SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #672 (39), Friday, May 25, 2001
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TITLE: Duma Gets Tough on Political Parties
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A bill with the power to wipe out the majority of the country's political parties and put the remaining few under close government scrutiny was passed by the State Duma in the second and crucial reading Thursday.
Amendments to the bill made it even more rigid than the harshly criticized draft submitted by President Vladimir Putin and approved in a first reading this winter.
Deputies considered 1,600 amendments in Thursday's session, which stretched late into the evening.
According to the bill, which passed 261 to 56, only an organization registered as a "political party" will have the right to participate in elections on any level - from regional to federal.
To become a party, a group would have to open branches in at least half of Russia's 89 regions, with no fewer than 100 members in each region and an overall minimal membership of 10,000. On Thursday the deputies went a step further, stipulating that any branches opened in the remaining regions have at least 50 members.
This provision is bound to wipe out the majority of the 188 existing parties, whose membership falls far below the requested minimum. Statistics are scarce, and the only ones to come up with membership figures were the Communists, who say they have 300,000 members.
Pro-Kremlin Unity is shy about disclosing its membership numbers, as are all the other Duma parties. Yab loko and the Union of Right Forces are estimated to have between 5,000 and 10,000.
But analysts agree that the veteran Duma parties will manage to boost their membership in the two years given as a transition period. Other major parties include Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the Agrarians, allies of the Communists.
The ones condemned to certain extinction are the regional parties, who will lose the right to participate even in local elections.
These changes correspond with Putin's efforts to centralize political life and limit the power of the regions. They further the president's wish to see "order" imposed on the diverse Russian political scene, which will soon have clearly defined parties numbering in the single digits.
Some have already read the writing on the wall and started merging - the Union of Right Forces will hold its founding congress this Saturday in order to transform form a loose coalition of small parties into a large political organization (see page 4).
Even those parties that survive will not have an easy time of it. They will have to submit their books for yearly inspection to the Tax Police, who will also have the right to check their finances throughout the year.
The government will further have the right to ask for the personal data of party members in order to check whether a party has the required 10,000 members. And if a party does not participate in two elections in a row, it risks closure.
Under the bill passed Thursday, a party's charter and political program can be scrutinized by the Justice Ministry, which will have the right to suspend the party or ask for its closure.
Liberal lawmakers' only success Thursday was the passage of two amendments forbidding the closure of a party after the date of parliamentary elections has been announced or after the party has received its Duma mandate.
The only real battle was fought over an amendment allowing private citizens to give cash contributions to the parties - a provision the Kremlin's representatives fought hard against, accusing the Duma of enabling contributors to launder money through the parties.
Another option for parties is to seek state campaign funding, available to all parties that gather more than 3 percent of the vote. Under the bill passed Thursday, the state will pay 0.005 minimum wages, or about 1 ruble, for every vote - 2 1/2 times more than was initially envisaged.
And a party that goes through all this trouble to have its representatives elected to the government will face a recommendation that ministers or other state functionaries "should not be tied by their party's policies when making their decisions."
Many of them - judges, prosecutors, justice officials, members of various secret services and even simple policemen - will not be allowed to be party members at all.
Georgy Satarov, the head of the INDEM think tank who was once a political adviser to former president Boris Yeltsin, said the Kremlin's wish was "not to improve the party system, but to make presidential and governmental influence on parties more efficient."
So why did the majority of deputies vote for such a bill?
According to Andrei Ryabov, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center, the explanation is another "historical compromise" made by the political elite with the Kremlin.
"They have just made themselves a virtually unchangeable political elite, closed to all outsiders, in exchange for their cooperative attitude toward the Kremlin," he said in a telephone interview Thursday.
"It will be very difficult to form a new party now, so their position is secure. They will have limited powers, but whatever they have will now be guaranteed for a long time to come."
SPS Deputy Boris Nadezhdin agreed the vote was "a huge victory for the Kremlin" and said it meant "the end of liberal politics in Russia."
TITLE: City Day: Carnivals, Crafts and Old Ships
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This weekend, it finally happens: Governor Vladimir Yakovlev loses his job. And one of his ties.
Sunday, May 27, is City Day, the annual celebration of St. Petersburg by its residents, and this year will be marked by the city's biggest carnival yet. Seven thousand children and adults will dress up and begin an all-day jamboree at midday by parading from Ploshchad Vosstaniya down Nevsky Prospect to Palace Square - at which point Yakovlev will have his tie cut off, don a hat and uniform complete with epaulettes, assume the title of field marshall and cede power to the carnival for a day.
It's all part of what is being billed as a warm-up for the city's 300th anniversary taking place in 2003, according to Vasily Kozak, press spokesperson for the City Culture Committee, which is overseeing the day's events.
Instead of the usual festivities, therefore, the emphasis of the day will be on the carnival. "Participants in the carnival are mostly comprised of members of the Houses of Culture in various districts," said Dmitry Dmit riyev, the head of the Guild of Masters organization, which is directing the carnival. "They have been rehearsing the show for more than two months."
Representatives of the best individual group within the carnival will be presented by Yakovlev with a certificate to travel to one of the major carnivals in the world.
Moving out of the city - but into a favorite spot for the locals - the fountains at Peterhof will be turned on at 12 p.m., a popular event that traditionally marks the "real" beginning of summer.
Back in St. Petersburg and starting shortly after 3 p.m., Palace Square will host a dance marathon of groups from Russia, Finland, Estonia, L ithua nia, Georgia and elsewhere, while at 4:45 p.m. the winner of the competition for the best costume of the day will be announced.
When all's said and done, however, St. Petersburg remains a sailors' town, and Sunday will witness an array of nautical events to honor that fact. The "Parade of Sails" regatta will begin at 12 p.m. at the Peter and Paul Fortress, while the Shtandart - the replica of a frigate built by Peter the Great - will complete a months-long training voyage and sail up to the fortress at around 2:30 p.m.
The fortress will also be hosting a crafts festival at which the city's blacksmiths, potters, shipbuilders and other artisans will be demonstrating their skills and inviting members of the public to try imitating them.
Almost as nautical is the beach volleyball contest that begins at 12 p.m. on Saturday - also around the Peter and Paul Fortress - and continues into Sunday, comprising teams from various city youth organizations.
The festivities will be rounded off by the usual fireworks display, so seek out a good vantage point along the Neva's embankment at 11 p.m.
The weather forecast is for sunshine, with a low of 6 degrees Celsius and a high of 13 degrees.
TITLE: Russia Backs Off Pollutants Deal
AUTHOR: By Tom Masters
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia outraged environmentalists worldwide on Wednesday by refusing to sign the International Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Stockholm, Sweden, which environmentalists and governments have been working toward for more than two years.
The move represented a backtrack from Russia's stated position in December, when it said it would sign the treaty.
Ivan Blokov, director of Greenpeace Russia, described the Russian delegation's action as "a scandalous decision, bringing shame on the Russian nation," in a telephone interview on Thursday. He added that the government's decision was based on one obvious factor: money.
"The government does not want to spend the money necessary to clean itself up - it's that simple," Blokov said.
The cost of eliminating the toxic industrial by-products outlawed by the treaty is estimated at some $180 million - a sum that the government is unwilling to pay, despite the demonstrable health risks that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) present to the Russian population on the Baltic Sea.
Among these risks are high levels of cancer, immune deficiencies, low regional birth weights and even genetic mutations.
Nonetheless, the two-day conference in the Swedish capital ended with some 91 countries signing the global agreement, which grew out of the 1974 Hel sinki Convention to protect the Baltic Sea. Canada, the first country to sign the treaty, has already ratified it, as did the United States.
The Russian delegation, according to a conference press release, said that Russia was committed to signing the agreement "in the near future, with financial and technical assistance [from other countries]." The terms and amount of financial help were not specified.
Despite Russia's refusal to sign, environmentalists were upbeat about the outcome of the convention.
"Greenpeace welcomes the treaty and expects all non-signatories to sign up, with the exception of Russia, whose position is as yet uncertain," said Matilda Bradshaw, the Greenpeace International Press Secretary, by telephone from Amsterdam.
"We see that the commitment to POPs elimination is there, but to avoid the POPs crisis in the Baltic, it is vital that Russia signs the treaty sooner rather than later."
Indeed, the Russian refusal comes at a time when a clearer - and more morbid - picture of of the health hazards associated with POPs is emerging.
A report published by Greenpeace International in Amsterdam last month outlines the dangers that 50 years of heavy industry have brought to the Baltics, and calls Russia - one of the biggest polluters - out on the carpet for its disinterest in accepting responsibility.
POPs are a large and varied group of manmade chemicals, many of which are a by-product of industrial processes, particularly waste incineration and the use of chlorine chemistry in industry. POPs are stable compounds, often formed from chlorine and carbon molecules, and their stability makes them uniquely long-lived, not breaking down easily in the environment unlike organic compounds.
Instead of breaking down, POPs build up in the environment, particularly in human and animal fats, from where they can affect organisms directly in a number of harmful ways.
While POPs are a global problem, it was in the Baltic in the 1970s that scientists first realized to what degree POP pollution had become a threat to human and animal health.
The Baltic Sea, fed by more than 200 rivers, is a unique marine environment, as its water lacks the salinity needed for many saltwater fish, at the same time being too salty for freshwater fish. The Baltic thus acts as an early warning system for other seas, as its ecosystem is more vulnerable to environmental stress, since there are relatively few species performing all the functions in its ecosystem.
As humans are at the top of the food chain, they absorb POPs from the environment, as well as from fatty foods such as fish, meat and dairy products from affected areas.
The Greenpeace report documents the adverse health effects caused by consumption of products contaminated with POPs, including high rates of breast, cervical, stomach and skin cancer in adults, reduced birth weights in children of mothers who eat Baltic fish as well as lower IQs and immune system deficiencies.
The report warns that exposure to POPs is related to location, and that the entire littoral population of the Baltic - some 90 million people, including the inhabitants of St. Petersburg - are at risk from health threats that are still far from being fully understood.
The situation has become so worrying over the last 10 years that the Swedish and Finnish governments have issued health warnings to their citizens about the consumption of fish from the Baltic. But although the same levels of toxicity exist in the Gulf of Finland, the Russian government has issued no such health warnings to the local population.
Alexei Kisilyov, a toxics expert for Greenpeace Russia based in Moscow, explained that there are a number of "hot-spots" producing toxic pollutants that would have to be banned under the Stockholm Convention in and around St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast.
"The country is big and there is no money - it's as simple as that," he said.
"In St. Petersburg, the problem is pronounced - cows graze and children play right next to waste incinerators and nobody wants to admit there is a problem."
TITLE: Borodin Defends Silence Before Swiss Prosecutors
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Former Kremlin property manager Pavel Borodin said his refusal to respond to Swiss investigators' questions doesn't mean he's guilty - just that he doesn't want to implicate others.
Borodin, accused by the Swiss of accepting $30 million in kickbacks, criticized the persistence of the Swiss investigators in an interview in the Izvestia newspaper and on ORT television on Monday.
Borodin stayed silent during questioning in Geneva by Swiss authorities on Thursday.
"I had nothing to say," he said on television. "I didn't violate laws in Switzerland."
He insisted on his innocence, but would not give details about his dealings with the two Swiss companies that allegedly gave him bribes in exchange for lucrative Kremlin contracts - Mercata and Mabetex.
"If I name a single last name, the investigation would immediately get a new impulse," Borodin was quoted by Izvestia as saying. "If I say that I met with them, then the Swiss will decide that those people and I had cooked up some new scheme."
Borodin, 54, was arrested on a Swiss warrant Jan. 17 at New York's Kennedy Airport. After a New York judge denied him bail, he agreed to be flown to Switzerland in April rather than face a lengthy extradition battle from his U.S. prison cell.
After six days in Swiss custody he was freed on a 5 million franc ($3 million) bail bond, and he returned to Russia immediately. He must, however, be present when required by Swiss authorities. His lawyers said Borodin will be questioned again in June.
Russian authorities dropped their own case against Borodin in December.
Borodin was removed from his Kremlin post by President Vladimir Putin in 1999. He now holds a largely ceremonial office of secretary of the Russia-Belarus union.
TITLE: Vice Governor Sunk Over Shady Dealings
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Governor Vladimir Yakovlev is trying to pressure the resignation of Economics Committee chairman Vice Governor Anatoly Alexashin over what sources describe as the committee's history of slipshod work and shady financial dealings.
Plans to jettison Aleksashin, however, have been thwarted by the fact that he has been on official sick leave -according to Economics Committee spokesperson Tatyana Otyugova - since May 4 in a Moscow hospital with an as yet unexplained illness.
Under Russian law, that means Aleksashin is guaranteed his paycheck for four months, if he remains on sick leave. At the end of four months, he can be legally fired.
A City Hall source close to the events said Yakovlev's reinvigorated push to shunt Aleksashin out of his administration began with the appearance in late April of an Audit Chamber report indicating a myriad of questionable transactions with a number of research organizations commissioned to conduct economic studies.
According to the audit chamber report - a copy of which was obtained by The St. Petersburg Times - 99 think tanks were hired last year alone by the Economics Committee, for a total cost of $3.6 million. All of the firms were hired without tenders, which is a violation of the city's budget code.
Examples from the Audit Chamber's report include a study conducted by the Shakti research center, which examined the economic sense of promoting the mineral water brand Naftusya to improve the health of the city. The results were inconclusive and the study cost the city budget $20,000.
The report also said that the Economics Committee spent another $103,000 on a contract with the NEOS research firm to develop security systems that check for radioactive materials for use in airports and at border checkpoints in the Northwest.
According to the Audit Chamber inspection, however, none of the equipment from the NEOS project has even been tested yet. None of these three firms could be reached for comment.
Still other projects financed by the economics committee included a study on improving automobile breaks as well as a study devoted to finding the cure for cancer and the German measles, the report said.
"The Committee is financing studies that couldn't possibly have an impact on the city's economic development," said Audit Chamber head German Sha lya pin in an interview on Wednesday.
Shalyapin said the City Prosecutor's Office has requested a copy of the Audit Chamber report. Prosecutor's Office spokes person Yelena Antonova said they had received the documents, which will be under investigation for a month.
Vladimir Patrin, who oversees research contracts at the Economics Committee, said all the contracts were legal and proper.
"I don't want to make any excuses. The only person I would make excuses to is the governor, but I can prove that everything has been done right. It's just too earlier to say anything yet," he said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
"As for Naftusya water, they asked for 1.5 million rubles to finance the works at first. And how can you tell what is big money? What is the criteria for judging if money is big or not?"
According to the City Hall source, Yakovlev has been angling for Aleksashin's head even before the appearance of the Audit Chamber report, for what he considered to be Aleksashin's slap-dash work habits.
"[Aleksashin] hasn't done many things Yakovlev ordered his committee to do," said the source in an interview on Wednesday.
"One of these was a forecast for St. Petersburg's economic development [leading up] to 2003. Aleksashin was asked by the governor to do this ages ago, but nothing has been done. As a result, the city is moving somewhere [economically] but nobody knows where," the source said.
Yakovlev's spokesperson Alexander Afanasyev in a telephone interview Wednesday would not confirm or deny that the ouster was under way.
TITLE: Danish Agency Funds Cleanup Project
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Danish Agency for Protection of the Environment this week allocated $1 million to fund the completion of sewage facilities at the beleaguered Kras ny Bor toxic waste dump.
Located 20 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, the Krasny Bor facility is the main dumping point for industrial and toxic waste for factories located in the city and the surrounding Leningrad Oblast.
For years, it has been hovering on the edge of overflow - an eventuality that would poison the Neva River, hundreds of square kilometers of ground water, as well as pose risks to Lake Ladoga.
"We'll spend this money for recultivation of the 50 hectares of land, which was given to us in 1969 and has been made a pigsty since then," said Vladimir Vovchanov, the Krasny Bor storage director, in a telephone interview on Thursday.
During a signing ceremony for the agreement on Monday, George Rasmussen, Denmark's consul general, said that he was "convinced that this region would have problems on a large scale if no measures were taken."
"The Danish Agency for Protection of the Environment reacted immediately, mobilizing all forces to continue the project for recultivation [at Krasny Bor] with EBRD participation," he said. The Danish agency spends some $10 million a year in Russia alone to help fund various environmental clean-up projects.
According to Vovchanov, the total cost of the Krasny Bor revamp project is $10.2 million, which would be financed by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, or EBRD, together with the Danish Agency for Protection of the Environment.
Opened in 1969 as a temporary storage for only five years, Krasny Bor became a permanent dump for toxic industrial waste.
In the 30 years of its existence, 1.5 million tons of toxic waste have poured into Krasny Bor, making the threat of overflow from its six tanks more and more possible.
According to environmentalists, Krasny Bor reached the end of its rope six years ago and has been dangerously overloaded ever since.
"According to a [federal] government decree, all those factories and plants not corresponding to ecological regulations should be closed down or brought up to standard," Vovchanov said.
"That's what we are doing now, cleaning the land."
TITLE: 2 Escaped Prisoners Remain on the Loose
AUTHOR: By Masha Kaminskaya
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: All but two of the 20 detainees and prisoners who broke free from two remand jails in the Leningrad Oblast on Monday have been recaptured, police said on Thursday.
Those caught include all six men who escaped from the remand prison of the regional police station in Volosovo, southwest of St. Petersburg. Interfax reported that one of the men was turned in by his relatives. The men broke free in the early hours of Monday morning by sawing through the bars of their cell. Pyotr Mazyarkin, head of Volosovo police, refused to comment further.
Another 12 jailbreakers who broke down the wall of their remand cell - located in a crumbling 19th-century police station - in the suburb town of Gatchina have also been retaken.
According to Alexander Konev, chief of police headquarters in Gat chi na, police are confident of their chances of finding the remaining two escapees. One of them - 44-year-old Rashid Ka sha pov, who was under arrest on charges of robbery - is a native of Kazan, in Central Russia. Police surmise that Kashapov, who is unfamiliar with the Gatchina area and who they describe as distinctive in appearance, will be easier to find, Konev said.
The other man still on the run is Vla di mir Shchelkunov, 30, who is charged with assault and manslaughter.
"It is possible that the two might have already left the region," said Ko nev. "There are hundreds of [policemen] involved in the search, [which is covering] practically the entire area. But we are also counting on help from our colleagues across Russia, who all have full descriptions of the escapees. The search is on even in the Far East."
According to Konev, police have also received assistance from local residents. One of those caught, 23-year-old Ivan Petrov, who is charged with theft, turned himself in on Monday evening - the day of the breakout - at the police precinct in the town of Kommunar in the Gatchina region, after his relatives convinced him that by doing so he would receive a lighter sentence. Escaping from jail could add up to eight years' imprisonment to a future sentence.
After the two breakouts, police issued a message via radio and television stations and the press that the courts would take it into consideration if a detainee came back of his own accord. Konev said that this would reduce the added sentence by at least half.
He also said that a court would consider all the circumstances of the escape after an investigation. "There are certain laws in the criminal world that convicts or ex-convicts abide by,"he said. "[Petrov] may have been forced to escape with the others."
Twenty-nine people were being held in the Gatchina cell, which was meant for only 14.
Vladimir Loskutov, head supervisor of investigations with the Leningrad Oblast Prosecutor's Office, said that a criminal case will be initiated against those who allowed the breakout to happen, adding that the probe would involve guards and those in charge at the prisons.
"We are looking into possible professional negligence on the part of the guards, and will initiate a case when we have received the results of internal investigations in Volosovo and Gat chi na," Loskutov said.
Konev ruled out any involvement of prison guards in the Gatchina breakout, however. He added that the construction of a new jail in Gatchina, which could operate as a remand center for the entire southern part of the oblast, was supposed to have been completed several years ago but had stalled owing to lack of funds.
"This project would have met all the requirements of a detention center," he said. "If it had been built, nobody would have ever been able to break out of it."
TITLE: Train-Bus Collision Claims 12 Victims
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A train plowed into a passenger bus in Kaliningrad on Wednesday, killing 12 people and injuring 18, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Viktor Beltsov, a ministry spokes person, said the collision occurred at a rail crossing near the village of Ovrazhnoye in the western enclave.
Nine of the passengers were killed on the spot, and three more died in the hospital, Beltsov said.
The train did not jump the tracks, ORT television reported. The bus was crushed beyond repair, it said.
The Railways Ministry blamed the accident on the bus driver, saying he passed several vehicles that were waiting for the train to pass and ran a red light at the railroad crossing to drive onto the tracks, Itar-Tass reported.
The ministry also said the driver had had his license suspended for drunken driving and was driving on a temporary permit Wednesday. The report could not be immediately confirmed.
The bus driver survived the crash and was taken to a local police station for questioning, Beltsov said.
TITLE: Moscow Still on Money Blacklist
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In a move to take the country off an international money-laundering blacklist, the State Duma gave tentative approval Thursday to a bill to create an agency to monitor financial transactions.
Lawmakers voted 256-25 with three abstentions to pass the bill in first reading. The vote comes less than a month before the Financial Action Task Force issues a new list of banking havens for money laundering. FATF was established by a Group of Seven summit in 1989 to examine measures to combat money laundering.
"Russia, along with Lebanon and Nauru, is one of the three states that remain on the list, and FATF will meet for a session to discuss sanctions against countries that do not cooperate with the international community on money-laundering issues," Alexander Shokhin, head of the Duma banking committee, told NTV television Wednesday night.
The money-laundering bill is scheduled to come up for a second reading June 27 or 28, a week after the June 20-22 FATF session that will release a fresh list of countries that could face sanctions for failing to tackle the issue.
Although the Duma passed in April the European Convention on Money Laundering - a treaty Russia signed in 1999 - the lack of a money-laundering law may leave FATF unconvinced about removing Russia from its list.
Last year, Russia was labeled a "noncooperative jurisdiction" in the list, which initially included 15 countries. That list was later revised to three.
"The Central and Eastern European region continues to be cited as a significant source for what are believed to be criminal proceeds, as well as the criminals involved in what appear to be laundering schemes," FATF said in a report issued in February.
The bill passed Thursday - cumbersomely titled "On countermeasures to combat the legalization of income of criminal origin" - is a weakened version of a bill torpedoed in 1999 by then-President Boris Yeltsin.
The former version was sponsored by Duma security committee head Viktor Iliukhin, a Communist, and was considered by Yeltsin to be draconian.
The FATF, frustrated with Russia's failure to keep criminal activity in check, put the country on its list in June 2000.
A month later, President Vladimir Putin ordered that the old bill be resubmitted to the Duma.
The revised version calls for the creation of a government agency to monitor suspicious deals such as cash transactions and the purchase of real estate abroad. All cash transactions worth more than 500,000 rubles ($17,200) and real estate deals of over 2.5 million rubles would be subject to scrutiny.
The agency would have 200 employees and an annual budget of 66 million rubles ($2.3 million).
The bill does not specify if the agency, described in four pages of the draft law, would answer to a ministry or be independent.
The agency would be created six months after the bill is signed into law by Putin and published in the official state newspaper. The legislation needs to pass a third reading in the Duma and then be approved by the Federation Council.
The bill faces a tough ride. Communists, Liberal Democrats and the Union of Right Forces have slammed it, and even the security committee is offended.
The Duma Council decided in late April to put the banking committee in charge of drafting the money-laundering bill instead of the security committee.
"People are offended. Duma members of our committee are offended," Alexander Gurov, a Unity deputy and current head of the Duma security committee, told the Rusbalt news agency earlier this week.
Banking committee head Shokhin defended the assignment of the bill to his committee, saying this week that the legislation should not be "mentovskii," or the type of law seen in a police state.
The Union of Right Forces voted Thursday against the bill, arguing that it contained too many measures that could be used to stifle economic activity by the enforcement bodies.
On Wednesday, the banking lobby, led by the Association of Russian Banks, said serious amendments needed to be made to the bill.
"Banks will not be able to operate under such conditions," Probizinesbank board chairman Alexander Zheleznyak said. "Banking clerks should not become policemen."
Russia is not unique in its attempts to spruce up its image with money-laundering legislation. Lebanon passed a money-laundering law in early April, Malaysia enacted one earlier this week, while the Seychelles signed in March a letter of commitment to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to "work toward the international standards to eliminate harmful tax competition."
TITLE: SPS Politicians Split on Workings of New Party
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Union of Right Forces, the largest liberal political organization in the country, will transform itself into a full-fledged political party at its congress on Saturday.
But the step, which could potentially strengthen the liberals, has met opposition from several prominent members of the Union of Right Forces, or SPS. They object to plans to impose strict party discipline and fear SPS will grow ever closer to the Kremlin, with party leaders becoming too willing to sacrifice democratic principles in return for influence within the government bureaucracy.
The transformation into a party is meant to help SPS survive if parliament passes the bill regulating political parties, which passed its second reading Thursday. The bill is designed to limit the number of parties by permitting only national parties with substantial membership to participate in elections.
Formed in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 1999, SPS was a broad coalition of nine small organizations and included all of Russia's liberals, with the exception of Grigory Yavlinsky and his Yabloko party. The coalition brought together Thatcherites such as Yegor Gaidar, "young reformers" such as Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov and prominent human-rights advocates such as Sergei Kovalyov.
All nine organizations have disbanded in the past few weeks to allow their members to join the ranks of the new party.
The party's operating mode was recently revealed by one of its leaders, Irina Khakamada. All decisions within the party will be made by simple majority, and only the most important ones will require a two-thirds majority, she said in an interview published Monday in the Vremya Novostei daily. Party decisions will be binding, presumably including how members should vote on legislation.
The party will be led by a political council headed by a "leader" who will conduct most of the everyday bureaucratic and political work, Khakamada said. But the party will keep its current five co-chairmen, she added.
Nemtsov, who heads the SPS faction in the State Duma, is widely considered the most likely choice for leader. The other co-chairpersons are Gaidar, Chu bais, Khakamada and Sergei Kiriyenko.
The structure has proven too rigid for two prominent SPS members, "first-wave" democrats and human-rights advocates Kovalyov and Sergei Yushen kov, who say they will not join the new party.
"The charter that will be passed is undemocratic," Yushenkov said in a telephone interview Monday, explaining his decision. "It follows all of Lenin's principles of party-building."
Even some of his less rebellious colleagues, who are staying with SPS, tend to agree. "The party model is a bit like the army: maximum discipline, centralization, limited rights for the regional party branches," SPS Duma Deputy Viktor Pokhmelkin said in an interview also published Monday in Vremya Novostei. "The decisions are made by majority and are obligatory for everybody."
But Yushenkov's main worry is that in spite of its liberal rhetoric, "the essence of SPS's future policies will be servility to the Kremlin." He predicted it will become "just another edition of Unity," the openly pro-Kremlin party.
SPS leaders have maintained that they are conducting a "pragmatic liberal" policy of opposing the Kremlin on issues where opposition, in their eyes, is needed and cooperating with it when their aims coincide.
Yury Korgunyk, political analyst with INDEM, sees nothing wrong with such a policy. "SPS is developing into a spokesperson for the interests of entrepreneurs, a sort of bourgeois party," he said by telephone on Wednesday.
This has brought SPS further into the governing structures than its size in the Duma would seem to justify. Kiriyenko is the presidential representative to the Volga Federal District; the SPS economic platform is incorporated into many of the reforms proposed by the president; Chubais has clung on to the post of head of Unified Energy Systems.
Another analyst, however, shared the SPS dissidents' fears.
"It looks like SPS is firmly set on a course of integration with the presidential bureaucratic structures," said Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center in a telephone interview Wednesday.
This is where the seeds of the party's demise might lie, he added. "There are many people in SPS who see themselves as real advocates of civil society and who would like to think with their own heads," he said. "They don't want SPS to become the opposition, but would like to keep it independent from the Kremlin. And they will probably slowly start leaving the party ranks."
TITLE: President Shrugs Off Reports of Cuts to Aid
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday dismissed reports in two German magazines that the United States and Germany had agreed to withhold financial aid to Russia, calling them a "provocation" aimed at destroying Russia's relations with EU countries.
German news weeklies Focus and Der Spiegel printed last week a leaked German Foreign Ministry cable about confidential talks between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and U.S. President George W. Bush in which both leaders agreed that there should be no new financial assistance to Russia as long as enormous sums of money are being moved out of the country.
"This is a provocation aimed at destroying the positive trend in relations between Russia and the EU and between Russia and certain members of the EU," Putin said at a news conference after meeting with visiting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
Putin said Russia and Western creditors share a common goal of shoring up Russia's economy so the country can repay its debts to the Paris Club of creditor countries.
"This is an objective situation and all members of the Paris Club are interested in that," he said.
Russia owes more than $140 billion to Western governments. Its debt to Germany accounts for 40 percent of that amount.
State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov lashed out at the reports Tuesday, saying Schroeder's quoted remarks contradicted earlier statements about cooperation between Russia and the EU.
"When Chancellor Schroeder was here, he said something quite different, that Germany is interested in Russia working actively with the European Union," Seleznyov said in televised remarks from Belarus.
Boris Nemtsov, head of the liberal Union of Right Forces faction, said the deal described in the reports was "destructive."
Bush and Schroeder "should understand that capital returns to a country only if the parties who spirited it out feel it's safe to bring it back, and only if there is political and economic stability in the country," Nemtsov told Interfax.
Nikolai Kovalyov, a lawmaker with the Fatherland-All Russia faction, said that Russia should call for answers about the leaked cable.
"Russia's leadership should demand clarification of the secret memorandum in order to understand what kind of odd alliance is being formed behind our backs," Kovalyov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyu ganov was one of the few politicians to say that the position of the two Western leaders was understandable.
"Capital withdrawn from Russia illegally circulates in the economies of the U.S., Germany and other countries like black, dirty blood criminalizing those economies," Zyuganov told Interfax.
TITLE: Putin Visits Scene of Flooding
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: YAKUTSK, Eastern Siberia - Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in flood-stricken eastern Siberia on Thursday to assure residents that the government's main priority was to start aid and reconstruction work as soon as possible.
Putin also said he was prepared to sign a decree authorizing the state's sale of gold and high-quality diamonds from the mineral-rich Yakutia region to help people who had suffered losses, Russian news agencies reported.
The floods that have swept the region over the last week have forced more than 17,000 people from their homes into rescue centers and tent camps, but water levels are now dropping.
"As a result of today's meeting, instructions will be given to the government ... a special plan of action will be worked out," Putin said in the Sibe rian town of Lensk after flying overnight from Moscow, six time zones and several thousand kilometers to the west.
"Of course the main thing, and we also discussed this, is that aid should reach the people it is intended for," a weary-looking Putin said in remarks broadcast by state-run ORT television. He said it was important not to lose even a day in starting aid work.
He also blamed the flooding in part on the fact that the river had not been dredged near populated areas in decades.
The president and Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu flew to Lensk, which was almost destroyed by the floods, to examine the aftermath of the worst regional inundations in a century.
Putin later embarked on another long flight to Armenia for a security summit with the heads of five former Soviet republics
"It's clear now what to do and what direction to take, it's clear what sources will finance the operation, [and] we need to start working without any delay," Putin told reporters.
The International Federation of Red Cross Societies says flooding from the Lena alone caused more than $200 million in damage. Last week, the swollen river forced the evacuation of most of Lensk's 30,000 residents.
Officials had feared that waves of meltwater heading from Lensk would also overwhelm Yakutsk, a city of 200,000 and the capital of Russia's diamond-mining Sakha republic.
But the surge failed to breach a hastily reinforced dike protecting the city, and on Thursday the local emergency committee said the water level had dropped and was continuing to fall.
Earlier in the week, floodwaters rose beyond the level at which water begins to flow onto the flood plain.
After an exceptionally harsh winter in Siberia - where the rivers run from south to north - meltwaters prompted rapid rises in river levels as they tried to batter through persistent ice blockages in the colder north.
At the height of the floods, jets and helicopters dropped bombs and explosives on the ice floes to blast them apart. RTR state television showed Putin saying that emergency services had performed satisfactorily, but preemptive work against flooding had not been conducted for more than a decade.
RTR reported that some 2,600 houses would be rebuilt in the next four months, and more than 4,000 children from the region would be sent away on vacation.
More than 2,000 people have also been evacuated in the Tyva republic on the Mongolian border, where meltwater from the Altai mountains caused the Yenisei River to burst its banks.
- AP, Reuters
TITLE: Jordan Goes on U.S. Trip To Reassure on Free Press
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - NTV general director Boris Jordan visited Washington on a U.S. road trip to assure Americans that press freedoms are not under fire in Russia and that the takeover of NTV television by state-dominated gas giant Gazprom was not politically motivated.
Jordan met Tuesday with members of Congress and addressed a gathering at the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank.
Speaking at the Nixon Center, Jordan said that NTV is under no pressure from the Kremlin and that the main danger facing the channel is a lack of finances, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
Jordan said that NTV's annual expenditures stand at $94 million, while advertising brings in $80 million at best. NTV has a debt of $112 million, he said.
Jordan said he would solve the cash crunch by laying off staff and cutting other unspecified expenses.
He also reiterated a plan to issue new shares in NTV and sell them to a strategic investor for $75 million.
The 34-year-old American banker of Russian descent was appointed to the top post at NTV on April 14, when creditor and shareholder Gazprom took over the channel. Jordan, who made a name for himself by participating in the controversial privatization schemes of the 1990s, has warned repeatedly that NTV is skating on thin financial ice.
The U.S. State Department calls the takeover of NTV politically motivated.
U.S. Congressman Christopher Cox, chairman of the House of Representatives Policy Committee, said after meeting with Jordan that they had discussed freedom of the press in Russia.
"We had a frank discussion about the importance of independent media in Russia and the position in which Mr. Jordan finds himself," Cox said in a statement issued by his office.
Cox added that NTV may be susceptible to government pressure since the takeover.
Jordan was to fly to New York before returning to Moscow on Friday.
Jordan's drive to boost NTV's profits appears to have already led to the implementation of at least one new policy at the channel. A recent call to the station's archive service found that NTV is no longer offering video footage for viewing or duplication for free. NTV had been one of the few television stations that provided such assistance to journalists from the print media free of charge.
"I can't provide you anything now. Didn't you know that things changed here when the new management took over?" an archivist replied to a request for assistance. She said reviewing a short report from a newscast would cost $100.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Fake Drugs on Rise
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Russia has officially registered ten times more cases of falsification of medicines than in 1998, said Interfax on Monday, citing a report made at a press conference by Robert Rosen, executive director of the Association of International Pharmaceutic Manufacturers, or AIPM.
According to Dmitry Reihart, deputy head of the Health Ministry's state quality-control department, 42 brands were withdrawn from circulation in 2000, compared to 15 brands in 1999. As of May 15 false medicines were found in 18 brands.
The state, said Reihart, should amend its law on medicines, introducing punishment for sale and transportation of counterfeits. The Russian medicine market generates revenues of $ 2 billion to $2.5 billion a year with only 40 percent of those drugs produced domestically. Over 2,000 firms engage in distribution of drugs. About 4 percent of the market is occupied by false medicines.
Human Rights Talks
MOSCOW (AP) - Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer arrived Wed nes day in Moscow for discussions on Russia's five years of membership in the human rights body.
Schwimmer, who was due to meet Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, said the war in Chechnya would also figure prominently in the talks, news agencies reported.
Schwimmer said that the human rights situation in Chechnya had improved, in part because of the assistance of Council of Europe representatives, Interfax said.
Deserter Captured
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Police are investigating the case of Alexander Bayev, a draftee who escaped Tuesday from a garrison guardroom in the Pskov Oblast after seriously wounding a guard with an ax and stealing his machine gun. He was captured the next day, Interfax reported on Thursday.
According to the Interior Ministry, Bayev, a graduate of a special school for the mentally disabled, had been convicted and was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in jail for theft and illegal border crossings three months before being drafted. Bayev was amnestied and drafted by the army's elite airborne forces. Interfax did not give Bayev's age.
According to information from the Leningrad Military District, among those drafted there in the fall, 600 young men had been convicted of a crime, including violent offenses.
"Unfortunately, such cases are today's reality, not mistakes by the drafting committees," said Northwest Governor General Viktor Cher ke sov at a press conference on Wednesday, Interfax reported.
Suspects Fall Ill
MURMANSK (SPT) - Two of four men suspected of stealing radioactive equipment from three lighthouses in Kandalaksha Gulf on the White Sea near Murmansk were hospitalized with radiation sickness, Interfax reported on Thursday.
The suspects had allegedly stolen three so-called beta-M units, radioactive thermoelectrical devices used to power navigational equipment in some lighthouses. Police located all three units, one of which was emitting radiation at levels several times above safe norms.
According to Vladimir Gusev, deputy head of the Murmansk Region Emergency Service, Russia's Northern Fleet uses 153 similar devices, which weigh up to 300 kilograms and are hard to reach. This is the first time someone attempted to steal one, said Gusev, according to Interfax.
Gas Thieves Amnestied
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Arkhangelsk garrison military court issued a guilty verdict Monday in the 18-month-old case of nine servicemen and two civilians who were accused of stealing $24,000 worth of airplane fuel, Interfax reported on Monday.
Judge Lieutenant Colonel Igor Yarush gave seven defendants two- to 3 1/2-year suspended sentences and a year of probation. Yarush amnestied four defendants. The state prosecutor also dismissed most of the points of the charge, said Interfax.
According to Interfax, the eight officers, one draftee and two civilians had since 1999 stolen 39.5 liters of airplane fuel straight from the tanks of war planes, and another 104.1 liters from storage on the territory of two military bases near the town of Kotlas in the southern Arkhangelsk Oblast. Using a well-organized resale network, the 700,000 rubles ($24,150) in fuel was taken out in tanker trucks and sold to local residents, as well as refineries that processed it into diesel fuel and resold it, said Interfax.
Several servicemen said in televised interviews they stole the fuel because it was the only way they could support their families.
No Survivors
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Rescue workers gave up all hope on Wednesday of finding survivors from an Antonov-12 almost 24 hours after the military transporter crashed with seven crew on board.
The four-engine turbo-prop transporter came down in thick woodland late on Tuesday near the village of Myakotino, in the Tver region, 200 kilometers to the west of Moscow.
Air Force commander General Anatoly Kornukov said engine failure appeared to have caused the plane to plunge to the ground in a steep dive.
Troops and officials from Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry were searching for the plane's flight recorder to discover the cause of the crash, NTV television reported from the scene.
Accidents with Russia's aging air fleet are fairly common.
One of the most serious accidents was in October last year, when an Ilyushin-18 crashed en route from Mos cow to the Batumi area in northwest Georgia, killing more than 80 people.
TITLE: Lenenergo Stresses Restructuring Positives
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With the nature of reforms to the nation's electric power monopoly, Unified Energy Systems (UES), still uncertain, the board at local energy utility Lenenergo passed most of its agenda at an annual shareholders meeting held Thursday.
At a meeting chaired by Leonid Melamed, first deputy chair at UES, Lenenergo General Director Andrei Likhachyov called last year a "turning point" in the company's history.
"Most importantly for Lenenergo, we found a balance between profits and spending in the company," he said in his address. "We made great progress in resolving the negative situation regarding debts and in creating a good foundation with which to attract investment."
The positive character of the meeting was dampened somewhat by the decision not to pay dividends on either privileged or common shares this year, but the proposal was passed by over 90 percent of the shares voting. The board of directors said that the company instead planned to direct last year's profits towards paying off losses incurred during previous years.
Lenenergo has not paid dividends to shareholders since 1999.
But the question of looming reforms at UES served as the main background to this year's meeting. While a concrete plan has yet to be adopted, most proposals involve some degree of privatization and splitting of regional power grids into separate holdings companies.
"As far as the physical restructuring [of UES] is concerned, these changes will start taking place toward the end of this year and at the beginning of 2002," said Melamed, who also heads Lenenergo's board of directors. "Of course, companies that have already gone through the preliminary stage of restructuring, which was announced more than a year ago, are the most prepared and will be first to see changes."
"These are companies that have worked out their credit line, have good financial indicators, whose property rights are in order and who have reports for all their activities as well as having significantly changed their personnel structure."
Lenenergo officials praised the restructuring idea, saying that the effects for the local utility provider would be positive.
"There will be significant changes over the coming year, positive changes for Lenenergo," said James Gerson, Lenenergo's head of investor relations. "We see restructuring as an opportunity, not a threat."
"It's a possibility to increase our commercial customer base, which may entail expanding existing operations out of the Leningrad Oblast to Pskov and Veliky Novgorod," he added. "These could be changes in management structures or ownership, but that has yet to be determined."
Although analysts concede that restructuring is needed in the energy sector, the fact that existing plans for the project are still vague has raised concerns.
"They're moving in the right direction in broader terms, but the problem is with the details," said Hartmut Jacob, a utilities analyst with Renaissance Capital Research. "There could be problems with minority shareholders."
UES holds 49 percent of the shares in Lenenergo, foreign investors hold another 29.7 percent and Russian legal entities hold 12.5 percent. Individuals hold another 8.8 percent of the company's shares.
"It is not yet clear exactly how the restructuring will take place, but the bigger companies, Mosenergo and Lenenergo, will change along the same lines," said Kaha Kiknavelidze, electricity and metals sector analyst at Troika Dialog. "But minority shareholders at Lenenergo might try to block restructuring if it means the transfer of some assets to UES."
But Gerson said that minority shareholders at Lenenergo shouldn't be concerned.
"We are determined to defend the investments of minority shareholders, and we will take every step to do that," he said. "Restructuring will benefit minority shareholders because they will be involved in the process."
"The whole purpose is to attract investment and increase market capital."
Lenenergo reported profit figures of 427 million rubles ($14.2 million) for 2000, a 131 million ruble ($4.5 million) increase compared to last year.
"At present our figures are calculated using Russian accounting standards, which tend to report larger profits." Gerson said. "If our accounting were to be done using International Accounting Standards, which it will be by the end of the year, I don't think the figures would be significantly different."
TITLE: LMZ Says Debt Level Has Fallen
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Leningrad Metal Factory (LMZ), which has been struggling to avoid bankruptcy for the last two years, has announced that it has managed to pay off about 97 percent of what had been a 511 million ruble (about $17.6 million) debt load.
According to information from the press service of Siloviye Mashiny, a company which is part of Vladimir Potanin's Interros Group and manages LMZ for the holding, the factory has paid its entire debt to the federal budget and to its commercial creditors, and the remaining 3 percent represents penalties and outstanding interest payments.
About 64 percent of LMZ's debt was held by the Interros Group, while the second largest share - 28 percent - was to regional utility Lenenergo.
Interros is also the chief shareholder in the factory, with a controlling interest of 58 percent, while other shareholders include Lenenergo with 10.4 percent and the German firm Siemens with 4.8 percent.
"What this shows is that the company has revived its ability to pay," Yevgeny Gulyayev, who was appointed as external manager for the factory by the Arbitration court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast in March, 1999, said in the press release. "To end the situation of external management, we now just have to take care of a few remaining formalities. After this is done, management of the factory will be given back to the former executives."
The same court that installed Gulyayev as external manager later, in February of this year, approved a financial report he prepared and gave the factory six months to pay its debts and have the external-management situation lifted.
According to LMZ press secretary Maria Alayeva, the former management of the factory plans to return to control of the factory in the third quarter of this year.
"At the beginning of August the management will issue a financial report to the Arbitration court, providing confirmation that the plant paid all its debts," Alayeva said. "The court then has one month to approve it. After that, the former head of the plant, Viktor Shevchenko, who holds the position of executive director at the moment, will return to his position as general director."
TITLE: Advertising Market Shows Signs of Rebound
AUTHOR: By Sergei Rybak
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's largest advertising agencies showed strong profit growth last year after a rough post-crisis 1999, according to the latest ratings by Advertising Age, the world's leading ad magazine.
In 2000, the agencies BBDO, D'Arcy and Navigator DDB each increased their profits between 15 percent and 20 percent, while ADV Group's profits surged 165 percent and TBWA's tripled.
The ratings, based mainly on figures for revenues and profit, are for 16 companies operating in Russia, including ADV Group, BBDO, D'Arcy and McCann-Erickson. Twelve of the 16 posted an increase in profits in Russia. The Adventa agency of the ADV Group, which gained new clients in 2000 and merged with the PRP agency, increased its profits by 165 percent.
The magazine's 1999 ratings showed a reduction in the income of BBDO's and D'Arcy's Russian operations by 39 percent and 47 percent, respectively. The leader in 2000 for growth was the small agency TBWA, whose profits rose by 199 percent.
"These ratings seem to be sufficiently reliable and the data presented on the majority of companies look plausible," said Sergei Koptev, president of the Russian Advertising Agency Association and the advertising agency D'Arcy.
Advertising executives polled said the profit growth is the result of increased activity by consumer-oriented companies and the development of indirect advertising, such as promotions and public relations.
"We are seeing significant growth in the advertising business. For example, in 2000, we gained clients such as the Tourism Ministry of Turkey, British American Tobacco. Aside from that, a whole number of new divisions such as the BTL-agency Tequila made money," said Andrei Matuzov, president of the agency TBWA. The turnover of the agency in 2000 was $11.4 million, according to Advertising Age.
In 2000, the advertising agency Navigator DDB increased its profits by 50 percent. "We worked intently on improving our media structures and as a result, we have 10 to 15 clients with small budgets of around $500,000," said Navigator DDB president Sergei Krivonogov.
Directors of companies experiencing dynamic growth said they see no reason why last year's success can't continue.
"We are planning to double our business, there are precedents for this," said Matuzov.
Koptev said he expects the total market to grow 30 percent this year.
Andrei Fedotov, general director of the marketing agency Russian Public Relations Group, said he expects total turnover to approach the pre-crisis level of $1 billion, excluding spending on public relations and promotions. "We predict a significant growth in prices for television [advertising], which constitutes around 25 percent of the whole market."
Advertising Age data shows a drop in profits for the Russian divisions of Ark Thompson and Young & Rubicam by 50 percent and 32 percent, respectively. Ark Thompson general director Gabriel Fulopp could not be reached for comment. Oleg Kuzmin, commercial director of Young & Rubicam, meanwhile, said a mistake was made in the ratings.
Nevertheless, both of those companies lost large Russian clients in 2000, said Fedotov, adding that the rating itself wasn't comprehensive. "Within the current ratings, you do not find such large network agencies as FSB/MediaArts or Euro RSCG Maxima. There are also no large Russian companies," said Fedotov.
TITLE: Serdyukov Sheds Light on Trip to America
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov returned from a six-day trip to the United States bearing news of one new investment project, new money for a number of existing projects and the continuation of close cooperation with the state of Maryland.
Serdyukov was in Washington, D.C. and Maryland from May 15 to May 20 on a trip to drum up American investment in the oblast.
The new project will involve a joint venture between American and Russian firms to build a plant to process and export wild berries grown in the region. The oblast has yet to release financial specifics for the plan.
Kraft and Philip Morris also confirmed their intention to continue developing their presence in the oblast while International Paper, the world's largest paper manufacturer, confirmed its plans to invest $85 million in its pulp and paper factory (TsBK) in Svyatogorsk. The funds will be spent on the construction of a new processing line.
"American businessmen are interested in cooperation with Leningrad Oblast," Serdyukov said at a Tuesday press conference. "It's no wonder that businessmen from the United States are our main investors."
While the trip so far has brought only one new concrete proposal for a new project, oblast officials say that it is still too early to judge the results fairly.
"Projects are developed over the space of years, not after only one contact," Sergey Naryshkin, head of the oblast administration's external relations committee, said in a telephone interview Thursday. "To judge this trip as unsuccessful is really to treat the whole question too lightly."
According to Naryshkin, the delegation consisted of both administration representatives and businessmen and that the meetings - especially in Washington - had been intensive.
"During these discussions the businessmen played the most active roles," he added. "There is an expression: What is in the interest of Ford is in the interest of America, so the businessmen expressed our interests best."
TITLE: MTS Chief: Ministry's Nod Sealed the Deal
TEXT: Mobile TeleSystems President Mikhail Smirnov was in St. Petersburg Tuesday for a press conference to unveil the company's plans for constructing and developing a cellular-service network through its subsidiary, Telecom XXI. Staff writer Andrey Musatov talked to Smirnov about the company's success in getting access to the city's market and its plans for developing its business here.
Q: What is the state of your application to the Antimonopoly Ministry (MAP) to give the go-ahead for the purchase of Telecom XXI? Are there any remaining regulatory formalities you have to overcome?
A: I hope that we've taken care of all the formalities. A positive ruling by the Antimonopoly Ministry was the primary condition of our beginning work here. The paper informing us of the positive ruling is lying on my desk right now, so we are absolutely cleared to enter the St. Petersburg market from a legal standpoint. When we initiated this deal, I decided that we wouldn't take a single step in setting up here before these formalities had been taken care of. I'm here today, so that just shows that we are clear to launch the project. Our technical specialists are already walking along the streets - or, to be more exact, walking along the roofs - looking for places to set up base stations to cover St. Petersburg with the new network, as we expected.
Q: Why did the decision from the Antimonopoly Ministry take so long? It seems that they actually made the decision after the time for the review had expired.
A: No, to the contrary, I'm pleased with the way things went. According to ministry rules they have one month to investigate a situation and to prepare and then issue a decision. The ministry returned a decision within that time. If my memory serves me correctly, we received the decision on the 27th or 28th day. The bureaucratic mechanisms worked very well in this instance.
Q: When your intention to buy Telecom XXI was first announced, it was rumored that you would have to give up some of your bandwidth in Moscow in order to get approval from the Antimonopoly Ministry. Was this the case?
A: We had a problem with frequencies, but it was more a question of principle than any real danger to our business. The Communications Ministry was trying to get some of this bandwidth from us and that's what drove us and Vimplecon to kind of rebel against the situation. Technically, we don't need much of the bandwidth in question as it is a frequency with a lowered capacity. We initially received it for usage inside the metro. Naturally, when the whole question of this bandwidth was raised by the Ministry we did all the technical preparation necessary to maintain operations if it was taken from us. We're not worried by the prospect of losing this as it won't really set us back. At present, we still have the bandwidth, though.
Q: Although Telecom XXI will be providing cellular-phone service in St. Petersburg, the company will still have to connect to a ground-line network run by one of the local operators. Each of these companies - Petersburg Transit Telecom (PTT), Peterstar and Petersburg Telephone Network (PTS) - is either completely or partly owned by Telecominvest or Svyazinvest. As those two have fairly strong connections with your competitor in the GSM market here - North-West GSM - how do you think this question will be resolved?
A: Well, there are special regulations which have been issued by the Communications Ministry, which require communications operators to connect other operators to their networks in special cases and prohibit them from creating these types of obstacles.
There is, however, still the possibility that there could be financial disadvantages. The telephone market in St. Petersburg does tend to be monopolized. As a result, I expect that we will face high tariffs. But that's business and we will have to negotiate prices with the local ground-line operators. What's most important is that we've taken the first steps to enter the St. Petersburg market. It's too early yet to predict the results but we're hoping they will be positive.
Q: North-West GSM seems to have been stepping up its activities to attract new subscribers of late. What plans do you have to best attract subscribers to Telecom XXI?
A: That's definitely something that is in the works and, while we're working on our strategy, we're going to keep the basic elements of that strategy to ourselves right now. Part of the reason is that some of the details are still being formulated. We've kept a pretty close eye on the St. Petersburg market and kept track of the changes and our entrance into the market will change things more still. We've seen our future competitors make changes in their marketing, advertising and tariff policies and we've been adjusting our policies accordingly.
Without giving anything away, I can say that our entrance into the market will be a good thing for St. Petersburg residents, because we'll bring what we think is a very high level of service. It will definitely bring lower prices from us and our competitors and all cellular customers will benefit from that.
Q: Speaking of this, can you make any prediction with regard to your pricing policies here in St. Petersburg? Do you think your arrival could touch off the same kind of pricing war we saw between MTS and Vimpelcom in Moscow?
A: A price war - I think that may be too extreme a term. That type of situation occurs when two serious players on the market are paying attention to what the other is doing. There are several ways to win the market. Pricing and tariffs policy is one of the most important. But there's a limit to how low tariffs can go and still create profits. Another way to win market share is to provide a better service for the same price. Our strategy is to focus more on this second factor, although we're not ignoring the first.
I think that a large factor in what some refer to as the "price war" in Moscow was that we had jumped out ahead of our competitors and they felt that cutting their prices in this way was the only way to make up ground. I don't think we'll see a repeat of this in St. Petersburg.
We're going to try to offer prices lower than those currently charged in St. Petersburg. But we're hoping to focus more on offering a range of new services. We're going to stress quality of service and good relations with our subscribers. I think that this will play the key role in establishing our place in the St. Petersburg market.
Q: What are your expectations as far as the number of subscribers you will have is concerned?
A: It's hard to say as it will all depend on how long it takes us to set up our network. If everything goes as we have planned and we don't run into any of the problems you raised concerning ground-line providers, then we should have 10,000 to 20,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Naturally, we have short- and long-term business plans. In St. Petersburg we hope ultimately to have 30 to 40 percent of cell-phone users.
TITLE: Telecom XXI Plans For City Unveiled
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Mikhail Smirnov, president of Moscow's largest cellular phone-service provider, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), made a whirlwind, four-hour visit to St. Petersburg on Tuesday to officially announce Telecom XXI's status as an MTS daughter company.
Telecom XXI owns a GSM-standard cellular license in St. Petersburg, the Leningrad Oblast and the rest of the Northwestern region - an area with a total population of 13.4 million. Smirnov said at Tuesday's press conference that the purchase price for Telecom XXI was $50 million.
MTS is also planning to spend $50 million in 2001 on the construction of its cellular network, but Smirnov said that the final total may be higher than the company has authorized.
The system Telecom XXI has already constructed, which consists of 15 base systems for receiving and transmitting signals, is only capable of handling signals that can be received outdoors in the city center. The MTS plan involves the construction of another 140 to 160 base stations during the next few months, which will provide a signal indoors and outdoors in the city and its suburbs and along the highway to Moscow.
MTS says that when it begins operations it will be able to provide comparable service in these areas to that offered by the only GSM operator in the region at present - North-West GSM, which has 325,000 subscribers.
The company also says it intends to spend around $170 million to extend its network out into the rest of the northwest region in the next several years.
"We're entering Russia's second-biggest market and there's a lot of potential," Smirnov said at the press conference. "Today about 7 percent of St. Petersburg natives already use cell phones, and I think that a figure around 25 percent is realistic for the city."
"In the future, we hope to hold about 30 to 40 percent of these subscribers."
Konstantin Sukhin, marketing director at North-West GSM, who was one of the invitees to the event, gave an example of the competition that may lay ahead in comments he made after the press conference.
"That MTS is coming isn't really a surprise for us, as rumors of this have been around for a while," Sukhin said. "But I'd like to make one small correction - Smirnov said that by the end of the year they will launch a network comparable to ours, but I'd like to point out that in St. Petersburg we operate 240 base stations, so the 140 MTS stations wouldn't be comparable."
But he played down any idea that MTS' entry into the market would spark a tariff war.
"As there was no precise information given about their tariff policy, I don't think a price war is in the interest of MTS," Sukhin said. "Price wars just damage the entire market."
TITLE: Mailbox
TEXT: Dear Editor,
I just finished my first trip to St. Petersburg on May 7, and it will not be my last. I was incredibly impressed by this city. Russia is the best-kept secret in the travel industry.
I think that this may be due to the problems with getting visas. I will not bore you with the details, but I am fortunate that I live close to Washington , so my four trips to the Russian embassy were not that much of a problem for me.
I spent 11 days in St. Petersburg, and there are still some things that I didn't get to see. I spent about $425 a day. Unfortunately, the 72-hour visa program that has been announced will not help tourists like me who must travel to Russia from the United States.
I am sad to say that Russia does not have a very good reputation as a vacation destination. I am not the type of person that listens to others when making travel decisions. If I had in this case I would have missed the vacation of a lifetime. Everyone who knows me asked incredulously: "Why are you going to Russia?"
They would all say to me: "Be careful. Russia is a dangerous place." I am guessing that they are all still living under the veil of propaganda left over from the Cold War. This is sad for them and for Russia.
Of course, when I got back everyone wanted to know all about my trip. I have traveled over much of the world, and my friends know that it means something when I tell them that my visit to St. Petersburg was the most rewarding vacation of my life.
I hope that when the Foreign Ministry considers its new visa program, it will also decide to spend some money on a public-relations firm to upgrade Russia's image in the eyes of Americans.
I am happy to tell anyone who asks me all about Russia and about the wonderful time I spent there. I also tell them that they really need to see Russia for themselves. I am only one person who enjoyed spending my time and money in Russia. I can imagine the impact on the Russian economy that, say, having half a million Americans visiting St. Petersburg could have. I sincerely hope that this comes to be.
J.C. Rettaliata
Baltimore, Maryland
Dear Editor,
I decided to watch the news last night on NTV. I was confident, given Boris Jordan's insistence on the station's continued editorial independence, that NTV's intrepid journalists would follow up on allegations of the wholesale diversion of Gazprom assets into the hands of management and senior government officials. The silence was deafening.
Jordan has invited us to watch his station and judge him by what we see. Well. That didn't take long.
Ken Payne
Moscow
Dear Editor,
At first, I was surprised by your decision to publish Barinova's essay ["War Correspondents: Helping To Make Sense of Chaos," May 22]. In my humble opinion, Dasha is a very confused - though compassionate - child. "A very poor choice," I thought to myself. "Look where she directs her anger: the United States, Europe, the United States again... Is the United States responsible for Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen? For the bombing of Chechen villages?"
Isn't it striking that Barinov, as a Russian citizen who should feel primarily responsible for her country and the Russian government's conduct of affairs, has no words about Russian support for Milosevic, who has since been jailed by his own people? Or about the war in Chechnya? No, she blames everybody except her own country. She refuses to take responsibility for the actions of her own government and countrymen.
Barinova feels the pain of the "children of war," but she does not want to admit that her own people - just as much as the United States, European governments and all the "good people of the world" - are to be blamed too.
But then it struck me that such confusion is apparently quite widespread among Russian teenagers (or should I say, "among Russians?"). Is it tunnel vision to see only what fits her "patriotism" or is it a renewal of "inner censorship" that stems from Soviet times?
Dasha seems to be the best of the best with her compassion and questions of "Why?" That's why it was so important for you to publish her essay. It shows how even the best are befuddled. Thank you for a good demonstration.
Ilia Vinogradov
Chicago
Dear Editor,
As an American involved in industrial-development issues in Russia since 1994, I am continually amazed at the indifference of Russian plant managers at the prospects of significant contracts to produce goods for the West. I lived in St. Petersburg about 70 percent of the time from 1994 to 1999 and now live in Russia at least three months a year.
My company, IDMA, Inc., was chartered to facilitate contracts between Russian manufacturing enterprises and Western enterprises. During 2000, I submitted proposals worth more than $500 million to Russian manufacturing plants for the manufacturing of long-term serial production of metal goods (steel and iron castings and forgings, machine-tool processing, etc.). I never received a single bid. During 2001, I submitted more than $300 million to date with only one reply that was competitive, but not the lowest bid.
The contracts I have submitted have been between $2 million and $125 million.
During the first two weeks of May, 2001, Houston, Texas, hosted the Offshore (Oil) Technology Conference. More than 250,000 attendees from around the world were present, including some Russian enterprises. During the conference, I spoke with more than 300 of the 1,200 exhibitors.
I noticed that every country represented was aggressively soliciting business to manufacturer goods as described above, except for the Russian delegation, which only seemed to be interested in "how much money can you spend to entertain me?" There was no desire to discuss business before, during, or after such extravagant entertainment. The only exception to this that I saw was the delegation of a metallurgical plant from the south of Moscow. These two young men were very aggressively and politely seeking any and all the business they could find.
I will be in St. Petersburg during the upcoming summer months. I will have more than $50 million of request-for-quotation tenders with all drawings, specifications, etc. I hope that some of your readers are hungry for profitable trade with the West and are willing to conform to the terms to which all other international firms bidding on the tenders eagerly conform.
Those plants in the Russian Federation that have metallurgical capabilities and are interested in long-term contracts for serial production of goods should try to contact me. I know that we can find a way for them to win some of these tenders.
The Russian people deserve their share of the prosperity that will come from strong, profitable industrial development. The high level of academic achievement and trade skills developed during the Soviet times are being squandered. It is time that some good times returned to Russia.
Patrick Fleming
Houston, Texas
TITLE: Big Neighbors Failing With Little Neighbors
AUTHOR: By Andrew Reding
TEXT: WHAT can they be thinking? Castro has parlayed 42 years of hostility and intervention from Washington into an unshakable lifelong hold on power in Cuba. He has stared down nine U.S. presidents - Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton - and is working on his tenth. He has outlasted his Kremlin patrons and even Mexico's durable system of one-party rule.
How does he do it? By deflecting attention from the failures of socialism to the undeniable fact that Washington can't seem to let go of the legacy of the Platt Amendment. That legislation, passed by Congress and inserted in the Cuban constitution in 1901, authorized the United States to intervene in Cuba to preserve Cuban independence. Though it was formally abrogated in 1934, its spirit has endured - in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, CIA attempts to assassinate Castro, the failed TV Marti effort to beam anti-Castro television programming to Cuba, the ban on trade with Cuba, the Helms-Burton act penalizing foreign companies for trading with Cuba and now the Helms-Lieberman bill.
All this does is keep stoking the hot embers of Cuban nationalism. Helms and Lieberman say they are modeling their bill on the aid provided to the Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s. But they're overlooking the most essential point: Poland is on the Russian border, and Poles have always resented Russian imperial pretensions. Cuba is just offshore from Florida, and Cubans have traditionally been wary of U.S. designs for political and economic domination of their island. What may have worked for Poland is almost certain to have the opposite effect in Cuba.
Worst of all, it is likely to do real harm to Cuba's fledgling democratic movement. Should Congress approve the bill, few of the funds are likely to end up in the hands of designees. In Castro's police state, little goes unnoticed. The very attempt to finance the movement from abroad, and especially from Washington, will be used to undermine the moral authority of the Cuban opposition.
Once again, Castro will use it to re-establish his credentials as prime bulwark of Cuban sovereignty. Witness his masterful handling of the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez, the poster boy of the Miami Cuban community whom Castro molded into a symbol of nationalism and family values. Now, as that memory begins to recede, he can thank Helms and Lieberman for providing him an even more valuable opportunity to tar his domestic opponents as tools of foreign interests.
Helms is perhaps enough of a partisan not to fully appreciate the logic of his own actions. To an ideologue, purity of intention is often more important than results. But Lieberman is more of a centrist pragmatist. It is hard to believe he hasn't figured out the likely effect of the passage of his bill on prospects for Cuban democracy. So what is his motive? Could it be that he plans to run for president in 2004 and, conscious of what happened to the Democratic ticket in Florida in 2000, wants to curry favor with the Cuban American National Foundation? Good politics no doubt, but hardly a sign of statesmanship.
What irony. Castro's authoritarian rule depends in large measure on American democracy for its continued sustenance - all because the logic of domestic constituency politics is at cross-purposes with the genuine interests of American foreign policy.
If Washington really wanted to put the screws on Castro's regime, all it would have to do is abandon its efforts consciously to determine Cuba's future. Forty-two years of such efforts have not worked anyway. And without them, Castro's dictatorial and economically stressful rule would eventually be left naked and vulnerable, shorn of the cloak of nationalist legitimacy.
Andrew Reding is director of the Americas Project of the World Policy Institute and an associate editor for Pacific News Service. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post.
@@@@@@@By the Dalai Lama
@@@@@@@@@THE Chinese government continues to whitewash the sad situation in Tibet through propaganda. If conditions inside Tibet are as the Chinese authorities portray them, why do they not have the courage to allow visitors into Tibet without restrictions? Instead of attempting to hide things as "state secrets," why do they not have the courage to show the truth to the outside world? And why are there so many security forces and prisons in Tibet?
I have always said that if most Tibetans in Tibet were truly satisfied with their state of affairs I would have no reason, no justification and no desire to raise my voice against the situation there. Sadly, whenever Tibetans speak up, instead of being listened to, they are arrested, imprisoned and labeled as counterrevolutionaries. They have no opportunity and no freedom to speak the truth.
If the Tibetans are truly happy, the Chinese authorities should have no problem holding a plebiscite in Tibet. Ultimately, Tibetans must be able to decide the future of Tibet. I would wholeheartedly support the result of such a referendum.
The Tibetan struggle is not about my personal position or well-being but about the freedom, basic rights and cultural preservation of 6 million Tibetans, as well as the protection of the Tibetan environment. In 1992, I stated clearly that when we return to Tibet with a certain degree of freedom I will not hold any position in the Tibetan government. I have always believed that Tibet should follow a secular and democratic system of governance.
But I do consider it my moral obligation to continue taking up the Tibetan issue with the Chinese, and acting as the free spokesman of Tibet until a solution is reached. The trust placed in me by the Tibetan people increases my sense of responsibility.
Successive leaders of China, from Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang, have repeatedly acknowledged the "special case" of Tibet's status. The 17-Point Agreement of 1951 between the Tibetans and the Chinese, embodying the original spirit and concept of "one country and two systems," is best proof of this recognition. No other province or part of the People's Republic of China has any such agreement with Beijing.
The Chinese government promised to respect the "unique nature" of Tibet. Despite these assurances, for the most part Chinese policy in Tibet has been misguided by a deep sense of insecurity, distrust, suspicion and arrogance, and by a glaring lack of understanding, appreciation and respect for Tibet's distinct culture, history and identity. What is "unique" today about Tibet is that it is the poorest and most oppressed area, where policies implemented by ultra-leftist elements are still active, even though their influence has long been diminishing in China proper.
My position has been to seek genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people. I believe that a resolution of the Tibetan issue along the lines of my approach will bring satisfaction to the Tibetan people and greatly contribute to stability and unity in the People's Republic of China.
Last July, my elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, made a personal visit to Beijing and brought back a message reiterating the well-known position of the leadership in Beijing on relations with me. So far the Chinese government is refusing to accept my delegation in spite of the fact that between 1979 and 1985, the Chinese government had accepted six Tibetan delegations from exile. Yet now it is stalling on acceptance of a Tibetan delegation. This is a clear indication of a hardening attitude in Beijing and a lack of political will to resolve the Tibetan problem.
Patience, courage and determination are essential for us Tibetans in a situation of such challenge and fundamental importance. I firmly believe there will be an opportunity in the future to discuss seriously the Tibetan issue and face the reality, because there is no other choice either for China or for us.
Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, is the exiled spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet. This article, which originally appeared in The Washington Post, is from a statement he made this year marking the 42nd anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation.
TITLE: SDS Hates SPS, But Who's in Opposition?
TEXT: IN a political climate where the Kremlin has the overwhelming support of the State Duma, and with legislation being introduced that will limit the number of parties in the country, it doesn't seem an auspicious time to form a viable opposition.
Yet the disbanding of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) and the realignment of its former constituent parts into a party, as opposed to a coalition, is at least aimed at creating a united democratic movement.
Just to what extent the new-look SPS will be in opposition, however, is troubling to some of its former members, who are therefore breaking away to form their own united democratic movement, the Union of Democratic Forces, or SDS.
Fans of Monty Python's "Life of Brian" will by now be thinking of the Judean People's Front and its bitter rivals, the People's Front of Judea, the Popular People's Front ("He's over there!" Splitter!), and so on. But the new group says it has good reason to be upset with the old faction's leadership, describing it as being in the pocket of the Kremlin.
Take Democratic Russia, for example, which disbanded earlier this month as part of the SPS reformation, and rejoined. But its St. Petersburg wing, led by Ruslan Linkov - former aide to murdered politician Galina Starovoitova, who founded the party - is nonetheless striking out with Duma deputies Sergei Ushenkov and Sergei Kovalyov (both former SPS members).
"SPS leaders, including [Ana toly] Chubais and [Bo ris] Nemtsov think that democracy is a switch that you can turn on or off depending on their own interests," Linkov said at a press conference this week.
So what are SDS' chances? One crucial question will be the party's ability to attract financial backing, and here one has to wonder if a Russian company will have the possibility of unwelcome attention from the Tax Police or health inspectors if it decides to back an opposition group. There are, of course, disgruntled businessmen like Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky who, although they live abroad, are still able to finance the activities of Russian parties since they still have their Russian citizenship.
For obvious reasons, however, accepting funds from those two has an element of drinking from the poisoned chalice.
Assuming that the necessary money is forthcoming - and some liberals feel that there are plenty of businessmen unhappy with the current government - SDS will also need a political program of its own, as was pointed out by a spokes person for the local Yabloko branch. It's not enough to say that you are in opposition, said the spokesperson: You need to define what you are opposed to, and how.
And finally: Is the monster of pro-Kremlin political forces just too big to slay? Igor Mikhailov, a lawmaker in the Legislative Assembly, thinks so. "The biggest party in the country is the executive," he said, "and it's difficult to be in opposition to that.
"Out of all the people [invloved in politics] in the country, only 15 percent are members of one party or another. The rest are bureaucrats or in power. How can you stand in opposition to that?"
TITLE: Evil Spirits Dogging the Expat
AUTHOR: By Russell Working
TEXT: WHEN a pigmy stumbles on his way out the door of his hut in the morning, it is said that he turns around and spends the day at home, hiding from the evil fate that awaits him.
Such superstitions have a rational basis, as the psychologist Karl Jung noted. A pigmy having a clumsy day could slip into a pool of crocodiles. Whether the morning stumble is the result of evil spirits or just agitation following a quarrel, it is best to hunker down until one's basic coordination reasserts itself.
If only I had done that after I sprained my ankle on the morning of May 12, I might have spared myself a week of missteps. What's more important, I would have avoided an encounter with the evil spirit in the form of a little white dog with an under-bite and pointy ears. Long-time readers will recognize Belka, the aggressive mutt whose deepest desire is to throw rocks back at me.
But first, the stumble. Encountering a lake of mud in an alley downtown, I skirted it by walking along a curb. Naturally, I stepped on an invisible banana peel and fell like a funny circus clown straight into the lake of mud. I fought my way back to the surface, sat down on the curb and fouled the pristine air of Vladivostok with many bad words.
As I nursed my ankle, wondering if it was supposed to bend this way, a babushka trundled by, lugging a canvas bag full of groceries. She didn't fall. I watched, expecting a word of mercy. She scrutinized my pants and said, "You can use a piece of paper to clean the mud off." She walked on.
Suddenly I was removed from my own pain. The life of a Russian babushka is so filled with trials that a radical sprain of the ankle is all but expected. What is unnecessary is to limp through life with muddy trousers.
In any case, the following week lived up to this portent. I got home to find that the lift wasn't working (it has been a month now, but still), so I hobbled up seven flights of stairs.
Soon my foot had swollen like the kind of balloon you might win at a carnival ("Way to go, kid, you shot the eyes out of the Bozo; here, have a foot balloon"), except that the skin looked distinctly unhealthy: blue-black on the top and sides, pink underneath.
After the throbbing subsided, I decided a good limp around town would be therapeutic. I should have listened to the tribal sages and spent the week cowering in bed. Every time I set forth, another curse was visited upon me.
To begin with, the phone stopped working for five days. When we went to see a visiting ballet company on Wednesday, the performance was canceled. So we went out for pizza, but the "bacon" turned out to be salo - globs of fat, for you foreign gourmands. The hot water was turned off - and will not be returning until October, if this is anything like years past. Then the cold water started shutting off for around eight hours a day.
And on Friday, the demon itself made an appearance.
Belka. Tiny, white, ferocious, enamored of chomping on the legs of passersby near the Borodino cinema. As a qualified counselor with a degree in Jungian doggie anger management, I have managed to modify her behavior with the help of healing crystals, which I hurl (thud) at her fluffy hide. When I forget my crystals, I just throw rocks. It has gotten to the point that I only need to point ferociously from afar, and the dog grovels off, growling and yapping.
But now, in the presence of cooks from a cafe who feed her, Belka was emboldened. Seeing me hobble down the hill, the little bitch snarled. I stooped for a rock. She began barking.
"Hey," said a cook. "What are you doing?"
Yes, reader, we have been here before. I: "Your dog is evil. She keeps trying to bite me." Cook: "No, she's a good little doggiekins. Look at you, a great big foreigner throwing rocks at a dog." And so on.
As I hobbled off, Belka skulked after me, pondering how best to run me down and devour my liver. I concentrated my mind on one thought: Rock. Belka retreated.
She appeared to be limping. It seemed she had started the week on the wrong foot as well. Perhaps she was struggling with her own evil spirit. Maybe it was me.
Russell Working is a freelance journalist based in Vladivostok.
TITLE: A Kosovo Constitution Is Best Chance of Peace
AUTHOR: By Tim Judah
TEXT: THE West bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days because of Ko so vo. For the last two years we have been pumping money into this benighted province by the millions; thousands of soldiers are stationed there. But we are still wondering: What are we to do with Kosovo?
Suddenly, we know the answer. Last week Hans Haekkerup, the UN governor for Kosovo, promulgated a constitutional framework for the province. He laid out plans for an assembly, a government and elections to be held in November.
Haekkerup's plan is a sensible compromise. It will let Kosovo's Albanians and Serbs - if the latter participate - run the territory until they are ready to talk about its final status. Yet, inevitably, both are grumbling about the plan. The question now is whether they'll be farsighted enough to support it.
Kosovo's assembly will have 120 seats, including 10 reserved for Serbs and 10 for Kosovo's other minorities. The assembly will elect a president, who in turn will nominate a prime minister, who will form a government. The UN will still be responsible for justice, law and order and for the Kosovo Protection Corps, which most Kosovar Albanians believe to be the nucleus of their future army. But on other issues, it will take a back seat.
In other words, Kosovars will handle their own day-to-day affairs. But Albanian leaders wanted a referendum on independence from Serbia. Not only did the Albanians not get it, but the future arrangements have no time limit, and resolution of Kosovo's final status has been put off indefinitely. In effect, the lack of a time limit serves as a "no confidence" vote in Albanian leaders, who have done little or nothing to end violence against Serbs in Kosovo.
Despite their objections, the Albanians will grudgingly participate in the elections. And that may have a bracing effect. They might be forced to go beyond demanding independence and develop some actual policies on issues like creating sorely needed jobs.
The Serbian leadership in Kosovo rejected the constitutional framework out of hand, declaring that it will boycott the elections. They wanted a veto in the parliament.
In Belgrade, Serbia's leaders called the plan a concession to Albanian separatists. And they continue to insist that Kosovo is part of Serbia, even if they have no way of re-establishing a political link with some 2 million Albanians who hate them.
Given that depressing prospect, the constitutional framework may be the best we can hope for. If Albanians and Serbs accept the plan, then there's hope yet for the region. If not, they may eventually be doomed to decades of Middle East-style violence.
Tim Judah is the author of "Kosovo: War and Revenge." He contributed this comment to The New York Times.
TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: Runaway Train
Astute readers of the Global Eye will recall last month's report on those puckish charmers of Italy's Northern League, led by Umberto Bossi. At one time a rather libertarian group, in recent years Bossi's boys have turned their hands to "purifying" the national bloodstream of foreign particles, much in the Haider-Hague-Helms manner.
In fact, top League leaders were recently musing about the possibilities of herding Muslims, Gypsies and other non-pure Italian types into cattle cars for transport to handy "holding centers" - just like in the glory days of the 1940s. Now the party has emerged from last week's national elections as a crucial kingmaker in the new coalition government of right-wing tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, The Associated Press reports.
True, the much-investigated media mogul, who often likens himself to Roman emperors - but never, ever to Mussolini - will have other weapons at his disposal: With the state-run press now in his hands, Berlusconi will control 98 percent of the country's broadcast media. But the League will still hold the balance of power in the Senate - thus wielding a possible veto over the new Duce's ambitious agenda of Bush-style, business-boosting "reforms."
A jubilant Bossi trumpted the League's dizzying ascent to the top. "The country will change profoundly in every sense," he declared. "There is no doubt that we will have our men in important posts in ministries."
The Ministry of Transport, perhaps?
Grapes of Wrath
It seems that America's rabid Rightists - now feasting on the fruits of power - have acquired a decided taste for vintage Sovetskaya.
It's a story that might sound familiar to Russian readers of a certain age, as Stanley Crouch notes in the New York Daily News this week. It began last month, at Easter, when Paul Weyrich, "one of the founders of modern conservatism" and guru to the good folk now nesting in the White House, took the opportunity to resurrect a venerable Christian tradition: blaming the Jews for "killing Christ."
Weyrich's ahistorical hissy fit stirred little criticism in "compassionate conservative" circles. But when conservative writer Evan Gahr dared question the Founding Father's wisdom in rousing these ancient hatreds, the right-wing establishment was quick to pounce - on Gahr, not Weyrich.
For this breach of cadre discipline, Gahr - himself a "rootless cosmopolite" like the Nazarene - was swiftly purged from God's Own Party. His regular column on the right-wing netmag, FrontPage, was the first to go. He was then drummed out of the Hudson Institute, the influential think (sic) tank now supplying so many grunts for the Bush-Cheney trenches. This was followed by his sacking from the masthead of American Enterprise magazine, which also banned him from using its research facilities.
Finally, he received this withering blast from fellow conservative columnist Mona Charen: "I sincerely hope you will take this opportunity to seek psychological or psychiatric help." (For as we all know, anyone who criticizes a conservative leader - even when he propagates poison - must be nuts.) And so the hapless Gahr has officially become a "non-person," with the possibility of KGB-style psych-ward internment being bandied about by his former comrades.
Next up: The Hudson Institute calls for political re-education camps in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "Dissidents could get their minds right and help drill for oil at the same time," says special report to the president.
Crime of Fashion
So far this week we've had echoes of Il Duce and Stalinist discipline - so why not complete the trifecta with some Hitlerian rumbling?
Pat on cue comes the Taleban, the "faith-based organization" now organizing the affairs of Afghanistan. This week, the fierce fundamentalists proposed forcing religious minorities to wear special "identity labels" to distinguish them from the Muslim majority, AP reports.
To be sure, the government's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice said the badges are aimed at "protecting" minorities - from, oddly enough, the Taleban.
"Hindus should not look like Muslims, so that they are not bothered by the religious police," said a ministry spokesperson, referring to the armed bands that patrol the streets enforcing good old-fashioned family values: no dancin', no drinkin', no card-playin', none of that jungle be-bop and keepin' the womenfolk in line. Of course, the badges will also make it easier to pick out the infidels during those righteous expressions of jihadic fervor that inevitably crop up from time to time.
The measure applies primarily to Hindus; Sikhs will be excused, because they are already set apart by their distinctive headgear. However, human-rights advocates will be happy to know that the Taleban has graciously exempted Jews from the decree: It seems there is only one Jew left in all of Afghanistan.
And they know where he lives.
Restricted Area
Meanwhile in Washington, the fierce fundamentalists of the Bush regime issued their own decree singling out minorities for special faith-based distinction last week. The administration announced - softly, softly, beneath all the ballyhoo surrounding the "national energy plan" - a new grant program for inner-city AIDS relief and drug treatment programs.
Worthy causes indeed; but Imam Bush has decided to restrict the grants to "faith-based organizations" only - secular groups are not allowed to apply, AP reports.
This would seem to be a departure from Bush's own assurances in January when he launched the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. At that time, Bush declared he merely wanted "equal competition" for social-program grants; the Faith-Based office would "avoid preferences between religious and nonreligious providers."
But of course that was just the usual shuck to slip the program past the rubes. Thus AIDS and drugs will now be handled only by groups who believe their clients are hell-bound perverts, and that addiction is caused by "bad character," not bad chemicals.
A proposal to force "nonreligious providers" to wear special identifying marks on their clothing - "so we can tell them apart from the real Americans, 'cause sometimes these secularists look almost like Christians" - is reportedly now under consideration.
TITLE: a place to take czechs
AUTHOR: by Leila Morris
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Proclaiming to be the first Czech restaurant in St. Petersburg, U Rudolfa II sounded to be the perfect place to introduce myself to some Czech culinary delights, being a total novice to Czech cuisine myself.
Situated at 126/2 Nevsky Prospect, this restaurant is the perfect place to go for medieval fanatics. There are knight's suits of armor dotted all over the place, with one even strategically positioned at the top of the stairs to greet you on arrival. Add to this all sorts of weaponry hanging from the walls, including swords, halberds and maces, and one could be forgiven for thinking that you've accidentally found yourself in a dungeon - a very friendly one at that.
The music on arrival, it has to be said, did not quite fit the decor of the restaurant, with the standard mono tonous Chris de Burgh/Celine Di o n love classics spinning away. But fortunately these were soon whipped off the music system, and a live duet comprising guitar and violin started warming up. Although I'm not entirely sure how authentically Czech such songs as Greensleeves are, it was certainly a vast and jolly improvement to the previous music.
Not being a big fan of beer, I decided to stick to fruit juice (20 rubles) but my companion could not resist such Czech specialties, opting for half a liter of Krusovice dark (brewed, apparently, to Rudolf II's special recipe) (70 rubles), which he found to be good.
After much deliberation over a very extensive and tantalizing menu, I chose garlic soup (50 rubles) to start with, followed by a chicken dish called Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (270 rubles). My dining partner chose the Domazhlitsky Salad (140 rubles) followed by duck with knedlikes (a traditional type of Czech dumpling) and stewed sweet cabbage (450 rubles).
We could not have chosen better. The garlic soup had an egg cracked into it, and arrived with a separate jug of croutons, which is a superb idea - there's nothing worse than a soggy crouton. It was fresh and delicious, without the garlic being over-powering.
The Domazhlitsky Salad was equally delicious, comprising chunks of chicken, walnuts, peaches and vegetables in a white wine sauce.
No sooner had our empty plates been whisked away, than our main meals appeared. I have to confess to getting the giggles when we caught sight of the duck dish. It was possibly the most enormous plate of food I'd ever seen - perhaps a tray would be a more apt description. One could not help but wonder by what means they presented the "meals for two" - perhaps they came on a trolley all of their own.
However, what the dish lacked in unapproachable size and dull color, it certainly made up for in flavor. It turned out to be half a roasted duck, which was done to perfection, with a crispy skin. The knedlikes were tasty, although perhaps a little dry. However, what made the dish was the cabbage, cooked with caraway seeds, which was delicious and light.
My Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves was just as good, and wonderfully presented. It consisted of a very generous portion of chicken breasts, stuffed with bacon and a creamy sauce, and smothered in a fantastic, rich, spicy sauce with dried fruits, including prunes, apricots and figs, with a side dish of rice. Although these combinations may sound a little over the top, they complemented each other beautifully.
Having finally finished our enormous dishes, we found we had no room left at all for dessert, although they did sound like the standard creamy Slavic fare, such as the Czech Fairytale (80 rubles), comprising jam, peaches, ice-cream and whipped cream.
U Rudolfa II comes highly recommended, and is certainly value for money - the food is plentiful, unique and absolutely delicious.
Having finished our digestif of complementary Fermet Branca, which all customers receive after their meal, we slowly waddled home, confident that surely we would not need to eat for at least another week.
U Rudolfa II, 126/2 Nevsky Prospect, 277-16-61. Open Mon.-Thurs. 1 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Fri.-Sat. 1 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Sun. 1 p.m. to 12 a.m. Dinner for two, 1,090 rubles ($37.50). Credit cards accepted.
TITLE: multfilmy: keeping it simple
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The "Russian Britpop band" Multfilmy has signed to Real Records - the label largely responsible for "new Russian" guitar-based pop/rock, as heard on the "Brat 2" soundtrack series - and is now busy recording a follow-up to their eponymously named debut from last year. The five-piece ensemble is also getting ready to mark their third anniversary with a full-length concert on June 1.
Multfilmy's debut album - a one-off affair with big-name Moscow label Soyuz, which specializes mostly in Russian pop - was recorded sporadically over two years and produced by electronic composer Andrei Samsonov, whose electronic manipulations were largely thought to destroy the band's trademark simplicity. But the next release will sound different.
"There will be old songs like 'Lyubov,' which we recorded a long ago; songs we recorded in Kiev recently; 'Pistolet', which is on the radio now; and a lot of new songs," says frontman and songwriter Yegor Timofeyev about the album which Multfilmy is now recording at a studio located in a former Catholic church on Vasilievsky Ostrov.
"Everything will be quite straightforward and very simple - the whole album will be cheerful enough, unlike the first and third, which will follow it. It will be simply songs, with no excesses - 13 or 14 of them."
As half the album has been already recorded, Timofeyev hopes the sound will be simple and funny - just the way he wants it to be.
After the debut album, which appeared in April 2000, Multfilmy released the nine-track single "StereoSignal" in October - but only locally, on Bomba-Piter label.
"The songs which were released on the single couldn't be included on the album because they are quite specific - they are like B-sides. Also they are extremely different, so the record would have been very eclectic," says Timofeyev.
Because of last year's exposure with radio play and videos, the band's audience has changed a little, but Timofeyev objects to the idea that it has become younger.
"It's slightly changed - there were only girls before, but now there are more boys in the audience. Whether it's older or younger is difficult to tell - we'll see at the concert," he says.
There has been a line-up change, as well. The band's founding member and drummer Olesya Tikhonravova quit last year and was replaced by Maxim Voitov - formerly of the local band Kukryniksy, and now full-time with Multfilmy.
"He plays more energetically - at least because he's a boy. It's become more interesting," says Timofeyev.
Though Multfilmy has not played in the city since its surprise appearance at the Fuzz Awards concert in April, the band has been traveling a lot lately, playing around eight shows a month in cities such as Samara, Voronezh and Minsk, with some of the forthcoming album's tracks recorded in Kiev.
Timofeyev is vague about the details of his contract with Real Records. "I don't know, it's not clear - two or probably three [albums]," he says. Last year Multfilmy submitted two Victor Tsoi covers to the label's hugely successful Kino tribute albums.
The band plans to add more visual entertainment to the upcoming concert by showing band footage and videos along with segments of Japanese Manga cartoons and probably Nick Park's "Wallace and Gromit."
Anglophile Timofeyev, who follows the latest releases of Radiohead and Coldplay, says his favorites are still Travis and The Beatles.
As far as Russian music is concerned, Timofeyev admits he has heard nothing interesting lately. "I am trying to protect myself from such a nightmare as Russian music," he says.
Multfilmy's official Web site at http://multfilmy.spb.ru has not been updated since last year. Check the band's new Moscow site at www.multfilmy.2000.ru.
Multfilmy in concert on June 1 at Lensoviet Palace of Culture. Tickets cost 100 and 120 rubles.
TITLE: vangi lays emotions bare
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Most people have little interest in the personal problems of the people around them. But Italian sculptor Giuliano Vangi confronts us with the sufferings of others, externalizing them and giving them physical form.
This avalanche of hidden feelings is now on display for all to see at an exhibition of Vangi's works occupying five halls at the State Hermitage Museum.
Giuliano Vangi was born in 1931 near Florence, where he received his artistic education. One of the most prominent sculptors in Italy, whose works decorate cathedrals in Florence, Padova and Pise, anthropocentrist Vangi demonstrates his versatility in working with various materials: bronze, wood and marble.
The exhibition, organized with the support of the administration of the Massa and Carrara provinces, comprises 24 sculptures as well as 14 graphic works and paintings.
Emotions of fear, doubt and despair dominate the faces of Vangi's creations. Through the physical asymmetry of his characters, the sculptor unveils their inner conflicts and disharmony.
Vangi's characters are desperately seeking inner liberty. But they are also hiding from reality, like his "Man Covering his Face with his Hands." The sculpture is accompanied by four sketches, each showing a different emotion and illustrating Vangi's artistic methods: hope, torment, despair, and escaping reality.
Some of the sculptures have no hands, with the contours of the hands carved on their body, a visualization of their limited contact with the outside world. His 1995 work "Man with Hands in Pockets" is trapped in a long black suit, fearfully glancing around.
Currently working in Tuscany, Vangi has recently focused on religious issues. Last year Vangi's work showing Pope John Paul encouraging youth to stride forward was installed near the new entrance to the Vatican Museums. His large marble sculpture "Crossing the Threshold" is the first piece of art to greet the museum's visitors, placed just next to the entrance.
The exhibition can be seen through July 16. For details, call the State Hermitage Museum at: 311-90-25.
TITLE: italians move in on city
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: You live in a beautiful city, say Italians when they come to St. Petersburg. It is a triumph of Italian architecture, they add, if you meet them abroad.
Even more Italy on the banks of the Neva River is brought to you by the "Italy and Italian Street" festival, which opened May 24 and runs through June 2.
Hosting most of the events will be the Shuvalovsky Palace, also known as the House of Friendship.
"Days of Italian Cities" in the Shuvalovsky Palace promise to be particularly interesting. Mario Trabucco, the keeper of Niccolo Paganini's violin, is coming for a concert on Day of Genova (May 26).
May 28 will be devoted to Milan. A Russian-Italian business center will open at 120/1 Nevsky Prospect, Verdi's Otello is playing at the Mussorgsky Theater, while the Shuvalovsky Palace will be hosting a seminar on Verdi and a "Verdi's Melodies" concert by Mariinsky theater soloists.
The town of Arezzo will have its day in St. Petersburg on May 30, with a lecture by professor Carlo Starnazzi on landscapes in Leonardo Da Vinci's art, and several concerts.
Meanwhile, an extensive exhibition entitled "The Best of Italy" in Shuvalovsky Palace (May 25 through 30) unveils the country's fashion and furniture design, cuisine and wines.
Links: http://www.cic.spb.ru/
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The Jamaican ska veterans who virtually invented the style in the early 1960s are bringing their act to the city on Sunday, with two Moscow dates to follow.
Before The Skatalites were nominated for a Gram my Award in the category of Best Reggae Album in 1996 and 1997, they had a long and turbulent history of splits, reunions and deaths of musicians.
The band, whose name was a pun based on the music style and the first Soviet sputnik, was formed in June 1964 of session musicians working in studios in Kingston, Jamaica.
"From rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues we just change to [ska]. And everybody just catch onto the beat and like the beat," said founding member and drummer Lloyd Knibb in a 1998 interview about the birth of a style which was to influence generations of musicians .
Soon after they had conquered Jamaican airwaves, Don Drummond's composition, "Man In The Street", made the Top 10 in the U.K. in 1964.
Trombonist Drummond was not only the Skatalites busiest composer, but the most prolific in all of ska, with at least 300 tunes to his name by early 1964.
The most legendary member of The Skatalites was probably also the most unstable and unhappy.
In 1965 Drummond was jailed for the murder of his girlfriend, Anita 'Marguerita' Mahfood. He was later convicted and put in a mental institution, where he died in 1969.
The nine-member outfit is proud to have three of The Skatalites' original members, Lloyd Brevett, Lloyd Knibb, and Lester Sterling.
At their local concert The Skatalites will be supported by their St. Petersburg counterparts - Spitfire, which plays a blend of ska and punk, and Markscheider Kunst, which uses reggae, Latin and African Soukous as well as ska.
Sun., May 27, Lensoviet Palace of Culture, 42 Kamennoostrovsky Pr., 346-04-38.
Ironically, The Skatalites play on the very same day as Procol Harum, which also comes from the 1960s, although from a different part of the globe.
There will be hardly any competition, though, as the bands appeal to two totally different camps.
Procol Harum is now comprised of Gary Brooker, Matthew Fischer, Geoffrey Whitehorn and Mark Brzezicki.
Sun., May 27, Yubileiny Sports Palace, Small Arena, 18 Pr. Dobrolyubova, 119-56-14.
The third important show of the week is by Les Hurlements d'Leo.
Due to the fact that it is almost unknown in Russia, the French folk-punk collective will split the show with local alternative favorites Tequilajazzz.
For more information on Les Hurlements d'Leo, check out www.hurlements. com. Unfortunately, the site is only in French.
Thursday, May 31, LDM, 47 Ulitsa Professora Popova, M: Petrogradskaya, 234-44-94.
TITLE: finding yourself at the faculty club
AUTHOR: by Molly Graves
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Student club Faculty - sporting some recent remodelling including airbrushed wall murals - is still going strong after spending the past few months doing what any true student club should do: trying to find itself.
Faculty - the club that was opened last fall on the Petrograd Side, a former warehouse located just ten minutes' walk from the university's main building - is the official club of the university. The idea to launch such a club (by students, for students) was, not surprisingly, originally the creation of students themselves. And indeed they do seem to be its main clientele; on our way there my clubbing companion and I witnessed a number of student groups braving the bridge traffic en route to the club.
Besides its proximity, there are other university-related benefits to Faculty. Because of its university backing, the club need not turn huge profits, and so is generally a bargain in all respects for tight-budgeted club-hoppers. Cover runs from 50 to 80 rubles, depending on the group, and though student ID is not required to get in, there is a 50 percent university student discount at the door. At 30 rubles, beers are a good deal as well - though with bar-tending positions filled by moonlighting students, you may have to be a bit patient while waiting for your bargain Botchkarov.
The club itself spans two large main rooms. After recent renovations, you now enter Faculty not by way of the concert hall, but through a newly designed entrance tunnel. Once you've had your hand stamped up with iridescent ink under the glow of black lights, you will enter through the bar area, which is set just off the concert area and boasts a number of tables and chairs for relaxing.
Here, one can hang out and get away from the music - sort of. With bands playing in the adjoining hall, even the quieter atmosphere of the bar room is not so quiet, meaning that Faculty is probably not the best place for those looking for peaceful conversation.
Stylistically, the club is more than a bit eclectic: The bar room boasts a school-days theme on the one hand, with the bar itself set against a backdrop of books and encyclopedias, not to mention a periodic table on display for relaxing chemists to brush up on their formulas. Alongside these are copies of old Soviet propaganda posters singing the somewhat mocking praises of the student work ethic. In contrast, the walls of the low-lit concert hall are adorned with art exhibits which have a rather dark feel to them, including contorted, psychologically inclined drawings, which provide for more of an art-club feel.
The crowd of Faculty-goers is similarly diverse. Besides their generally predictable young age, few common characteristics are notable upon scanning across the room. From the hip-hop followers sporting their 70s-style big shoes, to (zoiks!) those dressed like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, you can find most anything and everything - skinheads, tattoos, dreadlocks, R.E.M. T-shirts, preppy buttondowns, and plenty of mod, mod hair - all right here.
Additionally, and perhaps most impressively, the gigs are far from shabby. Musically similar to other student-oriented clubs such as Griboyedov, Faculty features both live shows and DJ all-night parties, with recent shows including acts such as Dva Samliota, Babslei, Markscheider Kunst, and Leningrad's popular side project Tri Debila. Playing the night my friend and I visited were Kirpichi, the hip-hop combo whose rap-tinged songs about money and politics had the Faculty kids sarcastically shouting lines like: "Putin has allowed us to think!" as they slam-danced their way around the room.
The newly painted mural in the bar room - which depicts a motley group of stony-eyed, tough-kid types, huddled together and staring outwards in defiance - seems to present something of a statement for the club itself: "This is our club," they say, "one that we created - one that we can afford to come to." In somewhat cheesier terms, it might be called a celebration of diversity. With all its variations, Faculty at times can seem like the club equivalent of Holden Caufield, perpetually trying to find itself - and as a student venue, this somehow seems fitting.
Faculty: 6 Prospect Dobrolyubova, Met ro Sportivnaya/Gorkovskaya, 233-06-72. Daily 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Entry 50 to 80 rubles after 9 p.m. University students get a 50 percent discount at the door.
TITLE: Yugoslav Troops Take Last Rebel Zone
AUTHOR: By Dragan Ilic
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOUNT JAVOR, Yugoslavia - Several thousand Yugoslav troops on Thursday moved into the last, most crucial part of a buffer zone separating Ko sovo from the rest of the country, hoping to eliminate the final safe haven for ethnic Albanian rebels in southern Serbia.
Minor incidents were reported as the Yugoslav army's de-mining units, infantry, police and light artillery spread out in the most volatile part of the four-kilometer-wide buffer zone, which had been in ethnic Albanian rebel hands.
Rebels fired at an army column and an army truck hit a land mine, but there were no injuries, said Col. Branislav Miladinovic. The Serb-led troops plan to meet up with NATO troops on the border with Kosovo.
"Everything is going smoothly," said General Nebojsa Pavkovic, the army chief-of-staff. He said the deployment was slow because of land mines, but that a part of his troops had reached the border with Kosovo by early afternoon.
The buffer zone in southern Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, was set up as part of a peace deal that ended NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia in 1999. The alliance launched the campaign to force former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants.
NATO and the United Nations took over Kosovo when Milosevic's forces left, and the buffer zone was intended to put breathing space between peacekeepers and Yugoslav troops. But ethnic Albanian militants seized much of the zone in November, killing several Serb policemen and soldiers.
The rebels, known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, wanted the primarily ethnic Albanian villages in this part of southern Serbia to throw out Serb rule, as their ethnic kin did in Kosovo.
With Milosevic's demise in October and a new, democratic government now in power in Belgrade, NATO agreed to the phased return of Yugoslav troops in the area between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
Recent sporadic clashes in the region underlined the potential for more violence when Yugoslav forces occupy the remaining 20 percent of buffer zone.
Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, speaking in Bujanovac located near Kosovo's eastern border, said between 4,000 and 5,000 army and police troops would move into the tensest part of the buffer zone over the next several days.
He said the troops expect "some possible hostility" and would respond if attacked.
Some villagers fled the zone Wednesday, some saying Serb security forces wearing masks had swept into their village, Muhovac.
By late evening, at least 200 people - about a third of the population in two other nearby villages - had crossed into Kosovo, as two Apache helicopters hovered overhead to survey the situation.
Authorities said that a police de-mining team entered a small sector of the most contested part of the zone and defused as many as 15 land mines planted on a 100-meter stretch of road, hinting the whole area might be heavily mined. The unit pulled out again by nightfall.
Asked to comment on the anxieties of ethnic Albanian villagers, Covic said they had "no reason to fear."
Rebels agreed earlier this week to demilitarize and hand over their weapons to NATO in Kosovo, a move that came in recognition of the Yugoslav army's superior strength and lack of international support for the insurgents' aims.
TITLE: Taleban Singles Out Hindus
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan Hindus expressed dismay and sadness Wednesday at new requirements from the Taleban leadership that they wear a yellow piece of cloth on their shirt pockets to set them apart from Muslims.
"Who knows who is close to God?" asked Gandar, a 32-year-old Hindu pharmacy owner in the Afghan capital Kabul. "We feel part of the same body, the same house, the same room, like a family ... Why should we have a mark?"
The Taleban defended their ruling Wednesday. They insisted it was meant to protect Hindus from religious police who patrol the streets enforcing the Taleban's version of Islamic law.
"This is not any kind of discrimination," said Mohammed Suhail Shaheen, deputy head of the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan. "They [the Hindus] can carry out their rituals as before ... They will enjoy full rights."
Muslim men - required by the Taleban to keep their beards - sometimes claim they're Hindu if arrested for shaving, Shaheen said. Conversely, clean-shaven Hindus are sometimes arrested erroneously, he added.
The new order also requires Hindu women for the first time to cover themselves head-to-toe in a garment called a burqa, just as Muslim women have been forced to do in Afghanistan.
The plan - reminiscent of a Nazi policy in the 1930s and 40s that required European Jews to wear yellow Stars of David - has been criticized internationally as a human rights violation. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed to the Taleban to reject the decision, his spokesperson said.
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Airplane Shot Down
KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel (Reuters) - Israel's air force shot down a light civilian plane from Lebanon on Thursday, the anniversary of Israel's pullout from the Arab state, after the pilot failed to heed warnings that he was over Israel.
Israeli military sources said the pilot's body was found in the wreckage.
In Beirut, the Lebanese army said a Lebanese civil aviation student, Step han Ohannis Nicolian, 43, took off in a plane belonging to a flying school and headed for south Lebanon in Israel's direction without the school's permission.
Israel army spokesperson Ron Kitrey told Israel Radio that helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft crews had tried to warn the pilot of the Cessna aircraft that he was flying over Israel.
Israel pulled out of south Lebanon a year ago, ending a 22-year occupation, and army officers had warned that Hizbollah fighters who led the Leba ne se guerrilla campaign for Israel's withdrawal could attack to mark the anniversary.
Executive Shot Dead
MADRID (Reuters) - A newspaper executive was shot dead in Spain's northern Basque region on Thursday in the first killing blamed on the armed Basque separatist group ETA since crucial Basque parliamentary elections earlier this month.
Santiago Oleaga Elejabarrieta, 54 years old, was shot three times in the head. He was financial director of leading regional newspaper El Diaro Vas co (The Basque Daily), the newspaper said.
With this killing, ETA has been blamed for 31 murders since January 2000 and about 800 since 1968 in a campaign to carve out an independent Basque homeland from regions of northern Spain and southern France.
It typically targets local politicians, members of the security forces and, recently, journalists, usually with bombs or gunshots in the back of the head. A week before the Basque elections on May 6, a ruling-party senator was gunned down in the northern Aragon region.
India Invites Pakistan
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - India on Wednesday invited Pakistani military ruler Pervez Mu shar raf to peace talks in a gesture aimed at ending five decades of hostility in Kashmir. Islamabad immediately accepted the offer.
Such talks would be the first by government officials from India and Pakistan since they came close to war while fighting on the Kashmir border in the summer of 1999.
"The prime minister has decided to invite General Musharraf to visit India at his earliest convenience," India's Defense Minister Jaswant Singh said, adding that New Delhi is committed to "peace, dialogue and cooperative coexistence with Pakistan."
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would soon issue an official invitation, Singh said in a prepared statement.
Spy Plane To Go Home
BEIJING (Reuters) - China signaled an end to a bitter wrangle over a U.S. spy plane held on Hainan Island by announcing on Thursday it had accepted a U.S proposal to dismantle the aircraft and send it home in pieces.
Beijing has said allowing the $80 million plane to fly out would be a national humiliation. China is seeking to humble the U.S. military and appease a fiercely nationalistic public outraged by the collision, in which the pilot of a Chinese fighter jet was killed.
Chinese technicians have already scoured the aircraft for secrets that the 24-member U.S. crew failed to destroy during the hair-raising minutes before they landed the plane with a mangled propeller and nose cone ripped off.
China detained the crew for 11 tense days and only freed them after Washington said it was "very sorry."
Election Date Set
LIMA, Peru (AP) - Peru's election board has set June 3 as the date for a presidential runoff between front-runner Alejandro To le do and former president Alan Garcia.
Polls show To le do with a comfortable lead over Gar cia in voter preference. Last week, the independent polling firm Datum gave Toledo 42 percent support to 27 percent for Garcia. The poll had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
Neither candidate won the necessary 50 percent of the votes during the first round on April 8 to avoid the second vote.
Toledo, 55, who overcame poverty to earn a doctorate from Stanford University, draws most of his support from Peru's marginalized mixed-race and Indian majority.
Garcia, 51, who governed Peru from 1985 to 90, is remembered for leaving office amid rampant corruption and surging rebel violence. He returned to Peru in January once corruption charges against him expired after nine years in exile.
Cyclone Threat
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - India's Gujarat state, still picking up the pieces after January's devastating earthquake, evacuated thousands of people from its coastline on Thursday as a severe cyclone swirled in the Arabian Sea.
Weather officials said the cyclone that has hovered off India's west coast for two days was 500 kilometers south of the port town of Veraval and could hit southern coastal areas of Gujarat early on Saturday. Pakistan's two main ports, located in the southern city of Karachi, were not planning to suspend operations but had issued warnings to ensure safety.
The Indian Meteorological Department said the storm had intensified, packing winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour.
Pope Sets Goals
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Cardinals who attended an extraordinary meeting called by the pope also got to assess their peers as possible successors to Pope John Paul II and identify the challenges facing the church in the coming years.
These were the goals set by the 81-year-old John Paul when he summoned all the cardinals to Rome for three days of closed-door talks. Most of the 155 cardinals who attended headed home Thursday after celebrating Mass with John Paul in St. Peter's Basilica and joining the pontiff for lunch.
The frail pope, who suffers from symptoms of Parkinson's disease, spoke in a clear voice but appeared weak at times during the two-hour Mass.
In February, John Paul named 44 new cardinals, expanding the College of Cardinals to 183 members, the largest number in history. There were so many new faces that cardinals said they found themselves sitting next to virtual strangers.
TITLE: Hingis and Kuerten Named as Top Seeds for the French Open
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Martina Hingis, ranked No. 1 in the world and seeking her first French Open title, will be the top-seeded player in the Grand Slam event that begins next week.
Venus Williams will be seeded second, followed by fellow-American Lindsay Davenport. Players are seeded based on the latest WTA Tour world rankings.
Jennifer Capriati, who opened the Grand Slam season by winning the Australian Open, will be seeded fourth. Last year, the 25-year-old Capriati was beaten in the first round of the French, but was a semifinalist at Roland Garros in 1990.
Amelie Mauresmo of France will be seeded fifth, followed by three-time French Open champion Monica Seles and Serena Williams.
Defending champion Mary Pierce withdrew Wednesday with a back injury. Pierce, who made the announcement after a first-round loss in the Strasbourg Open, is bothered by a "chronic inflammation of the lumbar spine," a WTA statement said.
The 20-year-old Hingis has won Wimbledon, the U.S. and Australian opens but not the French Open, the only Grand Slam event played on clay.
Defending champion and world No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten has been named top seed for next week's French Open.
The Brazilian is top of the seedings ahead of Marat Safin, Andre Agassi and Juan Carlos Ferrero.
Safin has been seeded second despite a mediocre year so far. The U.S. Open champion has won just two matches on clay this season.
- Reuters
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Coach of the Year
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Larry Brown, the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, was named the NBA's coach of the year on Wednesday.
Brown, who led the Sixers to their best record in 16 years, won the award for the first time in his 18-year NBA coaching career.
He received 85 votes from a 124-member media panel. Rick Adelman of the Sacramento Kings finished second with 11 votes and Don Nelson of the Dallas Mavericks was third with eight. No other coach received more than five votes.
Beating the Odds
LONDON (AP) - A British man won 500,000 pounds ($715,000) when Bayern Munich outlasted Valencia in the European Cup final Wednesday, completing a staggering 15-event wager.
The man, who was not identified, wagered only 30 pence ($0.42) with bookmakers William Hill on the outcome of the 15 events at total odds of 1,666,666:1.
The man, in his 50s from central England, correctly picked Manchester United, Fulham, Millwall, Brighton and Rushden and Diamonds to win league titles in England, and did the same with Partick Thistle, Livingston and Hamilton in Scotland.
In addition to Bayern Munich, he picked Arsenal, Hibernian and Falkirk in individual league games, and selected Surrey for the English Cricket County Championship, Gloucester for the NatWest Trophy, as well as Leicester in rugby union's Premiership.