SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #648 (15), Tuesday, February 27, 2001
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TITLE: Ex-Spies' Fund Is New Lord of Station Traders
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The ramshackle kiosks surrounding St. Petersburg's train stations are about to get a facelift, and a boost in rent, courtesy of their new landlords, a little-known organization for retired Federal Security Service agents and overseas operatives.
 The Regional Fund for the Support of Veterans of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Service for External Intelligence (SVR) has just inked a deal with the Oktyabrskaya Railway company, giving the former spies landlord responsibilities for - and carte blanche to bring order to - kiosks surrounding St. Petersburg's five train stations.
 The rent will then be turned over by the Fund to the Oktyabrskaya Railway company, which will continue to own the market space at stations.
 Some observers, however, have suggested that the plan differs little from mafia-style protectionism that dominates other city markets and that the Fund is cynically dusting off its epaulets to lend a veneer of respectability. FSB spokesperson Alexei Vost ret sov said the group had no direct link to the St. Petersburg FSB.
 Nevertheless, the FSB and SVR veterans' group is promising a cleaned-up image and a new line of merchandise, which will be effected by weeding out bad-seed kiosks. The project is due to start March 1.
 Kiosk markets at St. Petersburg's Mos cow, Vitebsk, Warsaw, Fin land and Baltiisky train stations are notorious for the multitude of both legal and not-so-legal goods they sell. Under bleating techno music advertising bootleg music kiosks, discerning shoppers can browse for cheap electronics, switch blades, manacles, fake documents and stomach-churning food.
 According to Igor Solovyov, deputy director for the Fund's Business Management office - and which will oversee the new kiosk leases - a portion of the current kiosks face closure because of the "selection of items that they sell, which are not convenient for [the Fund.]"
 "We are unhappy with a whole range of items on sale at train station kiosks, beginning with the sale of shavermas," a Caucasian kebab sandwich, said Solovyov in a telephone interview on Monday.
 "They often sell these [food products] in very dirty places."
 According to Vladimir Bogatikov, head of Transservis, the division of the Oktyabrskaya Railway Company, more than 200 kiosk leases will be transferred from the Oktyabrskaya Railway Company into the hands of the FSB retirees' fund. Kiosk traders will be furnished with newer kiosks and trading pavilions that they will rent from the Fund's Business Management group.
 Rents for merchants, said Solovyov, would certainly rise, but he would not say by how much. He also declined to specify what percentage of the money would remain in the hands of the Fund to support the FSB and SVR veterans.
 "I'm not authorized to talk about it," he said.
 Bogatikov, nonetheless, seemed relieved to let the leases go.
 "At the moment we have over 200 agreements with different kiosk owners and trade companies," he said in a telephone interview Monday. The new agreement, he said, would make it easier for Transservis to collect rents because they will be coming from one set of hands - the FSB and SVR Veterans Fund.
 As for the profitability of this, Bogatikov said, "that will be the Fund's headache."
 Within the city's corridors of power, authorities offered many theories about how the FSB and SVR Veterans Fund could hope to turn a profit out of the sow's ear of train station markets - unless they have substantial capital to begin with.
 Indeed, one source is the Fund, who speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the financial health of the origination was sound enough to bear the initial set-up, thanks to its well-heeled founders. These include Baltika Brewery, local defense factory Leninets, major regional fuel producer Kirishnefteorgsintez, shipbuilder Admiralteyskiye Verfy, and Oktyabrskaya Railways.
 Lawmaker Leonid Romankov darkly suggested that the Oktyabrskaya fund may have been leaned on by various criminal structures in the city so that their only choice was to turn to the well-heeled FSB and SVR Veterans Fund for protection.
 Dmitry Kolchankov, head of the Moskow train station's police department, said he was also wary about structures close to the FSB running business at his station.
 "If the Federal Security Service have no other source to take money from to provide the security of the country, let them take the money from kiosks," Kol chankov said dryly in an interview on Monday.
 One city hall representative, who asked that his name not be used, was more wry in his assessment.
 "I can't even imagine what kind of business opportunities FSB veterans think they will find there," the course said in a telephone interview Monday.
 "Maybe they can open shooting galleries to shoot at Dzerzhinsky or Chapayev from their engraved guns," said the source wryly.
 Legislative Assembly Deputy Igor Rimmer, a former market place owner, said: "It will only work if the Fund makes the areas surrounding train stations look better and influences the criminal situation there." According to him, the train station's 50 kiosks could net as much as $17,500 a month.
 The FSB's Vostretsov said the fund was created initially to help secret service veterans.
 "Why do you ask me about it?" said Vostrestov testily in a telephone interview Monday. "What if I created a fund to support your newspaper?"
 Kiosk operators at the stations were largely oblivious to the particulars of the new leasing arrangement, but Vitaly, who runs a coffee shop at the Mos cow station and who asked that his last name not be used, said he feared his kiosk would go under if the rent increased.
 "I've heard about these plans and I'm scared that I could lose my job because of this."
 Currently his kiosk pays 9,000 rubles ($315) a month.

TITLE: Fury as Fisheries Job Goes to Nazdratenko
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Politicians cried foul Monday over the appointment of former Primorye Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko as the government's head of the fishing industry, with some accusing the Kremlin of drawing up a deal to prevent Nazdratenko from seeking re-election. 
 Nazdratenko, who governed his far eastern region for seven years, abruptly resigned earlier this month after talking by telephone with President Vla dimir Putin.
 It remains unclear what was discussed during the call, which came amid a major Primorye heating and energy crisis.
 Then on Saturday, the government without explaination named Nazdratenko the head of the State Fisheries Committee, filling a spot that was vacated amid a corruption probe in January.
 "If the government thinks that Yevgeny Nazdratenko will rejuvenate the fishing industry, it is in my mind mistaken," Konstantin Pulikovsky, the presidential envoy to the Far East, told Interfax in Seoul on Monday, where he joined Putin on a visit to South Korea.
 Union of Right Forces faction leader Boris Nemtsov said handing Nazdratenko the post was a "cynical deal" and "a gigantic step back" that "discredits both the president and the government," in remarks Sunday night to NTV and Ekho Moskvy radio station.
 "I think this is the beginning of a large-scale government crisis," he said.
 He added that Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin had just last week told Union of Right Forces lawmakers that the government would never allow Nazdratenko to secure a government job.
 The "cynical deal" that Nemstov - and other politicians in the Yabloko and People's Deputy factions, among others - alluded to regards speculation that Nazdratenko was awarded the post in return for a pledge not to seek the Primorye governorship in elections scheduled for May.
 Interestingly, the same day Nazdratenko was named fisheries tsar, Putin sent a bill to parliament banning governors and mayors who resigned from immediately running for re-election. The draft applies to all resignations, voluntary or pressured.
 The bill, if passed into law, would not only keep Nazdratenko off the campaign trail but also put a stop to a practice that critics have complained is at times used to the incumbent leaders' advantage. 
 Nazdratenko has long been a thorn in the side of the Kremlin. President Boris Yeltsin for years toyed with the idea of ousting the governor.
 Nazdratenko found himself himself embroiled in numerous scandals, including garbage strikes and allegations of shareholders rights violations as well as the more recent power and heating shortages.
 As such, some Primorye residents have a very dim view of their former governor and his appointment to the fisheries committee.
 "This man just can't improve anything. He has compromised himself in anything he has done here," Alexander Kirilichev, head of the Primorye Shipping Co., said Monday in a telephone interview from the port of Nakhodka near Vladivostok.
 "He is not only untrustworthy, but he should be kept away from any managerial position in the government."
 Kirilichev, who plans to run for the Primorye governor's seat, knows the economic situation in the region well: The Far Eastern Shipping Co. lost millions of dollars in revenues after foreigners on its board accused Nazd ratenko of trying to strong arm them out of their shares, the Vladivostok Zolotoi Rog newspaper reported.
 Another shipping fleet, region-controlled Vostoktransflot, has been brought to its knees during Nazdratenko's governorship and is now selling off the last of its assets.
 Overall sentiment in the Far East over Nazdratenko was unclear Monday. No major surveys have been taken of the region recently. One poll of 324 people in the town of Arsenyevo last week found that 49.4 percent were glad that Nazdratenko was gone, according to the local Biznes-Ars newspaper.
 However, observers said Monday that the ex-governor was a master manipulator who could have easily scored a win for re-election.
 "Nazdratenko is a talented populist, a gifted demagogue," said Vladimir Pribylovsky, analyst with Panorama think-tank. "And there in Primorye, in this marginalized region, there are a lot of former prisoners who appreciate such a performance."
 Andrei Ryabov, political analyst with the Carnegie Foundation, added: "Nazdratenko has created such a powerful administrative resource in the region that he would have been elected if he wanted."
 But Ryabov rejected assertions that Nazdratenko's new appointment would spark a governmental crisis, saying the Kremlin had taken the easy road in keeping the ex-governor out of the region.
 "The Kremlin just did not have sufficient resources to oppose Nazdratenko should he decide to run in the early elections," he said.
 "All this exposed the limited ability of our president to resolve such issues. Effectively, he just used the Brezhnev approach of not jailing a failed communist official but sending him to a Moscow trade union, a wealthy ministry or abroad as an ambassador."
 With the fisheries committee Nazdratenko takes the helm of a potentially lucrative industry that has been plagued with allegations of corruption - chiefly that it was implicated in a racket of bribetaking for access to fishing quotas. In a bid to mop up the committee, its previous chief was sacked and the government kicked off this month a series of auctions for quotas. 
 It was unclear Monday what stance Nazdratenko will adopt on the auctions - which he has previously opposed. The auctions have sparked protests from fishermen who fear losing their fishing privileges.
 The fishermen's union would not comment. 
 But cynicism was building Monday in Russian newspaper reports about how Nazdratenko would handle his new responsibilities.
 "We are team players," Vremya Novostei quoted an unnamed government source as saying.
 "If our superiors order a tamed monkey appointed to a high position, we would do it. We could also appoint a wild monkey."

TITLE: Isolation Is Kaliningrad's Big Fear
AUTHOR: By David McHugh
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KALININGRAD, Russia - His muddy Opel hatchback loaded with contraband cigarettes, Vyachelsav Melnikas has waited all night to make his smuggling run from Russia's Kaliningrad region into neighboring Poland. 
 Ahead of him are 150 cars near the crossing point at the town of Bagrationovsk, holding occupants who also will take advantage of the unusual location and status of Kaliningrad, an impoverished chunk of Russia stranded between Poland and Lithuania, 400 kilometers west of mainland Russia. 
 In Kaliningrad, cigarettes, vodka and gasoline are cheaper than in Poland, fueling a bustling, tax-evading shuttle trade - just one of the many off-the-books activities that comprise about half the economy of Russia's westernmost region, once touted as a potential Hong Kong on the Baltic Sea. 
 Smuggling may help people get by, but it is a symptom of the poverty, social ills and leaky borders that make European countries look nervously at the struggling Russian enclave and its 900,000 people. 
 The reason: Poland and Lithuania are headed toward membership in the European Union, with its unified economy and strict border controls intended to protect members' high standards of living. That would leave Kaliningrad completely surrounded by the EU, and make its troubles Europe's troubles. 
 There are also longer-term concerns about Kaliningrad if relations worsen between the West and Russia. News reports that Russia has moved tactical nuclear weapons into the enclave, though denied by Russia, have Poland and Lithuania worried about their security. 
 Russia quickly denied recent news reports in Germany that suggested the Kremlin might be willing to swap Kaliningrad in exchange for a cancellation of Russia's substantial debts to Germany. The Russian military, however, would most probably strongly oppose giving up Kaliningrad, which remains a strategic outpost and listening point. 
 Melnikas, a 27-year-old smuggler, is from the region's small town of Gusev, where he used to earn $25 a month as a garbage collector. For him, Kaliningrad's proximity to Poland is a lifesaver. 
 "I've got seven people to support and there's no decent work," said a bleary-eyed Melnikas, wearing a night's worth of stubble. "What else am I going to do? Steal? Kill? Give people decent work and I'll sleep at home at night." 
 About 10,000 to 12,000 Kaliningraders live off the shuttle trade, economists say, with a day's run typically bringing $25 to $40 in profit. 
 One key is visa-free travel for Kaliningraders on short trips, unlike for other Russians, and duty-free imports on some products. But as they near EU membership, Poland and Lithuania will begin demanding visas, starting as early as this year. Getting a visa takes time and money, and people can be turned down. 
 Kaliningraders find visa-free travel a treasured perk. Favorite destinations are a water park in the Polish town of Mikolajki and the cafes of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. They fear being fenced off by their richer neighbors. 
 "If we wind up unable to leave, that would be horrible," said 30-year-old Svetlana Saranchuk, a bookkeeper in an import-export firm. "There are bad things in Kaliningrad, but there are also people striving for something better." 
 They say their region, which the Soviet Union won from Germany in World War II, is more cosmopolitan and European than the rest of Russia. 
 The capital presents an odd mix: Grim, boxy Soviet apartment buildings clash with crooked cobblestone streets and few stucco houses left from its days as the German town of Koenigsberg. Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century philosopher, was born in Koenigsberg, taught at its university and was buried here. 
 Kaliningrad's Soviet legacy is more visible. The city was mostly destroyed by the war. The surviving Germans were expelled and replaced by Russian settlers. The region became a secret military zone, home of the Baltic Fleet. 
 Now, the military presence has vastly shrunk, and the industrial and farm economies, unrestructured from the days of Soviet government planning, are in collapse. The enclave imports 80 percent of its food and suffers from drugs, an AIDS epidemic, political corruption and organized crime. 
 "If they close us in and we become a black hole, that's it, I'm leaving for St. Petersburg. There'll be nothing for me to do here," said lumber and coal exporter Alexander Fyodorov, a retired navy pilot who sometimes dashes to Poland twice a day with customs documents. 
 Crime and corruption are obvious. Day and night, cars ferry addicts to a row of shacks on a muddy road south of town to buy heroin. Drugs made Kaliningrad the first Russian region to experience an explosion in AIDS cases transmitted by dirty needles. There are now 3,029 registered cases of HIV infection, probably one-fifth the real number, experts say.

TITLE: New Senators To Back Putin
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In a move further tightening the Kremlin's control over the legislative branch, a group of senators in parliament's upper house has formed an informal caucus whose only stated political goal is to support bills submitted by the president.
 By the end of last week, the group, which was formed Wednesday, already included around 50 of the Federation Council's 178 senators, Oleg Yevstig ne yev, deputy head of the chamber's press office, said in a telephone interview Friday.
 He added that around two-thirds of the group's members are new senators - in other words, those who joined the Federation Council on the basis of a new law introduced by President Vladimir Putin, which came into effect last summer. The law stipulated that the upper chamber would be made up not of regional leaders but of their appointees.
 According to press reports, the initiative to form the group, called simply Federation, came from the presidential administration. 
 The move is a "logical step in the Kremlin's bid to monopolize power on the federal level," said Alexei Zudin, a regional policy analyst at the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
 According to Zudin, the new members of the Federation Council may have less political weight than their predecessors, but they are still capable of forming regional lobbies. 
 "The Kremlin is trying to prevent this by offering them the opportunity for a closer connection with the presidential administration early in the day. It's a perfectly logical step."
 Some of the chamber's most prominent old-timers were unhappy with the new group, but showed their displeasure by emphasizing their own loyalty to the Kremlin. 
 "The Federation Council always supported the president and never waged war against him," the Segodnya daily quoted the chamber's speaker, Yegor Stroyev, as saying. 
 The caucus does not have an official status yet since the Federation Council's regulations forbid forming political factions. 
 "But the regulations are not holy scripture," said press spokesman Yevs ti gneyev, "and they can be changed."

TITLE: New Chechnya Atrocity Reports Emerge
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Council of Europe's human rights supremo arrived in Russia on Monday to study the situation in war-torn Chechnya amid fresh media reports of atrocities committed in the rebel region by the military. 
 Alvaro Gil-Robles, human rights commissioner for the council - a Strasbourg-based democracy watchdog - will visit Chechnya and hold talks with senior government officials in Moscow during his five-day visit. 
 Russia's 17-month campaign to end Chechnya's independence bid has triggered strong criticism in the West, where officials have accused Moscow of excessive use of force against civilians and mass violations of human rights by its troops. 
 Russia has admitted to isolated cases of human rights violations in the course of its military operations, but denies they were regular or excessive. 
 Russia now says it controls the whole of Chechnya. Earlier this year President Vladimir Putin ordered deep cuts in the 80,000-strong military force in the region. 
 But Russian human rights campaigners say federal troops continue to illegally detain local residents and extort ransoms for kidnapped Chechens. 
 Late last week, Moscow journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was briefly detained by the military in southeastern Chechnya, said she saw pits used to hold kidnapped Chechens at a paratroopers' base. The chief prosecutor of Chechnya, Vsevolod Chernov, told Interfax his office was looking into the allegations. 
 Politkovskaya's reports "contained inaccuracies," and her statements for the press and for prosecutors contradicted each other in places, Chernov said. "But prosecutors will check this information and announce the results to the public." 
 Politkovskaya, a reporter with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was detained in Chechnya last week. Officials said she was not carrying all the necessary documents to work in a war zone. But Politkovskaya said in a television interview Friday, a day after her release, that she was detained because she had uncovered evidence of "one of the cruelest filtration camps in Chechnya." 
 The military denied Politkovskaya's claims, saying the pits were used as dumps. Itar-Tass news agency said on Monday a team of military prosecutors had flown to the base to investigate. Kremlin spokesperson Konstantin Makeyev said there was no official comment on Politkovskaya's statement, adding the journalist was not a credible source. Makeyev said there are no so-called filtration camps. 
 Over the weekend, residents of a southeastern suburb of the devastated regional capital Grozny discovered a grave containing 11 civilian corpses. Some of the bodies were mined. 
 Military officials have said it is too early to identify the bodies, adding that they were buried over a considerable period of time. Some suggested they may have been victims of inter-clan wars or rebel kidnappings. 
 But Segodnya newspaper quoted residents as saying that one of the corpses was identified as a 16-year-old youth who went missing in December 2000, when the area was under Russian control. 
 Despite military denials, even the leaders of the Moscow-installed Che chen administration say troops have treated the local population harshly, fueling strong anti-Russian sentiment. 
 
 - Reuters, AP

TITLE: Audits: ORT, RTR as Guilty as NTV
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Two Audit Chamber investigations into state-controlled television giants ORT and RTR show yet again the double standard used by federal authorities in dealing with state and private media companies.
 Both ORT and RTR are tax delinquents and guilty of violating the law and misappropriating tens of millions of dollars of government money, according to the summaries of the investigations, copies of which were obtained by The St. Petersburg Times.
 But while the Prosecutor General's Office pursues its embezzlement case against Media-MOST founder Vla di mir Gusinsky on the presumption that he never intended to repay a $260 million loan from state-controlled Gaz prom in 1998 (the debt was settled in 1999), and while Gazprom vows to take control of NTV and its sister companies over other debts (one of which has not yet expired), in the case of RTR and ORT the Audit Chamber only "recommends" that the government "improve" its oversight.
 There is a major difference: Unlike NTV, both ORT and RTR are deemed by the Audit Chamber to be "strategically important for the national information security of the Russian Federation."
 According to the chamber's reports, which totaled 75 pages, both channels are losing millions of dollars every year. Moreover both companies have violated accounting laws and underpaid their taxes, with VGTRK's delinquency occurring even though the Tax Ministry had given it, as a budgetary organization, massive tax breaks - some of which, auditors said, were illegal and must be revoked.
 While Gusinsky is accused of building a "pyramid" of debts, VGTRK, which received about $100 million from the state budget in the first six months of 2000, borrowed $120 million from commercial banks during that same period - 62 percent of which it used to service old debt.
 "Growing debt creates prerequisites for the company's financial instability," the Audit Chamber wrote.
 In 1998, former President Boris Yelt sin ordered his Cabinet and the Central Bank to provide a one-year, $100 million loan to ORT. ORT received $40 million of that from state-owned Vnesh ekonombank even before the agreement had been signed and 13 percent of ORT was put up as collateral. The chamber also found that there was no clear mechanism by which the repayment of this debt was guaranteed.
 And just this week, Press Minister Mikhail Lesin put his stamp of approval on ORT's request to extend its debt once again, until January 2002, without penalty. 
 "Despite a certain improvement of advertising sales in 1999-2000, settling ORT's debt to Vneshekonombank does not appear possible today," Interfax quoted Lesin as saying in a letter to the Audit Chamber.
 In the fall of 1999, it was the same Vnesh ekonombank that called in a $60 million loan to Media-MOST as soon as it matured, refusing to extend it.
 Despite the fact that in 1998 the nation's television and radio transmission system was placed under the control of RTR's parent company, and many of these transmission centers were profitable (earning money from offering services to private broadcasters in the regions), the company's losses continued to grow, reaching $20 million during the first half of 2000 alone.
 After the national meltdown in 1998, VGTRK stopped receiving fixed payments from Video International. It received just $18.7 million in all of 1999 for ad revenues - about half of what it should have received, according to Obshchaya Gazeta television analyst Yele na Rykovtseva.
 Media analysts said this week that financial woes began for all major media companies, state and nonstate alike, with the financial crisis of 1998, when the advertising market collapsed along with everything else. But for ORT and VGTRK - state-controlled channels that receive commercial revenues - their hybrid nature creates prerequisites for inefficiency and theft.
 "The double standards are obvious," said Anna Kachkayeva, media analyst with Radio Liberty. "In any other country, such a number of violations would have generated a huge scandal. Here everything disappears as if it never existed. The Audit Chamber does not name names and does not hold people personally responsible. As long as the authorities don't want it and the situation satisfies everybody, the Prosecutor General's Office will never visit VGTRK."
 VGTRK officials appear to be unfazed by the audit. Dobrodeyev's assistant, Alexander Yefimovich, said that a tax police inspection that occurred after the audit found nothing.
 Asked if he feared a visit from prosecutors, RTR spokesman Alexander Goldburt said jovially: "I'm sure they won't. I have some internal feeling telling me so."
 But Yefimovich was more cautious. "There is a Russian saying: Never swear that you will never end up in prison or as a beggar," he said.

TITLE: Zhivilo Awaits Asylum in Paris Jail
AUTHOR: Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Siberian metals magnate Mikhail Zhivilo has been detained in Paris on an Interpol warrant accusing him of plotting to assassinate Kemerovo Gov. Aman Tuleyev.
 But the arrest Thursday took place a day after Zhivilo - on the advice of his attorneys - applied for asylum in France, the Zhivilo-owned MIKOM metals holding said Friday in a statement carried by Interfax.
 Zhivilo was once a major shareholder in the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant, the fifth-biggest aluminum producer in Russia. He was ousted in a bitter takeover battle that saw Russian Aluminum gain control of the plant. He then went missing last summer after Tuleyev accused him of masterminding the assassination attempt.
 A warrant for Zhivilo's arrest was issued Sept. 1 and subsequently passed over to Interpol.
 Prosecutor Vladimir Vodolazsky said at a briefing Friday that the Prosecutor General's Office would hand over the extradition paperwork to France in one to two weeks. 
 "We have enough evidence to prove a link between Mikhail Zhi vi lo and the attempt to kill Aman Tu le yev," he said. "There is nothing complicated about it. It's just a clearly criminal offense."
 He said the prosecutor's office followed Zhivilo's trail to France between November and December.
 Vladimir Gordiyenko, head of Russia's Interpol branch, said that in addition to attempted murder, Zhi vi lo is accused of "several other economic crimes." 
 "We filed our requests to France several times, and Thursday we were informed that he had been detained," Gordiyenko said.
 MIKOM said that the charges were "false" and "absurd."
 Police arrested former Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov and his brother Viktor late last summer on charges of plotting the murder of Tuleyev. While Viktor admitted to conspiracy to murder, Alexander denied any involvement and was later released.
 "Mikhail Zhivilo allowed himself to be taken into custody by French authorities in Paris ... as part of the normal legal process related to an application for territorial asylum," said Matthew Benson, representative of the New York-based Citigate Sard Verbinnen, which is acting on behalf of Zhivilo's partners in a $2.7 billion suit over the Novokuznetsk plant.
 "I can tell you I know he has met with his attorneys and remains confident that he will be afforded full protection under French law and continues to believe that the decision to seek territorial asylum in France was a wise one," Benson said in an e-mail.
 Benson said Zhivilo was seeking asylum over a previous Interpol warrant accusing him of fraud, a charge that he also denies.
 "Now that he is formally under the protection of the French government, Mr. Zhivilo will apply to be released on his own recognizance pending the determination of his application," he said. "He is cooperating with French authorities and remains confident that he will be treated fairly, protected and accorded due process under French law, and ultimately exonerated on all charges."
 The prosecutor's office in Moscow did not have any comment about how the asylum plea might affect its extradition bid.

TITLE: Church Is Petitioned To Relent on Tolstoy
AUTHOR: By Sarah Karush
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - One hundred years after the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated Leo Tolstoy, the renowned writer's great-great-grandson has asked it to bring him back into the fold - horrifying some scholars, who say Tolstoy would never have asked for forgiveness from the church he scorned.
 Tolstoy rejected the authority of the Orthodox Church and developed his own version of Christianity, which maintained that people can affirm the good in themselves through self-examination and reformation. His philosophy contradicted the official doctrine of the church, and was deemed heretical.
 But Vladimir Tolstoy said on Monday that his great-great-grandfather should be forgiven in the name of national reconciliation. Vladimir Tolstoy said he wrote to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II last week requesting that the church reconsider its excommunication decision, which was taken on Feb. 24, 1901.
 "Russian people are forced to choose between a national genius and the national religion," he said. "This is a very complex contradiction in society, and within every person."
 Vladimir Tolstoy, who runs a museum at Yasnaya Polyana, Leo Tolstoy's country estate, said that he had not yet received an answer from the patriarch but had been told he could expect one this week.
 Church spokesman Viktor Malukhin said that he did not know what Alexy's answer would be, but that many of Tolstoy's writings remained unacceptable to the church.
 "They remain just as heretical as they were during his lifetime. He doesn't have the power to correct those texts now and, of course, nobody is going to establish censorship and cut out the anti-Christian motifs from his works," Malukhin said.
 "People who read it must be firm in their faith because for those who are not, these 'teachings' of Leo Tolstoy could tempt them," Malukhin said.
 He claimed that Tolstoy received absolution before his death in 1910, even though the Holy Synod never reversed its decision.
 "If memory does not deceive me, he confessed to a priest before his death, repented and received absolution from his sins from that priest," Malukhin said.
 "His personal problem in relation to the church was resolved."
 But Berta Shumova, deputy director of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, said that Malukhin's version of history runs counter to everything Tolstoy stood for.
 Tolstoy never repented, and nor would he have approved of his descendant's drive to reunite him with the Church, she said.
 "I think the best thing is to ask Tolstoy himself," she said before reading aloud from the author's published diary. 
 In the entry from Jan. 22, 1909, the elderly Tolstoy complains about a conversation his wife had with a bishop.
 "It's especially unpleasant that he asked to let him know when I am going to die. As if they have thought of something to assure people that I 'repented' before death," he writes.
 "And that's why I am declaring: I cannot return to the church and repent, just as I cannot before death say obscene words and look at obscene pictures.
 "And so whatever they may say about my repenting and taking communion before death will be a lie."
 Tolstoy, who lived from 1828 to 1910, is considered one of the most important figures in the Russian literatury pantheon.
 He is best known for his novel "Anna Karenina" and the 1,500 page epic "War and Peace," a broad panorama of Russian society during the Na po leo nic Wars.
 He was also a committed pacifist and social reformer.

TITLE: Powell-Ivanov Meet Pronounced Success
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: CAIRO, Egypt - In an amicable first meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov pledged over the weekend a constructive approach to dealing with Iraq, missile defenses and other points of policy discord.
 Powell, draping an arm over Ivanov's shoulder, described the first encounter Saturday between the Bush administration and the year-old government of President Vladimir Putin as "very, very excellent."
 "I am also satisfied with the meeting," Ivanov said in Russian. "We had a very constructive first dialogue. We exchanged our views on a number of important international issues."
 But the congeniality displayed by Powell and Ivanov, who met alone for 90 minutes and agreed to call each other by their first names, masked the increasingly lopsided relations between Washington and Moscow. 
 Ivanov jokingly conceded that any notion that the two countries will be able to resolve their differences soon was unrealistic.
 "If you think we managed to resolve all our differences at our first meeting that would be good, but it would exceed our expectations," Ivanov said.
 The two foreign policy chiefs agreed to reconvene working groups of specialists, set up under the Clinton administration, to discuss both offensive weapons and defensive systems. But this incremental step forward was overshadowed by huge differences in substance.
 No issue reflects the attitude of the new U.S. administration and Russia's growing suspicion of U.S. intentions more than national missile defense. The two governments have been sparring for months over the proposed $60 billion plan to build a shield to protect the United States from a missile attack.
 Over the past week, Moscow has attempted to offer an alternative plan that might, at a minimum, make Russia a party to a missile defense system rather than exclude it altogether.
 En route to Cairo, however, Powell described the plan, presented by Putin to NATO Secretary General George Robertson last week, as "interesting" but noted that it would involve "a different kind of system."
 Rather than welcome Russia's effort to find some compromise by offering an alternative for a nonstrategic missile defense for Europe, the Bush administration heralded the proposal largely because it implied Moscow's acceptance that the threat of missile strikes by so-called rogue nations does exist.
 "Their words indicate that they recognize that there are new threats in the post-Cold War era, threats that require a theater-based antiballistic missile system,'' President Bush said Thursday at his first news conference.
 Underlying the two countries' differences on specifics is a more fundamental recent shift in attitude. In Washington, the issue debated during the Clinton administration was "Who lost Russia?"
 Under the Bush administration, experts contend, the attitude seems to be "Who needs Russia?"
 The Bush administration's initial policy statements mark a major shift from the Clinton administration's description of Russia as a strategic partner. 
 
 - AP, LAT, Reuters

TITLE: Jehovah's Witnesses Win Vital Court Case
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow court on Friday threw out a prosecutor's effort to ban Jehovah's Witnesses in the capital, a decision hailed as a strong move for religious tolerance. 
 Applause and tears broke out among the crowd of about 50 people listening to the reading of the decision, which also called for the prosecutor's office to pay $650 to experts called in the case. 
 "We are crying tears of happiness," said a Jehovah's Witnesses member who did not give her name. "I lived through the period when we were banned ... I did not want to repeat it."
 The Moscow city prosecutor's office had been trying to outlaw the Moscow branch of the U.S.-based church using a provision in Russian law that allows courts to ban religious groups found guilty of inciting hatred or intolerant behavior. 
 The trial began in September 1998 but was recessed six months later to let an expert panel examine the group's publications for evidence backing the prosecutor's claim that the group destroyed families, fostered hatred and threatened lives. 
 But on Friday, the city's Golovinsky district court threw out the case and ordered five experts to pay for their two years of work examining the texts. 
 "We have a clear statement by the court that the courtroom is not a place for theological debate," said John Burns, an attorney for the Jehovah's Witnesses. "It shows we have hope for an independent judiciary in Moscow because this court has come down with a very strong decision." 
 Russia's courts often have been criticized as biased toward prosecutors. 
 The court's reasoning in the decision was not immediately known. Only the basic decision was read out on Friday, and defense attorney Galina Krylova said the defense team had not yet seen the full decision. Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment. 
 The prosecutor's office has two weeks to appeal, but the Interfax news agency quoted prosecutor Tatyana Kond ratyeva as saying she needed to study the ruling in detail, and then "perhaps [she] will agree with what's said there." 
 The Jehovah's Witnesses have alleged that Russia's religion law has been used to restrict churches other than Russia's biggest and most well-established faiths. The law enshrines Orthodox Christianity as the country's predominant religion and pledges respect for Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, but places restrictions on other groups. 
 In the event of a victory for the prosecution, Jehovah's Witnesses would no longer have had the right to hold public services, rent property or distribute literature in Moscow.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Gas Blast Kills 1
 

MOSCOW (AP) - A blast that killed a woman and badly injured 23 others on a collective farm in central Russia was traced to a propane gas cylinder, officials said Sunday. 
 The explosion occurred Saturday night in the dormitory of the farm near the town of Karmazkali, said Yury Polygalov, a spokesperson for the regional Emergency Situations Ministry. 
 There were 83 people in the two-story dormitory when the cylinder containing cooking gas exploded, Polygalov said. All suffered some burns from a fire started by the explosion. 
 A 38-year-old woman was killed and 23 of the residents, including 10 children, were hospitalized with severe burns, Polygalov said. The other residents were staying at a hotel run by the collective farm. 
 
 
Sutyagin on Trial 
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A regional court resumed the treason trial on Monday of an arms expert at the country's respected USA and Canada Institute, but the session was adjourned until Tuesday, a court spokesperson said.
 The session at a court in the town of Kaluga near Moscow was the first since the trial was postponed on Jan. 9. The spokesperson gave no reason for the adjournment.
 Igor Sutyagin, 35, has been in jail since October 1999, when he was arrested by the Federal Security Service.
 Sutyagin, who is charged with passing secrets about Russian nuclear submarines to the United States and Britain, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. He denies the charges, saying he has never possessed classified information.
 Sutyagin's trial started in December, hard on the heels of the conviction of U.S. businessman Edmond Pope. 
 
 
Reds Take Moldova
 

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) - With almost all ballots counted, Communists were the overwhelming winners of parliamentary elections that likely will bring this poor former Soviet republic closer to Russia's orbit. 
 With 97 percent of the ballots counted, the pro-Moscow Communist Party had 50.2 percent. The centrist Braghis Alliance was a distant second with about 13.5 percent. 
 The margin of victory meant that the Communists would hold nearly 70 percent of seats in Moldova's 101-seat parliament. 
 After learning of the results, Communist Party leader Vladimir Voronin said he wanted to make Russian an official language alongside Moldovan to "create social peace" in the country of 4.3 million. About one-third of the population uses Russian as a first language, and most people are bilingual. Voronin also has indicated he may consider a union with Russia and Belarus. 
 
 
More Kuchma Protests
 

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Several thousand opposition protesters marched through Ukraine's capital with burning torches and an effigy of President Leonid Kuchma in a cage, demanding his ouster. 
 The demonstration was the latest of dozens of street protests in recent months against Kuchma. About 5,000 people showed up, fewer than the tens of thousands opposition leaders predicted but more than took part in protests last week when meager crowds appeared to signal the movement against Kuchma was waning. 
 Demonstrators held a mock trial of Kuch ma and found him guilty in the disappearance of journalist Georgiy Gon gadze, an outspoken critic of the government. Protesters also accused Kuchma of corruption, embezzlement of state funds and attacks on opposition politicians. 



TITLE: Yekaterinburg Customs Find Nuke Container
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A container was impounded by customs officials at Yekaterinburg's main airport on Monday because it was emitting radiation well over the accepted safety level.
 Vladimir Kondukov, a press spokes person for the Sverdlovsk regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry, told The St. Petersburg Times in a telephone interview on Monday that the container, made of wood and weighing 145 kilograms, was taken by customs at Kolt so vo airport - the largest airport in the Urals region - at 12:40 a.m. on Monday.
 According to a spokesperson for Koltsovo airport, the container had arrived from the United States on a San-Francisco to Yekaterinburg cargo flight. The spokesperson said that the container, which was empty, was bound for the Energotechnical Research and Construction Institute (NIKIET) in the town of Zarechny, near Yekaterinburg and close to the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, a BN-600 fast-breeder reactor.
 The institute regularly exports various radioactive materials, said Kondukov. He said that NIKIET had sent some radioactive materials to a U.S. organization which had ordered them, but which had sent the container back without cleansing it of radiation.
 According to a report on the news and information Web site lenta.ru, the container was emitting radiation over 1,000 times the accepted safety level.
 Kondukov could not identify either the nature of the materials nor the U.S. organization to which they had been sent.
 NIKIET officials could not be reached for comment Monday.
 Airport officials said that representatives from NIKIET and Gosatomnadzor, the state nuclear regulatory body, were were invited to the airport to examine the container on Monday morning.
 Customs officials at San Francisco International Airport would not comment on the situation on Monday.

TITLE: Putin Talks Links, Ties on Visit to South Korea
AUTHOR: By Peter Graff
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SEOUL, South Korea - President Vla dimir Putin arrived in Seoul on Monday, where groups of families from North and South Korea are holding reunions as part of an historic rapprochement that Moscow aims to assist.
 South Korean President Kim Dae-jung told Russian television that Putin's visit would be "epoch-making" and hoped for cooperation in various economic projects.
 Putin, whisked away from the airport after arriving in Seoul at 10 p.m. local time, hopes that an easing of tensions on the Korean peninsula will provide an economic bonanza for Russia and undermine U.S. arguments for a missile defence shield.
 As North Korea's Cold War patron, neighboring Russia has tried to play a high-profile role in diplomacy on the peninsula.
 "The current visit of President Putin will be an epoch-making event in the history of Russian-Korean relations," Kim told Russia's ORT public television station in a clip of an interview aired in Moscow.
 "In the past, President Yeltsin came to our country but that was at a time when inter-Korean relations were not in such a state of improvement as now so at that time we could not consider tri-lateral projects of cooperation between North and South Korea and Russia," he said.
 "We hope the visit of President Putin will allow us to have a wide exchange of opinions on various cooperation projects, on strengthening peace on the Korean peninsula and in the region of Southeast Asia," he added.
 Hours before Putin set off from Moscow, an airliner carrying 100 elderly North Koreans landed in Seoul. The same jet then took a similar delegation of South Koreans to Pyongyang.
 The family reunions - the third since Kim Dae-jung's historic trip to Pyongyang last June - will run through Wednesday, coinciding almost exactly with Putin's visit.
 Kim said that he and Putin would discuss various projects, including the Trans-Siberian/Korea rail link and the economic development of Russia's Siberian and Far Eastern regions.
 The railway link would provide South Koreans with a tangible sign of the economic benefits of a thaw, cutting the cost and delivery time of Korean exports to Europe.
 Kim Dae-jung broke ground for a link between the two Koreas' railways last September at a ceremony near a rusting locomotive that sat for decades just south of the border with the North.
 Moscow would like to complete a spur linking the rail to the Trans-Siberian Railway, a route that would take shipments about a week to reach Mos cow and 10 days to Paris or London.
 Russia says easing tensions on the Korean peninsula undermines a key argument for a U.S. anti-missile scheme, a $60 billion plan that Moscow and Beijing say will spark a new arms race.
 Washington says the shield is to protect U.S. territory from missiles from "states of concern" - what the State Department used to call "rogue states" - and North Korea tops that list.
 Pyongyang shocked East Asia and jolted the West in 1998 by test-firing a ballistic missile over Japan. Washington says an updated version of the North's Taepodong rocket could hit U.S. territory by the middle of this decade and Pyongyang could also sell its technology to "rogues" like Iran or Iraq.
 North Korea said it was only putting a small satellite in orbit in 1998 and has apparently suggested it would be willing to forego more tests if Washington pays for future launches.
 Russia says the best way to deal with the threat is to bring Pyongyang in from the cold.
 
 (Patrick Lannin also contributed to this report)

TITLE: First Post-Soviet Nuclear Reactor Opened
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROSTOV-ON-DON, Southern Russia - More than 20 years after its conception, Russia's first new nuclear power plant since the Soviet era has been launched by top officials who called it a breakthrough for the industry following years of opposition.
 Operators Friday switched on the first reactor at the Rostov Nuclear Energy Station to minimal output and will gradually bring it to full power over the next several months.
 Plant and government officials insist the reactor is Russia's safest and will provide jobs and much-needed electricity to the Rostov province and the surrounding North Caucasus region.
 But environmental groups and many residents of the forested region nearby strongly oppose it, saying the plant was built too close to a major reservoir and in an area of high seismic activity.
 Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov promised Friday that the plant would observe all necessary precautions. "The main thing is the safe operation of the plant," he said at the opening. Later, he promised electricity discounts and medical benefits to the 250,000 residents living within 30 kilometers of the plant.
 The reactor had been almost complete when construction on all nuclear plants was frozen in 1990 on government orders, due to public protests prompted by the Chernobyl blast.
 But amid increasing blackouts across Russia, prompted by deterioration at coal-powered electricity plants and chronic funding shortages, the government announced a drive to revive the nuclear energy industry. The Nuclear Power Ministry allocated funds in 1999 for completing the Rostov reactor and several other stalled projects.
 "We will no longer allow such pauses," Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khris tenko said at Friday's opening.
 Opponents say the reactor was not properly maintained while construction was stalled, and also say its designers have ignored lessons of the 1986 explosion at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl plant, the world's worst nuclear accident.
 With Friday's launch, Russia now possesses 10 nuclear plants that produce about 12 percent of the country's electricity.
 
 q
 The second reading of a controversial bill that would overturn Russia's current law on importing nuclear was postponed by the Duma until March 22, according to Russian press reports.
 The bill, which has been pushed by Russian's Nuclear Ministry Minatom as a $21 billion dollar money-spinner, enjoyed both the overwhelming support of Parliamentatians and the protest of environmentalists during its first reading in December. The bill sailed through its first reading, with 318 deputies for it and 32 against.
 But according to a poll compiled by various Russian environmental groups, the results of which were published on the Web site of Norwegian environmental group Bellona, some 93.5 percent of Russian citizens are against the bill.

TITLE: Mil Bankruptcy Struggle Ends
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW- A Moscow court Friday officially ended bankruptcy proceedings against the Mil Helicopter Plant, closing the book on years of legal maneuvering and clearing the way for the world-famous aviation company to get back to business.
 "The Moscow Mil Helicopter Plant is now returning to its normal activity as a joint-stock company," Interfax quoted the plant's current external manager, Leonid Zapolsky, as saying Friday.
 Zapolsky is the sixth court-appointed manager at the company since June 1999, when the plant went bankrupt with debts estimated at about $11 million. Zapolsky himself was appointed by the court a record four separate times.
 He plans a new share issue for Mil that would increase the government's stake in the plant to just over 50 percent and give a blocking stake to Mezhregionalny Investitsionny Bank in exchange for debts.
 MIB, Mil's main creditor, bought 40 percent of the company's outstanding debt last summer with the intention of converting it into a blocking stake of 25 percent plus one share and has since enjoyed friendly relations with Zapolsky, whose plan was supported by the Property Ministry, the Federal Bankruptcy Agency and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviakosmos.
 Mil's biggest shareholder is the government, with 31 percent, followed by MIB with 19 percent, Rosvertol, the Rostov-on-Don helicopter plant, with 12.7 percent and U.S. helicopter giant Sikorsky Aircraft Group, a subsidiary of United Technologies, with 9.38 percent.
 "At last, all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed in this mess," Surov said.
 But perhaps not surprisingly, not everyone involved is happy.
 "I don't know what is going to happen," said Nadezhda Mil, daughter of the pioneering engineer Mikhail Mil and a minority shareholder, in a telephone interview Friday.
 "All that remains of the plant now is a shell," Mil said.
 Mil is not alone: The plant's employees last week sent an urgent appeal to Georgy Poltavchenko, the presidential envoy to the Central Federal District, saying that "no outside forces, including Sikorsky, which has proved itself to be enemy No. 1, can destroy the world's leading ... constructor of heavy helicopters as our officials are doing through external managers.
 "The best employees are systematically being fired because they were fighting unprofessional management," the appeal said.
 At the end of last year, Zapolsky fired 40-year veteran Leonid Ba bush kin, who designed the Mi-8 and Mi-14 models. And Mil's chief engineer, Andrei Alpatov - a household name among helicopter companies all over the world - was also fired by Zapolsky after 30 years in the company's design bureau.
 Yevgeny Chelobitko, project manager for United Technologies Group in Moscow, on Friday blasted the external management team for the firings.
 "After seizing power at the plant, they [the Zapolsky team] went beyond their duties," Chelobitko said. But, he added, the real fault lies with Russian bankruptcy laws.
 When asked who will run the plant now that the external management term is officially ending, Surov from MIB said that Zapolsky is definitely not a possibility.
 "Zapolsky has played his role, there will be a totally different person as a head now," he said.

TITLE: Trademarks Drawing Church's Attention
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Want to buy a monk's soul?
 For just 130 rubles such a seemingly diabolical deed can be carried out at a neighborhood kiosk by buying a bottle of semisweet wine called Soul of a Monk. "Feel the mystery of ancient monasteries," promises the slogan on the label of the Moldovan wine, bottled by St. Petersburg-based Imperial VIN.
 On the same shelf, a thirsty shopper can also find spiritual enlightenment in cheaper wines like Monastery Meal, Baby's Baptism, Madonna With Child and Theological from the Moscow Wine and Brandy Factory KiN. And then there is also Monk's Whisper, Monk's Spell and Nun's Tear.
 A wine connoisseur will know better than to mix the wine with Monastery Hut vodka or Bochkaryov Easter beer. But he may agree that a Pentecost candy from the Babayevsky chocolate factory is a nice snack, especially if he's raking in cash hand over fist at the Yaroslavl-based Apostle brokerage.
 Such an abundance of religious-oriented trademarks has the Russian Orthodox Church worried. So much so, in fact, that church leaders have hammered out a deal with the government agency in charge of trademarks to censor potentially offensive names.
 Patriarch Alexy II and Rospatent head Alexander Korchagin agreed late last year to work together when any question arises about the appropriateness of a petitioned trademark, Ros pa tent said Friday. The church's advice could also be used to ban existing brands.
 "If the Rospatent expert has a question, he can turn to the [Moscow] Patriarchate and ask for its opinion as the main source of the truth," said Robert Voskanyan, assistant to Korchagin.
 "If the Patriarchate says that an image is bad or that it offends the feelings of believers, the application should be rejected.
 He refused to say who came up with the idea for the partnership: "I would say diplomatically that both sides were ready for this."
 The legal basis for the arrangement rests on a trademark law that forbids the use of names "contradicting public interests, principles of humanism and morality."
 About a dozen trademark applications to register images of saints and churches have already been denied under the church's advice, the Vedomosti daily reported.
 It was not clear Friday what procedure the church is following in reviewing queries from Rospatent, nor who was charged with issuing the expert opinion.
 Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who is in charge of relations with public and political bodies at the department of external church relations, said he was not aware of the issue. Other church officials could not be reached for comment.
 Trademark experts warned that the procedure is what really matters.
 "The point in question is the implementation of the law - how far will [the church's role] go," said Lev Komarov, president of the Russian Association of Trademark Holders.
 He said Rospatent and the church should develop some straightforward criteria to decide trademarks and write them down.
 "I don't see anything horrible in this as long as everything is done reasonably and the interests of all parties involved are taken into account," he said.
 Peter Necarsulmer, president of the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights, expressed stronger concerns, saying that trademark decisions should be decided solely by Rospatent.
 "The real danger is when this kind of agreement is applied on an arbitrary basis," said Necarsulmer.
 "To the degree that it is a good idea, it should be implemented through a normal legislative and regulatory process. Ultimately, it cannot be the church or any private individuals who would be deciding, but the decision has to be the responsibility of Rospatent."
 Other experts say there may well be a conflict in interests with the Orthodox Church being allowed to have a say in trademarks. The Kostroma diocese, for example, owns a share in the well-known Saint Springs bottled water.
 But there is no question that offensive trademarks are on the market and steps need to be taken to address the issue, said Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, dean of the Moscow State University's St. Tatiana Chapel.
 "The church must be able to give its consent for depicting church symbols on labels," Kozlov said, pointing to Kristall's Old Moscow vodka depicting the Kremlin's Dormition Cathedral on its label as a product that he found personally offensive.

TITLE: Rail Tariff To Ease Oil Exports
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A plan by President Vla di mir Putin to make railway tariffs the same whether cargoes are for domestic use or export won't move Siberian refineries up to the nation's border, but it could lower the cost of exporting.
 United Financial Group brokerage has calculated that a unified tariff system, proposed by Putin during a visit to Siberia earlier this month, could save the oil industry at least $700 million.
 Within Russia, it costs 72 cents per kilometer per ton on average to ship goods meant for domestic consumption by rail. For the same goods meant for export, the average cost comes to $2.87 per kilometer per ton, according to UFG.
 Because of this, refineries in the heart of Russia pay a premium on exports of fuel compared to refineries located near the border.
 The idea of tariff unification has gained acceptance among the administration's upper ranks.
 "It's basically a done deal," said Anti-Monopoly Minister Ilya Yuzhanov.
 However, details have yet to be hammered out, and the Railways Ministry has so far proved resistant to various plans to improve or alter its performance.
 The ministry has much to lose if the tariff on the transport of exports goes down more than the domestic transport tariff goes up. More than half of its annual revenues of about $12 billion to $15 billion come from carrying goods meant for export.
 Surgutneftegaz's Kirishi refinery in the Leningrad region is a hop, skip and a jump away from the Finnish border, which means the cost of exporting its products is low.
 However, tariff changes won't rob them of this edge - Kirishi is still closer to the border than, for example, Sibneft's Omsk refinery, said Alexei Sukhodeyev, a Surgutneftegaz securities official.
 Surgutneftegaz would be happy to see such a move on the part of the administration, Sukhodeyev said.
 "If these measures lead to a normalization of Russia's economy - taking out the distortions implemented during Soviet times - then we would definitely be for it," he said.
 Transport costs are indeed taken into account in allocating oil products between the domestic and the international market, said Nick Halliwell, a Sibneft spokesperson.

TITLE: Credit Suisse Is Elbowed From LUKoil Flotation
AUTHOR: By Yulia Bushuyeva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Credit Suisse First Boston has been excommunicated from the planned 6 percent flotation of oil giant LUKoil's stock on the international markets - the biggest privatization of the year.
 Not only is the contract - which would have reaped $10 million in fees for CSFB - to be dissolved, but the State Property Fund has declared that the bank has broken the law.
 In a letter to CSFB, Dmitry Mazepin, deputy head of the fund, wrote that it broke Russian law by consulting oil giant BP Amoco in the sale of its LUKoil stake and not informing the fund about it.
 A month ago it emerged that CSFB had provided services to property fund competitor BP, which sold a 7 percent stake in LUKoil in January. BP inherited the stake through the acquisition of U.S. oil company Atlantic Richfield last April.
 CSFB and Brunswick UBS Warburg sold the shares for BP for $657 million.
 The price was less than that planned by the fund, and as a result the potential investor demand fell, casting doubt on the fund's privatization plans.
 "The normative acts of the Federal Securities Commission and the Central Bank stipulate that employees of credit organizations and professional participants on the securities market are obliged to put the interests of clients higher than their own and avoid agreements that might negatively affect the interest of their clients," Mazepin wrote.
 "In the event that a conflict of interests arises, they must immediately inform the client of such and undertake all necessary measures for the resolution of the said conflict in the favor of the client."
 However, the fund has no plans to take the Western consultant to court.
 Two banks, CSFB and Morgan Stanley, which had made a joint application, were selected as underwriters for the sale of a state share in LUKoil last year.
 Mazepin said that now only Morgan Stanley will be allowed to act as underwriter in the LUKoil transaction.
 A source close to negotiations said that CSFB and Morgan Stanley were to have received at least 4 percent ($24 million to $32 million) of the total amount received upon the sale of the LUKoil shares, which is planned to bring in $600 million to $800 million.
 "I think that CSFB understood what it could end in if it acted as consultant both for BP and the government," said Steven Dashevsky, oil analyst with Aton brokerage.
 "In the given case they should simply choose which client is strategically more important for them - the Russian government or a major international firm. The value of both transactions was about right, but BP was required to sell the shares quickly, while it was unclear as to whether the property fund would place its LUKoil stake," Dashevsky said.
 "At the same time, as far as I know CSFB has a very fraught relationship with the Russian government after they lost a great deal of money in this country after the default."

TITLE: Kremlin Talks Currency Reform
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - If a flurry of government talks pan out, Russian residents may finally be able to legally keep bank accounts abroad, and Russian companies may soon get to retain all of their foreign currency earnings.
 Those proposals on allowing foreign bank accounts and scrapping the obligatory sale by companies of 75 percent of their export proceeds have been on the table at Cabinet discussions for most of the past week, high-ranking government sources said last week.
 What's more, the government is drafting a foreign exchange bill, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's office said.
 Current restrictions were implemented in a bid to harness capital flight. But even though they have been on the books for years, individuals and companies have still managed to funnel billions of dollars out of the country each year.
 Top government officials held a round table last Wednesday to discuss the liberalization of the foreign exchange floors, according to officials familiar with the meeting.
 The Economic Development and Trade Ministry called for the mandatory sales of export proceeds to be cut from 75 percent to 25 percent starting April 1, and then scrapped in January, according to Arkady Dvorkovich, adviser to Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref.
 The presidential administration countered by suggesting the ratio be slashed to 20 percent, which would be "sufficient to repay foreign debts," said Anton Danilov-Danilyan, the head of the administration's economic department.
 The regulation forcing exporters to swap 75 percent of foreign currency earnings for rubles was ordered by the Central Bank after the 1998 financial crisis. The rule has helped replenish the government's cushion of foreign exchange reserves, which were left without loans from the International Monetary Fund.
 Forex liberalization was on the agenda at a meeting last Monday of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of wealthy businessmen, but the issue was not discussed due to time constraints.
 Kasyanov first brought up the issue at a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago.
 Officials at the meeting also put on the table a proposal that would allow residents to open accounts abroad.
 Individuals have only been allowed to open accounts abroad for the duration of their stay in that country or with special permission from the Central Bank. 
 But many have openly ignored the restriction.
 The proposal to permit foreign bank accounts is part of an economic program drafted last year by Gref, who at the time headed the government's Center for Strategic Research think tank.
 The section of the program - entitled "Introduction of Obligatory Registration Instead of Obtaining Permissions to Open Offshore Accounts and Tough Measures for Refusals to Register Accounts (with the tax authorities)"-was one of many proposals drawn up by Gref to improve tax collection.
 That plan, however, made no mention of foreign exchange liberalization.
 While economists agree that the changes are necessary if Russia wants to boost the economy in the long run, some questioned why the government talks snowballed last week.
 One school of thought suggests that powerful lobbying groups are pushing for greater access to international capital markets because they want to repatriate the cash they stashed abroad during more turbulent times and invest it in Russia. The lower barriers would allow them to send that money back abroad at the first sign of economic instability.
 "It may be logically inferred that the issue resurfaced under pressure from business lobbyists," said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, the deputy head of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a World Bank-sponsored think tank. "They seem to be the only group that may benefit immediately."
 The other theory going around suggests that the talks are just part of a worldwide liberalization of forex markets.
 Nations around the world began taking steps to lower market barriers in the late 1980s. Japan scrapped its last foreign exchange restrictions in April 1998 by allowing households to open offshore accounts. When residents there rushed to open up accounts in dollars, the yen slumped and thereby boosted the competitiveness of domestic industries.

TITLE: Rostelecom Seeks Role as Continental Middleman
AUTHOR: By Yelena Seregina and Leonid Konik
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Russian communications operators are making moves to generate cash by providing international services.
 Long-distance telephone monopoly Rostelecom is negotiating with inter-continental operators with the hope of providing them with transit services.
 Gazprom subsidiary, Gaztelekom, is laying its fiber-optic cables along gas pipelines in an attempt to offer its services in all countries through which Gazprom gas is transported.
 "A possible solution to the expected drop in Rostelecom's income could be to offer telephone transit to foreign communications operators from Europe to Southeast Asia," Valery Yashin, general director of Svyazinvest, announced Wednesday at an international congress for the Development of Telecommunications and the Creation of an Information Zone.
 Rostelecom will have two of the biggest companies in the world to compete with in this area: FLAG and SEA-ME-WE 3.
 The FLAG line, or Fiberoptic Link Around the Globe, stretches 28,000 kilometers and links Britain with Hong Kong.
 The SEA-ME-WE 3 line - South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe line - was launched in August 1999, to compete with FLAG. It is 39,000 kilometers long and joins Australia to Germany via Singapore.
 Rostelecom's income is expected to fall after Svyazinvest restructures and part of Rostelecom's local traffic will be passed on to seven super-regional holdings.
 Troika Dialog analyst Yevgeny Golosny estimates Rostelecom could lose 25 percent of its total income through the reorganization.
 Rostelecom deputy general director Pavel Alpetyan said that international transit comprises an "insignificant portion" of Rostelecom's overall income.
 Yashin said Svyazinvest and Rostelecom are holding negotiations with at least three intercontinental communications corporations in the hope of offering Rostelecom's services.
 Rostelecom also faces competition from communications operators affiliated to particular ministries and departments.
 Transtelekom, the Railways Ministry's operating company, has announced its desire to establish itself on the transit services market.
 The Communications Ministry has yet to approve its decision to issue a second license for international communications, and now Transtelekom wants to carry out its plan in partnership with Rostelecom.
 "We are trying to negotiate with Rostelecom for joint work in the area of providing international transit services," said a top Transtelekom manager. Rostelecom has yet to show any interest, he added.
 Gaztelekom plans to enter the international market without outside help.

TITLE: Smirnov: The Newest Old Name in Vodka
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Boris Smirnov hasn't made a bottle of vodka with his family's name on it in months. And he's not happy about it.
 Boris, who has been prevented from producing the family brand since police raided and sealed his production line in November, has launched his own trading house and brand - Boris Smirnov.
 The decision to go solo by the great-grandson of Pyotr Smirnov, who founded his distillery in 1860, marks the latest turn in the twisted and bitter legal saga. 
 The feud started in 1997 when Boris fired his uncle, Andrei, as CEO of the Trading House of the Descendants of P.A. Smirnov, which the two set up just four years earlier.
 After three years of court battles, Andrei gave his stake to Alfa Eko, which began producing Smirnov brand vodka last September. Boris was doing the same until the raid halted his operations.
 Earlier this month Boris vowed to give his entire 50 percent share to the government to keep it out of the hands of Alfa Eko and his uncle Andrei.
 But since news broke that Alfa Eko is currently negotiating with Kristall, a 100-year-old distillery that is 51 percent owned by the state, Boris decided to act to create his own, rival brand. 
 Alfa Eko spokesperson Valery Bikmukhambetov confirmed that his company was in talks with Kristall, saying "negotiations are in the last stage, all is agreed and in March [Kristall will start producing Smirnov]," he said.
 In response, Boris said he was giving half of his 50 percent stake - and half of his royalties - in the trading house to the OST group, along with the newly registered trademark, Boris Smirnov. The OST group owns Ost Alko, which owned the Moscow region distillery that made Smirnov until the court-ordered raid shut it down. 
 The new Boris Smirnov vodka will be "the same [Smirnov] recipe in the same [0.61 liter Smirnov] bottle," said Boris. "Only the label will change ... it will not be nameless anymore," he said.

TITLE: Arrival of Digital TV Brings Price For Viewers
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: What are being billed as the first television channels in Russia to be transmitted digitally have begun their experimental phase in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Novgorod, but it remains unclear whether Russian viewers will ultimately be able to pick up these signals for free.
 TeleMedium, which is wholly owned by St. Petersburg-based holding Telecominvest, began testing the digital signal for its new channel last week.
 At present, TeleMedium is sending its signal using the Digital Video Broadcast - Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard on channel 34, and the signal can be picked up in the city and some of the surrounding area. 
 According to Dmitri Volobuyev, general director of TeleMedium, the company will be carrying out tests of the signal in the city between now and May in order to find the optimal combination of signal strength and area of coverage.
 "After this, we'll be ready to provide commercial channels," Vo lo bu yev said on Friday. "But we don't see the point in starting broadcasts in the summer when half of the people are out of the city. So we're going to wait until autumn."
 Broadcasting digitally, as opposed to the analog standard, brings a number of advantages, including higher quality picture and sound, and allows for about five times higher capacity to be carried on one frequency.
 Volobuev would not comment whether viewers will be able to receive the digital signal directly once it is up and running, or if the signal will be scrambled, meaning that they will have to pay a monthly rate for a converter in order to see channels.
 Tsifrovoye Televidenie (TsT), the company introducing the new digital system in Moscow and Novgorod, has already announced that it plans to charge viewers somewhere in the region of $100 per month for the digital service. ComNews, an Internet-based news service, quoted TsT director Tatyana Sush ko va as saying that the company was planning to begin with broadcasting ORT, RTR, Eurosport and Euronews. "Broadcasting channels which are already available is a dead end," Vo lo bu yev said. "We won't carry these channels. To attract people to digital television, we have to offer something new - something that they can't get by satellite, cable or usual TV."
 While a digital-based pay television service enjoys an advantage over satellite or cable systems in that it can be received through a regular antenna, the system would bring other expenses for local viewers. Viewers will need either to have a television able to pick up and process a digital signal, or buy a special receiver to convert the signal so that it will work on an analog-standard set.
 But telephone calls to a number of larger electronics stores in St. Petersburg on Monday revealed that digital-ready televisions are presently not sold in the city, so the only option is to pay $180 or more for the necessary converter.

TITLE: DEG Ready To Work in Russia Again
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After a two year wait, DEG, a private investment arm of the German government, is testing the waters again.
 "Most disappointing was the way the authorities handled the [1998 financial] crisis," said Stephan Kinnemann, chief executive with Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft, or DEG. "Everything was corrupt."
 DEG's role is to take risks private banks consider excessive in order to promote expansion of German businesses abroad. Its major clients are medium-sized enterprises that rely on the bank's experience in underdeveloped markets.
 Its experience in Russia has been the bank's worst since its inception in 1962, Kinnemann said.
 In 1998, DEG posted a loss of 80 percent on its loan portfolio worth 40 million Deutsche marks (then about $22 million) that included loans to Tokobank and Inkombank.
 DEG walked out of the Russian market, closing the door behind it, and advised its partners to do the same, waiting until the government put its house in order.
 "A lot of companies were coming to us and we told them to stay out of Russia for the time being," Kinneman said. "Most of them followed our advice."
 But now, with $3 million worth of investments in KMB Bank, DEG is back to the fore in Russia.
 "This is our first investment after the crisis," Kinnemann said last week in an interview.
 Cologne-based DEG is directly accountable to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
 It has capital of 1.5 billion marks ($700 million) and its commitments amounted to a margin of less than 4 billion marks ($1.9 billion) at the end of 1999.
 DEG's status is comparable to that of the World Bank's International Finance Corp., which is run on a commercial basis though it has public shareholders.

TITLE: End of the Road for Peterstar?
TEXT: AND so another resident of this fine city has followed the road to Moscow. Sergei Kuznetsov, head of Peterstar, the local fiber-optic telephone network operator, has been made acting general director of national telecoms company Rostelecom, pending almost certain shareholder approval marked for March 11.
 I say almost certain, because Svyazinvest, the main stockholder in Rostelecom, is headed by Valery Yashin, an old buddy of both Kuznetsov and Leonid Reiman, the telecommunications minister. This means that practically the entire industry is controlled by St. Petersburg natives, all former employees of the Petersburg Telephone Network, or PTS.
 Rostelecom, the national long-distance phone operator, is a blue-chip stock in Russia, and its American Depository Receipts are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It is, as with all monopolies, an extremely profitable company.
 No one is yet jumping for joy over Kuznetsov's appointment at Ros telecom, partly because he may not be pulling the strings. Like many top managers at Telecominvest - the St. Petersburg holding company founded by PTS, and which embraces Peterstar and another 30 companies - Kuznetsov is solid and dependable, which is the only way to go when the domineering Reiman is effectively your boss.
 You need influence at state level in such a regulated industry as telecoms - the kind of influence that has garnered Telecominvest GSM licenses for five of the seven federal regions. (Moscow and the Urals are the exceptions, but they could fall at any moment and ruin Telecominvest's competitors, the Moscow-based operators MTS and Beeline.)
 But as I see it, Kusnetsov's appointment spells the end for Peterstar, a controlling stake in which is held by the American company Metromedia.
 After Telecominvest lost control of Peterstar, Peterstar in turn lost its cellular traffic, which had provided a good half of its income. In January, three city cellular operators went over to Petersburg Transit Telecom, which is 100-percent owned by Telecominvest, thanks to promises of better technical and commercial services. Peterstar still has fixed-communications services, but they are less profitable, and the era of the company's domination of the city telecoms market seems over.

TITLE: Chrysler Restructuring Plan Unveiled
AUTHOR: By Madeline Chambers
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: STUTTGART, Germany - DaimlerChrysler AG said on Monday the restructuring of its ailing U.S. Chrysler unit would cost some $3.64 billion but should drive it back to profits in 2002.
 The world's third biggest automaker by market value after Toyota and Ford said measures to revamp Chrysler should bring cost savings and extra income of $3 billion in 2001, $4.7 Billion in 2002 and $6.6 billion by 2003.
 Signaling its determination to put the Chrysler crisis behind it, the company said it would book charges of up to $2.76 billion already in the first quarter, pushing the whole group into the red.
 For the full year, adjusted group operating profit would fall to between $1.1 and $1.55 billion in 2001 from $4.78 billion in 2000 as losses at Chrysler are expected to balloon to reach between $2 and $2.4 billion, it said.
 If the revamp goes according to plan, Chrysler will make a profit of over $1.84 billion in 2003, helping to drive up the overall group result.
 The targets are part of an offensive by chairman Juergen Schrempp to restore investor confidence in a 1998 marriage between the then Daimler-Benz and Chrysler after shock losses at the U.S. carmaker since the third quarter last year.
 "The outlook for 2001 is disappointing but the long-term outlook is better and in line with our expectations," said Juergen Pieper, analyst at Metzler Bank.
 By 11:30 a.m., shares in the group were flat at $47.95 after shedding almost four percent on Friday.
 The stock has risen sharply in recent weeks from lows hit in December as restructuring details began to leak out.
 "The figures were pretty well signaled and caused no surprises, but I would be careful about the forecasts," said Jason Forde, fund manager at MainTrust in Frankfurt, who said he would maintain a neutral to underweight position.
 He said that even if the restructuring plan was convincing, the generally adverse market conditions in the United States could still wreck any recovery.
 "Anyone buying the stock now is buying the company's ability to restructure, not its ability to make profitable cars."
 The rescue package includes 26,000 job cuts at Chrysler and the closing or idling of six plants, as well as cost reductions and greater component sharing among the group's extended family.
 Chrysler losses, which reached $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter last year, have put enormous pressure on Schrempp to either deliver a quick turnaround or quit.
 But a Friday meeting of DaimlerChrysler's supervisory board fully backed the embattled chairman and gave him a green light to take an even more hands-on approach, said industry sources.
 "Schrempp will be back in control," said one industry source familiar with the company.
 Schrempp told a news conference he was confident about the future even as some industry experts expect a 10 percent decline in the U.S. auto market this year due to sharp economic slowdown in the world's largest economy. "Today we have a business strategy which gives the best conditions for successful future," Schrempp said.
 DaimlerChrysler said its forecasts assumed that the U.S. market will shrink by eight percent to 16 million units and that economic developments in key markets will remain generally stable.
 Apart from trouble at Chrysler, the German automaker is also facing problems at Mitsubishi Motors Corp., in which the German group has a 34 percent stake.
 The debt-laden carmaker said on Monday it was cutting 14 percent of its 65,000-strong workforce and would close one car plant.
 Mitsubishi said the restructuring plan, which also aims to cut materials costs by 15 percent by 2003, would cost $860 million to $1.30 billion. It should allow the group to break even by 2001/2002.

TITLE: Turkey Copes With Devaluation of Lira
AUTHOR: By Elif Kaban
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ANKARA, Turkey - Price hikes hit Turkey on Monday as the nation trudged wearily back to work after learning once more the lesson drummed in by hard experience over the last few decades - do not trust your own currency.
 In the first official hike sparked by last week's shock 36 percent lira devaluation against the dollar, prices rose 10 percent on state monopoly Tekel goods including cigarettes, salt and Turks' favorite aniseed-flavored alcoholic drink, raki.
 But the energy ministry took pity, saying it would keep the price of fuel, which Turkey imports, on hold until after a March 3-10 religious holiday for the Islamic Feast of the Sacrifice.
 New central bank steps on Monday helped ease a cash crunch on the shell-shocked financial markets, helping the lira rebound by 16 percent against the dollar while shares soared over seven percent. But bankers said the future remained unclear.
 Across-the-board price hikes on essentials ranging from bread to tea and from sugar to transport are expected, ramming home to millions of Turks the high cost of last week's financial crisis and their government's faltering response.
 A spokesperson at state-run Turkish Airlines said that prices on international destinations had gone up by at least 30 percent.
 NTV television said 500 businesses had closed in the Mediterranean port of Mersin and 25 in Gaziantep in the impoverished southeast. In the Anatolian heartland, it said 8,000 workers were fired in the industrial zone of Kayseri town.
 Assured by top economic officials that a devaluation was unlikely, many Turks were caught off guard by the shock float of the lira on Thursday and its subsequent fall against the dollar.
 As a result, their purchasing power has plunged. The minimum monthly wage is now worth 105 dollars, down 45 dollars from its December level.
 At home, the anger of ordinary Turks at losing out for going against their instinct to hoard dollars - the traditional Turkish standby - will be a powerful new force in Turkish politics for months to come.
 Abroad, markets are closely watching the turmoil in the biggest economy in the Balkans and Middle East and the second largest emerging markets borrower after Argentina.
 The government in Ankara has been unable to offer a timely policy response to speed up structural reforms and privatization and fight entrenched public-sector corruption.
 Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, 75, whose public clash with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer on how to tackle corruption sparked the crisis, rejected calls over the weekend to sack ministers and said his government was doing fine.
 "If there is no serious government revision, a new crisis will be unavoidable in the coming days," Istanbul Chamber of Commerce chief Mehmet Yildirim said on television on Sunday.
 "We need to move very fast towards structural reforms and privatization," added Istanbul industrialist Bulent Eczacibasi.
 Bankers say inflation will climb with price hikes, adding to fears of a recession in an economy already hit by slow demand. High interest rates are already crippling growth prospects and bankers expect new investments to be curtailed sharply.
 As financial markets panicked last week, overnight interest rates soared as high as 5,000 percent and Turkey's interbank money markets froze up, paralyzed by the stratospheric rates and the failure of some banks to meet their obligations.
 The devaluation will force a revision of the 2001 budget and make the servicing of Turkey's $110 billion foreign debt dearer. But it is also likely to boost exports and tourism income.

TITLE: PR Firm Places Best Article Money Can Buy
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A St. Petersburg public relations company dropped a bombshell Monday on the Moscow media community by releasing a list of newspapers that took money for running an advertisement of a fictitious electronics store disguised as a news story.
 Although the practice of zakazukha is well known among Russian journalists and advertising agencies, the company called Promaco PR/CMA broke ground by giving out for the first time the sums, invoice numbers and photo-copied clips from newspapers that swallowed its bait.
 "We did not want to frame the publications or quarrel with them," Promaco general director Kirill Smirnov said at a news conference, where he was verbally attacked by a packed audience of fellow spin doctors and journalists.
 "We want to stop the routine violation of the law on advertising," he said.
 This month, the agency came up with a project titled "An Investigation Into Black PR" to promote its own name and reveal the degree of official corruption on the media market. It invented a fictitious company, DG-Tsentr, which supposedly was about to open a $1.5 million, five-story store called Svetofor near Moscow's Tulskaya metro to sell electronics from non-existent manufacturers, and sent out a press release to 21 leading publications.
 One magazine, Kommersant publishing house's Klient, ran the press release for free. Magazines Dengi, Expert, Kompanii and the Vedomosti newspaper said they needed additional information and in the end stayed clear. Newspapers Izvestia and Segodnya and the Itogi magazine said they were ready to run the information marked as advertising. 
 But 13 publications referred the PR company to their commercial departments and negotiations started.
 Fees for publication varied widely. Tribuna charged 3,860 rubles, or about $135, while the official government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, through its private "information and analytical agency" Politika, charged 57,320 rubles, or more than $2,000, for the story it ran on the back page.
 Such leading publications as Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Prav da and Noviye Izvestia were among the buyers.
 To accusations that they ran a "dirty provocation," Promaco managers said they were aware that they were violating the law by distributing false information. They said they were willing to pay a fine if the Anti-Monopoly Ministry, which regulates the advertising business, finds the publications that took payment guilty as well. They also apologized to readers who wasted their time looking for the store at a non-existent address.
 Many in the audience at Monday's press conference got angry. The editor of Izvestia's media page, Pavel Bardin, accused Promaco of carrying out "black PR" in order to undermine its competition and wondered who had paid the agency to carry out the project.
 Kommersant newspaper quoted Kom somolskaya Pravda editor Vla di mir Sungorkin as saying that he apologized for publishing the story but he would not censor the newspaper's employees involved because the reason was too small.
 Nezavisimaya Gazeta editor Vitaly Tretyakov refused to comment. But in an official reaction due to appear in the newspaper Tuesday, the editors said they regretted the publication and that the relevant journalists would be punished.

TITLE: Banks Lining Up To Run Customs-Duty Payment System
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The implementation of an electronic transfer system for paying import and export duties is providing BaltUneximbank with an opportunity to regain some lost cash flow, but this time it appears the St. Petersburg-based institution will have to share.
 The Northwest Customs Administration (SZTU) is installing a system whereby import duties in the region may be paid using a bank cards. Participating banks will then transfer the money collected to the Federal treasury.
 A source from the SZTU who asked not to be identified said the system carries with it a number of advantages.
 "We're always interested in utilizing new technologies to lighten the load of paperwork involved," he said. "But its difficult to speak directly about how the system will function because the project is still in the developmental stage."
 SZTU plans to have the installation completed some time in May.
 For BaltUneximbank, the system may bring back some of the business it lost last year when the government decided to have all duties collected - money which had been handled by the bank - sent straight to the treasury.
 But BaltUneximbank will have to share in the business the new system creates.
 "I know there are a number of banks interested in this card," Konstantin Sidorov, BaltUneximbank bank press secretary, said. "The rights to the chip technology the cards uses belong to a Moscow-based company [Tamozhennaya Karta], so other banks will also be able to buy the rights to produce them themselves."
 Initially it seemed that BaltUneximbank had a chance at handling the business from the new system on its own. The institution is linked with Rosbank as both are within the framework of the Interros group. Rosbank developed the chip-card project through it's own processing company, UCS, the largest shareholder in Tamozhennaya Karta, according to a report by Vedomosti. 
 But Sidorov said that the ties to Rosbank were not as vital to BaltUneximbank's participation in the project as was its experience in handling the accounts in the four years leading up to 2000.
 Promstroibank (PSB) and Export-Import bank, among others, have also expressed interest in taking part in the system, which is being implemented at all customs points in Russia following an order from the State Customs Committee. 
 "Right now PSB is participating in a work group with twelve other banks, to work out the details of an agreement with the customs agency," Irina Sharipova, press-secretary at PSB, said.
 "The biggest participants in this project are likely to be BaltUneximbank, PSB and Baltiisky bank" Lev Sovulkin, chief analyst at the Leontieff Center, said Monday. "As far as the sums involved are concerned, I can only describe them as hefty."
 According to SZTU figures, about $7 million a day in duties are collected in the Northwest Region.

TITLE: Church of Nav: Russia Gets White Supremacist Sect With Political Agenda
AUTHOR: By Stephen D. Shenfield
TEXT: OF all the strange sects in Russia today, the Church of Nav - also known as the Society of Nav, or as the Sacred Church of the White Race - is perhaps the strangest.
 Its founder, Ilya Lazarenko, began his political career in 1990, when at the age of just 16 he joined one of the many splinter groups of Pamyat, the Russian Gathering Pamyat of taxi-driver Igor Shcheglov. In November 1991, La za ren ko proceeded to set up an organization of his own, the Union of Russian Youth. I happened to pick up the first issue of its journal, Nash Marsh (Our March) at a red-brown rally in Moscow's October Square. Most of the four pages of smudged typescript were about Benito Mussolini.
 In 1993, Lazarenko's organization was renamed the Front of National-Revolutionary Action. In 1994, it became the National Front Party. Its doctrine was fascist in the classical sense, envisaging a "Great National-Socialist Russian Empire" under a "national dictatorship."
 Lazarenko's party soon went into rapid decline. Many members left to join rival fascist organizations. So La za ren ko looked for a way of holding his remaining members together, and hit upon a novel idea. He would enroll them in a new church, a "military-spiritual occult brotherhood" of devotees of Nav. And so the Church of Nav was inaugurated - on Hitler's birthday, April 21, 1996. Meanwhile, the Party "National Front" continued to exist, with the same leader and the same members. On Feb. 14, 1998, it staged a rally at the United States embassy under the stirring slogan: "Freedom for Texas!"
 But who on Earth - or rather, in Heaven - is Nav?
 Lazarenko and his followers are pagans, but of a special kind. Most Russian pagans believe in the gods that the Slavic tribes used to worship before they adopted Christianity. The most important ones were Perun, the god of storms, thunder, and lightning, and Svarog, the god of fire and the sun. 
 The Church of Nav despises such "primitive peasant cults" for having "no serious occult-magical content or coherent theology." Its members regard themselves not as pagans, but as Ariosophists. Ariosophy - Greek for "wisdom of the Aryans" - was a mystical racist doctrine that grew up in Central Europe 100 ago and influenced the early Nazis.
 Nav is the supreme deity to whom the devotees of the Church of Nav pay homage, the "father-of-all" (vsyo-otets). They also revere the "Shining Gods" and the avatars - earthly incarnations of deities in Hindu mythology - who constitute a divine hierarchy under Nav. 
 The Book of Genesis tells us that the material universe was created out of the primeval void by a god called Jehovah, which is an anglicized variant of the Hebrew Yahweh ["I Am Who I Am"]. Then, one of Jehovah's sidekicks, an angel called Satan, or Lucifer, had the temerity to rebel, for which he was cast out of Heaven. Satan took up the position of Lord of Hell and master of the evil forces of the universe.
 The Ariosophists add an intriguing twist to the story. Jehovah - whom they call Yav - is still the creator of the material universe. But he is no longer the supreme deity. That honor belongs to Nav. 
 Before the material universe came into being, there existed not a mere void, but a perfect, self-sufficient, and purely spiritual universe, the creation and realm of Nav. But the "criminal" Yav somehow captured the energies of Nav's universe, and used them to form the material universe, which was imperfect and therefore subject to corruption and degradation.
 Thus the role of the good and rightful supreme god is taken by Nav, while Jehovah becomes the rebellious and malicious angel - that is to say, Satan. 
 To combat the disease set loose by Yav's crime, Nav created a race of people, the Aryans or Whites, who were to carry his spirit into the material universe. For their earthly homeland, Nav gave the Aryans a large island near the North Pole called Hyperborea. Later, the Aryans migrated south to Eurasia, taking with them their high culture, and founded there all known civilizations.
 But racial mixing and spiritual decline brought them to their present sorry condition, their native gods forgotten and their race dying. A crucial role in their downfall was played by the plague of Judeo-Christianity, cunningly invented to break their magical tie with the Aryan gods and enslave them to Jehovah. 
 The Aryans must recognize themselves as part of the divine hierarchy, and return to the faith of their ancestors. They must set themselves "morally higher than the Adamite, slave of Jehovah" by means of "mutual aid and self-sacrifice, love for order and hierarchy, mutual respect, pride, love of honor, lack of pity or fear, irreconcilability to enemies, and loyalty to brothers." They must mend the broken magical ties that once united them with the gods, and arouse the gods from their slumber.
 In this mission, they may avail themselves of the help of avatars such as Vodan, "bringer of runes and runic magic, a mighty weapon in the hands of the Aryans." When the epoch of the restoration of the ancient cult dawns, the awakened Shining Gods will prepare themselves for the Final Battle against Jehovah. 
 And that will complete the current cycle of existence!
 Recruits to the Church of Nav must "belong to the White Race, observe Aryan moral norms, and have a good self-image." Participation in both political actions and religious rituals is compulsory. "Excessive" consumption of alcohol is forbidden, as are use of narcotics and "cultural entertainments of a non-Aryan nature."
 Instead of such entertainments, adepts read the Book of Nav, also called The White Stone. Within the Church, there exist inner brotherhoods called Clans of Nav, recruits to which must satisfy even stricter requirements, and who must attend regular clan seminars. 
 Photos of some of the rituals - most of which take place in a wintry forest setting - are displayed on the Church of Nav's Web site, with adepts attired in sinister white robes and tall, black conical hoods, evidently copied from the Ku Klux Klan, holding aloft poles topped by lighted torches. There are also martial scenes of adepts about to engage in wrestling matches in a chamber prepared for ritual use, with a priest clad in a black robe and headdress present to bless the fighters.
 Do sects like the Church of Nav matter? Why not let them enjoy the rituals that give their lives a grandiose ultimate meaning and divert their attention from the uninspiring reality of Russia in decay?
 The trouble is that the religious rituals are not ends in themselves. Lazarenko is a politician. He created his church as a political - and paramilitary - instrument. An instrument to be used when the time is right.
 
 Stephen D. Shenfield is an independent researcher based in Providence, Rhode Island. His book "Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, and Movements" is published this month by M. E. Sharpe (New York).

TITLE: Robert Hanssen: Meet The Heart of Darkness
AUTHOR: By James Pinkerton
TEXT: ROBERT Hanssen, the FBI agent accused of spying for the Russians, was an ordinary man gone bad - everybody says so. 
 A Washington Post headline read, "Neighbors Saw Typical Dad." One of his superiors at the FBI, James Kallstrom, told The Wall Street Journal, "He was quiet, sort of unassuming." The New York Times describes him as "dour, colorless, socially awkward." 
 To be sure, Hanssen seems to have led what USA Today calls "a double life," but all reports suggest he was a dull fellow seduced by $1.4 million from the Russians. He appears, in other words, to be just another example of "the banality of evil," a case that's more boring than interesting. And everyone apparently agrees with that formulation - except for Hanssen himself. 
 Here's what Hanssen wrote to his Russian "handler" last March: "I have come about as close as I ever want to come to sacrificing myself to help you, and I get silence. I hate silence. Conclusion: One might propose that I am either insanely brave or quite insane." 
 Then Hanssen answered his own question, in a way that was even nuttier. "I'd answer neither. I'd say, insanely loyal. Take your pick. There is insanity in all the answers."
 The phrase "banality of evil" was coined by the writer Hannah Arendt (1906-1975); she used it to describe Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Nazi Holocaust. In her book "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil," Arendt described Eichmann not as a fanatic, but rather as a bureaucrat. As he said in his trial, "I was just following orders." Eichmann was "genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché," she mused. What shaped him, she maintained, was moral obtuseness and blind ambition. 
 But as Stephen Miller pointed out in a 1998 article in The Wilson Quarterly, Arendt mischaracterized Eichmann. Far from being a paper-pusher, he was a fervent Nazi to the end. Miller speculates that Arendt, a German Jew who fled Hitlerism in the '30s, was looking to separate the mass-murdering Eichmann from the intellectually rich Kultur in which she grew up. The historical record, of course, shows the opposite: The gentile German intelligentsia were eager for Hitler. But that was too painful for Arendt to face, and she wrote a book designed to change it. 
 And it worked. In spite of the evidence of his own words, Eichmann is remembered today as a functionary. And now glib journalism is fitting Hanssen into the same humdrum template. He is being made into a cash-flow-minded materialist. But ordinary men don't call themselves "insanely loyal." Ordinary men don't say, "There is insanity in all the answers." 
 To see Hanssen is not to look upon a banal man, or an order-follower, or a money-grubber. It is to gaze into the heart of darkness.
 
 James Pinkerton is a cloumnist for Newsday, where this comment originally appeared.

TITLE: Club 2015 Puts a Positive Face on Russia
TEXT: AMONG the all bad news pouring out of Russia - from heightened military rhetoric and the adoption of the Soviet-style state program for patriotic education to the appointment of notorious former Primorye Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko as Russia's new chief fisherman (the market price of the position - Head of the State Fisheries Committee - is estimated from $1 million to as much as $10 million) and the anticipated major reshuffling of the federal government - there is little in the way of good news. But there is some, and it is especially worth noting in view of mounting anti-Russian rhetoric coming out of the new administration in Washington.
 The good news is that Club 2015, which I called a club of "concerned businessmen" in this column about a year ago, continues to work and has even produced some valuable products. Among these I would list a study of bureaucratic pressure exercised on small and medium-sized businesses that was conducted by the Club's newly established think tank, National Project. This study shows that every tenth ruble generated by consumer businesses must be used to break down bureaucratic barriers: that is, ten percent of business earnings go into the pockets of officials rather than being reinvested or being used to reduce consumer costs.
 Second, Club 2015 has created its own committee on international relations devoted to promoting non-governmental diplomacy based on its own understanding of Russia's national interests.
 Further, at the Club's gathering last weekend, Pavel Teplukhin, Club co-chairman and president of the Troika Dialog brokerage Asset Management, presented a detailed analysis of what he sees as the upcoming economic crisis in Russia. The Club then proceeded to draft a new project aimed to meet this crisis and even, perhaps, avoid it.
 Unlike the All-Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Club 2015 sprang from Russia's weak civic society and remains oriented toward developing it. Of course, cynics can argue that they do this merely because they have been excluded from the inner circles of power, but whatever their motivation, the point is that Club members seem to understand that maximizing their profits over the long term depends on the creation of a healthy surrounding environment. Thus, they have taken up a niche that was empty before them: They neither came out in open opposition to the authorities nor entered into a love affair with them.
 Unfortunately, much of the rhetoric that we are hearing out of Washington lately does little to help establish organizations like Club 2015. On the contrary, it helps the Kremlin revive the old image of America as the enemy bent on destroying a weak Russia. This enemy then serves as the pretext for clamping down on domestic organizations and redirecting resources toward the resurrection of Russia's military machine.
 Listening to this talk, one gets the impression that the new administration is staffed by people who know Russia primarily from the books of old Sovietologists. They don't seem to understand that for some time now Russia has been not one, but several different countries. 
 One of the faces of Russia is seen in Club 2015. This face is not pro-Western or pro-Soviet. It reflects the interests of Russia's emerging middle class. So far, Club 2015 tries to avoid politics while moving between the Scylla of the state and the Charybdis of the oligarchs. But it is upon the survival of this Russia that the development of a peaceful democratic society here depends.
 Strange as it may seem, the Bush administration is just repeating the mistakes of the Clinton administration. Both oriented themselves exclusively on the Russian elite, which makes up less than 2 percent of the population. While Clinton's Washington uncritically endorsed everything that the Russian elite did, the Bush administration seems bent on criticizing everything.
 It is certain that an exclusive orientation on the elite - ignoring the other Russia - led to mistaken judgements and bad policies in the past and will do so again in the future. I think that the new administration, the U.S. Congress and their counterparts across Europe would benefit greatly from getting to know organizations like Club 2015 a lot better. At the very least, they should try to figure out what this Russia - which they currently don't seem to know at all - is thinking, what it needs and where it wants to go.
 
 Yevgenia Albats is an independent, Moscow-based journalist.

TITLE: NATO Visit Is Return to Detente
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: NATO Secretary General George Robertson came to Moscow last week to mend fences with Russia and open a new information center. The first NATO office here was closed down after relations were broken off during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. President Vla di mir Putin told Robertson that Mos cow wants to build - with Western help - a pan-European "nonstrategic" ballistic missile defense shield and asked Robertson to lobby Western Europeans to accept this plan.
 At the same time, a leading U.S. Republican congressman, Curt Weldon, came to town with a message from Washington inviting Russia to join the United States in developing a national missile defense. Weldon said that Russia could receive U.S. funding to develop parts of NMD and that a joint ABM system may even be developed.
 Far from promoting Putin's missile defense plan, Robertson refused to even discuss its details with reporters. He said only that the proposed ABM defenses would be "mobile" and that Russia no longer envisions a system to down ballistic missiles aimed at Europe during the "boost stage" - that is, at takeoff when a missile is still going relatively slowly and is highly vulnerable - as Putin had proposed in Berlin last summer.
 "The boost-stage idea came suddenly and now is gone," said Robertson. This sudden change of heart puzzled ABM experts. Without "boost-stage intercept," there does not seem to be any chance that the Russian pan-European missile defense plan can work at all.
 Last summer Moscow proposed a nonstrategic ballistic missile defense shield for Europe based on its S-300 long-range anti-aircraft missiles or a more advanced S-400 version of the same weapon. The problem is that these missiles were designed to hit enemy aircraft with shrapnel that is created after a conventional warhead explodes 20 to 30 meters off target - a method known to specialists as "indirect intercept."
 Since the 1991 Gulf War, Russian producers have been insisting that the S-300 can also destroy ballistic missiles, but this is mostly sales talk. High-velocity shrapnel is good for destroying planes, but cannot guarantee the destruction of warheads, especially chemical or biological warheads. In fact, making many holes in biological or chemical warheads might just create a deadly aerosol that could cover an area much larger than the one intended by the enemy.
 Unlike Russia, which has been exclusively developing techniques of nuclear or conventional "indirect intercept" since the 1960s, the United States has been working for the last decade on creating strategic and theater (or tactical) "direct" interceptors that ram enemy warheads in a "bullet-hitting-bullet" fashion. The high speed with which ballistic missiles close in on their targets can guarantee that a direct collision with an interceptor will destroy most of the warhead's deadly components.
 The problem is that the American "hit-to-kill" interceptors regularly miss ballistic targets during tests and cannot distinguish a real warhead from a decoy. Weldon's proposal that Russia help the United States develop NMD sounds great, but Moscow does not have any know-how in the field of direct intercept. Perhaps Russian specialists could indeed help the Americans develop better techniques of disabling Russia's own warheads, but Moscow would most likely rightly classify such activities as high treason.
 So who was trying to fool whom this week in Moscow? Washington expects to spend at least $60 billion to develop an NMD that most likely will not work and is calling on Russia and Western Europe to join in. Moscow in turn is proposing a much cheaper European nonstrategic missile defense that also will not work. European diplomats say that their countries have no extra money to spend on all this ABM nonsense.
 The over-enthusiastic declarations of East-West friendship and proposals of future cooperation this week in Moscow closely resemble the 1970s and the era of detente. Back them, despite a lot of cheerful talk of cooperation, no one really trusted anyone and offers of cooperation were given that were not in fact ever intended to be accepted. 
 Next fall NATO will likely make decisions on a new round of enlargement, and the NATO information center that was opened in Moscow with so much pomp may well be closed down in response. In fact, the main reason for opening this center now may well have been so that the Kremlin would have a safe but visible way of demonstrating its displeasure when the bad news comes.
 
 Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst.

TITLE: Nukes in the Baltic: Who Really Wants Them?
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kozin
TEXT: THERE has been a spate of articles in the Western press in recent weeks concerning the alleged deployment of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in the Kaliningrad enclave. These reports, which are primarily based on articles by Bill Gertz that appeared in The Washington Times in January and February, have been categorically denied by President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Kaliningrad Gov. Vladimir Yegorov (who, prior to becoming governor last November was the commander of the Baltic Fleet and so knows this subject thoroughly). Moreover, when I visited Kaliningrad earlier this month, I spoke to many local residents who expressed bewilderment over what they saw as a propaganda campaign launched against them.
 The fact is that there have been no tactical nuclear weapons - neither sea-based nor air-based nor land-based - in the Kaliningrad region for some time now. Moreover, strategic nuclear weapons have never been deployed there.
 On Sept. 27, 1990, as a member of a Soviet non-governmental organization called Peace for the Oceans, I observed the ceremonial withdrawal of the last Golf-class diesel submarine (with six ballistic nuclear missiles) from the Baltic Fleet. In 1991, in accordance with the Soviet-American Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the last intermediate-range missiles in the region were destroyed, including the medium-range R-12 missiles (range from 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers) that had been deployed at bases in Gusev and Sovetsk and the short-range ORT-23 (range from 500 to 1,000 kilometers) that had been stored near Ladushkin.
 Furthermore, under an agreement between Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George Bush in the early 1990s, other types of tactical nuclear weapons that were not covered by the INF Treaty were removed from the region and placed in storage deep within Russian territory. Specialists familiar with Russian military doctrine understand that Russia relies primarily on its strategic nuclear forces (those with ranges greater than 5,500 kilometers), rather than on tactical devices, for its defense posture. 
 I think it is also important to recall that in the early 1980s, Moscow energetically advocated the creation of a Baltic nuclear-free zone. The Soviet Union even prepared a draft international treaty consisting of 17 articles that would have covered 10 countries in the region, as well as Kaliningrad and the Leningrad region - overall an area of more than 2.2 million square kilometers. Although this initiative was broadly supported by the Baltic countries, it was rejected by the global nuclear powers.
 Now, however, may be an ideal time to reopen discussion of this initiative, which would create a legal barrier to the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of those countries that are likely to enter NATO in the near future. After all, a number of Pentagon representatives have expressed a positive attitude in recent weeks toward the idea of a nuclear-free Baltic region.
 I also think it is important to point out a number of factual errors and dubious expressions in Gertz's articles. First, neither the Soviet Union nor Russia has ever had a missile called "Toka," about which Gertz writes. Second, there were no tactical weapons' tests conducted in the Kaliningrad region on April 18, 2000, as he asserts. There is not nor has there ever been a "military air base" near Kaliningrad that served as a storage place for tactical nuclear weapons. 
 It also strikes me as strange that American intelligence, according to Gertz's articles, cannot answer the simple question of whether the weapons supposedly deployed in the region are sea-based or land-based. Finally, there is absolutely no connection between tactical nuclear weapons and the C-300 anti-missile defense system about which Gertz writes. These are entirely different systems.
 It was not for nothing, apparently, that the Clinton administration rejected the so-called "Kaliningrad problem." Just in January, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated that Russia had not violated any of its INF obligations.
 However, I believe that in view of the controversy, the question of foreign inspections of Russian territory on the Baltic should be addressed, as Polish Defense Minister Bronislav Komorovsky (among others) has urged. If the countries of the region are concerned about this issue, then a mechanism must be developed, even though military inspections are already regularly conducted under the terms of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. 
 Of course, Moscow must also be accorded the right to conduct analogous inspections not only on the territory of the seven NATO countries in the region, but also in countries that are not presently NATO members. Moscow, naturally, would be concerned to find that free-fall nuclear bombs or other weapons of this sort had been deployed at airbases near Marlboro in Poland or at Kecskemet in Hungary. As former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told The Washington Times recently, "No one likes to be sitting next to nuclear weapons, stored or unstored."
 In this connection, it is also worth noting that none of the new NATO-member countries has categorically forbidden the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on their territories. Most likely, such a deployment could be part of a coordinated NATO nuclear strategy.
 There can be no doubt that conducting such mutual nuclear inspections in a spirit of good will and cooperation would help strengthen confidence measures in the nuclear arena, about which NATO Secretary-General George Robertson spoke recently. Such inspections could include, for instance, the installation of special electronic locks controlled by encoded "permissive action links" at bases where tactical nuclear weapons are stored. These locks would enable foreign countries to monitor any movements of such weapons beyond the territory of those bases. Of course, taking such a step presupposes a considerable degree of mutual trust and would require specific multilateral agreements to be implemented. 
 Even more ambitiously, it would not be beyond the realm of possibility to reach a global ban on such weapons, analogous to the INF Treaty. This would settle the question once and for all.
 In conclusion, though, I'd like to return to the conversations with Kaliningrad residents that I mentioned earlier. These people have no idea why the new U.S. administration has decided to use the press to stir up controversy over the issue of tactical nuclear weapons in the Baltic region. 
 I had a hard time even speculating on this question, although I think that a number of long-term and short-term considerations may be involved. Such actions, for instance, could be intended to hinder the development of economic and trade ties between Kaliningrad and the European Union (and between Kaliningrad and neighboring states). Moreover, they could be a way of preparing the ground for the eventual deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of new NATO member states. The "Kaliningrad problem" may also be used as an argument in the upcoming debates over NATO expansion. 
 In general, such steps and a number of other statements made by the Bush administration in recent weeks seem designed to provoke a guilt complex in Russia for all the problems of the region and to undermine the image of the country's leadership on the global stage. But it is hard to believe that such steps can be beneficial over the long term.
 
 Vladimir Kozin is a senior counselor for the Russian Foreign Ministry. He contributed this comment, which reflects his personal opinions, to The St. Petersburg Times.

TITLE: City Markets: The Best Food Alternatives
AUTHOR: By Simon Patterson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: For those seeking a happy medium between grim Soviet-style shops and overpriced Western-style supermarkets, there's one alternative that is always guaranteed to deliver the goods.
 The markets around the city are one constant that can be said to have survived the years, and if you examine documents and photographs from the era, you will find that the Kuznechny Rynok has undergone few major changes since Dostoevsky's time.
 Leading the city's markets is the Sennoy Rynok, on Sennaya Ploshchad. The market itself is bright and airy, though the Sennaya Ploshchad area generally is far from salubrious and not worth visiting late at night. The market should not be confused with the kiosks that sprawl around the square, it is quite separate from this area, located at 4 Moskvosky Prospect in its own enclosed space.
 Also firmly situated in Dostoevsky-land is the Kuzhnechny Rynok, right next to the last residence of the great writer (which now looks out onto a sex shop, oddly enough) by the Vla di mir iskaya/Dostoevskaya metro stations. Another central market, with more of a Soviet feel to it than these two but still worth a visit, is the Maltsevsky Rynok on Ulitsa Nekrasova.
 Also good is the Sytny Rynok on the Petrograd side, while a slightly shabbier option for Vasilievsky Island residents can be found at the "Vasilieostrovsky Rynok" at 16 Bolshoi Prospect. 
 Generally speaking, however, if you are using public transport you may find traveling from the market to your home rather a problem, as piling onto a trolleybus laden with plastic bags full of bloody pieces of meat or dribbling marinated cabbage may not be a pleasant option. Taxi drivers are also unlikely to welcome such luggage.
 Especially during winter, the markets are one of the few places that offer a good selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, with the produce mainly coming from the south of the country, and often south of the border. Particularly good is the coriander, or kinza and garlic, which if taken regularly are probably the best thing to combat winter illnesses, prescriptions of vodka and mustard notwithstanding. Otherwise, you are unlikely to find anywhere else that sells pomegranates, sweet mandarins and rosy red tomatoes when it's minus 25 outside.
 The meat is also reliably good, and if offal is the thing for you, you've come to the right place. All sorts of internal organs are usually there for the taking, and there usually seems to be a bargain deal on cows' and pigs' heads.
 Among the other advantages the markets offer are the service, in that the sellers are directly interested in making a sale, as opposed to shops where there is no such incentive, and where it is not uncommon for a salesperson to dissuade you from buying a product because it has gone bad. The sellers also welcome bargaining, and will often bargain for you themselves, rather like in the Monty Python film "Life of Brian." You will also find that sellers tend to remember their customers, and promise preferential treatment for their frequent buyers.
 People selling anything from stuffed peppers to exotic fruits will often offer you a sample of their wares. This can be a very good way to try new foodstuffs, and even if you do not decide to buy whatever it is you have tasted, the stall-keepers rarely get angry as they set aside fruit and vegetables specifically for this purpose. One thing to be aware of, however, is that some sellers may subsequently try to palm off second-rate products on you, having let you sample the best. Always select the produce from the displays yourself, therefore. While the hygiene factor may not be particularly high, samples are usually proffered on pieces on paper, which you are then invited to munch from. 
 In terms of sheer variety, markets sell all sorts of salads you simply cannot get anywhere else, made from recipes from all over the former Soviet Union, and, it would seem, most of the Asian countries that share borders with it.
 Anybody not particularly proficient in Russian may also find the markets a good place to shop, as the sellers may also not speak particularly good Russian, or notice strong foreign accents. Pretty much all of the CIS countries are in evidence at the city's markets, though Georgia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan seem to be among the most heavily represented. Such dilemmas as the perfective form of the verb, genders and declensions may be happily ignored by sellers who have little use for Russian outside of work, and learners of Russian will be pleased to hear such mistakes as "Budyete kupit?" and "Vksu noi kapusta." Purists of the language may prefer to overlook these mistakes when confronted with the quality of the produce on offer. 
 The only problem with the markets is that if you're looking to save money, they are probably not the places to go. Good cuts of beef and pork will cost about 100 rubles per kilogram - and while this is similar to the price you'll be charged in a normal shop, the quality will be far greater and the meat generally fresher. There are some very successful salespeople working at the city's markets and be prepared, as it may be difficult to refuse their bargains and constant offers of free tastes of anything from honey to kumquats. Even if you think you are inured to such hard-sell techniques, it seems that you always end up leaving the market with more than you planned on buying.
 
 Markets generally work from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., though the earlier you get there the better the selection will be.
 
 Selected list of major city markets: 
 
 Kuznechny Rynok, 3 Kuznechny Per. M: Vladimirskaya/Dostoevskya. Tel: 312-41-61.
 Maltsevsky Rynok, 52 Ul. Nekrasova. M: Chernyshevskaya. Tel: 272-33-50.
 Sennoy Rynok, 4 Moskvosky Pr. M: Sennaya Pl./Sadovaya. Tel: 310-02-71
 Sytny Rynok, Sytninskaya Pl. M: Gorkov skaya. Tel: 233-22-93.
 Vasiliostrovsky Rynok, 16 Bolshoi Pr., Vasilievsky Ostrov. M: Vasileostrov skaya. Tel: 323-66-87.
 Severny Torgovy Rynok, 51 Severny Pr. No Metro. Tel. 555-40-24.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Borneo Violence
 

PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia said Monday it would send extra troops into Borneo where it fears the spread of ethnic violence, which has already killed up to 400 people.
 Chief security minister Susilo Bam bang Yudhoyono said Jakarta would support a state of civil emergency in the bloodied central Kalimantan province if local officials deemed it necessary.
 It is some of the most savage bloodshed to hit Indonesia over the past three years of political upheaval and economic collapse.
 
 
Bosnian Convictions
 

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The UN war crimes tribunal on Monday convicted a senior Bosnian Croat military officer and a high-ranking civilian Bosnian Croat of war crimes against Bosnian Muslims. 
 The court said Dario Kordic, a leader of the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union and of the Croatian Defense Council, helped plan and organize a campaign to drive Muslims from an area the Croats wanted to join to the newly created state of Croatia. Kordic, 40, was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.
 The tribunal also convicted Mario Cerkez, 41, a Croat military commander, of war crimes in leading attacks against Muslim villages during the Bosnian war in 1993-94. He received a 15-year sentence.
 
 
Burundi Peace Talks
 

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela arrived in Tanzania on Sunday under a cloud of pessimism for the latest round of talks to end Burundi's seven-year civil war.
 Mandela was publicly optimistic as he prepared to brief regional leaders on his latest efforts to secure a cease-fire agreement and help Burundi's political parties pick a transitional leader, but as he spoke heavy fighting was reported in Burundi's northwestern provinces.
 Mandela is chief mediator in the peace process, bringing 17 parties, the government and the Tutsi-dominated army to the negotiating table. Mandela has convinced the parties to sign a power-sharing agreement, but has failed to win a cease-fire from Hutu rebels, who have boycotted the talks.
 
 
Floods Threaten Again
 

BEIRA, Mozambique (Reuters) - Mozambique faced fresh floods Monday threatening more than 100,000 people as another river burst its banks and more water was released from the Cahora Bassa reservoir over the weekend.
 Mozambican authorities and aid agencies, still recovering from devastating floods last year, said they were positioning food supplies and tents to help 80,000 people being evacuated from the danger zones around Marromeu and Luabo towns downstream from the dam.
 Mozambique has appealed for $30 million in aid and aircraft as it battles floods that have affected almost 400,000 people in the central provinces of Zambezia, Sofala, Manica and Tete. More than 77,000 people are homeless, and at least 41 have died.
 
 
Dutch Driver on Trial
 

LONDON (Reuters) - The Dutch driver of a truck in which the dead bodies of 58 illegal Chinese immigrants were found at a port in southern England last June will stand trial Monday, accused of manslaughter.
 Perry Wacker, 32, from the Dutch city of Rotterdam, denies killing the 54 men and four women who were found suffocated in his refrigerated lorry, packed with tomatoes, when it arrived on a ferry at the British port of Dover.
 The truck's cooling system had been switched off, turning the cargo hold into an oven of death as sweltering summer temperatures rose over 32 Celsius.
 Only two people survived the ordeal, Britain's worst tragedy involving illegal immigrants.
 The lorry carrying the illegal immigrants had been driven to Britain from Rotterdam via Belgium. 
 
 
No Debt Cancellation
 

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) - The heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund told 12 African leaders it would be impossible to cancel the entire debt of the world's poorest nations, as many have asked.
 IMF director Horst Kohler and World Bank President James Wolfensohn said dismissing the total debt amount would leave the two institutions cash-strapped and unable to provide the new loans to developing nations, said G.E. Gondwe, director of the IMF's Africa department.
 "You would look at the issue of closing the bank," Gondwe told reporters Friday at the beginning of a two-day IMF-World Bank summit to discuss how their agencies can help countries alleviate seemingly never-ending poverty issues.
 
 
Mori's Future in Doubt
 

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori kicked off a critical week for his career Monday with a pledge to restore public trust as questions swirled as to just when he will bow to pressure to step down.
 In a new sign Mori's days in office might be numbered, Taku Yamasaki, a former policy chief of the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said he would run in a race to replace Mori as party chief if Mori resigned and no one else was willing.
 Lawmakers in the LDP and its two ruling partners are pushing for Mori's resignation as premier and LDP president to try to avoid a crushing defeat in an Upper House election in July.
 Mori, whose support has sunk below 10 percent, a level that has proved fatal to past prime ministers, faces fresh headaches this week when a former cabinet minister and an LDP heavyweight testify on their links to KSD, a small-business mutual insurer at the heart of a potentially explosive scandal.
 
 
Frozen Baby To Survive 
 

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) - A 13-month-old baby whose body temperature plunged to about 16 degrees Celsius after wandering outside on a winter night appears to have survived without suffering brain damage, her doctor said.
 The baby girl, clad only in a diaper, wandered from the home where she had been sleeping Friday night with her mother and two-year-old sister, and was found outside at 3 a.m. Saturday. No one knows how long the girl was exposed to the subzero weather.
 The child's toes were frozen together and paramedics who responded to her mother's frantic call had trouble getting a breathing tube into the child's throat because her mouth was frozen shut. Doctors said her heart had stopped beating for some time. 



TITLE: Powell Talks Tough on Saddam
AUTHOR: By Barry Schweid
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KUWAIT CITY - In a ceremony on the 10th anniversary of Kuwait's liberation, Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged that "freedom will live and prosper in this part of the world" in spite of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
 "Aggression will not stand," Powell said Monday as he joined former President George Bush and Norman Schwartzkopf, the U.S. commander in the Gulf War against Iraq, in honoring the approximately 300 Americans who died in the 1991 conflict.
 They laid a wreath at the U.S. Embassy in tribute to the Americans who helped reverse Iraq's annexation of its smaller, oil-rich neighbor.
 "The use of force was moral," Bush said under bright skies to an audience that included hundreds of U.S. troops who are on duty here to protect Kuwait from Iraqi threats.
 The former president said he did not know if his son, President Bush, will send more troops here. But, he said, "the United States will never let Kuwait down."
 Powell, who was chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, described the U.S. mission as one of combatting evil.
 "We want the world to know our quarrel is not with the people of Iraq. It is with the regime in Baghdad," he said.
 Powell's rhetorical campaign against Saddam was sweet music here. Kuwait, having felt the sting of Saddam, has kept its distance from Arab sentiments against UN sanctions against Baghdad.
 "This was a guy who invaded a country that was not doing anything to him," Powell said Sunday as he condemned the Iraqi leader as a dictator who has been stripped of his "stings" by the Gulf War and world pressure in the years afterward.
 Powell is trying to persuade the Arabs to maintain UN sanctions on Iraq, but is running into complaints the Iraqi people are suffering as a result of the economic restraints.
 His arguments are that Saddam is at fault and that only about 20 percent of Iraq's oil revenue is used to help the Iraqi people.
 From Kuwait, Powell took his case to Saudi Arabia with a visit to Syria later in the day his last stop in the region. He is likely to look into reports Syria is helping Iraq transport oil illegally.
 In Syria, official newspapers Monday criticized what they called America's "double-standard" policy in the Middle East that on one hand sought to muster support for sanctions against Iraq and on the other backed Israeli policy toward Palestinians.
 "Washington should play it fair. It should not side with Israeli aggressors on one hand, and play the part of supporter of UN resolutions against other nations on the other," the English-language Syria Times said in an editorial.
 On Sunday, Powell had endorsed a Palestinian demand by urging Israel to lift an economic "siege" of the West Bank and Gaza as soon as possible.
 The constraints, which include a ban on Palestinian workers going to their jobs in Israel and the withholding of tax revenues, do nothing to improve the security situation, Powell said after a meeting with Yasser Arafat at his headquarters.
 Israel, in an effort to stem attacks on its soldiers and civilians, is using economic pressure as well as firepower. Peace talks have been shelved, and Powell said it will be a long time before they resume.
 Before seeing Arafat, Powell met Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem but evidently was unable to persuade Israel's incoming prime minister to ease that pressure. Still, Powell said the Bush administration's commitment to Israeli security was "rock-hard."
 On peacemaking, he described Sharon and Arafat as leaders looking down a long hallway, with a settlement at the end. "They have the keys," Powell said.
 In continued West Bank violence Sunday, a Palestinian motorist was shot dead by Israeli soldiers and two Israeli motorists were shot and wounded.

TITLE: The Putin Files: KGB-Stasi Archives Opened
AUTHOR: By Adam Tanner
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: DRESDEN, Germany - The East German secret police had a favor to ask of their KGB comrades - could the Soviet Union recruit a man who lived next to a German Communist party guest house in Dresden and ask him to spy on visitors there? 
 "Comrade V.V. Putin to accomplish this," a Soviet official scribbled by hand on the secret 1987 letter from the Stasi, referring to KGB agent, now President, Vla dimir Putin. 
 Later, another Russian note suggested the recruitment did not go ahead: "To be returned, unaccomplished". 
 Whether Putin failed or whether his KGB bosses later simply refused the mission is unclear. Another handwritten Russian note says curtly the document is to be destroyed - "Unichtozhit." 
 Yet the letter survived. It was one of hundreds of pages of previously unpublished documents obtained by Reuters on KGB-Stasi activities in the Dresden area from Germany's vast archives of Stasi material. They cover 1984 to 1990 when Major Putin was a junior member of a small team of 10 to 15 KGB agents in Dresden, East Germany. 
 In keeping with the protocol of the times, the letters are mostly between the top Stasi and KGB officials and Putin is rarely mentioned by name. But the documents give insight to the cloak-and-dagger world where he lived much of his adult life.
 
 <strong>NO DIAL TONE
 </strong>One rare instance when Putin himself wrote to the local Stasi head, Gen. Maj. Horst Boehm, concerned a KGB informant who worked in East Germany's state wholesale trade enterprise. 
 The man's &quot;telephone connection was mistakenly cut off in March 1989,&quot; Putin wrote, seeking to fix the problem. 
 &quot;Considering that our informant was a former member of the police who support us, the People's Police headquarters applied to the post office to get a phone line,&quot; he wrote. &quot;Nonetheless, there are still problems in solving this.&quot; 
 Subsequent notes show the phone line was installed days later, lightning speed in a country where it could take years or even a lifetime to get a telephone. 
 The informant's name and why he was of interest to Putin remains a mystery. The name is blacked out in the document, which was obtained under German freedom of information rules from the agency overseeing the Stasi archives.
 
 <strong>BROTHERLY TENSIONS
 </strong>The files also reveal tensions between Putin's office and the Stasi, especially when the KGB tried to recruit Stasi agents without their bosses knowing. 
 In one 1989 instance, two plain-clothes Soviet agents sought to recruit a German Stasi informant working at the Hotel Bellevue, then the baroque Saxon city's top hotel and a magnet for important foreign visitors. The KGB agents deceived the man into believing that the Stasi knew about their recruiting effort.
 &quot;I am asking that no further talks and measures with people who are actively working for us be undertaken,&quot; Boehm wrote in a stiff complaint to Putin's boss, KGB General Vladimir Shirokov. &quot;It is not possible for GDR [East German] citizens, as planned reservists for the People's Army, to receive official training from Soviet military intelligence for wireless communications.&quot;
 The files do not tie Putin to the incident but they were issued in response to a request for documents on the Russian president and on KGB activities in Dresden during his time as an agent there. Intelligence experts said recruiting of agents was a central focus of Putin's work in the small KGB branch office.
 &quot;In each district of East Germany there were small groups of KGB agents, usually led by a general,&quot; said former Stasi foreign intelligence chief Markus Wolf, who did not know Putin.
 &quot;They comprised 10 to 20 staff who had contacts with the local State Security [Stasi] administration and also [Stasi] Department 15 on operations targeted at the West.
 &quot;They also had a few people who had the task of working against the West. Putin presumably worked only with informants inside the GDR, probably scientists, teachers and so on.&quot;
 Horst Jehmlich, the top assistant to Boehm in Dresden, said Putin's local efforts were part of the East-West struggle.
 &quot;His activities were directed against the West, gathering information about the economy, politics and the military,&quot; Jehmlich said last year. &quot;He came to us when he needed a connection to a business or to a factory, or to police.&quot;
 Occasionally, Putin did rise above anonymity. In February 1988, the file shows, Stasi boss Erich Mielke signed a decree awarding him a bronze National People's Army service medal.
 Mielke said the medal was &quot;in recognition and appreciation of your service in the struggle for peace, in defense of our Socialist homeland and proletarian internationalism in years of fraternal cooperation between the GDR's Chekists [secret police] and the Soviet security organs against the common enemy.&quot;
 Nice language perhaps. But most of the 37 other Soviet agents named that day received higher-ranking gold and silver honors. 
 <strong>TOASTS AND MEDALS</strong>
 A year before, according to the file, Putin was one of 13 KGB agents at the festive &quot;Brothers in Arms&quot; ball at Stasi headquarters, close to the Dresden apartment he shared with wife Lyudmila, to mark the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution.
 Boehm took a somber tone in his address that evening, as a copy of his secret speech, preserved in Putin's Stasi file, shows.
 &quot;To implement a long-term policy of intensive rearmament and confrontation, the imperialist [Western] secret services have stepped up their activities to obtain any information that is or might be significant for further action against the GDR and the other socialist states,&quot; he said.
 &quot;Just on the eve of this jubilee, a spy for the U.S. secret service, resident in Dresden was uncovered and arrested,&quot; Boehm told Putin and the other spies present. &quot;The information obtained by this spy clearly served the planning and preparation of a military first strike.&quot;
 Whereas Putin was soon to make a rapid ascent in Russian political life after leaving Dresden, Boehm, the ruggedly handsome embodiment of Stasi power, would have a different fate. In 1990, apparently distraught at the collapse of East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he took his own life.
 Yet all that was far in the future and unimaginable on that festive evening on the banks of the Elbe.
 Putin, whose fluent command of German impressed many of his Stasi counterparts and has opened doors for him more recently with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, was awarded a gold medal of honor from the German-Soviet Friendship Society and then the secret agents drank a toast of Soviet brandy.
 Dancing continued past midnight.
 &quot;Alcohol was standard at such events as we tried to make conversation easier to learn things from the Soviets,&quot; Thomas Mueller, a Stasi agent in Dresden who knew Putin, recollected in an interview this month. &quot;At the same time, they were trying to find out things from us.&quot;
 
 <strong>HOSTILITY TO TROOPS
 </strong>But Mueller said that despite the attempts at good cheer, there were often difficulties in relations officially - and even in internal Stasi documents - called &quot;fraternal.&quot;
 &quot;There were tensions, as there are in any family,&quot; he said at his home in Dresden, where he is now unemployed.
 The Stasi files chronicle a series of East German complaints about the behavior of Soviet soldiers in the Dresden area, part of the huge occupying army there since the end of World War II.
 The files record that one soldier sold a grenade for 30 marks, others sold pornography or blue jeans, often to get money for vodka. Soldiers stole vegetables from private gardens. One broke a store window to take chocolate Easter bunnies.
 Quite what was the connection to Putin himself is not clear, though former officials say the regional KGB office would have dealt with frictions between Soviet troops and local police.
 &quot;There is a strained relationship between some of the public and members of the Soviet military,&quot; Boehm wrote to the KGB in a blunt 1986 letter after a series of thefts and rowdy incidents. &quot;In connection with the use of alcohol, there is the danger of uncontrolled behavior and outbreaks of violence.&quot;
 Sometimes the Soviet soldiers took more drastic action. In 1986, three Soviet soldiers escaped to West Germany, setting off a full-scale search and investigation, the Stasi file shows.
 On another occasion, the arrival of a Soviet troop transport train in 1989 set off a near-riot when youths leaving a disco jeered at the soldiers, some of whom then raised their rifles.
 The end result was a Stasi request, just months before the fall of the Berlin Wall was to change life forever, to ban big troop transports when German crowds were likely to be around.
 All these episodes are in the Putin-related file prepared by the German government, but he is named in only a few documents.
 Sometimes the files between the east bloc's two great spy agencies, in retrospect at least, are somewhat comical. One long series of letters on file seeks contact details for a man in West Germany and ends when a Stasi officer writes to say he has finally tracked him down - in the West Berlin phone book.
 In a 1988 case, the KGB asks the Stasi to accommodate three visiting KGB officials free of charge, because the seemingly all-powerful Soviet agency was low on funds. Another time, the KGB asked the Stasi to provide 1,200 free tickets for soldiers to watch Dynamo Dresden play visiting Spartak Moscow at soccer.
 But many documents are deadly serious, even during a time of improved East-West relations in the Gorbachev glasnost era.
 Ahead of the arrival of U.S. officials implementing the latest arms control agreements, the Stasi and KGB sprang into action to assure that the visitors' rooms and telephones would be bugged and a series of informants were put on alert.
 
 <strong>BUNGLED FINAL MISSION
 </strong>The released Stasi files do not detail Putin's last major mission in Dresden after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, that of recruiting a ring of agents to continue to spy for Moscow after the coming reunification of East Germany with the West.
 Johannes Legner, former spokesman for the agency overseeing the Stasi files, said the spy ring collapsed after one of the recruits from the Stasi went over to West German counter intelligence, the BND. Soon after, in 1990, Putin quietly returned home. Within a decade he was in the Kremlin.
 Since becoming president more than a year ago, Putin has shown his continued faith in the KGB, where he worked for 16 years. He has named a former KGB man who served in East Germany as his foreign intelligence director and the steely head of his national Security Council, Sergei Ivanov, is a key adviser.
 Experts say Putin's lack of clear footprints in Dresden and in the Stasi files itself is a sign he was successful spy.
 &quot;In espionage, you want to know everything about the outside world without drawing attention to yourself,&quot; ex-Stasi officer Mueller said. &quot;One should not reveal much of one's personality, lest it reveal weaknesses that should be kept in the dark.&quot;

TITLE: Education, Pavlovian Reflex and Leap Years
TEXT: The first public schools in St. Petersburg were formed by order of Catherine the Great 220 years ago on <strong>Feb. 27. </strong>The imperial command ordered the formation of six schools in the city, the original keystone to Russia's education system.
 One of St. Petersburg's most famous scientists, Ivan Pavlov, died in <strong>1936. </strong>Despite receiving the 1904 Nobel Prize for his work on the physiology of the digestive glands, he is best remembered for his work on conditioned reflexes, his theories on which he proved by a series of famous experiments involving dogs. Pavlov found that sounding a bell every time a dog was about to be fed eventually caused a reflex flow of saliva, which later persisted even when no food was produced. A Ryazan native who was educated at the University of St. Petersburg, Pavlov was such an established figure in world science that despite his vocal objections to communism, he was allowed to continue working, even under Stalin.
 <strong>Feb. 27 </strong>is also an auspicious date in Russian literary history, as the first part of Alexander Pushkin's Yevgeny Onegin was published then in St. Petersburg in <strong>1825.</strong> The work, the opening lines of which are familiar to nearly all Russians, has variously been described as the national poet's greatest work and &quot;life's novel,&quot; and was published in eight chapters, the free-standing &quot;Onegin's Journey&quot; and an uncompleted tenth chapter. The novel in verse describes a love affair between Onegin and Tatiana Larina that never quite happens, as well as featuring social satire and philosophical digression. St. Petersburg is represented as a debauched playground of society dandies and jaded individuals, proving perhaps that surprisingly little has changed since the early 19th century.
 With the relative rareness of <strong>Feb. 29, </strong>you might think that this would make it an uneventful date in history. You would be right. Save the ratification of the <strong>1920</strong> Czechoslovakian constitution and the <strong>1960 </strong>Agadir earthquake in Morocco, the date has been very uneventful indeed.
 The story behind the addition of a day to every fourth year is less so, however. Under Julius Caesar, the Julian Calendar was established in <strong>46 AD, </strong>used in the West until <strong>1582 </strong>and in Russia until <strong>1917. </strong>The Julian calculations stated that there were 365.25 days in a year, when in fact the figure is 365.24219. Over hundreds of years the seasons were getting progressively out of kilter with the calendar, provoking Pope Gregory XIII to institute the Gregorian calendar - which we continue to use today - in <strong>1582. </strong>In non-Catholic countries, the change from Julian to Gregorian took place later. In Britain and the colonies, for example, the change took place in <strong>1752, </strong>when Sept. 2 was followed by Sept. 14 and Jan. 1 replaced March 25 as New Year's Day. The change was not readily understood by many though, and nationwide demonstrations by peasants protested the &quot;stealing&quot; of 12 days of their lives. Even the Gregorian calendar is not perfect however, and means the loss of 3 days every 10,000 years. Unless something is done in the intervening half a million years, your descendants will be able to spend Christmas day on the beach. If that sounds like a good idea, then save yourself some time and move to Australia.

TITLE: PRICE WATCH
TEXT: St. Petersburg has a selection of cinemas to choose from, ranging from the prehistoric to the super-modern and the super-pricy. There is a large disparity between prices within the cinemas themselves, usually depending on how recent the film is. The newest films, both Russian and foreign, tend to play first at the Avrora, where many of them are premiered. Crystal Palace and Barrikada tend to focus more on blockbusters. Spartak has an impressive repertoire of foreign art house films and Hollywood classics. Though tickets there are dirt cheap, there is still no escaping the fact that the sound and print quality are often unbelievably bad, the plastic seats are uncomfortable and the hall is freezing in the winter. Dom Kino and Molodyozhny both represent value for money, with comfortable seating and passable sound. However, try to avoid simultaneously dubbed performances, when an interpreter with a microphone stands in the hall, and very, very loosely translates the small parts of the film they understand.
 
 <strong>Cinema Adults Students Children Love Seats Popcorn
 </strong>Avrora 50-150 50* 30 150-400 25-120
 Barrikada 40-200 - - - 40-50
 Crystal Palace 50-200 - - - 31.50-126
 Dom Kino 50 25** - - -
 Molodyozhny 45 35 - - -
 Parisiana 10-50 - - - 10-30***
 Spartak 15-40 10-20 - - -
 
 *Discount not available for all performances
 **Discount only available on Mondays and Thursdays
 ***Packaged popcorn only 
 
 <strong>Avrora: </strong>60 Nevsky Pr., M. Gostiny Dvor. Tel: 315-52-54
 <strong>Barrikada: </strong>15 Nevsky Pr., M. Nevsky Prospect. Tel: 315-40-28
 <strong>Crystal Palace: </strong>72 Nevsky Pr., M. Mayakovskaya. Tel: 272-23-82
 <strong>Dom Kino: </strong>12 Karavannaya Ul., M. Gostiny Dvor. Tel: 314-73-45
 <strong>Molodyozhny: </strong>12 Sadovaya Ul., M. Gostiny Dvor. Tel: 311-00-45
 <strong>Parisiana: </strong>80 Nevsky Pr., M. Mayakovskaya. Tel: 273-48-13
 <strong>Spartak: </strong>8 Kirochnaya Ul., M. Chernyshevskaya. Tel: 273-79-13

TITLE: RUBLE AROUND TOWN
TEXT: Monday's ruble/dollar rates in St. Petersburg:
 Address Buy Sell
 </strong>Alfa Bank 6 Kanal Griboyedova 28.10 28.90
 Baltiisky Bank 34 Sadovaya Ulitsa 28.30 29.29
 BaltUneximBank Grand Hotel Europe 28.15 29.00
 Bank Sankt Peterburg 108 Ligovsky Prospect 28.35 28.95
 Impexbank 58 Nevsky Prospect 28.20 28.90
 Inkas Bank 44 Nevsky Prospect 27.90 29.00
 MOST Bank 27 Nevsky Prospect 28.20 28.80
 PetroAeroBank 54 Nevsky Prospect 28.50 28.90
 Promstroi Bank 4 Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa 28.20 28.90
 RusRegion Bank 54 Nevsky Prospect 28.65 28.90
 Sberbank 4 Dumskaya Ulitsa 27.90 29.10
 <strong>Average 28.22 28.97

TITLE: Literary Contest Avoids Clich&eacute;
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local authorities frequently cite negative coverage of their city as one of the major reasons behind the fact that St. Petersburg gets less than half as many tourists each year as Prague, or even Warsaw. In an attempt to redress this, a Russian-French humanitarian association has launched a literary competition aiming to draw attention to and encourage fair reporting on events in St. Petersburg and Russia as a whole.
 The brains behind the project is Olga Yartseva, a St. Petersburg native and doctor of sociology who works as a journalist in Paris. Yartseva is executive director of the Paris-based association &quot;St. Petersburg 300&quot; - a nongovernmental organization launched last year as the city's first center outside Russia. 
 &quot;Many cities desperately try to create events or other projects artificially in order to attract the attention of tourists,&quot; Yartseva said. &quot;St. Petersburg doesn't need to invent anything. The city only has to make intelligent use of its forthcoming jubilee.&quot;
 &quot;Living in Europe but being able to visit St. Petersburg on a regular basis, I have to say that Western coverage of my hometown is unbalanced,&quot; Yartseva said. &quot;The view of the city is limited by a number of clich&eacute;s being endlessly exploited. This unfair situation gave me the initial impulse to start the contest - which will be our association's first project, and which we are doing in collaboration with the Russian Union of Journalists.&quot;
 &quot;I do realize that there is much to be criticized in St. Petersburg, but objectively speaking one can find just as many things to admire,&quot; she added. 
 The stereotypes and clich&eacute;s range from &quot;Russia's cultural capital&quot; - as locals like to refer to their hometown - to &quot;crime capital&quot; and &quot;dying city,&quot; in reference to the high levels of organized crime and the disparity in birth and death rates often mentioned by outside critics. In the meantime, what the contest organizers are hoping for is a fresh and unbiased look.
 &quot;All positive associations that Westerners have with St. Petersburg recall the years of imperial glory - which is yet another clich&eacute; - but, for Westerners at least, the city today is paradoxically more obscure than its past,&quot; Yartseva said.
 Running through 2003, the contest will be held in three stages, with the first one starting in June 2001. Its official title is &quot;300 lines about St. Petersburg&quot; informing the potential participants about the suggested word length. But that seems to be the only restriction of what appears to be a very democratic competition.
 The contest organizers are also aware that the views, stereotypes and attitudes of contributing writers will necessarily be influenced by where the writers are from. &quot;St. Petersburgers will always have a special view of their hometown just because they live here; the Muscovites have their own attitude as the two Russian capitals have long been rivals,&quot; Yartseva said. 
 In line with this idea, the competition will be organized into five categories: St. Petersburg authors, Moscow authors, regional authors, foreign authors and photography.
 As the contests' ideologists believe, the genre is not important: essays, investigative reports, political analysis, arts features, prose and even verse, appearing in any officially registered mass media - be it print media, on the Internet, on TV or the radio - can compete in the competition. What is essential is that the stories bring in a new angle, unveil a hidden treasure and are of literary merit. All texts have to be published no earlier than Jan. 1, 2001. Materials from foreign authors will be accepted in all European languages.
 &quot;We deliberately have not given any genre restrictions,&quot; Yartseva said. &quot;The topics, too, can vary dramatically - from global trends to a story of a romance with a St. Petersburger or an episode dating back to one's university years.&quot;
 Judging the contest will be prominent Russian and foreign writers and journalists presided by St. Petersburg writer Andrei Bitov. Several prizes - up to $ 1,000 - will be awarded in each category, not to mention a long list of special awards.
 Having considered various ways to encourage fair reporting on her hometown, Yartseva rejected so-called &quot;fun-trips&quot; - visits for a group of foreign journalists so that they would come and report on what they saw, covered by an interested organization.
 &quot;It is a good thing to boost the tourism industry, but you should look for other tools and technologies if you want people to understand your country's culture and history, and your nation's mentality,&quot; she said. &quot;We are hoping that a real - not mythical - St. Petersburg will emerge through the stories we will be receiving.&quot;

TITLE: A Possible Future for the City Revealed in a Model
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Savitskaya
TEXT: Forty years of working as an architect have inevitably given me much to say on the subject of architecture. My ideas can perhaps best be illustrated by one particularly enjoyable project.
 In the Japanese city of Otaru, the local authorities decided to create a Russian art center, the design of which fell to our company.
 It was decided that we would complete a model of St. Petersburg's historic center; Architects nearly always make such small scale representations of their projects, as they are useful for clarifying the building concepts the architect has in mind for his creation. We therefore had to create a model of St. Petersburg, exactly as it was. This type of model exists all over the world: many important cities have been transformed by artists and model makers into miniature versions, but the challenge that we had set ourselves was to avoid such a banal, lifeless representation of our city, and instead, through a model, to capture both the spirit and atmosphere of St. Petersburg.
 The model was to cover an area of 15 square meters, encompassing the area between the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Apraksin Yard.
 I imagined a person from the other side of the world entering a dark hall across a typical St. Petersburg humpbacked bridge, greeted by an expanse of the city center below, like the view from an airplane window as you fly into the city at night - ablaze with light and movement, the wide, elegant avenues of the city lit up by glowing shop windows, lights going on and off in large apartment blocks and the flashing movements of advertising hoardings. Gradually, the hall becomes lighter and the street lights slowly give way to the dawn as the city wakes up. Through a pink mist, the silhouette of the Peter and Paul Fortress dominates the scene, the stormy Neva darkens as it does on a windy summer day, as the dawn becomes bright sunshine.
 Famous squares, palaces and monuments become visible with the light, as do the bridges that cross the rivers and canals. Everything down to the sculptures on the Winter Palace is visible before people who have never seen this extraordinary city.
 All this would only come at the end of a long process, however. Until then, we worked as if we were possessed. Having come up with an overall artistic concept for the project, we were faced with the individual details of our ambitious scheme.
 We had a specific approach to historical houses and monuments, informed in parts by archival blueprints, original architects' drawings and sketches. In this way we &quot;rebuilt&quot; the Winter Palace, St. Isaac's Cathedral and many other such well-known structures.
 Carpenters built the base, while electricians worked on the lighting project. One woman's job was entirely devoted to bridge-building, and five others actually made the individual models of each building.
 My brigade of architects spent most of their time drawing. Each morning I would go out into the streets to complete the portraits that we were unable to fully realize by blue-prints alone. As I pieced together houses - balconies, ledges, frames and pediments, their representation in model form would remain strikingly different from the reality on the street. As a model, the houses would have brightly painted walls and roofs, with new windows and drain pipes. Unfortunately this was not the case with the originals, that were old, dirty and neglected. Similarly all the roads became clean and smooth, to the point that the model seemed to be of an entirely different city, given the sad state of repair that much of St. Petersburg finds itself in.
 Nobody ended up counting how many houses, palaces and churches we drew. Most ended up measuring just 3 to 10 centimeters. We completed the project, laid out the city in its cleansed form and packed it off to Japan, where it is located to this day. In time, I hope that St. Petersburg will one day resemble the model that it ironically inspired.
 
 Yekaterina Savitskaya is an architect in St. Petersburg . If you would like to write this column, contact masters@sptimes.ru

TITLE: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
TEXT: Bowling has become increasingly popular in St. Petersburg and a number of clubs have opened up, with one of the more interesting gimmicks being disco or &quot;cosmic&quot; bowling: bowling in near-complete darkness with neon balls that glow under black lights as they spin down the lane. Prices vary a great deal depending on time of day - from about $5-20 an hour per lane. Call in advance to reserve a lane, or you might strike out.
 

 
. <strong>M-111</strong> (16 lanes), 111 Moskovsky Pr., M: Moskovskaya, 320-44-25
 . <strong>Aquatoria</strong> (9 lanes), 61 Vyborgskaya Nab., M: Lesnaya, 245-20-30
 . <strong>Leon</strong>, 34 Ul. Dekabristov (next to Mariinsky Theater), M: Sadovaya, 114-44-02
 . <strong>Neptune</strong> (8 lanes), 93 Obvodnogo Kanala Nab., M: Pushkinskaya, 324-46-92
 . <strong>Almak</strong> (8 lanes), 15 Novolitovskaya, M: Lesnaya, 327-47-07 
 . <strong>5th Avenue</strong> (7 lanes), 2 Konstitutsii Pl., M: Moskovskaya, 123-08-09 
 . <strong>Night City </strong>(7 lanes), 10 Ivana Chernykh Ul., M: Narvskaya, 252-49-66
 . <strong>Cosmic Bowling </strong>(6 lanes), 16 Aptekarskiy Pr., M: Petrogradskaya, 234-49-35
 . <strong>Farwater </strong>(6 lanes), 3rd floor, 1 Morskoy Slavy Pl., M: Primorskaya, 322-69-39
 . <strong>Sharovaya Molina </strong>(4 lanes), 14 Korabelstroiteley, M:Primorskaya (at the Pribaltiyskaya Hotel), 329-24-89
 . <strong>Nevskiye Melodii</strong> (4 lanes), 62 Sverd lov skaya Nab., M: Novo cher kasskaya, 227-62-54
 

 
If the relatively intellect-free pastime of bowling doesn't appeal, then you can exercise your mind at the newly re-opened <strong>Nabokov Museum</strong>. Set in the house vividly described in the cosmopolitan writer's autobiography, &quot;Speak, memory,&quot; the house museum at 47, Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa contains memorabilia as well as literary artifacts from Vladimir Nabokov's career. Although he left the house and St. Petersburg for good in 1919 never to return, the small museum endeavors to capture a feel for the end of the imperial period and is beautifully decorated. (Weds.-Sun. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., tel. 315-47-13).
 
Other things to catch in the city this week include the Mariinsky's epic production of <strong>Prokofiev's &quot;War and Peace.&quot;</strong> Critics have been divided, but suffice to say, like Tolstoy's original novel, it is very, very long. (Tues., Weds. 7 p.m., tel. 114-43-44). More light hearted entertainment comes in the form of <strong>&quot;Being John Malkovich&quot; </strong>now playing at the Avrora (tel. 315-52-54, 60 Nevsky Prospect, Daily 5 p.m., 70 rub.), a surreal indie comedy which has received both commercial success and critical acclaim.

TITLE: Penguins' 2nd Line Breezes Past Islanders
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania's hockey teams didn't need Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr or Simon Gagne to beat the struggling clubs from New York.
 Lemieux, Jagr and Pittsburgh goal-scoring leader Alexei Kovalev failed to score, but Robert Lang had two and recent call-up Andrew Ference got his first in a 6-1 victory by the Penguins over the New York Islanders.
 &quot;We're trying to keep the pressure off the top line,&quot; said Martin Straka, who played on a line with Lang and Kovalev. &quot;We're trying to make teams have to worry about covering two lines.&quot;
 The Penguins won their third in a row to improve to 5-1-1 in their last seven games and 11-3-1 in their last 15.
 On the Eastern side of the state, the Atlantic Division-leading Philadelphia Flyers needed a replacement for Gagne, their top goal-scorer, who separated his shoulder on Saturday.
 The Flyers recalled Mark Greig from the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms, and he stepped in to score the tying goal and set up Mark Recchi's game-winner in the Flyers' 2-1 victory against the New York Rangers.
 &quot;You never really know how it's going to go when you get called up here,&quot; Greig said. &quot;You work hard for your opportunities when you get that chance. Tonight went really well and I only hope that it will snowball from here.&quot;
 In other NHL games, it was Buffalo 5, Tampa Bay 4; Detroit 6, Phoenix 3; Colorado 5, Atlanta 2; Edmonton 3, Dallas 2 in overtime; Chicago 6, Toronto 4; and Columbus 5, Anaheim 2.
 Lemieux set up two goals - the 900th and 901st assists of his career - as the Penguins snapped the Islanders' first two-game winning streak since the end of October. The trio of Straka, Lang and Kovalev had five points.
 &quot;They have confidence they can do things, and they know they can score on their rushes,&quot; said New York's Mariusz Czerkawski, who had the only Islanders goal. &quot;They have some players that are called the best in the world, right?&quot;
 Almost as potent was the debut of the Recchi-Keith Primeau-Greig line, which accounted for all the Flyers' points against the fading Rangers. Recchi had a goal and an assist and Primeau had two assists. &quot;It's a pleasure having people like him in the organization who can just step onto the top line and produce,&quot; Recchi said of Greig. 
 Gagne was injured Saturday and will have an MRI exam on his shoulder to determine how long he will be out.
 New York is in 10th place, nine points out of a playoff spot. Adam Graves gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead they couldn't hold.
 
 <strong>Red Wings 6, Coyotes 3. </strong>Brendan Shanahan broke a tie with a second power-play goal as Detroit scored the final six goals at home against Phoenix.
 Shanahan also had two assists to help the Red Wings move past St. Louis for first place in the Central Division.
 Boyd Devereaux and Martin Lapointe added insurance for Detroit, which scored four powerplay goals. Manny Legace stopped all 18 shots he faced in relief of Chris Osgood, who allowed three goals on 10 first-period shots.
 
 <strong>Avalanche 5, Thrashers 2. </strong>NHL scoring leader Joe Sakic had a goal and three assists and Rob Blake scored his first goal for Colorado in a victory over visiting Atlanta.
 Blake, acquired Wednesday, added an assist, and Milan Hejduk had his 34th and 35th goals for Colorado, winners of three straight.
 David Aebischer stopped 25 shots. Steve Staios spoiled Aebischer's shutout bid with 2:22 remaining, and Andreas Karlsson scored with 38 seconds to play.
 
 <strong>Sabres 5, Lightning 4. </strong>Dave Andreychuk scored twice and added an assist to lead Buffalo past Tampa Bay.
 It was the first two-goal game of the season for the 37-year-old Andreychuk. He scored 2:48 in, ending Tampa Bay goalie Kevin Weekes' shutout streak at 95 minutes, 39 seconds. Doug Gilmour and Miroslav Satan each had a goal and an assist for the Sabres.
 Ryan Johnson and Jassen Cullimore scored for the Lightning.

TITLE: Sri Lanka Takes First Test Versus England
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: GALLE, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya sent England spinning to a crushing defeat on the final afternoon of the first test on Monday as the match ended in umpiring controversy.
 The tourists, 217 behind after their first innings and resuming on 118 for two, lost by an innings and 28 runs as they collapsed to 189 all out.
 Their last seven wickets went down for 44 and their last five for 13.
 Sri Lanka had dominated the game after winning a vital toss on a pitch designed to turn from the first day, and then making an impressive 470 for five declared, with man-of-the-match Marvan Atapattu compiling an impressive 201 not out.
 A string of decisions, however, went against Nasser Hussain's tourists throughout the game, with Michael Atherton and Craig White the main victims on the final day.
 The opener departed, caught behind in the second over, without adding to his overnight score of 44.
 Angling his bat, he edged to Kumar Sangakkara, the ball appearing to graze the ground as it disappeared into his gloves.
 Atherton batted for four-and-a-quarter hours and England had hoped that he would form the mainstay of their rearguard action.
 White, England's last recognised batsman, was the eighth man to go, given out sweeping off the front foot against off-spinner Muralitharan.
 The full toss seemed to strike the all-rounder outside the off stump.
 Muralitharan, billed by his captain Jayasuriya as Sri Lanka's match-winner on the crumbling pitch, took four for 66 as he mopped up the tail.
 But Jayasuriya, bowling left-arm spin, outdid him with four for 44 and eight wickets in the match.
 England's hopes of salvaging the game were all but over by lunch, with Atherton, Graham Thorpe and Grae me Hick back in the pavilion.
 Thorpe was trapped lbw on the back foot by off-spinner Kumar Dharmasena for 12 to make it 145 for four and Graeme Hick, after taking 27 balls to get off the mark, was then brilliantly caught for six off Jayasuriya's left-arm spin by Mahela Jayawardene at first slip.
 Hick, handed a one-match suspended ban after showing dissent over his first-innings dismissal, could consider himself unlucky again as he edged a copybook delivery only for the ball to ricochet off the wicketkeeper's gloves to Jayawardene.
 The only cheer for England came from Alec Stewart.
 Unhappy with his first-innings dismissal, when he was given out lbw to a ball which appeared to pitch outside the leg stump, he responded by passing 7,000 test runs during his undefeated innings of 34.
 Sri Lanka, however, were too powerful on a track that was ideally suited to their attack. It was their second consecutive innings victory at the ground after they defeated the South Africans at the Galle International Stadium last year.
 The two teams observed a two-minute silence before the start following the death of Sir Donald Bradman. They also wore black armbands.
 The second of the three-test series begins in Kandy on March 7.

TITLE: Back From Ban, Robinson Proves Point by Scoring 45
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin - Glenn Robinson had plenty to offer following his forced vacation.
 Rested but frustrated after serving a one-game suspension, Robinson scored a career-high 45 points as the Milwaukee Bucks won their fourth straight, beating the Golden State Warriors 122-95 Sunday night.
 Robinson sat out Friday's victory over the Vancouver Grizzlies for his part in an altercation with Chicago's Ron Artest last week.
 A four-day break gave Robinson a chance to rest, but also provided the All-Star forward an opportunity to stew on the edict handed down by the NBA.
 &quot;I never thought I should have been suspended since I was the one who got thrown to the court,&quot; Robinson said. &quot;I came out pumped because of that. I felt like I had to make up for lost time.&quot;
 In other NBA games, New York edged Sacramento 88-86; Phoenix beat Utah 90-80; Indiana defeated Minnesota 110-100; the Los Angeles Lakers topped Orlando 106-100; Cleveland stopped Detroit 101-94; and New Jersey toppled Washington 101-91.
 Jason Caffey had 15 points and 11 rebounds, while Sam Cassell finished with 14 points and 10 assists for the Bucks.
 Antawn Jamison led Golden State with 26 points. Adonal Foyle had 15 points and 12 rebounds.
 The victory set the stage for an intriguing showdown Monday night between Milwaukee and the Philadelphia 76ers, who sport the NBA's record at 42-15. &quot;They're a different team with Dikembe Mutombo, but Allen Iverson can still light you up,&quot; Robinson said. &quot;We had to concentrate on today's game so we didn't stumble. Now, we can think about Philly.&quot;
 
 <strong>Cavaliers 101, Pistons 94. </strong>Reserve Lamond Murray scored 19 points and Jimmy Jackson added 15 as Cleveland snapped a six-game road losing streak.
 Chris Gatling and Clarence Weatherspoon each added 13 points for the Cavs, who last won a road game at Golden State on Jan. 15.
 Jerry Stackhouse scored 35 points, Joe Smith 18 and Ben Wallace had six points, 10 rebounds and a career-high eight blocked shots for Detroit, which lost for the fourth time in five games.
 
 <strong>Nets 101, Wizards 91. </strong>Keith Van Horn scored 21 points and Stephon Marbury added 20 as New Jersey won its third straight home game.
 Mitch Richmond had 21 for Washington, which has lost three straight since making an eight-player deal with Dallas on Thursday, the NBA's trade deadline.
 Christian Laettner, acquired from the Mavericks, added 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Wizards, who lost their fourth straight overall and 10th in 11 games.

TITLE: Allenby Wins Muddy Nissan Playoff
AUTHOR: By Doug Ferguson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - Surviving the bone-chilling rain wasn't the only problem at the Nissan Open. When Robert Allenby slogged through the mud back to the 18th hole for a sudden-death playoff, he had some company.
 During a dreary final round at Riviera Country Club, 10 players claimed a share of the lead at one time or another. At the end of 72 holes, a record six of them were left for a playoff in some of the toughest conditions around.
 &quot;I knew someone had to make birdie to win,&quot; Allenby said, but that wasn't what he expected. After all, only Doug Barron had managed a birdie on the 18th hole in the final round.
 &quot;I figured a few guys would make par and move on to the next hole,&quot; the 29-year-old Australian said.
 There was no next hole, thanks to one of the best shots of Allenby's career, the best shot of the young season and as good as any that Tiger Woods hit last year.
 From about 200 meters, Allenby choked down on his 3-wood and belted it right on line, through the driving rain and just over a hump on the green, the ball stopping inside 2 meters from the hole. One putt later, Allenby's playoff record remained perfect and five other players were eliminated.
 &quot;To be able to pull it off in those conditions - pouring rain, five guys on your heels - that's going to be a shot that stays in my memory bank a long time,&quot; Allenby said. &quot;Funny enough, I'm the one who always comes up with that shot.&quot;
 Allenby is 7-0 in playoffs worldwide, and all three of his PGA Tour victories have gone extra holes.
 None was quite like this.
 Six players finished at 8-under 276, some of them at least an hour before Davis Love III stumbled badly on the closing holes at Riviera Country Club, and before Allenby and Jeff Sluman each bogeyed the 18th to fall back into a share of the lead.
 Only Toshi Isawa, trying to become the first Japanese player to win on the U.S. mainland, failed to hit the fairway on the playoff hole.
 Allenby and Bob Tway were the only players to reach the green in two, and Tway's 11-meter birdie putt stopped about 30 centimeters short. Allenby made sure that Sluman, Dennis Paulson and Brandel Chamblee didn't have a chance.
 &quot;I was trying to hit the perfect shot, and I came up with it,&quot; Allenby said.
 The victory was his third in Allenby's last 22 PGA Tour events, and only Woods (seven) and Phil Mickelson (four) have won more in the past year.
 Allenby earned $612,000 and became the first Australian winner in the 75-year history of the Nissan Open.

TITLE: Reds Beat Brave Birmingham in Cup Final
AUTHOR: By Bill Barclay
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CARDIFF - Liverpool won England's first ever cup final penalty shootout to lift the League Cup for a record sixth time on Sunday, after a pulsating match at the Millennium Stadium against first division Birmingham City ended 1-1 after extra time.
 Liverpool goalkeeper Sander Westerveld saved penalties from Martin Grainger and, decisively, Andrew Johnson to give Liverpool a 5-4 win in the shootout. Dietmar Hamann missed from the spot for Liverpool.
 The extra period was forced three minutes into injury time at the end of 90 minutes when Birmingham defender Darren Purse coolly converted a penalty to cancel out Robbie Fowler's fine 30th-minute strike for Liverpool.
 &quot;It was a great final,&quot; said Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier.
 &quot;You've got to give credit to Birmingham but I thought we were very professional.
 &quot;But I was pleased with the way the boys picked themselves up in the second half of extra time and showed real character.&quot;
 The first English cup final to be staged outside England enthralled a boisterous crowd of 73,500 at the home of Welsh rugby, including England coach Sven Goran Eriksson, who presented the trophy.
 It was Liverpool's first silverware since winning the 1995 League Cup and earned the team a place in next season's UEFA Cup. Liverpool is also in the quarter-finals of this season's UEFA Cup and FA Cup and third in the Premier League.
 Birmingham, whose 1963 League Cup success is its only major trophy, started positively but faded and Liverpool, with influential, fit-again midfielder Steven Gerrard in the starting 11, soon took control.
 They took the lead when captain Fowler latched on to a flick from Emile Heskey and instantly sent a dipping left-foot shot past City goalkeeper Ian Bennett from 20 metres.
 Czech international Vladimir Smicer wasted two good chances to extend the lead as Liverpool, directed by German international Hamann, created the better chances.
 Substitute Nick Barmby and Fowler could have added further goals and as the game entered injury time Trevor Francis' side looked beaten.
 But with seconds of added time remaining, captain Martin O'Connor was felled by a wild challenge from Stephane Henchoz in the area.
 After a long delay while O'Connor was treated, Purse stepped up to fire into the corner of the net, sending the 30,000 Birmingham fans into a frenzy.
 Duly inspired, Birmingham dominated extra-time against a Liverpool side playing its fifth game in 15 days and were unlucky not to earn another penalty when lightning quick striker Andrew Johnson appeared to be tripped by Henchoz after 105 minutes
 Liverpool improved in the second period of extra-time and Hamann hit a post before referee David Elleray whistled for penalty kicks.
 Westerveld saved Birmingham's first from Grainger but Birmingham keeper Ian Bennett then saved Liverpool's fourth from Hamann.
 Fowler then scored for Liverpool, following earlier success for Gary McAllister, Barmby and Christian Ziege and after Jamie Carragher also held his nerve, Westerveld denied Johnson to win the cup.
 Birmingham, whose captain O'Connor was forced to hobble bravely through extra-time because Francis had used all his substitutes, was left in tears at the end.
 &quot;When you lose a final losers are forgotten, but I don't think Birmingham City will be forgotten today,&quot; said Francis, a lifelong Birmingham fan and former striker for the club when they last graced the top flight 15 years ago.
 &quot;The players have enjoyed it and we have done our supporters proud, and apart from the trophy there was not much more we could have done today.&quot;

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Earnhardt Jr. Crashes
 

ROCKINGHAM, North Carolina (Reuters) - In a haunting reminder of his father's death a week ago, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed into a wall on the first lap of Sunday's Dura Lube 400 stock car race.
 Earnhardt, whose car was bumped from behind heading into the oval track's third turn, said he was bruised but otherwise unhurt in the crash at the North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, North Carolina.
 The crash occurred minutes after racers and fans paid tribute to Earnhardt's father by observing a moment of silence and leaving the pole position open during parade laps before the race, which was delayed 1 1/2 hours by rain.
 The older Earnhardt was killed last Sunday when his No. 3 car slammed into a wall as he led a tight pack of cars through the final turn toward the checkered flag at Daytona, the sport's premier race.
 
 
Players Refuse Parade
 

HULL, England (Reuters) - Two Leeds United footballers accused of a vicious attack on an Asian student declined to take part in police identity parades, a British court heard on Monday.
 Defender Jonathan Woodgate, who has played for England, had agreed to take part but changed his mind after extensive publicity about the case, police said.
 Knubley told the jury of eight men and four women at Hull Crown Court in northern England that Woodgate's team mate Lee Bowyer had also refused to take part in identification parades.
 Woodgate, Bowyer, reserve player Tony Hackworth and two of their friends are accused of battering Asian student Sarfraz Najeib unconscious and continuing to kick his senseless body. All deny the charges.
 
 
Safin Gets New Coach
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. Open champion Marat Safin is to take on former world number one Mats Wilander as his coach.
 "Starting next week with a series of tournaments in the U.S., Marat will be coached by Wilander," Shamil Tar pi shchev, president of the Russian Tennis Federation, said on Monday.
 "They haven't signed a contract yet because they first want to give it a test. But if everything works fine, then it can be a long-lasting partnership."
 Safin, who changed his coach four times last year, hopes the Swede, a winner of seven Grand Slam titles in the 1980s, will help him refocus after a shaky start to 2001.
 "I'm sure Wilander, who had a great career as a player, can teach Marat a few tricks about how to keep his temper under control," said Tarpishchev.
 
 
Ticket Site Bust
 

TOKYO (Reuters) - Internet applications for 2002 World Cup tickets were suspended for the second time in 24 hours on Monday due to new technical problems.
 The online application system, initially delayed for 10 days, had resumed by Monday afternoon, Japanese organisers said.
 But fans seeking World Cup tickets may now experience difficulty accessing FIFA's Web site at all owing to a limit imposed because of the latest problem.
 An official with the Japan Organizing Committee for the World Cup (JAWOC) said the latest glitch seemed to have been caused by excessive applications overwhelming the capacity of the computer handling the ticket sales.
 He said the system resumed operation after organizers put a limit on access to world soccer body FIFA's Web site which accepts the applications. 



TITLE: Title Race All but Over as Man Utd. Crushes Arsenal
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON - Dwight Yorke scored a 20-minute hat-trick as United crushed its nearest rivals Arsenal to move 16 points clear.
 Yorke's third treble in the first 20 minutes, plus goals from Roy Keane and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, earned the side a 5-1 halftime lead and substitute Teddy Sheringham completed the rout in the 90th minute.
 Thierry Henry had earlier cancelled out Yorke's third minute opener, but Arsenal defended poorly to all but hand the title to United for the third consecutive season.
 On Saturday, Bradford looked way off the premier league pace again with another poor display while West Ham's young midfield again looked full of ideas.
 Frank Lampard, after a neat backheel by fellow England squad member Joe Cole, gave West Ham a deserved lead in the 18th minute.
 Eoin Jess headed the equaliser in the 62nd minute - Bradford's first goal since New Year's Day - but Lampard gave West Ham the points and its first league win of the year in the 75th with another shot from the edge of the box.
 Coventry was at home to Charlton, but could only manage a 2-2 tie. Craig Bellamy had Coventry ahead early on, banging in from close range after Charlton keeper Sasa Ilic dropped the ball, but Richard Rufus equalised with a similarly scruffy goal in the 22nd minute.
 Jonatan Johansson gave Charlton the lead in the first minute of the second half, but John Hartson equalized in the 67th minute with his first goal since arriving earlier this month.
 Derby County managed a 1-0 victory at home over Aston Villa. A Deon Burton penalty, after he had been felled by Steve Staunton, settled a disappointing game but Derby will be delighted to take the points which keep them edging towards safety.
 Ipswich had lost their last five games but ended the run with two late goals against Everton.
 Mark Burchill, making his Ipswich debut after moving on loan from Celtic this week, hit the post early on but the game turned 20 minutes from time when Everton had defender Alex Nyarko sent off for a second booking.
 Matt Holland took advantage of the extra space to put Ipswich ahead in the 82nd minute and Alun Armstrong got the second two minutes later.
 Sunderland has now lost three and drawn two of its last five league games after going down 2-0 to Leicester. Dean Sturridge headed in a Frank Sinclair cross after half an hour to put Leicester ahead.
 Sunderland midfielder John Oster was sent off after two bad tackles 10 minutes into the second half and Leicester soon took advantage when Ade Akinbiyi bundled in the second.
 Southampton striker Mark Draper's low shot after 49 minutes condemned Middlesbrough to its first league defeat in 11 games, while Newcastle fans, who had waited six weeks to see their team and two months to see Alan Shearer, booed the players off after a poor display as their team went down 0-1 to Manchester City.
 City, without a league win since Dec. 9, took the points with a 61st-minute Shaun Goater goal following a great run by Andrei Kanchelskis.
 At White Hart Lane, Leeds came from behind to win 2-1 and inflict Tottenham's first home league defeat of the season, and first anywhere in 10 games.
 
 <strong>France. </strong>Monaco and Olympique Lyon were joined in the French League Cup semifinals by second division Niort on Sunday.
 Niort eliminated top flight St Etienne 3-2 after being 2-1 down at halftime, its goals coming from Frederic Garny, Abdelnasser Ouadah and Jean-Luc Escayol.
 Monaco defeated second division Chateauroux 1-0, courtesy of a Marcelo Gallardo winner, and Lyon dispatched third division Amiens 2-0 with Steed Malbranque scoring both goals.
 The date for the cup visit of league leaders Nantes to Troyes has yet to be announced.
 
 <strong>Italy. </strong>Four of Italy's top sides bounced back from European exits with Serie A victories on Sunday.
 AS Roma extended its lead in Serie A to eight points with a 2-0 win over Vicenza courtesy of second-half goals from Vincenzo Montella and Emerson.
 Roma now has 48 points with Juventus second on 42, after a 3-0 home win over AC Milan, Italy's last representative in Europe. Igor Tudor, Filippo Inzaghi and Zinedine Zidane scored the goals.
 Argentine Hernan Crespo's hat-trick helped Lazio to a 5-3 win over Verona. Czechs Karel Poborsky and Pavel Nedved scored the other two goals for Lazio, which has 40 points.
 Parma thrashed Perugia 5-0 with two goals from Savo Milosevic and strikes from Stefano Torrisi, Marco Di Vaio and Marcio Amoroso to stay fourth on 32.
 <strong>Spain. </strong>Leaders Real Madrid let slip a two-goal lead against last year's champions and nearest challengers Deportivo La Coruna to draw 2-2 on Saturday.
 An own goal and a Luis Figo penalty gave visitors Real a 2-0 halftime advantage, but a cheeky chipped penalty from Brazilian Djalminha, and a late equaliser from Diego Tristan kept the gap at the top at four points.
 Third-placed Valencia beat Villarreal 3-1 to remain one win behind Deportivo, thanks to a hat-trick from John Carew.
 Barcelona defeated Real Sociedad 3-0 at the Nou Camp with two goals from Patrick Kluivert and another from Xavi, but remains in fourth place, a further two points back.
 
 <strong>Germany. </strong>Bayern Munich remained top of the Bundesliga despite having to come from behind for a disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Cologne on Saturday.
 Challengers Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund failed to take advantage, fighting out a goalless draw at the Parkstadion which left Bayern two points clear.
 Bayer Leverkusen remained fourth, losing 3-1 at home to Energie Cottbus.

TITLE: Cricket World Mourns Bradman
AUTHOR: By Julian Linden
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SYDNEY - Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest batsman in test cricket history and Australia's most revered sporting figure, has died in Adelaide. He was 92.
 The Director of the Bradman Foundation, Richard Mulvaney, said Bradman died in his sleep on Sunday morning with his family by his side.
 &quot;Sir Donald Bradman died yesterday morning, peacefully at his home, after a short illness with pneumonia,&quot; Mulvaney said.
 When news of Bradman's death broke on Monday morning, Australian television and radio interrupted their regular programs to announce his passing. It quickly became the lead item on news broadcasts, and made headlines around the world.
 Cricketers from around the world joined personalities from across Australia in paying tribute to him.
 Bradman is survived by his son John and his daughter Shirley.
 His wife Jessie died of cancer, aged 88, in September 1997 after 65 years of marriage. Until the day he died, Bradman mourned the end of his greatest partnership.
 The premier of South Australia, where Bradman lived, said the government had offered to honour the batting legend with a state funeral if the family agreed.
 But Bradman's son John issued a statement to say his father had requested a private cremation. He said a public memorial would be held in about two or three weeks.
 International Cricket Council president Malcolm Gray said Bradman's contribution to the game was immeasurable, while ACB chairman Denis Rogers said he had left a legacy for generations to come.
 &quot;Just remember that this man left this positive legacy where everything is good and noble about the game of cricket,&quot; Rogers said.
 Australia's former cricket captains also joined in paying tribute to Bradman.
 Mark Taylor paid the ultimate compliment to Bradman in 1998 when he equalled his Australian test batting record of 334 in a match against Pakistan but refused to better his mark, declaring his innings closed out of respect to him.
 &quot;Sir Donald is certainly the greatest Australian I have met,&quot; Taylor said. &quot;His innings may have closed but his legacy will forever live on in the hearts of millions of Australians.&quot;
 In Britain, former England captain Mike Gatting said: &quot;We all owe him a great deal. He continued to do a great deal for the game of cricket after he finished his career.
 &quot;I can comfortably say he was the best of his time and certainly the averages suggest he was the best of all time. I don't think we'll ever see his like again.&quot;
 Known simply as &quot;The Don,&quot; Bradman became a national sporting icon during the 1930s and 1940s by rewriting cricket's record books.
 He retired from first class cricket more than half a century ago, but his records remain the yardstick for sportsmen around the globe.
 He played in 52 tests for Australia between 1928 and 1948, scoring 6,996 runs at an average of 99.94, scoring 29 centuries.
 But part of Bradman's legend is that in his final test innings, against England in London in 1948, he was bowled second ball for a duck when he needed just four runs for a career average of 100.
 Despite the anti-climax, Bradman's key statistics remain a source of fascination and bewilderment for generations of cricketers.
 Of the many great players that have followed him to the wicket, none has come close to matching his feats.
 In fact, only three batsmen, South Africa's Graeme Pollock (60.97), West Indian George Headley (60.83) and England's Herbert Sutcliffe (60.73), have bettered 60 over their test career.
 Bradman served as an Australian selector after his retirement but in later years shunned publicity, making only occasional public appearances and agreeing to even fewer media interviews.
 Asked during a rare television interview in 1996 to explain why his records remained unchallenged, The Don struggled for an answer saying: &quot;I saw much better batsmen than I was. Lots of them ... they just kept getting out.&quot;
 An intelligent man with a wonderful sense of wit, Bradman was also asked how he thought he might perform against modern bowling attacks.
 Bradman replied he would average 65, before adding with a grin: &quot;You have to remember I am in my 80s.&quot;
 Bradman's amazing achievements made him a hero to cricket fans the world over.
 When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 after more than 25 years behind bars, one of his first questions was to inquire whether Bradman was still alive.