SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #655 (22), Friday, March 23, 2001
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Purchase of Telecom XXI Is Finally a Reality
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Moscow-based Mobile Telecommunication Systems (MTS) announced on Tuesday that it has decided to buy St. Petersburg's Telecom XXI - and the city's cell-phone subscribers using GSM-standard services may reap the benefits of lower prices as a result.
 The announcement, made by MTS general director Mikhail Smirnov at a Moscow press conference, came at the end of months of speculation within industry circles that his firm was eager to purchase Telecom XXI, which holds one of the two licenses to provide cellular-phone services in the city on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) standard.
 According to MTS press secretary Eva Prokofieva, the decision was finalized by the company's board of directors at a meeting just prior to Tuesday's announcement.
 Smirnov would not comment on the financial specifics of the purchase, saying that some regulatory barriers were yet to be cleared, but a report in the business daily Vedomosti estimated the probable cost at about $50 million.
 Telecom XXI, along with North-West GSM, was awarded one of the two licenses to operate on the GSM standard in the Northwest region in a 1998 Communications Ministry tender.
 But Telecom XXI has done little to begin operations. The company has installed 15 base stations in the city center and one switching center to handle cellular traffic, but these were both requirements for them to maintain their license, but the company hasn't started commercial usage of the network. 
 Rumors surrounding a sale of Telecom XXI first appeared in July, 2000, when the Moscow-based holding company Sistema Telecom - which owns a 42 percent stake in MTS - failed in an attempt to attain a third GSM license in St. Petersburg from the Communications Ministry. Deutsche Telekom MobilNet is the largest shareholder in MTS with 44 percent.
 The most recent set of rumors were touched off by a report carried on the sotovik.ru Web site that Sistema had managed to land a St. Petersburg license. As in earlier cases, management at both Sistema and Telecom XXI denied the February report.
 While there appear to be no obstacles to the deal from either the MTS or Telecom XXI sides, the purchase must still be cleared by the Antimonopoly Ministry before it can be finalized.
 "We hope that the ministry will approach the question rationally and will give the go-ahead," Prokofieva said in telephone interview on Wednesday.
 If and when they get the nod from the ministry, MTS intends to move aggressively to carve out a place in the city's cellular market and plans to have 20,000 to 30,000 subscribers by the end of 2001.
 "We are going to cover about 35 percent of the St. Petersburg market," Smirnov said. "The speed with which we sign up new subscribers in St. Petersburg will be close to what we experienced in Moscow."
 But views of analysts regarding the financial prospects for the purchase were mixed.
 "We believe that MTS will close the deal within the next several weeks," a report by Renaissance Capital released on Wednesday said. "The acquisition of a GSM license for St. Petersburg and the Northwest region will be a major positive development for MTS, as St. Petersburg is the second most lucrative market in Russia for telecoms services after Moscow."
 "A low mobile penetration rate of around 6 percent compared to 14 percent for the Moscow license area, implies that the local market has a great deal of room to grow," the report says.
 But others were not as glowing in their support.
 "The St. Petersburg market is less lucrative than the market in Moscow," Andrei Braginsky, a senior telecoms analyst at Renaissance Capital analysis agency, said in telephone interview on Thursday. "A new operator will face huge expenses in order to built a new network, and then it will have to survive during the period during which that investment is recouped."
 "But also we should not forget that St. Petersburg is the second biggest market after Moscow and MTS is in a strong economic position - it has very little debt and is in first place as far as attracting the interest of investors among Russia's telecommunications companies," he added. "Above this, MTS will have the advantage of being able to provide low St. Petersburg-Moscow roaming tariffs." 
 And MTS' entry into the market might mean other savings for St. Petersburg subscribers. Vimpelcom, the second license-holder in Moscow, became embroiled in a price war with MTS two years ago, leading to a significant drop in tariffs there.
 But, while such a price battle is possible in St. Petersburg as well, there are other factors that may limit the degree of true competition. 
 For the Telecom XXI system to begin operations, it will have to pay for the use of hard ground lines to connect its users with other phones from one of the city's existing operators - Petersburg Telephone Network (PTS), Petersburg Transit Telecom (PTT) or Peterstar. 
 All of these companies are to varying degrees tied to the national telecom holding Svyazinvest. Telecominvest holding company owns 100 percent of recently created PTT, while PTS and Telecominvest are both located firmly under the Svyazinvest umbrella. Svyazinvest general director Valery Yashin - the former general director at PTS - is the chairman of the board at Telecominvest. Telecominvest owns 45 percent of North-West GSM.
 Peterstar is the ground-line provider least tied to Telecominvest, with the latter holding a 29 percent stake. 
 "Telecominvest and Sistema Telecom are strategic competitors," Braginsky said. "They have the same aim, which is to build a cellular network covering all of Russia."
 "But in this case it seems to me that the managers at the opposing structures are prepared to compete in a civilized and rational manner, so I don't think anyone will impose unnecessarily difficult conditions."

TITLE: Nuclear Imports Bill Delayed
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Opponents who have been fiercely protesting a plan to import 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel to Russia won a reprieve Thursday when the State Duma decided to delay a vote on the bill until at least early April.
 Duma deputies, who had overwhelmingly approved the bill in first reading in December, agreed that too many uncertainties remained about the proposal from the Nuclear Power Ministry and called for at least two weeks to review its feasibility.
 About 200 demonstrators - 100 from each camp - had gathered outside the Duma building in freezing weather before the scheduled vote Thursday morning. Environmentalists stood on beside the Duma, cajoling lawmakers as they arrived at work, while nuclear power workers protested across the street near the Moskva hotel. 
 The environmentalists' protests may have paid off. Hearings on the bill, which the Nuclear Power Ministry says would earn Russia $20 billion over 12 years, were tentatively postponed to April 4 or April 5.
 The delay comes as a welcome respite to opponents, who had feared that it would be rushed through both second and third readings on Thursday. 
 The decision was "a good result," said Sergei Mitrokhin, a deputy with the Yabloko faction and one of the fiercest opponents of the project. 
 "A better result, of course, would have been the ultimate rejection of the project," he added.
 Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov kept a brave face.
 "It is an absolutely correct decision. If questions appear, they must be discussed so that no doubts are left," he said.
 While only 38 deputies voted against the bill in December, 339 deputies on Thursday demanded the postponement of the second hearing in lieu of more information about how revenues from the project would be spent. 
 They also asked for a report from government environmental experts about the project's risks, paperwork required by law for ecologically risky projects that had not been submitted with the proposed legislation.
 "I think the Duma needs additional consultations," said Unity faction head Boris Gryzlov. "The issue hasn't been prepared for the hearing."
 Speaker Gennady Seleznyov said that lawmakers will "weigh all the pros and cons and the bills may be returned to the first reading again. If needed, additional investigations must be made."
 Communists and Agrarians - who almost unanimously backed the bill in December - will base their next vote "on the additional information that we receive from parliamentary hearings," said Agrarian faction chief Nikolai Kharitonov.
 Other government officials blasted the delay. Liberal Democratic Party Deputy Alexei Mitrofanov said opponents of the legislation were "enemies of the people" because they "oppose making decisions that would bring Russia many billions of dollars."
 Presidential representative Alexander Kotenkov said failure to pass the bill was "favorable for our rivals," hinting that opponents of the legislation were getting hefty financing from foreign countries that didn't want to lose their corner on the spent nuclear fuel market.
 However, even if the bill passes into law, the Nuclear Power Ministry will probably not be able to gain the 10 percent of the market that it is aiming for due to pressure from the United States, according to a letter from the U.S. State Department that was released by the Ecodefense environmental group Thursday.
 The letter was written in response to a query from environmental organizations about the Nuclear Power Ministry's planned project.
 "Any transfer to Russia of power reactor spent fuel subject to U.S. consent rights could only take place if the United States were to conclude an agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation with the Russian Federation," reads the letter signed by Richard Stratford, director of the Office of Nuclear Energy Affairs.
 No such cooperation will be signed until Russia stops cooperating with Iran in its nuclear programs, the letter said.
 The letter effectively blocks the ministry's hopes of importing spent nuclear fuel from a number of countries with which it has already entered into negotiations including Taiwan, where fuel is provided from the United States, said Vladimir Kuz net sov, a former inspection head in Gos atom nadzor, the governmental nuclear-safety watchdog. 
 Currently, about 90 percent of the world market of about 200,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is controlled by the United States, while another 6 percent is controlled by France and Britain, he said. Russia controls only 4 percent.
 The Washington-based environmental group Nuclear Information and Resource Service said that the United States has the power to halt the movement of most of the world's spent fuel.
 "The U.S. supplied much of the enriched uranium that powered the reactors in the first place, and it is nearly impossible for any nuclear country to differentiate between the enriched uranium supplied by the U.S. and that supplied by other nations," NIRS executive director Michael Mariotte wrote in an article posted on his organization's Web site (www.nirs.org). 
 "This letter significantly adds to ecologists' argument that the Nuclear Power Ministry's projects are not properly thought out," added Vla di mir Slivyak, one of the co-heads of Ecodefense.
 A Nuclear Power Ministry source, who did not want to be named, would only say: "The project is not going to start tomorrow. In a few years things may change."
 Meanwhile, the Supreme Court dealt environmentalists a bitter blow Thursday by ruining their hopes for a national referendum against the import of spent fuel.
 The court upheld a decision by the Central Elections Commission last year to throw out about 600 signatures out of the 2.5 million gathered across Russia to conduct the referendum, thus voiding the petition.
 Environmentalists said they would lodge an appeal.

TITLE: Hermitage Is Scene of Painting Heist
AUTHOR: By Masha Kaminskaya and Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A 19th-century painting with a potential market value of well over $1 million was stolen from the third floor of the State Hermitage Museum on Thursday.
 According to the museum's press service the painting, "Pool in a Harem," painted by French artist Jean-Leon Gerome in 1876 and insured by the museum six years ago at $1 million, was cut from its frame and stolen sometime during the day before 4 p.m. Workers at the museum said that the exhibit hall where the painting was hanging was closed to visitors at the time. 
 According to police, the picture and its frame were not connected to the museum's alarm system, and the third story of the building - where the picture was at the time of theft - was only supervised by one custodian.
 Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky said on Thursday that the case was being investigated by both city police and the Federal Security Service (FSB), as well as international experts.
 Piotrovsky said he was optimistic that "Pool in a Harem" would be recovered. "Whatever has been stolen before has always been returned to the museum," he said in remarks reported by Interfax.
 "The theft was probably carried out by someone familiar with the alarm network systems," said Igor Puchek, an electrician employed at the museum. "Or they would have had to have known that the painting would not be hooked up to the alarm."
 "I don't rule out that this was [the work of] an insider. The museum has collaborated with several contracting firms, including those involved in setting up alarm systems," he added. 
 Piotrovsky said that the painting "was not a masterpiece, but a well-known work that would be impossible to sell."
 The museum was closed immediately upon the discovery of the painting's disappearance at around 4 p.m., and visitors were prohibited from leaving the museum. Investigators from the special art-theft detachment of the St. Petersburg Police Department were conducting searches of all visitors before allowing them to leave. 
 One of the investigators, who would not identify himself, said that the investigation had already turned up leads. He refused to elaborate. Police officials at the special art-theft detachment would give no other details about the heist on Thursday evening.
 Puchek and his five colleagues were kept outside one of the two working exits for three hours after their shift, as police would not let them in to change and go home. Puchek, who has worked at the Hermitage for 16 years, said it was the first time a heist like this had taken place. 
 "It's illogical to not let people out. Obviously whoever has done this has hidden the painting somewhere inside this large museum, and is not about to attempt to leave with it stuffed up his sleeve," he said.
 Visitors were allowed to leave in small groups, and by 7 p.m. police at the scene said only about 100 people had yet to be searched and remained inside.
 Shortly after 7 p.m., however, more police arrived at the Hermitage to help with the investigation.
 Dina Maltseva, a high-school student from Yekaterinburg, said that the rooms where the searches were being conducted were still "packed" with people when she left. Most of her classmates were still inside.
 "My friends and I are only in town for one day, and we've been trapped in there since 4 p.m.," Maltseva said. "We missed both lunch and dinner and we had tickets for a performance at the Mariinsky Theater tonight, but now it is too late."
 According to Nadezhda Zabolotskaya, who has worked for 40 years as an art expert at the Hermitage, the heist must have been thoroughly prepared, and was probably the work of a team.
 "Maybe it was an insider," said Zabolotskaya, who was also trapped inside the museum during the searches. "Cases have been known when people have sought employment at a museum with the specific purpose of stealing a precious item."

TITLE: A 'Nicer' President Considers First 12 Months at the Helm
AUTHOR: By Deborah Seward
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Pu tin defended his first year in office in an interview published Thursday in major Russian newspapers, stressing that his administration had kept the country from falling apart and had taken significant steps to unite society. 
 Putin was elected president a year ago Sunday, and in the weeks leading up to his first full year on the job he has moved to further polish his image as a man of motion - a tough leader who is actively solving the mountain of problems left by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. 
 The lengthy interview was front-page news in four high-circulation newspapers: Trud, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Izvestia. 
 Under Yeltsin, the far-flung regions, many of them endowed with significant natural resources, had gained significant autonomy from the central government, with some of them refusing to obey federal laws and even threatening to follow Chechnya's example and secede. 
 After taking office, Putin moved quickly to rein in the unruly regions and ensure that the Kremlin's political orders were followed throughout the country. 
 In the interview, Putin said his main achievement was the establishment of a unified tax system throughout Russia. A small minority of Russians actually pay their taxes, and the government has been strapped for cash for years. 
 Putin also insisted Russia would pay its foreign debts and that Russia had good economic prospects ahead. 
 "The prognosis for the development of the country's economy gives us the possibility to reach optimistic conclusions," Putin said in the interview, which also was to be broadcast in full on government-controlled television Thurs day. 
 However, economic data released this week are far less promising, coming at a time of falling oil prices that could reduce a lucrative source of foreign currency that boosted the federal budget last year. 
 The State Statistics Committee said Wednesday that federal, local and regional governments have fallen behind on wage payments this year, a rollback on Putin's firm promise that state workers would be paid on time. Other gloomy news was a drop in industrial output of 1.3 percent from January to February announced Monday.
 Addressing another major trouble spot, Putin declared that Russia controlled all of Chechen territory and that the rebels were no longer able to mount major combat operations against federal forces. On the ground, however, the situation looks very different, with soldiers dying nearly every day.
 On a personal note, Putin said he put in work days of up to 15 hours, that he was learning English and had become a "nicer" person since taking office.

TITLE: Cancer Kids Lose School Spot to PR Firm
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A educational organization for children suffering from cancer is protesting a decision by the City Property Committee, or KUGI, to award a reduced-rent space to a city public relations firm, depriving the children's center of much needed accommodation. 
 The cancer center - called <i>Yedinstvo, </i>or &quot;Unity&quot; in honor of the patronage it receives from Unity party leader and Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu - deals with about 246 children with cancer and immune-system disorders who attend classes at the center's two locations. In addition, Unity - which despite its name has no direct ties to the political party - has a waiting list of 140 children who want in on the classes, but who have to be turned away. 
 As a result, a spacious former kindergarten owned by KUGI on the second floor of 1 Ulitsa Chapayeva would have been ideal, giving Yedinstvo, which currently does its work from two locations, one unified address. But in the confusing world of St. Petersburg City Hall real estate, a prescription is often not enough to get you what you need. 
 Five other organizations - which KUGI officials said all met the requirements of being socially beneficial organizations - had applied for the spot, which is rented to the beneficiary at 10 percent of the fair market price. Organizations eligible for this discount include educational facilities, religious and state organizations, organizations for the handicapped, as well others. 
 In the end, a 12-person commission gave the space to Petrotsentr - a PR center formerly housed in a four-room office at City Hall, whose purpose is to &quot;promote a positive image of the city.&quot; 
 It's not the first time that Yedinstvo has lost out. Last August another KUGI commission passed over Yedinstvo and awarded space to a nightclub owned by a company called <i>Severnaya Zvezda, </i>representatives of which could not be reached for comment. 
 Petrotsentr chairperson Konstantin Karasyov defended his organization's winning bid, and listed the organizations myriad activities - including the publishing of St. Petersburg Diary newspaper, the St. Petersburg Photo Chronicle, and posters and pamphlets promoting the city.
 &quot;We literally gather the grains of positive news and phenomena about the city, because most of what we see in the press is negative,&quot; he said in a telephone interview Thursday. 
 He said Petrotsentr's work had increased, bringing the need for more space. But Karasyov said this didn't mean they didn't sympathize with the red tape process Yedinstvo was experiencing. 
 &quot;We've already been through the difficulties Yedins tvo is now suffering four times,&quot; he said. 
 But Yedinstvo chairperson Na dezh da Linyova said the current facilities are insufficient for her group's mission. 
 &quot;Most of our children have problems with their immune systems, especially the ones with leukemia, which means that they can't attend regular crowded kindergartens and need smaller groups and better conditions to avoid exposure to infections which they catch more easily and recover from more slowly than healthy kids,&quot; she said. 
 KUGI's deputy chairperson, Vyacheslav Yufirev - who chaired the 12-person commission that rejected Yedinstvo's bid - said simply that the commission was unconvinced of the group's need.
 &quot;It just means that Linyova didn't offer the arguments which would convince the commission in her favor,&quot; he said in a telephone interview Thursday.
 Another commission member, who requested anonymity, said that Linyova's speech was passionate but not convincing, and relied on dropping the names of the organization's famous backers. 
 Besides Shoigu, Yedinstvo receives funding from the St. Petersburg Engineering Academy, the Union of St. Petersburg Theater Workers and others.
 Yufirev defended the commission's decision, saying that there were other children's organizations in the city that were in more dire straits than Yedinstvo, and referred Linyova to the KUGI Web site, which lists other available facilities. 
 &quot;Yedinstvo can try to find something else,&quot; he said.
 Until the KUGI commission gives in, Yedinstvo will be forced to work out of two addresses - one on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, the other on Ulitsa Rentgena on the Petrograd side. 
 &quot;These children should have equal opportunities for education with other kids, bearing in mind that they need special conditions for that,&quot; said Linyova. 
 &quot;Instead, [the ones we turn away] have to stay home with their families and receive care and nursing from their family and their tiny 400-ruble [about $14] state-funded illness pensions.&quot;

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Land Bill Approved
 

MOSCOW (AP) -The State Duma on Wednesday approved legislation that will allow trade in nonagricultural land for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. 
 Deputies passed the bill, Article 17 of the Civil Code, in second and third readings, with lawmakers voting 252-123 in the final reading.
 The measure must be approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Vladimir Putin to become law. 
 The bill also states that the sale of farm land will only be permitted once a Land Code and a separate law regulating the trade in land are enacted. 
 
 
Prosecutor Robbed
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Nina Tkachenko, a senior investigator at the City Prosecutor's office, was severely beaten and robbed by an unknown assailant Wdenesday. Tkachenko is the chief investigator on the murder of lawmaker Viktor Novosyolov and also investigated the criminal case against lawmaker Yury Shutov, who is awaiting trial, Interfax reported on Wednesday.
 Police say the robbery occurred at 1 a.m. on Ul. Pestelya when someone dealt 52-year-old Tkachenko several blows to the head, took her handbag and a few clothes and escaped. Tkachenko, who suffered an open wound in her head, broken nose and upper jaw and other severe injuries, was taken to a hospital, according to the report. 
 Police said that they saw no connection between the robbery and Tkachenko's professional activities, Kommersant reported.
 
 
Metro Death
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A woman died Wednesday morning when she was run over by a subway train at Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station, Interfax reported.
 According to the report citing a source in the city metro service, the accident occurred at 11 a.m. and is being investigated as either a suicide or an accident. The dead woman has not yet been identified, although preliminary cororners' reports estimate her age at about 45 to 50 years old, Interfax said. According to Nevskoye Vremya, witnesses said the woman had been intoxicated.
 
 
Fires Kill Three
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Three people died in Wednesday night fires in St. Petersburg, Interfax reported.
 One fire, on Zakharyevskaya Ul., killed 21-year-old Alexei Kentayev in his two- room apartment at about 2:20 a.m. Thursday morning, Interfax said.
 The second fire, on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ul., killed two people who have yet to be identified, said the report. The fire, which took place at about 3 a.m. caused the building's 20 residents to be evacuated. 
 Fire officials have not yet determined the cause of either fire, Interfax said. 
 
 
Russia Slams Latvia
 

MOSCOW (AP)- Russia on Tuesday sharply criticized a gathering of Latvian veterans of Nazi Germany's Waffen SS and accused the Latvian government of supporting right-wing groups that organized the event. 
 About 300 veterans honored their fallen comrades Friday in Riga with ceremonies at a church and cemetery. Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned the gathering in a statement Tuesday, saying it was held "with the support of official authorities." 
 The veterans say the Latvian Waffen SS, also known as the Latvian Legion, was a conscripted, front-line force and wasn't the same as Germany's SS - Hitler's force that carried out the Holocaust and other atrocities. 



TITLE: City Mourns the Passing of a Literary Icon
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: I find it embarrassing to write about myself, but still this is what I've been doing all my conscious life, having chosen meditative elegy as a major genre, perhaps because in other types of literary activities the writer's 'self' is less important.
 </i>- Viktor Krivulin, 1944-2001.
 
 Viktor Krivulin, the world-renowned St. Petersburg poet who died on Monday of lung cancer, wrote those words about himself in 1993. 
 They are words that still surprise his colleagues and friends for their brief and exacting insight into his own character. He was, they say, never concerned about the perception of his personality in the world, only about looking at the world around him - including himself - and opening it up for them. 
 St. Petersburg poets say Krivulin made his mark by fusing disparate materials and approaching topics ordinarily ignored by verse, such as cultural myths, provincial folklore, private drama - and the war in Chechnya. 
 His friend, poet Mikhail Berg, described Krivulin as a great collector of day-to-day life. &quot;He opened up real life, hidden under an ideological cover,&quot; said Berg in an interview this week. 
 &quot;He had been discovering all these things and had been giving them a meaning. He collected and formulated things which had not been recorded, but already existed.&quot;
 In his lifetime, Krivulin published over 10 books of verse, including two issued in Paris in 1981 and 1987. He started publishing his works in Russia in the 1990s, beginning with books of poems like &quot;Address,&quot; &quot;Concert on Request,&quot; &quot;Last Book,&quot; &quot;Requiem,&quot; &quot;Bathing in Jordan&quot; and &quot;Mammoth Hunting&quot; as well as various anthologies of different essays and articles.
 His last book, &quot;Poems After Poems,&quot; will be published posthumously by the St. Petersburg branch of the Pen Club International Writers' Union. &quot;He looked at the galleys 10 days before he died,&quot; said Pen Club director Sergei Tsvetkov. 
 &quot;This is not just Krivulin who has passed away, but a stratum of St. Petersburg poetry. He was head of the postmodernist school in the city, and many poets gathered around him.&quot; 
 So what will be their fate now? Berg urged young writers to look to Krivu lin's legacy. &quot;Yes, there won't be any more Krivulin, but what comes to mind at the moment is that he lived such a rich and interesting life,&quot; he said.
 Born in 1944 in the Luganskaya Oblast in Ukraine, Krivulin suffered grievous injuries to his legs and was on crutches for life. Nonetheless, he made the journey to Leningrad and graduated from Leningrad State University with a degree in Russian philology.
 By the early 1970s he was a leading figure in the <i>samizdat, </i>or self-publishing, community of dissident writers, writing for such famous underground publications as 37, Northern Post, and Obvodny Kanal. In them, he wrote about the works of poets and novelists like Innakenty Annensky, Andrei Bely, Osip Mandelshtam and Josef Brodsky - themselves unpopular with the regime. 
 And, of course, he wrote poetry. &quot;I have been writing poems for as long as I remember, but I started taking them seriously only after 1970, after I was inspired by reading [Yevgeny] Baratynsky,&quot; wrote Krivulin. 
 &quot;I found a magical breathing knowledge of my own, a unique intonation, inimitable, like finger prints.&quot; 
 But Krivulin's imprint extended beyond his publishing. Determined to find out for himself what was really going on, he went to Bosnia during the war of the early 1990s - a remarkable effort for someone of his age and health.
 He also made a foray into politics with an unsuccessful run for a Legislative Assembly seat in 1998. The idea was called romantic by many friends, but romantic or not, he had a point to make. 
 &quot;We are democrats but we aren't in power, and those in power are not democrats,&quot; said Krivulin during a meeting with liberal politicians in August 1998, the seventh anniversary of the failed coup.

TITLE: Kremlin Rails Against U.S. Meeting With Chechens
AUTHOR: By Oleg Shchedrov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Kremlin official said Wednesday that planned contacts between U.S. officials and Chechen rebel envoys would fuel further violence in the troubled republic and sour relations between Moscow and Washington.
 In Chechnya itself, further rebel attacks were reported and a pro-Moscow Chechen administration official also was reported killed.
 The new dispute with the United States was sparked when a U.S. official said Tuesday that further contacts with envoys of the separatist Chechen government were planned for this week.
 &quot;Russia views such contacts as absolutely unacceptable,&quot; said President Vla dimir Putin's aide, Sergei Yastrz hemb sky. &quot;They can be understood by Che chen terrorists and separatists as a signal encouraging them to more action.&quot;
 In Washington, Marc Grossman, President George W. Bush's nominee for undersecretary of state for political affairs, said a meeting would be held at assistant secretary level.
 Yastrzhembsky said: &quot;Such contacts, if they take place, cannot but have a negative influence on Russian-U.S. ties.&quot;
 Ties between the new U.S. administration and Russia have already been hit by various arguments, including U.S. plans for an anti-missile defense system and allegations of spying from both sides.
 Another State Department official said the last contact with the rebel government of Chechnya and U.S. officials took place in New York in October during the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly.
 That was with the man who calls himself foreign minister of the rebel government, Ilyas Akhmadov, who has now requested another meeting, the official added. The State Department has not made a decision on whether to grant the request.
 The United States agrees Chechnya is part of Russia and does not recognize the rebels or their separatist agenda. However, it says a political solution to the conflict must be sought.
 Fresh reports of violence came from Grozny as Interfax quoted local police as saying a pro-Moscow Chechen official, the head of a regional state pension fund office, had been murdered. An aide to Yastrzhembsky said the killing was aimed at &quot;terrorizing&quot; pro-Moscow Chechens.

TITLE: Demise of Mir Has Islanders Worrying
AUTHOR: By Michael Christie
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SYDNEY, Australia - From Conny Martin's standpoint, the empty expanse of the Pacific Ocean where flaming chunks of the Mir space station may find their watery grave does not feel empty at all. 
 German-born Martin is one of 2,800 people living on Chile's Easter Island, a triangle of volcanic rock marooned in the Pacific Ocean, 3,200 kilometers from the nearest big population centers in South America or Tahiti - and potentially in Mir's flight path. 
 &quot;As we are the most affected ones, we get the least information,&quot; the tour operator said Wednesday in a telephone interview from the remote outcrop famous for its mysterious, giant stone heads. 
 &quot;We're just hoping nothing will land on us. What can we do? We can't move out of the way,&quot; she said, uneasy at the thought of 136 tons of red-hot space junk crashing down from above. 
 Some debris - possibly about the size of a small car - is expected to be scattered over an area up to 6,000 kilometers long and 200 kilometers wide, pounding into the ground with enough force to drill 2 meters into reinforced concrete. 
 From Easter Island to Fiji, residents and governments of the South Pacific micro states were on alert. 
 Job Esau of the National Disaster Management Office in Vanuatu, a tropical paradise of 182,000 people, said that authorities planned to issue a bulletin on Wednesday and would hold meetings with community leaders on Thursday. 
 &quot;The things we are going to look at are keeping ships in harbor, people staying home,&quot; Esau said. 
 Fiji warned its 800,000 people to stay indoors after Thursday night, not to set out to sea and to avoid any &quot;foreign objects.&quot; Japan has issued a similar advisory. 
 Australia and New Zealand are monitoring Mir's path and have contingency plans in place, officials said, while airlines would be informed of the station's position in case they had to reschedule flights across the Pacific. 
 New Zealand officials are trying to contact a fleet of American tuna-fishing boats from Western Samoa believed to be in the area. 
 Ulafala Aiavao, of the 16-member South Pacific Forum, said Mir's splashdown was likely to become a rallying point for island state opposition to turning the Pacific Ocean into a &quot;space junk graveyard.&quot; 
 &quot;Mir will raise the profile of that issue,&quot; Aiavao said from the Fijian capital city, Suva. Fiji, meanwhile, continued to play palm-fringed host to a U.S.-Russian expedition to record the space station's final moments on high-definition television. Veteran cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev, the only human being to have toasted the New Year three times while in orbit and with 747 days in space under his belt, said he felt a great sadness that Mir could not have been kept for posterity as a museum. &quot;Of course I am very sad. But life is life,&quot; Avdeyev said in a telephone interview from Fiji. 
 The flight engineer was part of a 48-strong group of scientists, space journalists, cameramen and other fee-paying passengers who plan to fly two aircraft from Fiji to within a few hundred kilometers of Mir's re-entry into the atmosphere.

TITLE: U.S. To Expel 50 Russian 'Spies'
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia and the United States were locked in a deepening espionage row on Thursday after a U.S. official said Washington was expelling &quot;a certain number&quot; of Russian diplomats for alleged spying.
 Russian security services in turn threatened to expel &quot;hundreds&quot; of US diplomats from Moscow in a tit-for-tat reprisal over Washington's decision.
 U.S. Officials had earlier suggested that some 50 diplomats suspected of spying could be expelled in what would be the biggest expulsion since the Cold War.
 American officials said that General Powell had presented Russian ambassador Yury Ushakov with a list of four Russian diplomats who were ordered to leave, declaring them personae non gratae.
 Powell told the ambassador that the United States wants another 40 or more diplomats to leave over the next several months in order to reduce the Russian intelligence presence in the United States. In all, the actions could affect close to 50 Russian diplomats, officials said. 
 &quot;Concerns have been raised for many years about the level and the presence of intelligence officers in this country,&quot; White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said in Washington.
 Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that he hoped relations between Washington and Moscow would not be pitched back into the Cold War era.
 Should the plans be carried out, they will represent the largest U.S. expulsion of suspected spies since &quot;Operation Famish&quot; in 1986 when President Ronald Reagan ordered 80 Soviet diplomats to leave. 
 Ivanov told Russia's ORT public television that he hoped that &quot;the policy of those trying to push mankind and the United States towards the Cold War and confrontation will fail. ...We believe that common sense will prevail.&quot;
 An unnamed U.S. official said Wednesday the United States was expelling diplomats suspected of being intelligence officers, partly in retaliation for the case of FBI agent Robert Hanssen who is accused of spying for Moscow over 15 years.
 The expulsions are the latest dramatic twist in relations already complicated by differences over arms control and Chechnya - just three months after President George W. Bush took office.
 Russian parliamentarians lashed out at Washington. The Kremlin also lost little time in commenting, saying the expulsion plans if carried out would be a sorry lapse into Cold War spymania. Security sources told Russian news agencies Moscow would retaliate swiftly - and possibly in unexpected ways.
 &quot;If these reports are true, such action would cause deep regret in Russia,&quot; Interfax news agency quoted President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser as saying.
 &quot;Any campaigns of spymania or searches for an enemy are only worthy of deep regret and are a relapse into the Cold War era,&quot; Sergei Prikhodko said in the first Kremlin reaction. Ivanov told Russian reporters he might have an official statement later on Thursday on the spy row.
 A government source told Interfax Russia's response could be &quot;varied and unorthodox,&quot; noting that in the 1980s Mos cow cut back on local support staff at the embassy rather than expel diplomats.
 The U.S. Embassy employs several hundred Russians, but it was not clear whether the Rus sian authorities had any say in their employment.
 &quot;To respond adequately, Russia would have to expel hundreds of employees from the U.S. embassy to reflect the proportionate Russian losses in the United States,&quot; RIA news agency quoted a Russian security source as saying.
 RIA's source said Russia had 190 people at its missions in the United States while the United States had 1,100 of its citizens in Russia.
 A U.S. embassy official told Reuters there were 650 to 700 &quot;direct hires,&quot; meaning diplomats and other staff on postings in Moscow from the United States.
 U.S. ambassador James Collins held brief pre-arranged talks at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday but declined to comment as he left.
 Interfax said that Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov had discussed with Collins the growing number of irritants in ties with the new Bush administration.
 
 <i>- Reuters, AP, NYT </i>

TITLE: Reports Spark Questions on Infected Meat
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russian scientists Wed nes day sought to reassure people that the country was free of the deadly human form of mad cow disease after reports had suggested there had been three deaths from it last year. 
 Russian news agencies and television quoted Health Ministry scientist Mels Turyanov as saying one person had died of new variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, or vCJD, last summer and two last fall. 
 But the deputy director of the Burdenko Institute of Neurosurgery, which had supposedly diagnosed the illness, was later quoted as saying it had never had such patients. 
 &quot;Our neurosurgeons know of this disease only from medical literature,&quot; he was quoted as saying by local media. 
 It was unclear whether Turyanov's reported comment had referred to vCJD, the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which has been linked to eating infected meat, or classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. 
 No one was available for comment at the Health Ministry on Wednesday. 
 &quot;No one has been diagnosed with or died of either new variant or classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob,&quot; said Sergei Rybakov of the All-Russian Research Institute for Animal Health, the country's only test laboratory for BSE and vCJD. 
 Russia banned imports of British beef and cattle in the mid-1990s to stop the spread of BSE.
 CJD is a very rare brain-wasting disease that usually affects people in their 60s or 70s and is not linked to eating infected meat, while the new variant form can affect much younger people.

TITLE: Schengen Deal To Make Travel Easier for Russians
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russians who obtain visas to Scandinavian countries and Finland will be able to use the permits to travel throughout the rest of the European Union starting Sunday.
 Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland this weekend will join the 1985 Schengen accord, which gives travelers from non-EU countries the right to move freely between most European countries.
 The move will simplify travel for Russians by allowing them to visit all EU countries except Britain and Ireland with a single visa, Finnish Ambassador Rene Nyberg said.
 &quot;For the law-abiding citizens it is a clear benefit,&quot; Nyberg said.
 Nyberg cautioned, however, that travelers should apply for a visa to the consulate of the country that they really plan to visit instead of opting for a country with less complicated visa requirements.
 &quot;We do not recommend concealing the real country of destination,&quot; Nyberg said, referring to the practice of some Russians of applying to consulates with less demanding regulations.
 Nyberg described Finnish visa regulations as &quot;strict but simple&quot; and said they will not change after Sunday. An applicant will still need to submit a foreign passport, an invitation and medical insurance. The Danish Embassy, in contrast, does not even require the insurance.
 But some Russians are unconvinced that the northern nations' inclusion in the Schengen accord will do anything more than make the process of obtaining visas more complicated.
 The governor's office of the Murmansk region, whose main city of Murmansk is a key port for trade with Scandinavia, said he feared that trade and travel would become more difficult.
 &quot;The intensity of regional cooperation, personal and humanitarian contacts may decline over visa prices and delays in their issue,&quot; a spokesperson for Governor Yevgeny Yevdokimov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 The spokesperson added that the governor was pushing Norway to issue special visas to Murmansk residents to ease the transition.
 The Swedish Embassy conceded that there may be inconveniences as the new visa regime is implemented.
 But the prices will remain about the same - between $20 to $30, depending on the country. 
 Travelers who already have visas to these countries will still be able to travel with them, but only to the country that issued the visa.
 Last year, Finland was the most popular destination among northern nations, with 316,000 visas being issued to Russians, according to the Finnish Embassy.
 Sweden and Norway processed about 50,000 visas each, while Denmark handed out 15,000 and Iceland 1,200.

TITLE: World Bank To Get Way On Coal Subsidies
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia officially promised the World Bank on Wednesday that it would honor its previous obligations and eliminate all subsidies to the coal industry by 2003.
 &quot;The [Russian] government expressly stated that ... the coal subsidies in their present form will be eliminated in 2003,&quot; said the press release circulated by the World Bank.
 Last week Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko sent a letter to the bank promising that the government would stop subsidizing the coal sector, and asked for an extension of the deadline of its SECAL II, or second adjustment loan for the coal sector, until the end of the year.
 While no official comment was available from the Energy Ministry, in private its officials said that the sole purpose of the letter was to secure the remaining $150 million of the $800 million SECAL II, which was agreed to in 1997 but put on hold after the 1998 crisis.
 The state asked for the extension because it was unable to meet the conditions of the loan on time, officials said.
 One high-ranking official, who asked not to be identified, called the move a &quot;political decision,&quot; and that the main purpose of Khristenko's letter was &quot;to continue the lending program.&quot;
 The official also accused the World Bank of attempting to undermine Gaz prom's expansion into Europe by forcing Russians to consume less coal and more gas, leaving less to export.
 In an interview with the business daily Kommersant published on Wednesday, Gazprom chief Rem Vyakhirev laughed at the idea floated by the European Union to double Russia's gas deliveries within the next 10 to 20 years, saying that to do that Russian power companies would have to learn to generate more of their power with coal in lieu of gas.
 Subsidies to the coal sector are forecasted at 8 billion rubles for 2001, virtually unchanged from 7.97 billion rubles last year. In dollar terms, subsidies are expected to fall 6 percent to $267 million this year at the government's target average rate of 30 rubles to the dollar.
 Energy Ministry officials said the decision to cancel subsidies is not a sign of a bonanza in the coal sector, though coal output surged 6.3 percent over the last two years from a low of 232.2 million tons hit in 1998, which is about 45 percent below the high of 425.4 million tons in 1988.
 They said the recent rebound is due mostly to improvements on the managerial side and use of imported Western equipment, while the industry's fundamentals remain rotten, as evidenced by the absence of new mines being opened.
 According to ministry estimates, some 28 billion to 30 billion rubles ($976 million) ought to be spent to prevent soil erosion and other ecological problems at mines that have been already closed.
 Last year, the government funneled 132 million rubles ($4.6 million) for capital expenditures into the coal industry.
 This week the government agreed to bail out Chelyabinskugol, which requires 404 million rubles ($14 million) in financing, 363 million ($12.7 million) rubles of which will be provided by the regional and federal authorities, according to media reports.
 However, the Energy Ministry said Wednesday that the proposal had not been finalized.

TITLE: Soros Freezes $1.5M in Grants
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Russian branch of U.S. financier George Soros' charitable foundation has frozen $1.5 million in grants, fearing the funds will be subject to the 35.9 percent social contributions tax that came into effect Jan. 1.
 Officials from the Moscow office of Soros' Open Society Institute said Tuesday they have suspended their grant payments to individuals this year and were in talks with tax officials to clarify the rules introduced by the new Tax Code. The moratorium does not apply to grants to organizations.
 Some experts argued the new legislation does not impose the tax on charitable funding for projects by nonprofit organizations, and said the confusion stems from murky wording in the guidelines that accompany the Tax Code.
 &quot;The tax authorities worded the text in such a way that the accents are in the wrong place,&quot; said Natalya Burtseva, director of the legal department at the Mos cow branch of Charities Aid Foundation, an NGO that counsels philanthropic organizations, on Tuesday.
 Burtseva said the guidelines, which are used by tax inspectors, cite the text of the law only partially. As a result, some types of payments exempt from the social contributions tax end up sounding as if they aren't.
 The confusion has left charitable organizations waiting to see whether amendments will be made.
 &quot;Charity is an expression of good will. ... Nobody wants to run a charity expecting this will include legal suits against tax authorities,&quot; Burtseva said.
 According to Yekaterina Genieva, president of OSI in Russia, the tax would force the foundation to abandon grants to individuals, which account for 7 percent to 10 percent of the $80 million it gives out annually in Russia.
 &quot;Soros doesn't want to pay this tax,&quot; Genieva said in a telephone interview Tuesday. &quot;It would take some $2 million a year, which would otherwise be directed to charitable causes.&quot;
 Genieva said the tax could eradicate many good projects.
 &quot;Someone will stop fighting drug abuse, some scientists will not be able to attend conferences, someone will stop caring for sick children.&quot;
 An unnamed Tax Ministry official quoted by Interfax said that, under the new code, charitable grants from Russia-based organizations were not tax-exempt, but added that the ministry has appealed to the State Duma and the Finance Ministry to amend the law.
 Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko attempted to quell fears about the tax Tuesday.
 &quot;We will try to make sure charitable aid coming to Russia is not taxed,&quot; she told Ekho Moskvy radio. &quot;It is ideologically wrong - people are helping us and we try to tax them.&quot;

TITLE: Beryozkin Smaller Name, Big Wheel in Consortium
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When the tentative members of Media-MOST's investment consortium were announced, one name stood out simply because of its relative obscurity - Grigory Beryozkin.
 Beryozkin once succeeded in rescuing a failing energy company, making a bundle in the process, and for that he's well known but only within small circles of businessmen.
 Even though he's not yet a household name in the tradition of oil magnate Roman Abramovich or media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky, his influence looks likely to grow.
 Because Beryozkin, 34, is in the middle of intense negotiations with Media-MOST, Gazprom and other investors, he declined to comment for this article.
 Gusinsky's Media-MOST is fighting off a takeover attempt by state-controlled Gaz prom-Media, its shareholder and creditor, and is trying to bring in some desperately needed cash by selling stakes in some of its companies to a consortium of foreign investors.
 When the members of the consortium were announced earlier this year, there was Beryozkin's name together with CNN founder Ted Turner and billionaire financier George Soros. Other potential investors are Swedish media company Modern Times Group and Capital Research Management, a U.S. mutual fund that already owns a 4.5 percent stake in NTV.
 A friend and business associate of Beryozkin's, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity, was clear as mud when explaining how exactly Beryozkin got involved with the investors.
 &quot;It's kind of a two-way street,&quot; the friend said. &quot;Beryozkin is looking for projects to work on, and then there are those looking for Beryozkin.&quot;
 Born in Moscow, Beryozkin received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry from Moscow State University. After successfully defending his doctoral dissertation at the age of 27, he promptly entered the world of commerce. In his opinion, he had no future as a chemist. That is, if he wanted to make any money.
 After a stint selling computers, Beryozkin went to work for Komineft, an oil-extracting business, as a middle manager. In 1996, he became general director of Komitek-Moscow, the parent company of Komineft.
 With an eye to rebuilding Komi tek, he went on to become CEO of Evroseverneft, an oil-focused management consultancy. It was here that he made a name for himself.
 By mid-1997, the federal government was ready to put Komitek, the energy provider for the Komi republic, up for bankruptcy and sell it off piece by piece. Komitek shareholders - desperate to avoid liquidation of the company - appointed Beryozkin to the position of chairman of the board of directors.
 Within two years, he succeeded in completely turning the company around: All money owed to the regional and federal government was paid off, outside investment was brought in and financial reports were audited according to international standards.
 Beryozkin considered his masterpiece done on Sept. 15, 1999, when Komitek merged with LUKoil. He also earned a windfall from the deal. Now, he is preoccupied with breathing new life into Kolenergo, a Unified Energy Systems affiliate in the Murmansk region.
 So, considering that Beryozkin already has a lot of experience with Western investment funds and banks that turn to him with questions about investing into Russian businesses, it was of little surprise to his friends and acquaintances that he was brought on board to help save Media-MOST.
 And now, those involved in the negotiations are waiting to see if he can still work miracles.

TITLE: Kasyanov Focuses on Small-Business Issues
AUTHOR: By Zoya Kaika
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov met with small-business representatives Wednesday, promising to resolve two urgent tasks: reforming tax legislation and facilitating their access to credit resources.
 &quot;In the near future, proposals from federal bodies will be submitted to the government on the possible introduction of a special tax regime for small businesses,&quot; Kasyanov told the All-Russia Conference of Small-Business Representatives. 
 Although special tax regimes exist, neither officials nor businessmen have expressed satisfaction with their practical application. A simplified system involving payment of a single 30 percent tax is applied only to enterprises that employ no more than 15 people. While the alternative, a single 20 percent tax on imputed income, is applied only to a limited number of industries and has not been applied nationwide.
 &quot;A law on the simplification of the tax collection system in the future is inadvisable,&quot; said a representative of the Finance Ministry's tax policy department.
 Moreover, the single tax on imputed income does not meet the needs of small businesses primarily because it is regulated by regional authorities. And &quot;only a few officials in the regions interpreted the law correctly,&quot; said Andrei Nasonov, a member of the coordinating committee of League of Freedom, a union of industrialists.
 According to a Finance Ministry official, the mistake will be corrected by writing a separate chapter for the Tax Code in place of the federal law on taxing imputed income and the corresponding regional decrees. While writing the new chapter, officials will have to address several problems, the most urgent being a new mechanism for calculating the imputed income of enterprises. 
 &quot;For example, for commercial enterprises the imputed income is often calculated on the volume of commercial land, while turnover is not taken into account,&quot; said the Finance Ministry official, who declined to be identified. 
 The authors of the legislation intend to clarify the list of industries that will fall into that tax bracket, the official said. &quot;At the moment, the law applies to large enterprises as well, and the current rate on imputed income does not correspond to their financial results.&quot;
 Regarding credit, the government hopes to expand the list of banks that will provide credits to small businesses. For example, the government has already recommended that Sberbank's advisory committee work on the question of lending to small businesses, said Anti-Monopoly Minister Ilya Yuzhanov.
 Kasyanov said at the conference that the White House has proposed restoring the system of government support for commercial bank lending to small businesses that existed in 1998.

TITLE: Phone Makers Battling Gray-Market Sales
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth Wolfe
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Armed with new measures to fight the so-called gray imports of cellular phones, leading international manufacturers are taking further steps to expose the problem and convince consumers to shop with caution.
 Up to two-thirds of mobile phones in Russia are sold on the gray market, a loss of $250 million annually for phone makers, said Tina Butkhuzi, marketing manager at Alcatel.
 Representatives from five top cell phone makers - Alcatel, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic and Siemens - reported last week on their attempts to combat gray imports, including work with the State Certification Department of the Communications Ministry. 
 Manufacturers are hoping that cell phone shoppers will heed their warnings to avoid phones that lack warranties, are packaged in unmarked white boxes or come with instructions in neither Russian nor English.
 &quot;The most important thing is to convince customers the quality of gray-market phones and of official phones is different,&quot; said Alexander Uglov, manager of the local Siemens office.
 &quot;It's absolutely important to control the image of the brand, the reputation of the brand.&quot;
 For all the complaints manufacturers say they receive, there are thousands more consumers who are contentedly chatting into their handsets - which cost 10 to 50 percent less than officially imported phones - with no problems, even if the instructions are in Greek. 
 And with the two- to six-month holdup by customs to certify new phone models, consumers eager for the latest merchandise have no choice but to buy off the gray market.
 Mobile phone producers have lobbied the Communications Ministry to issue a &quot;pre-certificate&quot; within a week of application for new model approval and are waiting a final decision, said Alcatel's Butkhuzi. Motorola said that, after taking their cause to the ministry, the certification department responded by agreeing to create a &quot;working group,&quot; with the goal to slash the waiting period to one month. 
 &quot;The problem is that half of a phone's life cycle is spent waiting for certification, while gray importers offer non-certified products in the market,&quot; said Sergei Kozlov of Motorola.
 The clearest measure taken by manufacturers so far is the addition of official stickers to their phones and boxes, which are now marked with two separate labels of authenticity.
 A popular route to the gray market is via European operators that subsidize prices of phones. Manufacturers began to install SIM-locks in handsets to ensure that they work only on a particular operator's network, but those efforts were easily thwarted by hackers who break and retune the locks so that the phones work on the local market. Manufacturers say that this increases the risk of malfunction.
 &quot;Big operators started to subsidize the phones, and then those clever guys found a way to make money,&quot; summed up Raimo Niukkanen, head of Nokia's Moscow office.
 Russia's gray market, which includes everything from TVs to washing machines, is nothing new, accounting for more than 25 percent of imports, the head of the State Customs Committee said in February. But with the rise in the number of handsets, estimated at 5 million, local offices of telephone manufacturers are waking up to the problem.
 &quot;You can't say that the vendor itself loses this money ... The losses are for local branches of vendors,&quot; said Uglov from Siemens.

TITLE: MSE Claims Moral Victory in Suit Against Central Bank
AUTHOR: By Natasha Shanetskaya
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After more than half a dozen dead-end complaints to the Central Bank, the Moscow Stock Exchange celebrated a moral victory Monday after a local court ordered the Anti-Monopoly Ministry to investigate the bank for allegedly violating competition laws.
 The Moscow Stock Exchange accused the ministry of failing to look into the conduct of the Central Bank, which for more than two years ignored requests from the MSE for a license to trade hard currency.
 At the same time, it allowed its brainchild, the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange, or MICEX, the exclusive right to conduct such trading in the capital, MSE officials argued.
 &quot;Ten years after the birth of the currency market in Russia, the Central Bank still treats it like the sacred cow that should belong to it exclusively,&quot; said Alexei Mamontov, the head of the Moscow Stock Exchange.
 &quot;The CB is violating the law by creating favorites [in the form of MICEX] - especially since it is in charge of issuing licenses for currency trading,&quot; Mamontov said.
 Although on the books MICEX is an independent infrastructure, the Central Bank, which founded the exchange in the early 1990s, still continues to exert iron-fist control over its operations.
 According to Vedomosti, the Central Bank and its daughter companies, including Vneshtorgbank, Evrofinance, and No. 1 savings bank Sberbank, jointly hold a 36 percent stake in MICEX.
 The fact that the deputy chairman of the Central Bank occupies the seat of the chairman of the supervisory board at MICEX underscores close ties between the two structures, said the MEC's Mamontov.
 The exchange, a closely held company, currently has 22 shareholders, of which all but two are banks.
 Regardless of what conclusions the Anti-Monopoly Ministry draws from its investigation, the Moscow Stock Exchange will fail if it locks horns with the Central Bank because &quot;even if the ministry orders the Central Bank to issue the license, it can pressure other banks into boycotting the newly formed exchange,&quot; said a Moscow-based banking expert who asked not to be identified.
 Central Bank representatives refused to comment on the court's decision, which marks the first time the Anti-Monopoly Ministry was ordered to open a formal case against it.
 One of the Central Bank's main duties is to regulate money supply, so it is within its authority not to issue licenses for currency trading.
 However, there is &quot;always a danger when a central bank tries to control the financial health of the country in defiance of the economic forces,&quot; said Richard Hainsworth, the head of a bank rating agency Rus-Rating. &quot;And there are signs that Russia's CB is doing that now.&quot;
 &quot;The Central Bank's attempts to control currency trading has parallels internationally,&quot; he added in a telephone interview.
 &quot;For example, the United Kingdom controlled its currency for a long time, but ultimately all methods of currency control which are not consistent with the requirements of the economy fail.&quot;
 However, some industry watchers argue most banks are not interested in an alternative currency-trading system.
 &quot;Banks are interested in a free, liberal market, but creating another currency-trading floor will not solve the problem,&quot; said Vladislav Metnyov, a banking analyst at the Aton brokerage.
 Irina Yasina, a banking expert and a former Central Bank spokesperson, said that even if the Central Bank loses its monopoly by being forced to let MSE open an alternative trading platform, very few banks are likely to abandon MICEX in favor of its competitor.
 &quot;The Central Bank has nothing to fear - most banks trust MICEX and would not jump to another exchange,&quot; she said.
 She added that the Central Bank's move to attract the wrath of the Anti-Monopoly Ministry is unwise.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Debts to Be Honored
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - President Vla di mir Putin said in an interview published Thursday that it would be difficult for Russia to service its foreign debts when they peak in 2003.
 "The situation is aggravated by the fact that the country's fixed assets are in a state of wear and tear, and a certain critical situation will also set in by 2003. However, there will be no emergency situation at that time," Putin said in an interview with four Russian newspapers.
 "Russia assumed these obligations," and as a civilized state should honor them, and it "has never refused to fulfill them," Putin was quoted as saying. 
 
 
Cuban Debt Snag
 

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) - Debt talks between Cuban President Fidel Castro's government and the Paris Club of creditor nations stalled as Russia and Cuba failed to agree on a decade-long dispute surrounding Soviet-era debt, diplomats in Havana said this week.
 Russia claims its former Cold War ally should pay back some 20 billion of convertible rubles, but Cuba insists Russia should write off part of the debt as compensation for "damages" caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union. 
 Cuba and its Western creditors in January had neared an agreement on a restructuring covering $3.5 billion in official debt, when Paris Club member Russia insisted it be included, diplomats said.
 
 
Currency Rule Changes
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - State Duma on Wednesday passed several draft amendments to hard-currency regulations in the second reading, aiming to liberalize Russia's currency-control regime.
 If signed by the president, the revisions would allow certain manufacturers to make payments to their foreign partners without receiving special permission from the Central Bank.
 Other amendments include allowing residents to take currency out of the country for educational, medical and legal purposes without special permission from the Central Bank, as well as to transfer up to $75,000 a year for the purpose of buying securities abroad.
 The Central Bank and the Finance Ministry have argued against the amendments, claiming they threaten to increase capital flight, business daily Kommersant reported. 



TITLE: S&amp;P Test Flies Governance Rating on Aeroflot
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In its first-ever corporate governance rating for emerging markets, Standard & Poor's gave top Russian airline Aeroflot a score of 5.3 on a scale of one to 10, both companies announced Tuesday.
 Although the rating itself is not high, it sends out a positive signal that the carrier is becoming more investor-friendly, S&P said.
 The rating was done on Aeroflot's initiative and it was the first company picked by S&P for the new product, which reflects the extent to which a company's governance process serves the interests of its financial shareholders.
 S&P analysis was based on four components: ownership structure and influence; shareholder relations; financial transparency and information disclosure; and board and management structure and process.
 Aeroflot scored highest in the shareholder relations category at 6.8 and lowest for board and management structure with 3.8. Aeroflot's ownership structure and influence was rated at 4.5 and the transparency factor scored 6.2.
 Yulia Kochetygova, S&P's Russia-based corporate governance director, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that although the score is low it would not reflect negatively on Aeroflot's image.
 &quot;Aeroflot's initiative by itself is a very positive sign that the company is taking [corporate governance] seriously and it's to the management's credit that they opened up and decided to have the results published,&quot; she said.
 Aeroflot's general director Valery Okulov said before the rating was published that it would help the company attract capital and improve its relationship with investors.
 Among other things, the report praises the airline for introducing internal audits, financial control facilities and an external investor relations service.
 One of the company's biggest drawbacks, according to S&P, is that its biggest shareholder is the state (with 51.17 percent), whose interests can be both consistent with and detrimental to management's business goals, making the airline's governance practices subject to a potential conflict of interest.
 One example of this problem is &quot;the inability of management to suspend the acquisition of Russian-made aircraft even though there is clear evidence that such airplanes do not meet the same efficiency as foreign airplanes,&quot; S&P wrote.
 Another problem that kept the corporate governance score low is the lack of transparency regarding the ownership of nearly 31 percent of outstanding shares held by nominee and shell companies.
 Agreeing to publish the rating is part of Aeroflot's drive to overhaul its image along recommendations made by international consultant McKinsey & Co.
 A major part of this profit-oriented strategy is restructuring its flight schedule, route structure and fleet utilization.
 On Tuesday, for example, Aeroflot said that starting Saturday, it is suspending flights to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Peru.
 The frequency of flights to Europe will be increased, especially London and Paris, as well as top tourist destinations such as Antalya, Istanbul, Madrid and Sochi.
 The company also plans to fly 231 domestic flights a week, up from 156 last year.
 In all, Aeroflot will fly to 74 countries and plans to perform 680 flights a week on 67 aircraft.

TITLE: Global eye
TEXT: Bait and Switch
 &quot;In public life it is sometimes necessary in order to appear really natural to be actually artificial.&quot; - President Calvin Coolidge
 
 There were huzzahs in the boardrooms of America when the Republican House passed George W. Bush's bold &quot;socialism-for-the-rich&quot; tax cut plan. The measure will funnel billions of dollars into the bank accounts of the wealthiest Americans - including the multimillionaire in the White House - while doling out a pittance to a portion of the lower-class slobs who are too stupid to have trust funds.
 At the end of 10 years, Bush's plan will allow certain narrowly limited categories of middle-class taxpayers to save up to $1,500 in income tax; Bush himself, however, will pocket <i>60 times </i>that amount, reports the not-exactly Bush-unfriendly Wall Street Journal. This windfall does not include the extra millions that Junior will reap when Poppy pops off, if the Bush scheme to eliminate all taxes on large inheritances is also successful. (Sure beats working, don't it, George?)
 But the big smoke clouding this gilded mirror is Bush's need to present his boardroom bonanza as a boon to decent workin' folk. Thus we had the spectacle of GOP leaders surrounded by a crowd of sweaty, rough-hewn, hard-hatted worker types as they announced Bush's legislative triumph.
 It turns out, however, that these &quot;workers&quot; were actually high-priced lobbyists for the National Association of Manufacturers. To ensure the proper populist camouflage for the photo-op, NAM officials sent around a memo urging lobbyists to get shabby for the occasion, The Washington Post reports.
 &quot;The theme involves working Americans,&quot; the NAM memo said. &quot;If people want to participate - and we do need bodies - they must be DRESSED DOWN, appear to be REAL WORKER types, etc. We plan to have hard hats for people to wear, which our construction and contractor and building groups are working very hard to provide.&quot;
 O.K., so they <i>weren't </i>real workers. What's the big deal? He's not a real president either.
 
 Sod Busters
 Meanwhile, down in Texas, they're doing their ding-dang derndest to bring their former guv's great dream of a morally-cleansed nation to fruition.
 The judges of the Texas Court of Appeals stood four-square for Bush-style family values last week when they upheld the conviction of two adult men convicted of having sex in the privacy of their own home, The Associated Press reports.
 With a display of judicial acumen unseen since the U.S. Supreme Court's magnificently cogent ruling in <i>Bush v. Gore,</i> the judges overturned an earlier ruling that the Texas sodomy law is unconstitutional because it forbids same-sex sex, but lets hets go at it willy-nilly.
 This is of course our old friend the &quot;Equal Protection Clause,&quot; once used to shield minorities from the prejudices of the majority. But the clause has undergone a drastic revision since the Supremes used it in the <i>Bush </i>case, ruling that if all the votes in Florida were counted, L'il George wouldn't be protected from losing the election. The Texas judges were obviously impressed by this masterpiece of judicial activism.
 Thus John Lawrence and Tyron Gardner must face the music for their outrageous act of criminal canoodling, which had been uncovered when local police burst into their home after receiving a false report of an armed intruder. Having thus been forced to witness - for a good long while, apparently - the disgusting intimacies of the partners, the cops hauled the men in on sodomy charges.
 Yep, they're upholding the natural order down there in Texas, where, as we all know, the men are <i>men</i> - and the steers are nervous.
 Gum Beating
 Speaking of those manly Texas men, George W. was on the road last week, pumping his aforementioned tax plan. A brief stopover in Cajun country brought us a revealing glimpse of the man - the manly man, we should say - who is manfully manning the American helm like John Wayne breaking in a bronco.
 Bush flew into Lafayette, Louisiana, after a grueling morning schedule of breakfast, a brief speech, and lunch. He requisitioned rooms at the ritzy Lafayette Hilton for three hours, to help him recover before another arduous 10-minute talk in the late afternoon.
 Naturally, refreshments were in order to replenish the precious presidential person. Hotel staff - renowned for their fiery Cajun cuisine - were ordered to prepare a snack to Bush's exacting standards: creamy peanut butter and seedless red raspberry jelly on white bread, with the crusts cut off, AP reports.
 &quot;He doesn't like crunchy, I was told,&quot; said Douglas Barras, the hotel's top chef. Secret Service agents supervised the opening of all jars, then took the snack, which included soft drinks, chips and cookies, upstairs to the Big Boss Man.
 Then Uncle Dickie come and tuck Georgie in with him blanket and him duck-duck and him little feetie pajamas.
 
 Twice-Chewed Chad
 Good Lord, they're at it again down in Florida! Another election, another cliffhanger, another sore loser asking for a hand recount, hoping those ridiculous &quot;hanging chads&quot; will turn the tide.
 The city council election in Boca Raton is going to court, as loser Susan Saxton asks for a hand recount of 11,000 ballots after her two-vote loss two weeks ago, the Palm Beach Post reports. Fortunately, one of the lawyers involved in George W. Bush's righteous battle against the absurd &quot;hanging chad&quot; process is on the case.
 Yes, Brigham McCown, GOP legal eagle, will be in court arguing, er, <i>for </i>Republican candidate Saxton in her bid to force a recount.
 You can't leave it up to machines, says McCown: &quot;It could change the outcome of the election.&quot; Bush backer Saxton added, passionately, &quot;Maybe there was a hanging chad that closed up during the machine recount. There's certainly a possibility that there are other little chads out there that aren't cooperative.&quot;
 McCown is expected to draw on precedents for hanging chad recounts set last November in New Mexico, when Bush campaign lawyers argued successfully for the greater validity of manual recounting. The principle, it seems, is very simple: Hanging chads count when they hang for Republicans.

TITLE: China Is Always Watching You
AUTHOR: By Russell Working
TEXT: WHEN The New York Times' former Beijing correspondent Nicholas Kristoff used to go for his daily jog, a car full of police always trailed him slowly through the smoggy streets. He and his wife, Times reporter Sheryl WuDunn, worried that their bedroom was bugged.
 And as recently as this year, Chinese authorities threatened to press murder charges against CNN correspondents who filmed members of the banned Falun Gong sect immolating themselves.
 China can be an unnerving place for a reporter to work, it seems. Yet in three trips south of the border, my encounters with the authorities have been milder. At times, you worry for your sources' safety. Yet often - especially when I write business stories - my government minders are no worse than a flack who sits in on your interview with the board chairman and occasionally interrupts to offer a little corporate spin. 
 There are, of course, severe limitations for a freelancer in China who doesn't speak Chinese. I travel on a tourist visa, and so some officials refuse to meet me. When I arrive in a new city, I must scrounge up a translator. As soon as you do this, the authorities rush in.
 When I first visited the border town of Suifenhe in 1998, I arranged for a translator through a Russian restaurant manager who lived there.
 The next morning, the translator arrived in a black Saturn with a People's Liberation Army soldier behind the wheel and red flags fluttering from the hood.
 A similar thing happened in Dalian this year. I called a reporter from China Daily, the government English-language paper, and asked to meet for a chat. When I arrived, he had invited &quot;a friend&quot; who proved willing to translate for a whole day, free of charge. No, really, he insisted. He just wanted to practice his English. His car had no license plates, and again the driver was a soldier. 
 At the end of my visit, the translator proposed that we start an import-export business together (China is indeed business crazy). 
 At times I have slipped under the radar, as last May when I interviewed a North Korean refugee and the ethnic Korean farmer who had bought her from a marriage broker. I obtained a translator through contacts abroad, and this led me to the refugee, who was living in China illegally and would have been repatriated and imprisoned if discovered. 
 Without going into particulars, I have no doubt the translator will protect the couples' identity. Still, there have been nights when I have started awake and worried that I put the couple at risk. After all, the arrival of a towering American in a Chinese slum could have piqued police interest.
 Even official translators can be invaluable. In Dandong, a translator (&quot;Honest, I just like speaking English&quot;) dug up six businessmen willing to talk about trade with neighboring North Korea.
 Yet official minders become bossy at times. In Dandong, a guide refused to take us on an advertised boat trip along the North Korean bank of the Yalu River (instead, we caught a cab to the river, and boat owners nearly fought over us in their eagerness to take us out). In Harbin, a translator cut off a discussion of the Cultural Revolution.
 Sometimes China makes you uneasy. A man in a dark suit kept photographing me as I registered at a Dalian hotel; after I glowered at him, he turned and busied himself shooting a potted palm.
 And every copy of the March 10-11 International Herald Tribune at the Beijing Hotel was missing four pages. When I complained, the manager said, &quot;That paper contain bad story for China.&quot; (A confession to Chinese censors: I found the story on the Internet in the hotel's business center.) 
 In Harbin, I threw away my old Russian visa in a hotel wastepaper basket lined with a black plastic bag. When the maid cleaned the room, she knotted the bag and tossed it into a trash barrel. But the next day she returned and handed me my visa. &quot;Thank you,&quot; I said. When she left, I tore it in two and tossed it out a second time.
 It's not quite the same thing as being jailed as a dissident or followed when you go jogging. But it does make you eager to get back to the land of the free: Vladivostok.
 
 <i>Russell Working is a freelance journalist based in Vladivostok. </i>

TITLE: A Girl Taught Me What War Memorials Are For
AUTHOR: By Vladislav Schnitzer
TEXT: WHENEVER I am in St. Petersburg, I make an effort to visit the war memorial at Park Pobedy. I usually place some flowers at the foot of the sculptural composition depicting the defenders of Leningrad. Quite a few of my friends died or were wounded during the 900-day siege from September 1941 to January 1943. Many, I suppose, lie buried in mass graves at the Piskarevsky Cemetery.
 The last time I was there, it was a quiet working-day morning, and there were few people around. I noticed an old, bent woman and a young girl about 7 years old. The woman stood motionlessly like a statue herself, obviously lost in thought and weighed down by the heavy load of her memories of that time. The little girl, in contrast, skipped around energetically and looked with great interest at all the figures from every side. 
 The memorial depicts a variety of different defenders who made invaluable contributions to saving the city from occupation and destruction: soldiers, sailors, pilots, partisans and workers. In short, it pays tribute to all who bore the unbearable burden of saving this crowning achievement of Russian glory from the fascists. Suddenly the girl stopped, grabbed her grandmother by the hand, pointed at a figure and shouted, &quot;Look, babushka! It's you! It's you!&quot;
 The girl rushed over to me and said, &quot;Look, mister. It's my babushka!&quot; 
 I saw that the old woman was beginning to say something, but I interrupted her. I leaned down to the girl and said sincerely, &quot;Of course it is. That's your babushka plain as day.&quot;
 &quot;She won't admit it,&quot; the girl said. Then she grabbed my hand and took me closer. &quot;Look. Small, thin. It's her. My grandmother was a radio operator. She was even wounded once. She has a scar on her leg.&quot; 
 She told me that her grandmother rarely talked about the war and hardly ever showed anyone the medals that she kept hidden away in a box. She told me how her grandmother spent long days and nights in the trenches, reporting on the comings and goings of German bombers.
 After a few minutes, the girl wandered over to another man who was telling a boy about Hitler's horrific order to destroy Leningrad completely since, after Germany's victory, there would be no justification for its existence. 
 With the girl thus distracted, her babushka put her hand on my elbow and said, &quot;That isn't me, you know. She's just imagining things.&quot;
 &quot;But you did defend the city?&quot; I asked. 
 &quot;From the beginning to the end,&quot; she answered. 
 &quot;Then it is you. Your granddaughter has every right to tell people that her grandmother is there. She's absolutely right.&quot;
 
 <i>Vladislav Schnitzer is a pensioner and a freelance journalist in Moscow. </i>

TITLE: A Grandmaster Whom a Few Cannot Forgive
TEXT: THERE are certain Legislative Assembly lawmakers who have an aversion to talented individuals, clearly prefering the gray masses to any bright lights. So it proved this week when it came to discussing how the house could show its appreciation of chess grandmaster and St. Petersburg native Viktor Korchnoi, who turns 70 this week.
 It was coming to the end of Wednesday's session, and deputies were voting on granting Korchnoi the Diploma of St. Petersburg - a document that expresses the thanks of the assembly to those who have made a valuable contribution to the image of St. Petersburg. It looked like a calm, straightforward issue, but it was not.
 Lawmaker Vladimir Yeryomenko was the one to turn everything upside down, saying he was unhappy with the fact that Korchnoi would be a Diploma recipient. &quot;What has he ever done for St. Petersburg?&quot; asked Yeryomenko. &quot;Does he even live here? I don't even think he's a Russian citizen anymore.&quot;
 Yeryomenko requested the assembly's legal department to clarify if non-Russian citizens can receive the parliament's award. Yes, they can, came the reply, adding that it would be a violation of the Constitution to discriminate against non-Russians in issues such as the Diploma.
 Viktor Korchnoi left the Soviet Union in the 1970s and now lives in Switzerland. His various battles with Anatoly Karpov, favorite grandmaster of Leonid Brezhnev, included the final of the 1974 Russian championship in Moscow, a tense contest which Karpov won in the last game. Korchnoi later hinted that pressure had been put on him to throw the match. In any case, he left after that defeat, and spent another 20 years abroad. His son Igor was expelled from the institute he was studying at, and was put in jail for two years because he refused to go into the Soviet Army. 
 For Yeryomenko, Korchnoi is unsuitable for the Diploma because, unlike Alexander Solzhenitzyn who was expelled, Korchnoi left of his own accord. Yeryomenko went further, calling the Korchnoi/Karpov contest a political battle in which Korchnoi was interested in self-promotion more than anything else.
 The majority of the assembly disagreed, and the requisite law to award Korchnoi the Diploma was passed. All Yeremenko could do was suggest that it be postponed for two weeks to give deputies time to add amendments. Another lawmaker asked why this couldn't in fact be done in 15 seconds flat, and deputies decided it could.
 It was Stanislav Zhitkov, head of the assembly's editorial committee, who managed to jam through a proposed amendment to put the words &quot;non-Russian citizen&quot; before Korchnoi's name. Viktor Yevtukhov for some reason promptly denounced this as as anti-Semitic, and the amendment went in the trash can.
 Yeryomenko wouldn't give up, demanding to know why Korchnoi - who is apparently in town - was not in the building to discuss what he has done for this city.
 In 1974, right after he lost to Karpov, Korchnoi said that he did not consider Karpov to be a superior player. This was enough to get 30 Soviet chess players to write an open letter in support of Brezh nev's favorite, and get Korchnoi banned from competitions for six months. In 2001, Yeryomenko is showing that the same animosity toward people like Korchnoi, people who didn't fit in, is still alive.

TITLE: May Mir's Legacy Be As Enduring
TEXT: ON Friday morning - if all goes as it should - the Mir space station will leave a fiery trail across the South Pacific sky and fade off into history. It is a moment worthy of reflection, a fitting time to pay tribute to this monumental achievement and the thousands of people who made it happen.
 Over the last few years, much of the Western press coverage of Mir has had a distinctly uncharitable, almost juvenile flavor. The world has, almost gleefully at times, reported the station's dotage, allowing its glory days to fade virtually to oblivion. Only in recent days have Western editorials begun to redress the balance.
 And the simple fact is that Mir is a tremendous accomplishment, a milestone in the history of exploration and science, as well as a laudable start to truly international space exploration. Over the years, astronauts from more than a dozen countries worked on Mir, including Frenchman Jean-Loup Chretien who made the first non-U.S./non-Russian spacewalk in 1988 and Japanese journalist Toyohiro Akiyama who filed live television reports from the station for Tokyo television in 1990.
 Mir even played a small role in the history of Soviet glasnost, when the launch of its initial crew on March 13, 1986 was the first Soviet piloted launch not involving foreign participation to be televised live.
 Thanks to Mir, humanity has had a virtually constant presence in space since 1987, a presence that continues now on the International Space Station. Unlike a lunar landing or a planetary fly-by, a space station is a day-in and day-out kind of project. When successful, its work is routine, ordinary, expected and - from the point of view of daily headlines - dull. Only the problems stand out.
 And, given the complexity of space exploration and Mir's unexpectedly long life, we should admit after all that the station's problems have been surprisingly few and - what is more - often daringly overcome. For instance, on July 17, 1990, two cosmonauts who had not been trained for extra-vehicular activity performed an emergency spacewalk in order to repair a damaged heat shield. 
 Russia has every right to be proud of Mir - proud of how it was conceived, what it achieved, what it symbolizes. Its legacy will continue as long as humankind continues to peacefully study, explore and develop space. Ultimately, Mir symbolizes the crucial advance from the militaristic competition of the early space race to a spirit of cooperation that we can only hope will never be reversed.
 Godspeed, Mir, and we salute you.

TITLE: Suddenly a Terrorist
AUTHOR: By Iso Rusi
TEXT: &quot;DEAR friend, what's happening?&quot; begins the e-mail message Goran Stefanovski, the playwright, sent me from the little English village where he now lives. 
 He is not alone in wondering why Macedonia, the only ex-Yugoslav republic that gained its independence without a shot - an &quot;oasis of peace,&quot; as we have told ourselves - seems to be on the edge of war.
 For the last week there has been an almost-war around our second-largest city, Tetovo, 40 kilometers west of here. I've heard from Artan Skenderi, the owner of TV ART in Tetovo, several times a day. The first day he called to let me hear the shooting from the hill of Kale, almost in the city center. The second day, noticeably depressed, he talked of disaster. People were leaving town.
 And on the third day shells exploded on the forested slopes overlooking the city and gunfire crackled along a widening front line.
 In Skopje, Macedonians who had fled Tetovo gathered at the parliament building. &quot;Tetovo is a Macedonian town, and so it will remain,&quot; said President Boris Trajkovski. &quot;You must go back there and live together with the Albanians.&quot; The crowd was of Slavic, not Albanian, Macedonians, a crowd that kept shouting, &quot;Give us weapons, give us weapons!&quot;
 Tetovo is also being deserted by ethnic Albanians, fleeing to Albania, Western Europe or Turkey, where they have relatives. There are five times as many ethnic Albanian refugees as ethnic Slav refugees, Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said in his address to the nation Sunday. Georgievski reiterated his government's position that the crisis had been initiated by Kosovars. &quot;It is aggression coming from Kosovo, and we have proof,&quot; he said, adding that the Americans and the Germans know &quot;who the terrorist leaders are and what they want&quot; and could stop them if they liked.
 Who are the men clashing with Macedonian forces closer and closer to Tetovo? In an interview, Fazli Veliu, who is said to be the political leader of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army, said, &quot;We support the integrity of Macedonia, because we feel that Macedonia cannot exist without Albanians.&quot;
 Communique Number Six sets out in detail his army's political aims. It calls for international mediation of the conflict and a new Macedonian constitution that would stress that Macedonian Slavs and Albanians are equal national groups in the same state. This army stresses that it does not want to damage the integrity of the Macedonian state.
 The army's demands are almost identical with the demands of the existing Albanian political parties, which have been part of Macedonian parliaments and administrations since independence. Why, then, have the gunmen stepped to the fore?
 Before the 1998 elections, Arben Xhaferi - leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, which is now part of the government coalition - sought an alliance with the Party for Democratic Prosperity (the other, smaller Albanian party). Frightened by the appearance of the Kosovo Liberation Army just across our northern border, Xhaferi said Albanian parties should work together on achieving the rights of Albanians in Macedonia, and so avoid being marginalized by some radical option. But such powersharing failed to take hold.
 Now we have the Macedonian National Liberation Army, which even shares an Albanian-language acronym, U.C.K., with the Kosovo Liberation Army, though their names are different.
 Many local Albanians say the strengthening of an armed political force among Macedonian Albanians is the result of the corruption of D.P.A. representatives and resentment at D.P.A. retaliation against Albanians who did not support the party in the 2000 local elections. They also say they have lost patience because Macedonian authorities - including ethnic Albanian officials - have not done enough to satisfy their demands in education (especially higher education), culture, media, and use of Albanian language and national symbols.
 &quot;For 10 years we called for dialogue, but our problems were ignored,&quot; Xhaferi told Welt am Sonntag, a German newspaper. &quot;Now, unfortunately, there is bloodshed.&quot;
 &quot;NATO must intervene quickly,&quot; he added. &quot;Or else the Macedonian army and police will create a bloodbath.&quot; The army and police are Slav-dominated institutions.
 I got off the Internet a while ago, and this sentence still whirls before my eyes: &quot;The BBC's Nick Wood, reporting from Selce, said young men were arriving every hour to volunteer as rebel fighters with the National Liberation Army.&quot;
 I go out for coffee. I am not the only one to notice the broken flowerpots decorating the balcony of a pizzeria owned by an Albanian in Porta Vlae. Going through today's papers I recognize the language of hatred entering the media. Also I have again this horrid feeling that began a week or so ago, a feeling that grows beneath the looks of my Slavic Macedonian colleagues and acquaintances, who can see in me now an Albanian, though I am part Slav. 
 They see in me a terrorist, and I see them struggling to refrain from saying something unpleasant.
 
 <i>Iso Rusi is editor of the Albanian-language weekly Lobi in Skopje. He contributed this comment to The New York Times. </i>

TITLE: Mailbox
TEXT: A former Fulbright scholar is incensed by the treament of John Tobin and fears the implications that may be involved for foreigners studying here; debt forgiveness for Russia is seen as a double-edged sword; and a reader from Montana assures us not all Americans are close-minded and ignorant.
 
 </i><strong>
 Spy Paranoia
 </strong> <i><strong>Dear Editor,
 </strong></i>The recent arrest of FBI agent Robert Hanssen and talk of the emerging spy war could do more harm than just damaging U.S.-Russian bilateral relations. The fallout and paranoia associated with the recent spy scandals threaten to damage relations at the grass-roots level, as well. 
 The February arrest of American Fulbright scholar John Tobin on drug charges was followed by a brief statement by a regional FSB spokesman that Tobin was perhaps a &quot;spy in training.&quot; The FSB later retracted the statement, saying that charges of espionage, which had been bandied about, would not be leveled against Tobin. Nevertheless, the damage may have already been done. To suggest that the State Department trains scholars as spies and then knowingly sends them under the &quot;cover&quot; of the Fulbright Program is ludicrous. 
 I must first confess that I am biased. I was a Fulbright scholar in Moscow during the 1999-2000 academic year. Under the Fulbright program, the U.S. government sends several thousand young scholars and professors overseas each year. Also, every year several thousand foreign scholars are invited to the United States to study or to teach. Between 40 and 45 Russians are invited to the United States annually. 
 The program not only allows scholars to exchange scholarly information, but it also serves as an important cultural exchange program. Russian and American scholars have the opportunity to live for up to two years abroad. These people not only have the opportunity to learn about the people and culture of the nation in which they live, but they become vital emissaries of their own culture to that foreign country and of the foreign country's culture when they return home.
 The fact is - unlike many foreign businessmen, diplomats and even journalists in Russia - most young scholars come to Russia by choice. They come because they have a sincere interest in Russian culture, Russian history, the Russian people and in Russia itself. 
 These are the sort of people who will go home and become advocates of better relations with Russia. The assessments that scholars living in Russia take home will be based less on polemics and ideology than on even-handed evaluations of the experiences they accumulated while living in Russia - frequently in Russian homes.
 The fact that Tobin was briefly tagged a spy means that foreign scholars doing research in Russia may very well find their access to expertise and open-source material restricted. Interviews with experts may be denied for fear of guilt by association. And this is only a mild-case scenario. 
 In a worst-case scenario foreign scholars could be harassed and detained by law enforcement agencies in Russia with little or no cause. They are at the whims of the still undefined Russian legal system. When the Russian government begins targeting scholars and accusing them of being spies, it might just be attacking the best source for good press on Russia in the West.
 
 <i>Jody Ferguson,
 Washington, DC
 </i>
 <strong>I Was Misquoted
 </strong> <i><strong>Dear Editor,</strong></i>
 Unfortunately, I was misquoted in your article [Chubais Pushes On With UES Restructure,&quot; March 6]. I did not say, as you wrote: &quot;The energy system restructure proposals of Anatoly Chubais that have been announced at today's meeting should create the conditions to attract investments.&quot; And it is also quite incorrect to write that &quot;the EC's Wright threw his full weight behind Chubais plan. ...&quot;
 What I actually said was &quot;that the presentation of Mr. Chubais was interesting and potential EU investors would look at the restructuring plan depending on the extent to which it could open up possibilities to invest in the electricity sector.&quot;
 I did not comment on whether the EC supports the restructuring plan because this is an internal matter for Russia.
 
 <i>Richard Wright,
 Head of Delegation of the European Commission in Russia
 </i>
 <strong>Debt Forgiveness
 </strong> <i><strong>Dear Editor,
 </strong></i>Anatol Lieven and Celeste Wallander propose that if Russia forgives the money owed to it by Ukraine, Georgia and some of its other neighbors, the West should forgive the $48 billion Russia owes us [&quot;Time for West To Break the Debt Circle,&quot; March 16].
 This would be a serious mistake. As long as Russia's neighbors sense that they can continue to use Russia's natural gas and oil without having to pay, they will not feel it is necessary to find alternative energy sources or to conserve. 
 The same goes for the Russians. It is true that most of the $48 billion is Soviet-era debt, but last year Russia's hard-currency reserves hit almost $30 billion and their trade surplus was close to $50 billion. If they are able to avoid paying their bills now when they can afford it, they will assume that they will always be able to get away with it, and avoid addressing their tax-collection and capital-flight problems.
 In the long run, treating the Russians as we would a Third World country is not the way to encourage the reforms we and some of their more realistic leaders seek.
 
 <i>Marshall Goldman,
 Wellesley College,
 Cambridge, Massachusetts
 </i>
 <strong>Elected Lunacy
 </strong> <i><strong>Dear Editor,</strong></i>
 [&quot;U.S. Officials Question Kokh Over Media-MOST Affair,&quot; March 16] was an excellent article on the arrogance and lunacy of some of our &quot;elected leaders&quot; here in the United States. It is beyond me to figure why they think they should have any input in private commercial matters in Russia. I can assure you that not all Americans are as closed-minded and ignorant as some of our representatives in Congress.
 After a friend forwarded me this article, I browsed your Web site and found it interesting. I wish you great success in your venture, since a free press is the basis for a free and self-determining republic. Thank you for this.
 
 <i>Michael Heit,
 Elmo, Montana </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Some good Moldovan fun will come to town this Friday as Chisinau's <strong>Zdob Si Zdub</strong> play at LDM, which seats over 1,000. Until now the band was content to perform at the scruffy and distantly-located underground club Poligon. Zdob Si Zdub blends punk with Moldovan and gypsy folk, and like to paint their bare chests with Moldovan folk designs. See story on page 11. <i>LDM, Fri., March 23.</i>
 Mumii Troll, whose &quot;Moya Pevitsa&quot; video has been on the MTV charts for months, is playing what is described as its &quot;biggest ever concert&quot; in Moscow at the Olimpiisky stadium on April 3 - but in St. Petersburg it will be a much more modest show at the unlikely and long ill-reputed venue of Hollywood Nites. According to news reports, security guards at the club allegedly made it a practice to beat and rob customers and then pass them on to friendly policemen as &quot;drunk,&quot; until the long arm of the law caught up with them earlier this week, arresting two of the guards.
 Returning to music, Mumii Troll released a live album called &quot;Neobyknovenny Kontsert v Gostinom Dvore&quot; on Tuesday. Recorded last year at a show with a symphony orchestra, DJs and rappers, it features 14 tracks, including the new Russian-language version of Jacques Brel's &quot;Ne me quitte pas,&quot; translated by frontman Ilya Lagutenko himself. <i>Sat., March 24, Hollywood Nites.</i>
 Symphony orchestras seem to be what ageing rockers just can't do without. German heavy rockers The <strong>Scorpions, </strong>who recorded an album with the Berlin Philharmonic last year, will come to play concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg with an obviously less expensive local philharmonic orchestra, but the conductor, Austria's Christian Kolonovits, will be the same as on the record.
 The band, whose following in Germany today consists largely of ageing bikers, is notorious for its bad taste - just think back to their video based around the Clinton-Lewinski scandal. Their &quot;daring experiment&quot; with the Berlin Philharmonic led to the resignation of the orchestra's manager, according to The Guardian.
 The U.K. newspaper also quoted the chief conductor, Claudio Abbado, as saying: &quot;One ought to do all things with good taste, but I find that the Scorpions do things with dreadful taste.&quot; &quot;The Scorpions - with help from the Berlin Philharmonic - outdid Spinal Tap,&quot; wrote Rolling Stone in a review of an L.A. concert, aptly called &quot;Scorpions and Orchestra: Bad on Paper, Bad in Practice.&quot;
 In 1999 Scorpions failed to pack Yubileiny Sports Palace, as less than 4,000 fans came. Why should they gather 12,000 at the Ice Palace in 2001?


TITLE: a traditional approach to bohemian life
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: Popular wisdom in the opera world has it that operatic directors put on their best work when they follow the composer's intentions, without turning the ideas inside out for the sake of experiment. The exceptions, many directors themselves admit, only confirm the rule.
 British director Ian Judge, whose production of Giacomo Puccini's &quot;La Boh&egrave;me&quot; premiered at the Mariinsky Theater on March 15, avoided a sophisticated conceptual staging. While it may be excessive to say that being traditional is a recipe for success, Judge's staging is a masterful backdrop for the young Mariinsky singers.
 Puccini's 1896 masterpiece about a tragic love story between a poet and his belov&eacute;d who dies from consumption, first saw the stage in Turin. The opera, one of the world's most popular, now gets its fourth production at the Mariinsky.
 Judge's show - where he moves the heroes of Henry Murger's &quot;Scenes From Bohemian Life&quot; novel from 1830s to 1930s Paris - doesn't aim for a particularly original approach, concentrating instead on achieving a harmonious performance, where a rare concord has been reached between the director, the designer, the singers, the orchestra and the conductor.
 The Mariinsky has earned itself a reputation as a talented voice-hunter, but when it is time to show artistic skills, young singers often find it difficult to cast off their constraint. However, the theater has begun to realize that pure voices and smooth singing alone are not enough to make a successful opera performance.
 Thankfully, La Boh&egrave;me is a great step forward. Judge has not only emancipated the cast, but also given singers a better idea of teamwork and the rapport between the singers was stunning. In this production, the cast makes the audience believe in the extremely emotional story they are telling. Much enthusiasm has been invested, and it has paid off. This production captivates and moves the audience.
 The Mariinsky's remarkable ensemble for La Boh&egrave;me consisted of Irina Dzhi oyeva (Mimi), Yevgeny Akimov (Ro dolfo), Vladimir Moroz (Marcello), Yeka terina Solovyova (Musetta), Vla di mir Samsonov (Schaunard) and Yev ge ny Nikitin (Colline), all of whom thrived in their roles, with each singer bright and convincing.
 The bohemians, at first bursting with youthful energy and happiness, undergo a painful evolution into maturity with Mimi's departure, and the transformation is striking in both artistic and vocal terms.
 Akimov demonstrated impeccable vocal technique and an astounding sweeping sound. Dzhioyeva put on a magnificent performance as Mimi, bringing the full amount of tragedy and despair into her interpretation of the role. Her high notes were pure and precise, and her mesmerizing duo with Rodolfo was one of the highlights of the evening. Dzhioyeva, who is often reserved and detached on stage - which damaged her vocally superb performance of Lucia in &quot;Lucia di Lammermoor&quot; - succeeded in turning her natural restraint to the role's advantage. Her timid, subtle and fragile Mimi shows much inner strength - providing a counterpoint to her beloved.
 The Mariinsky, in the meantime, has more talents rehearsing for the roles - Anna Netrebko as Musetta and Tatiana Pavlovskaya as Mimi - and these choices look very promising.
 
 <i>La Boh&egrave;me will be performed next on March 29. See listings. </i>

TITLE: how russia spies on the spies
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: People love secrets. Some people adore them to such an extent that they devote their lives to digging into other people's private affairs. Others make their living from protecting and guarding secrets. Some succeed in doing both - and depending on their skill, they can end up as anything from harmless scandalmongers to top-level intelligence agents.
 Naturally, everything surrounding people with access to secrets is a secret in itself. So the new exhibition at the Museum of the Political History of Russia Annex, &quot;VChK-KGB-FSB against Counter-espionage and Terrorism&quot; is certainly worth checking out. With terrorism featuring heavily in the news lately, the exhibition attempts to explore this side of Russia's security service, starting from the early 20th century to the very recent past.
 Pavel Koshelev, first deputy head of the Culture Committee of the local administration, and ex-KGB officer, welcomed the exhibition. &quot;I respect the curator's courage to touch on a topic which is often misunderstood,&quot; he said. &quot;But it is important to remember that there are no criminal professions. There are criminals, and they have to be fought.&quot;
 The exhibits are not so much about the techniques used, but rather about the personalities involved. There are no bugs or tiny cameras on display. Instead we have uniforms, personal effects, photographs, and other memorabilia, making up nearly 200 items which are supposed to give an idea of the sort of people who serve as intelligence agents.
 One might expect an exhibition of this kind to give an idea of how the security services' methods have evolved. But General-Lieutenant Ser gei Smir nov, head of the St. Petersburg FSB, said the methods have remained virtually the same. &quot;The goals and tactics do change, but not the methods,&quot; Smirnov said.
 &quot;May all conscious people remain on the lookout, in constant contact with the highly responsible members of the Communist party and Cheka,&quot; reads a leaflet by Lenin. According to the FSB, the cult of informing, which was such a prominent feature of Soviet life, seems to be still alive and well. &quot;No security service in any country can survive without informers,&quot; Smirnov said. &quot;There are, indeed, very different people working for us, but what unites nearly all of them is their desire to serve Russia.&quot;
 Smirnov has also been trained to hide strategic information from the press and other overly curious people. The presence of FSB top officials at the opening seems to confirm that the exhibition does not exactly break any new ground.
 &quot;This exhibition can be compared to a dotted line: there are numerous gaps,&quot; admits Lyudmila Mikhailova, curator of the exhibition. Another weak point of the exhibition is that the items on display give you little idea of what is behind them, unless you listen to the guide.
 Mikhailova knows the tragic stories behind every note, every photograph, and every personal effect, and listening to her breathes life into what seems like a mere selection of documents.
 This exhibition - just like the museum as a whole - raises countless questions. What is the difference between an intelligence agent and a spy? Russian FSB officers shrug when they hear foreigners calling Putin a spy and like to say, &quot;He is not a bad guy.&quot;
 &quot;Intelligence agents protect the state, and spies subvert it,&quot; is how Mik hai lova defines the difference. But if only things were that simple.
 
 <i>See listings for address and opening times. </i>

TITLE: 'film star' mozgovoi indulges passion for solo performances
AUTHOR: by Kirill Galetski
TEXT: Actor Leonid Mozgovoi has had an unusual career. He has played such disparate historical figures as Anton Chekhov, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin in the films of Russian amateur film maker Alexander Sokurov. His role as Lenin is the latest, and can be seen in the film &quot;Taurus,&quot; now playing at Dom Kino. These days, he is mostly known for his roles in Sokurov's films, but there's another side to him which few people are aware of.
 This weekend, Mozgovoi will perform in something that has been his life's passion: one man shows. This Friday at Petersburg Concert, the theater where he works, he will perform &quot;Monologue About Okudzhava,&quot; a tribute to the late celebrated Russian bard and musician Bulat Okudzhava. Mozgovoi has been enacting this artistic monologue for years, and Okudzhava himself saw it once and gave his blessing. On Saturday, Mozgovoi will read Pushkin's poems, letters, diaries and the first chapter of &quot;Yevgeny Onegin&quot; in a performance titled &quot;To Think and Suffer.&quot; On Sunday, he will act in the chamber piece &quot;The Ridiculous One,&quot; based on &quot;Dream of a Ridiculous Man&quot; by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and performed in the attic of an old building. In April, Mozgovoi will present &quot;The Parodist,&quot; based on the writings of incisive wit Alexander Ivanov, and a solo rendition of Chekhov's story &quot;The Black Monk.&quot;
 With a distinguished 25-year career as a theatrical lector and solo performer, Mozgovoi has become a master of the one-actor performance. Trained as a dramatic actor, Mozgovoi won a national lector's competition in 1967 that firmly set him on the path. His work has featured numerous times at the recent Monocle Festival of Solo Performance and was on the competition jury this year.
 Mozgovoi, 59, was born in Tula. The son of a military man, he traveled a lot in his youth, changing cities six times while he was at school. He started living in St. Petersburg in the early '60s.
 Mozgovoi did not go to theater school right away, but spent three years trying to get in, even trying to enter the All Union State School of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. At the time he supported himself and his family by working as a metal worker.
 He finally had the good fortune to matriculate into Boris Zon's dramatic acting course at the Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema (LGITMIK,) now known as the St. Petersburg Theater Arts Academy.
 &quot;Zon was a great teacher and a great man,&quot; declares Mozgovoi. &quot;He literally acquired the Stanislavsky system directly from Stanislavsky himself and he organized the new TYuZ (Young Spectators Theater). We graduated in 1965. My class was his last - he died a year after our graduation. It was a successful class. My classmates were Lev Dodin, Olga Antonova and other familiar names. I feel that I've had excellent training, and perhaps because I haven't worked in drama theaters I've been fortunate not to develop any stock mannerisms over the years.&quot;
 Mozgovoi feels very fortunate to be working with Sokurov and has an interesting working relationship with him: &quot;He does come to some of my performances, but we don't ever just sit around and drink tea together. Our contact is almost always creative. He is a very profound, yet vulnerable, delicate person and never raises his voice. He has a very clear idea of what he wants and yet is very flexible. The final scene in 'Taurus' is a good example [of our creative rapport.] He composed the scene as we were filming it. In playing Lenin, transcending yourself is difficult. In other actors interpretations of the role, such as those Mikhail Ulyanov and Kirill Lavrov, it is possible to see traces of themselves in their portrayals.&quot;
 On his work as a lector and solo performer, Mozgovoi comments, &quot;It doesn't justify itself materially, and so there is less and less of it, but from a moral point of view it's necessary because these days all people watch is television. More often than not, the shows are not of the highest level. People have a need to pass on something real, something through their hearts.&quot;
 
 <i>Mozgovoi performs &quot;Monologue About Okudzhava&quot; at 3 p.m. at Dom Kochnevoi, 41 Nab. Fontanki. &quot;To Think and Suffer&quot; will be at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 24 at the Alexander Blok Apartment Museum. </i>

TITLE: straight outta chisinau: zdob si zdub's in town
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Zdob Si Zdub, the Moldovan folk-punk band which rose to massive popularity on the strength of a Kino cover last year, is coming to play their biggest show so far in St. Petersburg.
 Victor Tsoi's gloomily romantic song &quot;<i>Videli Noch</i>&quot; (Saw the Night), recorded by the then-underground band Kino in 1985, was given an unlikely treatment - Zdob Si Zdub turned it into a frenetic folk-dance tune, with Moldovan folk instruments and gypsy backing vocals.
 The track, which seems to be always on the radio, is either fun or irritating, depending on the listener, but at least bears no resemblance to Kino.
 Released on &quot;Kinoproby,&quot; a Kino tribute album - which along with the &quot;Brat 2 Soundtrack&quot; was among the most commercially successful projects so far by Real Records, the record company co-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. - it gave Zdob Si Zdub more attention than it has ever had since the band was formed in 1994.
 &quot;We didn't choose the song - we were given it,&quot; said the band's mainstay Roman Iagupov by telephone from Chisinau, Moldova, on Tuesday. &quot;Real offered it - so we did it.&quot;
 Zdob Si Zdub is currently preparing for a big breakthrough. Now in the middle of recording a new album, the band bought out the contract from FeeLee Records, Russia's first surviving independent label, which released its recording debut &quot;Hardcore Moldovenesc&quot; in 1997.
 However, Iagupov denied any rumors the band was signing to Real. &quot;We haven't had anything to do with Real yet, we are working on our own,&quot; he said. &quot;There are several candidates to put out our new album, but I don't know who it will be. It's not a question for me to answer - we're artists.&quot;
 Though Zdob Si Zdub started out by playing U.S.-style hardcore punk, it changed its music to Moldovan folk-punk with the second album, &quot;Tabara Noastra,&quot; released in 1999, which is seen as &quot;transitional.&quot;
 &quot;It happened because Moldovan folk is very colorful,&quot; said Iagupov. &quot;It contains very many harmonies, very interesting rhythms and it's very deep - so we decided it would be original to combine rock with folk elements.&quot;
 However, the most obvious impact that made the band change its course was Emir Kusturica's films with their soundtracks composed by Goran Bregovic.
 &quot;It influenced us a lot, because Bregovic has arranged Yugoslav folk in a very contemporary way,&quot; said Iagupov. &quot;We heard it as we started doing our second album, so it influenced us drastically.&quot;
 Zdob Si Zdub supported Kusturica's No Smoking Band in Moscow in January, but Iagupov doesn't seem very impressed by the popular director's musical ability.
 &quot;I got the impression that Kusturica is a great director, while this is just his hobby,&quot; he said.
 &quot;It looked as if he had taken a band from a wedding and came to play some clubs, though they are professional musicians and showmen.&quot;
 Based in Chisinau, Zdob Si Zdub is a frequent sight in Moscow, where the band records and often performs. &quot;Chisinau is greener, cozier, and smaller than Moscow and St. Petersburg,&quot; said Iagupov. &quot;It has a different vibe, different sun, different air.&quot;
 Singing mostly in Moldovan, which is a dialect of Romanian, the band features four Moldova natives and two Russians. With Iagupov singing and playing a variety of folk instruments, the band recently added a trombone to its line-up of guitar, bass, drums and trumpet.
 &quot;We'll basically play the same stuff we played in St. Petersburg last time - only with the addition of a new member, the arrangements have changed a little. And there will be new songs,&quot; said Iagupov.
 
 <i>Zdob Si Zdub in concert at LDM at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 23. See Gigs for location details. Support comes from the Armenian folk-rock band Deti Picasso. For more information check out www.zdobsizdub.com. </i>

TITLE: samovars and bread for china
AUTHOR: by Simon Patterson
TEXT: It's good to find a decent cheap Chinese restaurant just a few hundred meters away from where you live. We thought we had struck it lucky when we found such a place on the corner of our street after we had moved in to our new apartment, but after being served a cockroach in the soup on one occasion we decided it might be best to stop eating there. Thus it was a relief to find a more hygienic, and no less reasonably priced, Chinese restaurant on the same street, another few hundred meters further along.
 Krasny Terem is not exactly top-of-the-line dining, with a large, drafty hall adorned with basic Chinese decor, without any other attempts at creating a particularly oriental atmosphere. A television plays music videos, for some reason with the volume turned down, while a stereo plays a local radio station, which either goes with the music video playing or clashes with it violently. While watching this may be entertaining for the exceptionally bored diner, others will find it to be just a silly distraction.
 The menu is similarly unconcerned with authenticity. Most intriguing were the dishes served in a &quot;samovar.&quot; We ordered the pork &quot;samovar meal&quot; (180 rubles), which turned out to be a large pot of soup served over an open flame. It was more than enough for the three of us, and extremely delicious, with mushrooms and vermicelli. You'd have trouble pouring it from a real samovar, though - the pieces of meat wouldn't make it through the tap.
 Equally strange was the offer of bread from the waitress, given that this is not a noted accompaniment to most Chinese dishes. We decided that we would be better off ordering rice, but again these had to be ordered as separate portions (at 25 rubles each), as the concept of &quot;rice for the table&quot; seems to be something the management have not grasped.
 Chopsticks were also absent from the table, so we made do with knives and forks. Presumably one can ask for them - perhaps the restaurant keeps them lying around in a drawer somewhere for that rare purist who happens to drop by.
 All these factors are not unusual to find in a Chinese restaurant in Russia, but given that the food was especially good (and authentic) they seemed exceptionally our of place.
 We ordered sweet and sour chicken with pineapple (95 rubles), prawns with celery and pistachios (125 rubles) and pork with cabbage (85 rubles), a last minute choice since they were out of tofu. Or rather, as our waitress explained to us, one could only order it if it was part of a soup. What exactly she meant by this, we were not quite sure.
 Again, we had no complaints with any of the food, but the surreal atmosphere was becoming oppressive. The other diners had left, and we were left alone to sip on our Bochakarevs (30 rubles) and watch Madonna gyrating to &quot;We Will Rock You.&quot; While Kras ny Terem is a good place to go if it's in your neighborhood, it's hardly worth crossing town to visit.
 
 <i>Krasny Terem, 10 Razyezhaya Ulitsa. Tel: 315-91-45. Dinner for three with beer, 750 rubles ($26). Open 7 days a week, 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. </i>

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Disease Hits Ireland
 

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland became on Thursday the fourth European country to fall victim to foot-and-mouth, suspending animal-product exports while the continent braced for yet more outbreaks of the highly infectious disease.
 Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said tests on tissue samples taken from sheep on a farm near the border with Northern Ireland had proved positive.
 The samples were from animals on a farm situated within a 10-kilometer exclusion zone placed around the holding in Armagh County where Northern Ireland's only outbreak of the disease was confirmed earlier this month.
 The Dutch launched new investigations after announcing on Wednesday that foot-and-mouth had hit three farms.
 The Netherlands, which has the most intensive farming industry in Europe, still has raw memories of a devastating outbreak of swine fever in 1997.
 
 
Palestinian Killed
 

JERUSALEM (AP) - Soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian early Thursday as he tried to cross into Israel from the Gaza Strip to carry out a bomb attack, the army said.
 The suspect's two accomplices fled when soldiers posted at an Israeli communal farm on the border opened fire, the army said.
 The incident followed a night of heavy shooting in the Gaza Strip.
 Palestinians lobbed five anti-tank grenades at an Israeli army outposts in Gaza on Thursday morning. Troops returned fire, wounding three Palestinians.
 On Wednesday night, a 21-year-old Palestinian security officer was killed when Israeli forces fired tank shells at a position of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's presidential guard unit. Four others were injured.
 Since the unrest began six months ago, 432 people have been killed, including 355 Palestinians, 52 Israeli Jews and 25 others.
 
 
Riots Claim 10 Lives
 

JAKARTA, Indonesia (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed in the latest round of ethnic riots in Indonesia's central Kalimantan province where hundreds died in sectarian violence last month, it was reported on Thursday.
 The fighting between the indigenous Dayaks and settlers from the island of Madura broke out near the town of Kuala Kapuas, some 770 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, early on Thursday.
 Central Kalimantan was the site of one of Indonesia's worst bouts of ethnic violence last month in which hundreds of people, mostly Madurese, were butchered by rampaging Dayak mobs. Tens of thousands were forced to flee.
 Simmering tensions between the two groups - often over land disputes and job opportunities - have periodically flared and hundreds have died in the last two years.
 
 
Tigers' Ultimatum
 

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Tamil Tigers fighting for independence in Sri Lanka said on Thursday they would extend a unilateral cease-fire for one more month but also threatened to break it if the government did not respond positively.
 A statement from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils in the country's north and east, said the third extension of the truce until April 24 would give Norway, which is trying to broker a deal, more time to help push the two sides closer to the negotiating table.
 The extension comes after Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim has shuttled between government officials in Colombo and a Tamil rebel negotiator in London to try to find ways to end an 18-year conflict that has killed an estimated 64,000 people.
 
 
Absence of Statues
 

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban soldiers unlocked the Kabul Museum on Thursday, opening the war-ravaged building for the first time since Afghanistan's hard-line rulers ordered that all pre-Islamic statues be destroyed.
 But remnants of the destroyed statues were nowhere to be seen in the museum.
 "We are here to show you what we have. There are no more statues left," said Ahmed Yar, president of the Kabul Museum.
 "We are not against anyone's culture, we are against what is against Islam," he said.
 The destruction of two giant statues of Buddha, carved into a mountainside in the 3rd and 5th centuries, sparked international outrage. 
 The collection spanned Afghani stan's 50,000-year history and included relics from the country's prehistoric, classical, Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic periods.
 
 
Annan Seeks 2nd Term
 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan doesn't appear ready to leave the stage anytime soon.
 After months of speculation, he was expected to make it official at a news conference Thursday that he aims to seek another five-year term, diplomats say.
 Last week, the secretary-general, who is from Ghana, got a strong endorsement from the 53-nation African group at the United Nations, which pledged to campaign for him if he decides to run.
 If Annan seeks a second term as expected, the two key questions will be whether Asian nations also submit a candidate and who will get the support of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.
 By tradition, the secretary general's job rotates every 10 years by region, and it is now Asia's turn to propose a candidate.
 
 
Cell Phone Silence
 

OTTAWA, Canada (NYT) - The Canadian government is considering changing its laws to allow restaurants, theaters, hospitals and other private companies to silence cell phones by jamming radio signals. If Canada goes ahead with lifting the current prohibition on such jamming devices, it will step into the forefront of the movement to restrict cell phone use. 
 The Canadian review was prompted mostly by industry groups. Companies hoping to distribute imported cell phone jammers have asked the Canadian government to ease or end its restrictions. At the same time, the cell phone industry has asked for a strong affirmation of current rules, which allow jammers to be licensed only for use by police forces and other security agencies. 



TITLE: Stiles Making an Impression At Women's NCAA Tourney
AUTHOR: By Chuck Schoffner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer believes there's a place for someone like Jackie Stiles.
 It's called the WNBA.
 Stringer watched with a mixture of agony and awe Monday night as Stiles knocked Rutgers, a Final Four team last year, out of the NCAA tournament.
 Stiles scored 32 points, including 17 in the final 6:57, as Southwest Missouri State beat the Scarlet Knights 60-53 in the second round of the West Regional at Piscataway, New Jersey.
 Most times, that would be just a routine game for Stiles, the NCAA career scoring leader. But this came against a team noted for tough defense and two nights after she suffered a mild concussion in a first-round win over Toledo.
 &quot;My hat's off to Jackie Stiles,&quot; Stringer said. &quot;She is the hardest-working player. She is a WNBA player. I would love to have her as a professional coach.&quot;
 Southwest Missouri State, a No. 5 seed, was one of just three teams to advance to the round of 16 by winning on its opponent's floor. Sixth-seeded Washington did it in the West Regional and 10th-seeded Missouri advanced as a visiting team in the East. Both won second-round games on Sunday.
 Otherwise, it's business as usual in the regional semifinals. Defending national champion Connecticut is in. So are Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, Duke and Notre Dame. Tennessee played Sunday night. The others all won big on Monday.
 Connecticut, the top seed in the East, rolled over Colorado State 89-44. In two tournament games, the Huskies have given up an average of just 36.5 points.
 &quot;Everything goes back to our defense,&quot; UConn's Swin Cash said. &quot;We were getting out, pressing in the wing, trying to make them go back door. Our defense took care of everything, basically.&quot;
 Louisiana Tech, seeded third in the East, beat TCU 80-59.
 In the Midwest, top-seeded Notre Dame cruised past Michigan 88-54, third-seeded Vanderbilt was a 65-59 winner over Colorado and fifth-seeded Utah defeated Iowa 78-69.
 Top-seeded Duke moved on in the West with a 75-54 win over Arkansas, and second-seeded Oklahoma beat Stanford 67-50.
 That leaves the tournament with these pairings for the regional semifinals on Saturday: Connecticut vs. North Carolina State and Louisiana Tech vs. Missouri in the East at Pittsburgh; Tennessee vs. Xavier and Texas Tech vs. Purdue in the Mideast at Birmingham, Alabama; Notre Dame vs. Utah and Iowa State vs. Vanderbilt in the Midwest at Denver; and Duke vs. Southwest Missouri State and Oklahoma vs. Washington in the West at Spokane, Washington.

TITLE: Europe Gets Set for World Cup Qualifiers
AUTHOR: By Trevor Huggins
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON - The Netherlands, England and Sweden will feel the unwelcome glare of the spotlight in the coming week as Europe prepares for over 40 World Cup qualifiers.
 Three of the continent's expected finalists are in danger of missing out next year after a run of below-par performances, which have left them at the wrong end of their groups.
 Though Saturday and Wednesday's matches will only take European qualifying to the halfway stage, they could prove fatal for one or more of the trio if they do not rediscover their winning ways.
 The Dutch, semifinalists at France '98 and Euro 2000, losing both times on penalties, are arguably the worst offenders.
 A team with the likes of Patrick Klui vert, Dennis Bergkamp, Jaap Stam and Frank De Boer is languishing in fifth place in Group 2 with only four points from three games.
 Though they are certain to beat Andorra, the turning point of their campaign may well come next Wednesday in Porto, where they face group leaders Portugal.
 An away victory may be a tall order, particularly as the Dutch lost 2-0 at home to them last October. But anything less would play into the hands of their unexpected rivals for the runners-up slot, Ireland.
 Mick McCarthy's side has already played its two toughest matches and emerged unscathed, drawing 2-2 away to the Dutch and 1-1 in Portugal. Now they can focus on beating the likes of Cyprus and Andorra in the hope they could afford to lose to the Dutch in Dublin on Sept. 1 and still finish second.
 While the nine group winners qualify automatically for next year's finals, the nine runners-up will all play off for a place - with one of them playing the third-placed country from the final Asian qualifying group.
 As with the Dutch, gloom and doom has also been prophesied for England, which is at the bottom of Group 9 with only one point from two games.
 However, England's plight is not as desperate as it appears.
 An achievable 2-0 victory over Finland at Anfield in Saturday's first competitive match under Sven Goran Eriksson would catapault England into second place, a position they ought to consolidate in Albania on Wednesday.
 England is unlikely to catch group leaders Germany. But the play-offs are still a realistic route to the finals.
 Elsewhere, teams are sticking largely to the form book.
 Russia leads Group 1 after winning both its matches, while Yugoslavia's progress has only been pegged back by postponements due to political tension there last year.
 Poland, Ukraine and Belarus are locked in a fight for honors in Group 5, adding extra spice to Ukraine's home game on Saturday with Belarus.
 More will be at stake at Hampden Park on Saturday, however, when Scotland hosts Belgium in Group 6 action. Both sides have seven points, four more than nearest rivals Latvia, with the Scots lying second on goal difference.

TITLE: Canadian Pair Takes World Figure Skating Title
AUTHOR: By Nancy Armour
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Jamie Sale and David Pelletier gave the Canadian crowd exactly what it craved - a world title.
 The Canadians wrapped up their incredible season Wednesday night with the pairs title at the World Figure Skating Championships. In only their third season together, they won all but one of their competitions and will go to the Salt Lake City Olympics as the favorite for gold.
 &quot;This is the best day of my life,&quot; Pelletier said.
 When they saw their marks - all 5.9s for artistry except one 5.8 - Sale jumped up and thrust her fists in the air. It took another few moments to realize they were in first, and when they did, Sale's mouth dropped open, she put her hands on the side of her head and said over and over, &quot;Oh my God! Oh my God!&quot;
 &quot;It was absolutely awesome,&quot; Sale said. &quot;I was calm and I enjoyed each moment because it can be overwhelming. But instead, I used it to be calm and to be in a state of love and to project a state of love.&quot;
 Two-time world champions Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze finished second, the third time they've lost to Sale and Pelletier this year. Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China, silver medalists the past two years, were third.
 Skating to &quot;Tristan and Isolde,&quot; Sale and Pelletier put on a demonstration of what pairs skating should be. They didn't try any gimmicks or cheap tricks. They simply skated beautifully.
 Their combination lift was breathtaking. They flew across the ice, never losing their speed even as he twisted her high above the ice in several intricate and unusual positions. He couldn't have twirled her any easier if she'd been a baton.
 Their unison was equally impressive. On their side-by-side spins, they moved totally as one, almost as if they were connected.
 Their only error was his singling an axel, but some of the judges might not have seen it because their view was blocked by her body.
 The crowd was on its feet before their music stopped, and Sale doubled over, overcome with emotion. Pelletier skated over and hugged her, and she finally stood up, a huge smile on her face.
 She had good reason to smile, because the program was more than enough to top Berezhnaya and Sikha ru li dze, who won the silver medal at the Nagano Olympics. The Russians missed last year's worlds after she tested positive for a banned substance in the European Championship, which she said came from cold medicine.
 Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze's program to a Charlie Chaplin medley was cute and playful, a departure from their usual classical - and serious - programs. They had their usual speed and technical difficulty.
 But it was their Oscar-worthy portrayal of Charlie Chaplin's endearing quirkiness that won them the silver medal. As Sikharulidze duck-stepped around a coy Berezhnaya, you could almost see Chaplin; all that was missing was the cane and the bowler.
 The audience laughed, obviously enjoying the program. The judges got a kick out of it, too, giving them six 5.9s for artistry and three 5.8s.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Louisville Hires Pitino
 

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) - Rick Pitino became Louisville's basketball coach Wed nes day, returning to the state where he won a national championship in 1996.
 "I know all of you were not fond of me when I was Kentucky's coach and I'll make no bones about it - I'll always love UK and my players," Pitino said. "Now it's my time to lead the Cardinals back to prominence."
 Pitino, who won the national title at Kentucky, resigned as coach and president of the Boston Celtics in January after 3 1/2 disappointing seasons.
 
 
Benson Reveals All
 

BRADENTON, Florida (AP) - Kris Benson is downplaying sexually explicit remarks he and his wife made to Penthouse magazine.
 The Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher and his wife, Anna, are the subject of an interview in the May issue of the men's magazine, scheduled to be on newsstands this weekend.
 The interview contained details of a most personal nature about the Bensons' love life and created a stir Tuesday night on television newscasts and radio talks shows in Pittsburgh.
 "We were pretty candid, but I thought the whole thing was done in good taste," Benson said.
 Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon tried to defuse the whole issue with some humor.
 "I only worry about what Kris Benson does in between the lines not in between the sheets," McClendon said.
 
 
Becker Named Father
 

LONDON (AP) - A Russian model received an official order Wednesday naming Boris Becker as the father of her 12-month-old daughter.
 A "declaration of paternity" was granted by a High Court Family Division judge in proceedings started last month on behalf of Angela Ermakova's child Anna.
 Becker, who at first denied being the father, agreed last month that he was the father following DNA tests. He issued a statement saying he would take responsibility for Anna and would contribute to her future as a "happy girl."
 
 
Cruelty to Animals
 

WACO, Texas (AP) - Two Baylor baseball players were charged with cruelty to animals after police found a skinned cat head in the back seat of a car.
 Pitcher Derek Brehm and outfielder Clint Bowers were arrested March 9 after police received complaints about cats being shot in a Waco neighborhood, police spokesman Larry Murphy said.
 Waco TV station KCEN reported that police found a cat's head next to an air rifle in the car. The rest of the cat was found nearby.
 The school is looking into the case, and the players will remain on the team in the meantime.
 Brehm and Bowers each face up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine if convicted.
 Brehm, a sophomore from San Antonio East Central, is a three-time All-State pitcher. Bowers, a junior from Robinson High School, previously attended McLennan Community College.
 
 
U.S. Protests China Bid
 

WASHINGTON (AP) - China should not be allowed to hold the 2008 Olympics because its "abominable human rights record violates the spirit of the games," a bipartisan group of House members declared Wednesday.
 Representative Tom Lantos, the House International Relations Committee's top Democrat, quoted the State Department's annual Human Rights Report, which said China's human rights record has worsened in the last year as the regime continued to commit "numerous serious abuses."
 "Just when you thought that China's human rights situation could not get any worse, it has," said Lantos, who introduced a nonbinding resolution on the China Olympics bid.
 Beijing is competing with Toronto, Paris, Osaka, Japan, and Istanbul, Turkey for the right to hold the 2008 Summer Olympics. The International Olympic Committee will select the host July 13.
 
 
Sweden Selects Roster
 

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - NHL All-Stars Peter Forsberg, Markus Naslund, Mats Sundin and Nicklas Lidstrom were among 10 players selected Wednesday for Sweden's Olympic hockey team.
 Goalie Tommy Salo, enjoying his best NHL season with the Edmonton Oilers, Mattias Ohlund of the Vancouver Canucks, Mattias Norstrom of the Los Angeles Kings, and Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators also were chosen.
 Two former NHL players, Mikael Renberg and Jorgen Jonsson, round out the group announced by head coach Hardy Nilsson and general manager Anders Hedberg.
 Forsberg also played on the 1994 Olympic team at Lillehammer, Norway, scoring the winner as Sweden beat Canada for the gold.
 Sundin is headed to his second Olympics after playing on Sweden's fifth-place team in Nagano three years ago.
 Sweden was the first of six countries - those with automatic berths for the 2002 Olympics - to announce part of its roster.
 Russia will make its announcement on Thursday, Canada and Finland on Friday, and defending Olympic champion Czech Republic on Sunday, the deadline. The United States is expected to release its early roster on Saturday. 



TITLE: Trampoline Has City Jumping
AUTHOR: By Molly Graves and Galya Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Starting Friday, St. Petersburg athletes will be part of the high-flying action at the Winter Stadium as the trampolines and mats are set up for the 2001 Russian Championship in Trampoline, Double-mini Trampoline, and Tumbling, which will run from March 23 to 25, culminating in the individual finals and the awarding of the Russian Cup in all areas Sunday.
 Though the trampoline itself has been around for some 65 years, its popularity, which was once limited because of careless accidents and fearful parents, has recently rebounded after becoming an instant success in Sydney. 
 After years of being relegated to the backyard, trampoline made its debut as an official Olympic sport in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where the Russians soared to new heights, sweeping all possible gold medals.
 Participants in this weekend's championship will include the world's best bouncers in the little-known but fast-growing new Olympic sport: Olympic gold medalists Irina Karavayeva and Alexander Moskalenko of Krasnodar, Russia's leading training center.
 Local athletes from the St. Petersburg Trampoline Federation's two co-functioning trampoline halls, which are ranked second-best in Russia, have a good chance of sweeping up medals, too. 
 But looking to the future, St. Petersburg coach Lyubov Bakina can't hide her worries. &quot;In recent years, the [trampoline training] schools have been closing down because of a lack of funding, leaving Russia with only nine [trampoline] centers,&quot; she said.
 In addition, Russia may face a shortage of coaches, as athletes either opt to move abroad or are forced to make other career choices after they stop competing. &quot;[The athletes] say they will go elsewhere,&quot; she complains. &quot;Nobody wants to end up with a miserable salary. There are not many opportunities for us to make money - we are not a commercialized sport like soccer or hockey. We will never pack full houses.&quot;
 But European Championship bronze medalist Pavel Chikov, 18, is hopeful for the future of Russia's trampolinists, saying that he himself is not interested in moving abroad, and hopes to work one day as a coach in St. Petersburg. 
 &quot;I am not ready to be a coach right now. I'm still too young and impatient. But as I gain maturity, I would love to share my skills with those who are just starting out.&quot;
 
 <i>Zimnii Stadion, Manezhnaya Pl., Metro Gostiny Dvor, tickets cost 10 rubles. </i>

TITLE: New Insulin Treatment on the Horizon
AUTHOR: By Deena Beasley
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - Diabetes sufferers may soon be able to take quick puffs of insulin rather than painful shots, clearing the way for easier treatment of the increasingly prevalent disease.
 &quot;It looks like a promising treatment, although it is not yet approved by the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]. I like it especially for older people and young children,&quot; said Dr. Robert Sherwin, president of the American Diabetes Association and a professor of medicine at Yale University.
 Several companies including Pfizer Inc., Eli Lilly and Co. and Denmark-based Novo Nordisk are conducting clinical trials of systems to deliver inhaled forms of insulin, the hormone that controls blood glucose levels. Some are also working to develop inhaled versions of other injected drugs such as the painkiller morphine, but insulin is expected to be the first of the new category on the U.S. market.
 Diabetes, which afflicts an estimated 16 million people in the United States alone, causes a decline in insulin production that is needed to process food sugars, resulting in high levels of glucose in the blood and urine. If untreated, it can lead to blindness, heart disease or other serious ailments.
 Type 1 diabetes, which starts in childhood and leaves people dependent on insulin for life, accounts for 5 to 10 percent of U.S. cases. The vast majority are Type 2, or adult-onset diabetes. A number of these patients take other medications to control blood sugar while exercising and watching their diets to keep the disease in check, but many - some estimates say 40 percent - eventually need supplementary insulin.
 Type 2 diabetes is becoming an epidemic owing to the aging of the American population, higher rates of obesity and sedentary lifestyles, according to the Diabetes Association.
 Pfizer and Aventis expect to finish a pivotal-stage trial of Exubera in patients with both types of diabetes this year. Lilly is in Phase II trials with Dura Pharmaceuticals, recently purchased by Elan Corp., to develop a motorized cassette delivery system for inhaled insulin using Dura's Spiros technology, while Novo Nordisk is working with Aradigm Corp.'s AERx pulmonary drug delivery system to develop an inhalable insulin.
 Data from a mid-stage trial of the Pfizer product published last month concluded that patients with Type 1 diabetes could be given inhaled insulin before meals as a less invasive alternative to conventional insulin injections.
 A research team led by the University of Miami School of Medicine's Dr. Jay Skyler reported indistinguishable responses between patients taking Exubera and those receiving insulin injections during the 12-week trial.
 The Lancet, which published the study, also ran an editorial by diabetes specialist Dr. Edwin Gale at England's University of Bristol, expressing skepticism that short-acting inhaled insulin is appropriate for Type 1 diabetics. The editorial also suggested that it is too early to conclude that inhaled insulin is as good as conventional injections.
 Inhale Therapeutic Systems maintains that one advantage of its technology over other oral insulin delivery systems is that the dry powder formulation is absorbed naturally into the lungs, without the need for artificial enhancers.
 In a separate study led by Skyler and Dr. William Cefalu of the University of Vermont College of Medicine, 26 Type 2 diabetics received inhaled insulin before each meal in addition to a bedtime injection. The three-month study also found that pulmonary delivery of insulin improved glycemic control, was well tolerated and did not lead to adverse pulmonary effects.

TITLE: Pakistan Crackdown Continues
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistani police said on Thursday they released some of the senior politicians detained the previous day, but democracy activists said a military clamp down on political activities continued.
 Police said of 28 senior politicians from the 16-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), detained after a meeting in Lahore on Wednesday, only 10 remained in custody after the rest were freed overnight.
 The alliance says at least 1,650 of its political workers have been arrested over the last two days, in what commentators say is the biggest crackdown on Pakistan's political parties since the army seized power in October 1999.
 Alliance chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, among those temporarily detained in Lahore, capital of Pakistan's populous Punjab province, said three of the group's leaders were also expelled from Punjab.
 Police did not say if any of the other political activists detained in Punjab in recent days had been freed.
 Nasrullah Khan, an 83-year-old veteran democracy activist, and Javed Hashmi, acting leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of exiled ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, were released hours after their detention.
 Nasrullah Khan said the ARD was determined to press ahead with plans for a major pro-democracy rally on Friday at Mochi Gate in Lahore, the site of political meetings during British colonial rule.
 Witnesses said police at major entry points to the city of Lahore were screening people on Thursday to stop political activists from gathering in the city. But hundreds had already arrived in Lahore despite the checks, political sources said.
 Scores of policemen were stationed near the locked entrance to the site of the rally, set for 3 p.m. on Friday, witnesses said.
 The rally is meant to kick off an anti-government campaign by the ARD, which includes rivals the PML and the Pakistan Peoples Party of self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
 Bhutto has called the police action &quot;brutal and barbaric&quot; and urged the world community to put pressure on the government to release the detainees.
 The military-led government of General Pervez Musharraf banned public rallies ahead of a visit last year by former U.S. president Bill Clinton. The ban remained in place after the visit although the government says parties can hold in-door meetings.
 Musharraf's press secretary Major General Rashid Qureshi was reported on Thursday as saying that the government would not allow the alliance to hold its March 23 rally.
 &quot;We can no longer afford to put the process of stability and execution of our policies framed in the best national interest at risk, just to appease political activists,&quot; Qureshi was quoted as saying by the News daily.
 But ARD, Pakistan's main political alliance, wants Musharraf to hold national elections immediately.
 &quot;ARD can claim that they represent public opinion in the country,&quot; Nasrullah Khan said, adding the alliance was demanding free and fair elections this year.
 Musharraf says he intends to meet a deadline set by the Supreme Court for elections by October 2002. He is holding local council elections in phases, the second of which was Thursday.
 The government says local bodies would be strengthened and given more autonomy as part of a devolution plan but ARD has rejected the local council elections in which political parties cannot participate.

TITLE: Russian Teen Climbing Tennis Ranks
AUTHOR: By Steven Wine
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KEY BISCAYNE, Florida - Elena Bovina, a 1.86-meter-tall Russian who cracked the top 100 in women's tennis this week, is finished growing. She's not ready to stop climbing.
 The 18-year-old Bovina won her first-round match Wednesday at the Ericsson Open, beating Ruxandra Dra gomir Ilie 6-1, 7-6.
 Bovina rose to 99th in the rankings by reaching the quarterfinals last week at Indian Wells. She's one of eight Russian women in the top 100, a record for her country.
 Bovina is also one of the tallest players on the tour, but expects no more growth spurts, and she's glad.
 &quot;Phew, I had a lot of problems, not only with my knees but with elbows and ankles and all that stuff,&quot; said Bovina, whose slightly broken English only enhances her teenage charm. 
 Bovina is healthy now and into the second round, where she'll face another talented youngster, 18-year-old Justine Henin of Belgium.
 All of the tournament's seeded players had a first-round bye, which made for a lackluster opening day. The sparse crowd stirred when Andre Agassi walked onto stadium court late in the afternoon to practice.
 Bovina is part of a burgeoning Russian tennis scene, which only begins with Anna Kournikova. Elena Dementieva, 19, is ranked 11th; Lina Kratnorutskaya is ranked 61st at age 16; and the juniors program is thriving. Even so, the teenager said, practice partners can be extremely tough to find when she's visiting home in Moscow.
 &quot;You take your book and find the telephone and you call this one and this one and like for maybe two hours you try to find someone,&quot; she said. &quot;And there's nobody.
 &quot;Then you choose a girl who is three years younger than you because you just need to see a girl on the opposite side. And she can't even hit the ball. So, like, whatever. Who cares anyway?&quot;
 Bovina, whose father won a silver medal in polo at the 1968 Olympics, took up tennis in Morocco when she was only 3 or 4 years old. Her father worked at the Russian Embassy, while her older sister was a budding tennis player there.
 &quot;She was practicing every day, and I was just running and picking up balls for her,&quot; Bovina said. &quot;The coach asked, 'Just try to play to hit a ball.' I hit it with the backhand so good, it flew just down the line.
 &quot;He's like, 'Whoa, you should try.' I'm like, O.K..&quot;