with wine, 1,996 rubles ($71). Credit cards accepted.

TITLE: bdt ballet promises intimacy
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: While she is a graduate of St. Petersburg's famous Vaganova Ballet Academy, ballerina Alla Sigalova has never been known for dancing the classics. Rather, she prefers to choreograph pieces herself, which she performs both for dance companies and drama theaters. Sigalova's future plans include production of a ballet focusing on the first wave of Russian emigration, set to tangos, waltzes and fox-trots of the period, but for the moment she will be dancing in "Sketches of the Sunset" which premieres on Feb. 5 and 6 at the Bolshoi Drama Theater.


Set to symphonic music by prominent local composer Leonid Desyatnikov, French composer Erik Satie and tango composer Astor Piazzolla, the show comprises several ballet etudes and the one-act ballet "Sketches of the Sunset," all choreographed by Sigalova and performed by her alongside Lithuanian ballerina Egle Shpokaite and her Latvian counterpart Alexei Ovechkin. Bridging the choreographic sketches will be several interludes by Piazzola and Desyatnikov.

The show takes its name from Desyatnikov's work of the same name, which became the soundtrack to the movie "Sunset," based on Isaac Babel's play.

Sigalova's sketches don't aimed to illustrate Babel's plot, and there is not even any libretto. Still, certain narratives can be traced in every etude, with the sketch format comprising the organizing principle of the production.

With these sketches the cast would like to plunge the audiences into a twilight atmosphere, but welcome spectators to draw their own conclusions.

"The viewers will decide what kind of sunset they are observing: the end of a day, an epoch, a life, a culture, or of something else," Goribol said.

What is important to Sigalova is that she is using Desyatnikov's music. "His tunes are incredibly inspiring and thought-provoking, they make me look for a new means of expression, and I thrive on performing them," she said.

"I am really surprised other choreographers aren't lining up at his door asking for a score," Sigalova said. "But ballet is the most conservative of all the fine arts, and this probably explains why choreographers are reluctant to turn to this new music."

The three dancers will be on stage with eight musicians, as the sketches were designed very much as a chamber piece.

"The Bolshoi Drama Theater's stage is not a bar, but we will try to achieve the level of intimacy you find in a bar," De syat nikov said.

The idea of juxtaposing dancers and musicians on stage to give semi-improvised performances was launched in St. Petersburg in 1907, when Anna Pavlova first danced Saint-Saens's "The Dying Swan" to piano and cello, with choreography by Mikhail Fokine. 

"Fokine's idea was for Anna Pavlova's performance to be very much of a spontaneous nature," said pianist Alexei Goribol, who will be playing on stage. "We, too, have only had a couple of rehearsals and the show has a certain spur-of-the-moment feel." 

"The Sketches" will feature very little scenery and simple lighting. The minimalist approach is intentional. "The atmosphere will be created entirely by the dancers and the musicians," Sigalova said. "It is a totally different feeling when dancers sense the feeling and power of music when the musicians are on stage with them."



For ticket information call the Bolshoi Drama Theater ticket office at: 310-04-01

TITLE: producer scores mtv hit with faux lesbianism
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Men sitting in bars watching MTV Russia gasp and forget about their Bochkarevs. Here they are - two teenage girls on the screen in shirts soaked through with rain, hugging and kissing. The song goes, "I've gone crazy, I need her," with the words constantly repeating.


The song is called "Ya soshla s uma" ("I've Gone Crazy"), performed by a totally unknown act called Tatu. It appeared out of the blue in October and was in MTV Russia's charts and on the radio for 10 weeks. Even many music-businesses insiders don't have a clue where the act came from, some suspecting it was a new creation by some famous Russian impresario or other.

Tatu's first and as yet only press conference was held in a Moscow school in December and threw some light on the band's origins and lineup. It was revealed that Tatu was created by the obscure Ivan Shapovalov, who claimed he was previously involved in the advertising business.

Lena Katina, 16, and Yulya Volkova, 15, were selected from 500 candidates at an audition at the Mosfilm Studio. At the press conference they were elusive about their sexual preferences, but held hands, sat embracing each other and made various hints. It was said they don't give interviews.

Although only one song is known and the act hasn't yet played live, Tatu's official site lists seven songs in their repertoire. One, called "Show Me Love," hints at where the concept came from, as it is the Russian title for "Fucking Amal," the Swedish film about growing affection between two schoolgirls.

"I think it's an attempt to occupy an empty niche, an openly lesbian one," said Yevgeny Fyodorov, producer andfrontman of Tequilajazzz. "But it's all producer's work - it's not real. One girl is blonde, one is dark-haired and wearing a tie, playing a 'male' role. Real lesbians aren't like that."

Tatu released its debut in January. Called, predictably, "Ya soshla s uma," it contains the title song and four remixes, along with the video and video remix.

Although the track is well-produced, Fyodorov suspects it's not as popular as the charts show. "I don't believe anymore in the independence of radio stations and TV channels. There's a system of mutual obligation between labels and the media, which makes charts non-objective." 

Tatu will start performing concerts in February, first in Odessa, then Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg - but shows promise to be rather brief owing to the shortage of material.

"I don't think anything about it," said Fyodorov. "I think nothing about artists who have been made by other people's hands. One can talk about a producer in this context, but not about artists."

"Lesbians [in the music business] have became younger - in the spirit of show biz progress and MTV acceleration, which is the only achievement," said Leonid Fomin, editor of rock magazine Fuzz. "The Russian music business has attempted to penetrate this very intimate sphere of human existence before, but failed to grow a new Sappho in an incubator. Anyway, it's all a sham."



Tatu will perform at Plaza on Feb. 23. Official Web site: www.taty.ru

TITLE: 'moscow' is a mix of chekhov and violence
AUTHOR: by Tom Birchenough
TEXT: With its title and a stunning bird's-eye opening sequence that swoops high over the roofs of the city, it feels obvious from the beginning of Alexander Zeldovich's "Moscow" that this is a film trying to say something about more than just the lives of its particular characters. In a way strangely comparable to Federico Fellini's classic "La Dolce Vita" (1960), "Moscow" aims for something more - to catch, even to define the mood of a decade.


Given that the place is Moscow and the decade the 1990s, the result is not surprisingly a fairly brutal experience, but a compelling one nonetheless - the film's poster image, a ballerina dressed in a brilliant white tutu spattered with blood, gives a fair idea of what to expect.

This is a world that largely avoids the cliches of crime or New Russian extravagance which so many other directors have resorted to, and where they're present, they're used in a persuasively ironic way.

What Zeldovich - together with his co-writer, popular contemporary author Vladimir Sorokin, whose contribution to the film was obviously major - has achieved is to create an impression of a fractured, out-of-joint world, caught between what he has called the two realities of "brutal capitalism and fading Soviet imperialism."

The story centers on six characters whose fates overlap in a complicated mesh of past involvements and present- day sexual and financial relations. Much of the action takes place in a nightclub owned by Irina (Natalya Kolyakanova), who's in debt and hitting the bottle, passing time aimlessly with her two daughters, the worldly-wise Masha (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) and the innocent, autistic Olga (Tatya na Drubich). 

Irina's lover, Mark (Viktor Gvozditsky), a sometime golden boy in the 1970s who's out of place in the new decade, is a psychiatrist who is treating Olga, with whom he is also in love. 

Businessman Mike (Alexander Baluyev) is engaged to Masha, but sleeps with Irina too, and pursues his ambitions of arts patronage even while the shadowy enterprises that support them are crumbling. Mike's former friend, Lev (Stas Pavlov), plays the role of the outsider in the group whose betrayal will finally fracture it.

Plot developments are slight in the film, making the main action a pronouncedly interior one. Given the film's icy, detached vision of its world, it's hard to feel much for the characters, while the sense of watching a cold parable of our time unroll is heightened by Sorokin's introduction of a consciously Chekhovian style to their interaction.

Irina and her daughters become, loosely, Chekhov's three sisters, who have realized their dream of making it to Moscow, but whose familiar problems and unease remain. It also achieves effective moments of contrast, when the mood of their timeless, meandering conversations is punctured by bursts of distinctly un-Chekhovian violence and listless sex.

With strong performances from all its main players, "Moscow" also benefits from first-class cinematography and an equally impressive musical score. In the former, Alexander Ilkhovsky excels with a series of dimly lit interior sequences which mirror the characters' hallucinatory emotional world, while music from Leonid Desyatnikov encompasses an impressive variety of moods: from the uneasy dislocation of Olga's nightclub songs - traditional Soviet melodies which seem to have been somehow wrenched out of key - to the grander, almost lyrical anthems with which the film opens and closes.

All this is realized without quite becoming pretentious, giving "Moscow" a unified style that impresses in the context of most other Russian cinema today. The only factor that detracts from its success is a lack of concise editing: Running at more than 150 minutes, "Moscow" feels about half an hour too long.



"Moscow" will be opening later this month at city cinemas. Check future listings for details.

TITLE: chernov's choice
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
TEXT: It looks like Duran Duran have already arrived in St. Petersburg, after their first Russian show in Moscow on Thursday While the Russian press is busy discussing whether they are Late Romantics or just Pop Trash, Simon Le Bon & Co. will appear at the Ice Palace Friday - to perform "A View To A Kill," "Wild Boys," "Hungry Like The Wolf," "Save A Prayer," and - we hope - "White Lines."


The latest additions to big Western touring acts coming to the city, are Melanie C, A-Ha and the Scorpions. Sporty Spice will come to promote her solo debut, "Northern Star" and is at least a "currently popular" artist - unlike the Norwegian pop trio, whose heyday was in 1980s, not to mention the Scorps, the hard-rockers turned mainstream - who were formed in 1965.

The German band failed to pack Yubileiny Sports Palace when they came in 1999, but now posters are announcing a "grand concert" - along with a full symphony orchestra.

All three will play at the Ice Palace: Melanie C on March 18, A-Ha on March 20 and the Scorpions on March 25.

As the Legends of Rock festival approaches, it became known that Ray Dorset who used to lead Mungo Jerry is authentic. The band that brought us "In the Summertime" will appear twice - at Gigant Hall on Feb. 2 and - with the rest - at Yubileiny Sports Palace on Feb. 4.

The right option for Saturday's night is 3D at Manhattan - if you are not scared of the usually drunken and occasionally rough crowd, which usually packs the venue when Leningrad Sergei Shnurov's "surf-punk" quartet is playing. 3D will also appear at Faculty on Feb. 11 - and get ready for Leningrad's first stadium show, which will follow on Feb. 23.

Meanwhile, the Tequilajazzz concert at Art Spirit which was scheduled to take place on Feb. 3 is not happening. According to Tequilajazzz Yevgeny Fyodorov, the band will be away from the city from Friday onwards.

In the virtual world, local hip-hoppers Kirpichi, popular as never before on the strength of last year's album "Kapitalizm OO," have launched their new official Web site - flash-driven and high-tech. It requires some time to work out how to use it, and it seems that not everything is working properly. Check www.kirpichi.by.ru. 

The site is somehow connected to the equally elaborate Radio Plankton at www.plankton.by.ru, where you can listen to quality recordings by acts ranging from local grunge band Jan Coo to David Bowie singing "Little Wonder."

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Airline Near Miss

TOKYO (Reuters) - Two Japanese planes may have come within 10 meters of each other before the pilot of a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 jumbo jet swerved to avoid a collision, injuring 42 people, Japanese media reported on Thursday.

The reports also said that flight records showed a confusing exchange of instruction from air traffic controllers, one of whom was apparently a trainee with only three years experience.

The injured, who included at least seven crew members and one baby girl, were hurt when the pilot yanked the controls of the airliner to avoid hitting the other aircraft in the Wednesday-afternoon incident.



Pedophile Trial

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Convicted pedophile Marc Dutroux, jailed since August 1996, is expected to stand trial next year on charges of raping, torturing and murdering four young girls, Belgium's justice minister says.

Justice Minister Marc Verwilghen told parliament there was "a very high degree of probability" that Dutroux's trial on charges related to the abduction, rape, torture and murder of the four children would start between March and September 2002.

Dutroux, who is currently held in isolation in a prison in Arlon, southern Belgium, early this month filed a complaint claiming that his jail conditions were illegal and degrading.

Dutroux said his brief escape in 1998 was a bid to raise media awareness of his inhumane prison conditions.

The charges Dutroux now faces include those related to the death from starvation of two 8-year-old girls in dungeons beneath a house he owned.



Ecuador Hostage Freed

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Ecuadorean Indians protesting government economic policy freed a hostage police officer on Wednesday defusing some tension in a standoff with security forces that has raised fears for the nation's stability.

Amid widespread violent demonstrations against hikes in transport and gasoline prices, the protesters took the officer hostage earlier on Wednesday but released him after mediation from church and university leaders, police said.

Thousands of Indians have poured into the capital from the countryside of the impoverished South American nation and are camped out in what has effectively become a safe haven at Salesian University. The protesters captured the police officer after he entered the campus pretending to be a journalist.



Kabila in U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congo's new president, Joseph Kabila, is to visit Washington this week amid hopes the peace that eluded the African country under his assassinated father's rule can be set in motion. 

Since the inexperienced Kabila was sworn in Friday to succeed his father, Laurent Kabila, both the government and rebel groups have spoken of reviving a stalled peace process. 

It remained unclear, however, how much control Kabila has over Congo's secretive government or whether political factions or military allies are making key decisions. 

Still, diplomats and others who have met with Kabila have said they were impressed with his statements and they hoped the abrupt change in power would help bring peace to the country. 



Palestinian Boycott

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians launched a long-term boycott of Israeli products on Thursday in a bid to reduce dependence on the Israeli economy and create jobs for thousands barred from workplaces in Israel.

The campaign, organized by President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and private businesses, kicked off in the West Bank city of Ramallah under the slogan: "Let's make our markets free of [Israeli] occupation products."

Organizers pasted on shop doors lists of 26 Israeli products that have Palestinian alternatives. Shopkeepers used spray paint to obliterate the names of Israeli goods from advertising signs.



Khmer Rouge Trial

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's Constitutional Council will begin examining legislation on Friday to bring to trial former leaders of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, a senior official said on Thursday.

"The Constitutional Council will start debating the Khmer Rouge trial law tomorrow morning ... and we expect if there are not many questions from the members, we can finish in one week," Chairman Chan Sok told Reuters.

"After that, we will send the law to His Majesty the King [Norodom Sihanouk] to sign, and then the law will come into effect."

TITLE: Death Toll Co ntinues to Mount in India
AUTHOR: By Nirmala George
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AHMEDABAD, India - Thousands of families dragging possessions salvaged from the ruins of their homes camped in Gujarat state's main railroad station Thursday, desperate to catch a train out after six days of terror following an earthquake that killed more than 14,200 people.


Bulldozers in town smashed down wobbly walls and buildings to keep them from tumbling onto an estimated 600,000 homeless. 

Rescue crews shouted down into the crevices of the rubble in last desperate attempts to find survivors of the 7.7-magnitude quake.

The disaster has probably killed 35,000 people, Gujarat's highest elected official, Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, said Thursday, according to the state's emergency control room. So far, 14,240 bodies have been recovered, and 61,638 have been injured, Roshi said. The rest of the dead may have been cremated in remote villages or remain buried under the flattened towns and cities. The full toll of the Jan. 26 quake may never be known.

Bob McKerrow, operations manager for the International Red Cross team in India, said on Thursday that he expected the number to reach as high as 50,000.

TITLE: Soldiers, Rioters Clash in Yugoslavia
AUTHOR: By Fisnik Abrashi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia - NATO-led peacekeepers chased demonstrators through the streets of this troubled city Thursday to disperse ethnic-Albanian crowds rioting near a base used by French soldiers. 


German, French and British soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse rioters in the predominantly ethnic-Albanian section of Kosovska Mitrovica. The industrial city has been rocked by unrest since Monday, when a 15-year-old ethnic Albanian was killed in a grenade attack. 

Several people have been injured, including a photographer for the Reuters news agency, hospital officials said. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known. 

The move to clear the area near the French base came after scuffles broke out earlier in the day at a small bridge spanning the Ibar River, which separates the city into an ethnic Albanian southern part and a predominantly Serb northern section. 

Ethnic Albanian demonstrators appeared to be targeting French soldiers, whom they perceive as being pro-Serb. NATO-led peacekeepers used tear gas and stun grenades to break up the melee. 

Twenty peacekeepers were injured Wednesday by demonstrators throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. 

Kosovska Mitrovica remains the province's most tense town, more than 1 1/2 years after NATO ended its 78-day air war. The air campaign was launched to force former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown on ethnic Albanians. 

Kosovo remains a province of Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two republics. 

This week's riots in the city, 40 kilometers north of the provincial capital, Pristina, come nearly a year after massive clashes that left a dozen people dead and many others injured.

TITLE: Lockerbie Bomber Given Life Sentence
AUTHOR: By Arthur Max
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands - A Libyan intelligence officer convicted of multiple murder in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing studied his appeal prospects Thursday, while a second Libyan acquitted of charges flew home.


Libya, under renewed scrutiny after the verdicts for its links with terrorism, said it would consider compensation for the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103, but only after the appeal process is completed.

A Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to life imprisonment, with no possibility of review for 20 years, for planting the device that exploded in Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988. All 259 people on board were killed, and the fiery wreckage plunging 10,000 meters killed another 11 in the small town below.

The court freed the second defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah. On Thursday, Fhimah left aboard a Libya-bound Dutch military aircraft flying under United Nations authority from an air base outside Camp Zeist where the trial was held. His freedom ended nearly two years in detention and a nine-month trial.

The judgment handed down Wed nesday concurred with the indictment that al-Megrahi was acting in the service of his country when he placed the bomb, concealed in a suitcase, on a flight in Malta that was transferred to Pan Am 103. In the verdict, the court referred to him as a Libyan intelligence agent "occupying posts of fairly high rank."

The Libyan ambassador to Britain, Mohammed Azwai, said in a radio interview Thursday his country would await the outcome of al-Megrahi's appeal before taking any action.

"We understand, and we said it before, that if our people are guilty we will pay any compensation at that time, but until that comes we believe as a legal matter it is still not final."

He said his country had for "now a long time not dealt with terrorism."

The U.S. and British governments said no action would be taken to lift UN sanctions imposed against Libya in 1992 until it met conditions set by the UN Security Council to compensate the victims and accept responsibility for the murders. The sanctions were suspended when the two men surrendered in 1999.

However, China, another permanent member of the UN Security Council, called for sanctions to be lifted after the ruling.

Following an intricate trail of circumstantial evidence - from the purchase of clothing found in the bomb-laden suitcase to entry stamps in a false passport - the court said "there is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt" of al-Megrahi.

After the verdict was pronounced, lawyer William Taylor bent toward his client and then told the court that al-Megrahi maintained his innocence. He has 14 days to appeal, but it could take months before a five-judge tribunal considers it.

The court said it found no convincing evidence that Fhimah, the former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, knowingly helped al-Megrahi place the suitcase in the international baggage system.

The judges did not address the question of motive. Before Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi agreed to hand over the two men, the United States and Britain signed off on a letter agreeing that the aim of the trial was not to "undermine the Li byan regime."

Prosecutors suggested the bombing was in retaliation for the U.S. air force raid against Tripoli in 1986 that killed Gadhafi's daughter. The strike was meant as punishment for Libya's alleged role in a terrorist attack at a Berlin disco that killed two American servicemen.

The conviction was likely to facilitate civil suits in U.S. courts against Libya for some $6 billion in damages brought by the families of the American victims.

Libya, an oil-rich Arab nation that has been at sharp odds with the United States since Gadhafi came to power in 1969, reacted to the verdict with unusually conciliatory statements and only a little of the fiery rhetoric that has been a hallmark of Gadhafi's Libya.

It said it would respect the verdict, honor financial claims arising from the conviction and expressed hope that, with the verdict, the Lockerbie affair would be consigned to the past.

Most Libyans had expected both men to be acquitted. Many Tripoli residents were puzzled by the split decision.

Al-Megrahi's mother, Fatima, collapsed on hearing the verdict and was taken to a hospital. Speaking from her hospital bed Wednesday night, she said: "I just cried and did not know where to direct my anger. I hope he comes back soon."

TITLE: Canadians Gasp as American Buys Habs
AUTHOR: By Phil Couvrette
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MONTREAL - Uh-oh, Canada. An American is the new owner of the Montreal Canadiens.


George Gillett signed the papers Wednesday to become majority owner of the most-storied team in professional hockey.

Now he must convince Canadians that he's not their worst nightmare - an American owner who will take the NHL's most successful franchise south of the border.

Gillett wore a Canadiens tie and pin at the center-ice news conference Wednesday announcing the $183 million deal to buy an 80.1 percent stake from Molson Inc. and the Molson Center arena where the team plays.

He then promised to return the "grandeur of this team" that has won 24 Stanley Cups and epitomized the French-Canadian pride in hockey.

"Our vision is to restore the franchise as the greatest team in hockey," Gillett said, insisting that the agreement and the NHL served as significant safeguards against any possible move.

"We want to work with the fans and we want to work in harmony with the Montreal community," he said.

That was the small dose of good news in a story many Canadians awaited with dread. While other Canadian-based franchises have moved to the United States, the loss of the Canadiens would tear the social fabric of a nation that embraces hockey as the natural expression of its combination of grace, ruggedness and competitive spirit.

"The Canadiens will remain in Montreal," NHL commissioner Gary Bett man said. "I could conceive of no condition under which a relocation of the franchise would even be considered."

Just having an American own the franchise, even with guarantees it won't move anywhere, rankles many Canadians already distrustful of the direction the NHL has taken the sport.

They complain that only six of the 30 NHL teams are based in Canada, and at least two others besides the Canadiens have warned of a possible sale - and move - in recent years.

Canadian-based clubs pay higher local taxes than U.S.-based clubs, and players get paid in U.S. dollars, while revenue from ticket sales, broadcast rights and other sources comes in weaker Canadian dollars.

Sitting with former teammates Yvan Cournoyer and Guy Lafleur, Hall of Fame center Henri Richard said economic reality dictated the sale.

The Canadiens "will stay in Montreal forever. I'm sure of that. But the money is in the States. They're all paid in U.S. dollars," he said. "It's kind of sad, but there's not much you can do about that."

TITLE: Cujo Takes a Bite out of 'Canes
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: RALEIGH, North Carolina - Curtis Joseph's milestone was more impressive than Jeff O'Neill's.


Joseph moved into sole possession of 15th place on the all-time list with his 306th victory Wednesday night, backstopping the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 4-3 National Hockey League triumph over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Sergei Berezin scored back-to-back goals in the second period, including the go-ahead tally with 19 seconds left.

Mats Sundin added a goal and an assist in support of Joseph, who had been tied for 15th with Billy Smith.

Jeff O'Neill solved Joseph twice, giving him a career-best 27 goals this season and his third straight multi-goal game.



Philadelphia 5, Pittsburgh 1. Mark Recchi collected two goals and two assists against his former team and combined with linemates Keith Primeau and Simon Gagne for 10 points as the Philadelphia Flyers coasted to their fifth victory in six games, 5-1 over the host Pittsburgh Penguins.

New York Islanders 3, New Jersey 2. In Uniondale, New York, Dave Scatchard and Tim Connolly scored 16 seconds apart in the second period before Brad Isbister got the game-winner with 15:01 left in the third as the New York Islanders rallied for a 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils.




Detroit 3, Columbus 2. In Columbus, Ohio, Steve Yzerman scored a minute into overtime as the Detroit Red Wings snapped a three-game road losing streak with a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.


Yzerman put home a shot from the top of the crease off a goal-mouth scramble to give the Red Wings' their league-leading seventh overtime victory.

It was Detroit's third victory of the season over the Blue Jackets and second in overtime at Columbus.



New York Rangers 4, Montreal 2. In New York, Petr Nedved had two goals and an assist to lead the Rangers as they halted a four-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

TITLE: Celtics Win 4th Straight With Upset Over Pacers
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: INDIANAPOLIS - The Boston Celtics extended their National Basketball Association winning streak to a season-high four games with a victory in, of all places, Indianapolis, where they had lost 21 of 22 games over the past 12 years.


Bryant Stith and Paul Pierce each scored six points in overtime to help the Celtics to a 102-96 victory over the Pacers and their first victory in Indiana in nearly six years.

Antoine Walker just missed a triple-double Wednesday night with 22 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists to lead the Celtics.

Stith and Pierce took over in the extra session, combining for 12 of Boston's 15 OT points.

Pierce finished with 18 points, including the clinching dunk with 36 seconds left, and added 10 rebounds. Stith ended up with 14, while blanking Pacers star Jalen Rose in overtime.

Rose scored 26 points and Reggie Miller added 19 for the Pacers, but both were shut down in overtime.



Minnesota 96, Los Angeles Lakers 83. At Minneapolis, Kevin Garnett had 21 points and 10 rebounds as the Minnesota Timberwolves took full advantage of the absence of Shaquille O'Neal to cruise to their franchise-record eighth straight win, a 96-83 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.


Wally Szczerbiak added 19 points as Minnesota, which had lost 17 of its last 19 meetings with the Lakers, jumped to a 31-19 lead after the first quarter and never looked back.



Atlanta 102, Toronto 97. In Atlanta, after being named to the All-Star team earlier in the day, Dikembe Mutombo posted season highs with 21 points and 29 rebounds and added six blocks to lead the Hawks to a 102-97 victory over the Toronto Raptors.


Jason Terry and Alan Henderson added 16 points each for the Hawks.


Detroit 112, New Jersey 103. At East Rutherford, New Jersey, Jerry Stackhouse scored 12 of his 30 points in a 37-point fourth quarter to lead the Pistons to a 112-103 victory over the Nets.


New Jersey held an 84-82 lead in the fourth quarter, but Detroit erupted for 30 points over the last eight minutes, to hand the Nets their sixth straight loss.



Orlando 100, Washington 96. In Washington, Tracy McGrady scored nine of his 25 points in the fourth quarter as the Orlando Magic rallied for a 100-96 victory over the Wizards, who blew a 10-point lead by managing just five points in the final seven minutes.

TITLE: Man. Utd Has Premiership Firmly in Hand
AUTHOR: By Mitch Phillips
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON - Manchester United stretched its premier league lead to a massive 15 points on Wednesday with a 1-0 away win over third-placed Sunderland in a game that saw three players sent off.


Andy Cole scored the only goal a minute into the second half but was red-carded 10 minutes later after a flare-up with Alex Rae, who was also sent off. Sunderland, previously unbeaten at home this season, had already lost Michael Gray for arguing about Cole's goal.

United now has 59 points to the 44 of Arsenal, which beat Charlton Athletic 2-0 on Tuesday. Sunderland remains third with 43 with Liverpool fourth with 41 after a 1-1 draw at Manchester City.

Chelsea's recovery continued with a 3-1 home win over Newcastle United, Leeds United beat Coventry City 1-0 and Southampton's good home form continued with a 1-0 win over Leicester City.

Everton and Middlesbrough drew 2-2 in their relegation battle at Goodison Park while West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur were goalless at Upton Park.

In the eagerly awaited top-of-the-table clash at the Stadium of Light Sunderland made all the running in the first 20 minutes without ever threatening to score.

Sunderland then suffered a blow when striker Niall Quinn went off injured and lost most of its momentum.

United's only meaningful move of the first half ended with Teddy Sheringham flicking a David Beckham cross narrowly wide.

However, within a minute of the restart everything had swung in favor of the champions.

First Cole showed a sharp turn of pace to cash in on an error by Jody Craddock and flick the ball past Thomas Sorensen. Then Sunderland skipper Michael Gray was sent off for arguing about the goal. The referee flourished his red card again 10 minutes later as Cole and Rae had a head-to-head confrontation and both got their marching orders as a result.

Sunderland was stung into action and Kevin Kilbane cut through but was foiled by a good smothering save by Fabien Barthez.

Roy Keane came close for United before the home side launched a final all-out assault which ultimately failed to get past Barthez.

"We can play better, we know that, but we battled through and I'm very happy to have three points," said United manager Alex Ferguson.

"After the red cards it just became a scrappy sort of match."

British bookmakers William Hill slashed United's already record short odds from 100-1 On to 500-1 On, but Ferguson, as ever, refused to accept the championship race was over.

"We've not won the title - I'm repeatedly asked the question with people trying to catch me off my guard but I never say we have," he said.

Sunderland manager Peter Reid condemned the referee's performance and said Cole's goal should have been disallowed for a handball in the build-up.

"How he hasn't seen the handball when we could see it I don't know," said Reid.

TITLE: Autograph Seekers Are Getting Tiger's Goat
AUTHOR: By Doug Ferguson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PEBBLE BEACH, California - When last seen at Pebble Beach, Tiger Woods stepped into the record books with a 15-stroke victory in the U.S. Open. This time, he left with a limp.


After a final practice round Wednesday before his bid to win a third straight tournament at Pebble Beach, Woods hyperextended his left knee and sprained a ligament when an overzealous autograph seeker tripped him as Woods was leaving the course.

Woods said the odds were "up there" that he would not be able to play Thursday when the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am begins over three courses. Woods, who is supposed to play Spyglass Hill, said he would give it a try.

It was a bizarre return to the course that Woods can claim as a second home, especially after his two thrilling victories at Pebble Beach.

In the AT&T National Pro-Am, Woods was seven strokes behind with seven holes to play when he finished eagle-birdie-par-birdie and won by two, giving him his sixth straight PGA Tour victory and the most stunning comeback in his spectacular career.

Four months later under vastly different conditions, he was even better. Woods demolished par that the U.S. Golf Association tries so vainly to protect at the U.S. Open, and he did the same thing to the field.

He finished at 12-under 272, unheard of for a U.S. Open, and won by 15 strokes, the largest margin in the 140-year history of the majors.

A victory this week - assuming he can play - would make him the first player since Jack Nicklaus in 1972-73 to win three straight events on the same course. Nicklaus also sandwiched a pair of Crosbys around a U.S. Open.

"I've always enjoyed playing here, seeing the beauty of it," Woods said. "This golf course is right there in front of you."

Now if he can only put Wednesday's injury behind him.

Woods was swarmed by autograph seekers as he left the 18th green, walking briskly and trying to sign whatever programs thrust in front of him.

One man, hounding him for autographs during his practice round, tried to position himself in front of the pack, and Woods inadvertently stepped on his ankle, hyperextending his knee.

"A lot of fans just kind of came down on top of me," Woods said. "One guy ran in front. I stepped on his ankle, and my weight going forward and his weight coming back I hyperextended my knee."

Woods winced immediately, glowered at the man and grabbed the back of his leg as he hobbled up a hill. He tried to hit balls after lunch, but couldn't.

A security detail was with him, but some fans went under the ropes and tried to get close.

"People get aggressive. That's the way it is," Woods said. "That's one reason we have security. Some of you say, 'Why do you have so much security?' It's for instances like this, so they don't happen. Unfortunately, it happened today."

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Soccer Sex Scandal

MILAN, Italy (AP) - Several Italian soccer players have been implicated by police in a sex ring that provided prostitutes through an Internet Web site.

The players were not identified but police said they were from a "top Milan-based soccer club."

Internazionale, one of the two Milan teams in Serie A, denied any player involvement Wednesday. But the coach, Marco Tardelli, told state television the accusations are true.

"They were so stupid, they got caught," he said. "Compliments to those who don't get caught. I never got caught."

Police said they busted the ring and seized computer equipment and hundreds of photographs. They have charged two people with abetting prostitution.

Investigators say the Web site carried advertisements by women and men offering sex for sums of up to more than $1,400 a session.

The players are accused of organizing a party with several of the women involved in an exclusive Milan restaurant before spending the night with some of them at the home of one of the players.



Former Tiger Sentenced

LIBERTY, Missouri (AP) - John McPherson, the former University of Missouri Tigers defensive back convicted of felony drug trafficking, was sentenced to nine years in prison Wednesday.


As part of his plea agreement, McPherson may be released on probation based on his behavior during his first 120 days in prison.

The charge stems from McPherson's arrest July 27 in Lafayette County, about 60 kilometers east of Kansas City.

A Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper pulled McPherson over for driving his vehicle "in a careless and imprudent manner" on Interstate 70 near Odessa. After receiving permission from McPherson to search the car, the patrolman found 43 kilograms of marijuana and $4,031 in cash.

TITLE: Ivanisevic Returns to Old Form To Defeat Kiefer in Milan
AUTHOR: By Simon Evans
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MILAN, Italy - Goran Ivanisevic battled back to beat Germany's Nicolas Kiefer in the Milan indoor tournament on Wednesday, while Russia's Marat Safin booked his place in the second round with a 6-4, 7-5 win over another German David Prinosil.


Ivanisevic beat Kiefer 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, showing signs of his old self, but then revealed he will need a shoulder operation later this year.

Top seed Safin won the first set comfortably enough but struggled in the second against the stocky German, who four times lost advantage on set point, before a trademark Safin ace took the game.

Having regained his composure Safin then took the final game to line up a second-round match against Belgian Xavier Malisse.

But Safin admitted he had found it tough going against Prinosil, who robbed him of glory on home soil last season when he defeated the Russian in the semifinals at the Kremlin Cup.

"These kinds of matches can be big trouble," said Safin, "The first set was okay, in fact it went perfectly, but the second set was different. You just have to win these games and it is good for confidence.

While Safin is seeking to maintain the blistering start to his career, 29-year-old Ivanisevic, a wild card in the event, who has not won a major title in two years, is looking to regain former glories.

Against Kiefer he lost the first set and trailed 0-40 in the first game of the second but rallied to win 6-2 against the fourth seed.

With the crowd behind him and his once famed serve proving effectual he raced to victory in the third set, showing glimpses of his old form.

Ivanisevic will now face a second-round match with the Czech Republic's Bohdan Ulihrach and he clearly enjoyed his victory over an out-of-sorts Kiefer.

"It feels nice to win against a good opponent - it has been a long time," said the Croat, "Last week I won four matches in the Challenger Tournament in Germany and that did me a lot of good."

**********

TOKYO - American Lindsay Davenport stormed into the quarterfinals of the Pan Pacific Open Thursday, beating compatriot Meghann Shaughnessy 6-3, 6-2.


On a good day for Japanese players, Shinobu Asagoe claimed the biggest upset of her career by beating South African fourth seed Amanda Coetzer 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), while Ai Sugiyama overpowered French fifth seed Sandrine Testud 6-4, 6-4.

Second seed Davenport rode out an early break to take the first set and then proved too powerful for Shaughnessy, winning in about an hour and rarely giving her opponent any breathing room on the fast surface.

Davenport said there was "some disappointment lingering in the air" after her defeat in the semifinals of the Australian Open last week but she was pleased with her start in the $1.2 million tournament.

Davenport now faces a quarterfinal match against Croatian veteran Iva Majoli.

The last time Majoli beat Davenport was in 1997 when she won in three sets in the quarterfinals of the French Open en route to winning her only major title.

Majoli, playing as a wild card in Tokyo, beat off match points against American seventh seed Lisa Raymond for a 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, 7-6 (7-1) victory.

In the biggest upset of the day, world No. 10 Coetzer looked dismal against 77th-ranked Asagoe. The South African's play was punctuated by poor services, unforced errors off her backhand and a lack of patience in long rallies against the local favorite.

Coetzer was unable to build momentum in the match as almost every time she broke Asagoe's serve, the Japanese player broke back directly.

In the third-set tiebreaker, Coetzer had four unforced errors and was run ragged along the baseline.

Asagoe reached the last eight of a tour event for only the second time in her career and will play No. 8 seed Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria.

Asagoe's compatriot Sugiyama never let French veteran and last year's Pan Pac runner-up Testud find her stride in the match. She now faces Martina Hingis in the quarterfinals on Friday..