SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #675 (42), Tuesday, June 5, 2001
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TITLE: Tel Aviv Blast Stuns Ex-Soviet Teens
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: KIBBUTZ GIVAT BRENNER, Israel - When Mariana Madbaneko's family considered returning to their native Russia last year after a tough first year in Israel, it was the teenage Mariana who urged her parents to stay.
"It was Mariana more than the others who said my future is here," said her father, Victor, 47, Sunday afternoon, minutes after he buried his 16-year-old daughter in this collective community outside Tel Aviv.
Now that Mariana is dead, one of 20 young Israelis killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber Friday night outside a Tel Aviv nightclub popular with teens from the former Soviet Union, her father has had to convince his other children that they should stay in Israel.
"If Mariana is here, we're going to stay with her," Madbaneko told his son, Alexander, 10, the day after Mariana died. The boy now wants to stay.
Many Russian immigrants came to Israel because they saw it as a promised land offering them hope of a better and more secure life. Now they have been sucked into just the kind of conflict they were trying to escape back home.
"We hear people say they came here to promise their children a better future - and here we are burying them," said Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident who is now Israel's housing minister.
Mariana's was one of 14 funerals Sunday, causing a third day of national mourning in Israel - a day on which another child, a 14-year-old girl, died from her injuries. That brought the death toll to 20 Israelis and the bomber. Almost all the dead were immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The Palestinian bomber had mingled in the crowd at entrance of the Pascha nightclub in Tel Aviv, then set off a charge laced with nails, screws and ball bearings.
Afterward, Dr. Patrick Sorkin and his five intensive care specialists fought to save 11 critically injured teens. One died Sunday. The others might hang for weeks between life and death.
Another 23 remained in the hospital, and 12 others were released.
"God knows where it's going to go, but it is not finished," he said at Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center, sucking hard at a cigarette after 14 hours of emergency operations. Whatever comes next, he said, Jews will demonstrate their resolve. "It's like the war extends to here," he said of his beleaguered intensive care unit.
"We're showing they are not going to win."
Amid the mourning, Israel began to hit back at Islamic militants in the Palestinian territories but backed off from launching a large-scale military attack on the Palestinian Authority - a decision that left many Russians feeling angry and impotent.
"My friends come up to me and say: 'Sasha, look how cheap Russian blood has become.' They can't understand why nothing is being done to respond to this," said Alexander Oleshansky, a Russian doctor.
Demonstrators at the Defense Ministry called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "chicken" for not having launched an immediate retaliatory attack on Palestinian targets. Others felt that with so much blood spilled since the uprising began in September, it was best to wait and hope a cease-fire took hold. "We have to be very restrained. ... Violence will solve no problem," said Dina Shulman, 18, a student whose friends were injured in the blast.
But, at a mosque, hundreds pelted Moslem worshippers with stones and set cars afire.
On the first day after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called a cease-fire, there were fewer attacks on Israelis, but a group of Palestinian factions issued a statement saying they still had the right to fight Israel. And the father of the suicide bomber spoke of his pride for his son's action.
"I was extremely happy when I heard that my son is the one who did this operation, and I wish I had many sons to carry out the same act, and I wish I had done it myself," Hassan Hotari said of Said, 22, an electrician. Lebanese Hezbollah television reported the extremist Palestinian group Hamas had claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.
But there were no airstrikes against Palestinian Authority targets as the number of Palestinian attacks on Israel dipped following Arafat's announcement Saturday of a cease-fire. Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has dispatched an envoy to quell tensions.
While revenge was on the minds of some mourners at Mariana Madbaneko's funeral, most of her friends and relatives preferred to remember a cheerful, determined girl who found a home in Israel.
Hundreds of mourners gathered at the kibbutz cemetery that would be Mariana's final resting place. Because she was not strictly Jewish - only her paternal grandfather was a Jew, and the religion follows maternal lines - the religious authorities refused to let her be buried in a traditional Jewish cemetery, a decision that drew much criticism in Israel.
Around the grave, ringed by olive trees and cypresses, teenagers from Mariana's school stood sobbing, holding flowers and hugging each other for comfort. It would be a long day for them. Five students and two former students from their school died in the attack. A bus was taking them from funeral to funeral.
In a dining hall of the kibbutz, where the family was served lunch after the burial, Vijtor Madbaneko spoke about his daughter's plans.
"She wanted to be an engineer," said Madbaneko, who brought his family to Israel from Eastern Russia in November 1999. "She liked computers and graphics and spent a lot of time at home applying herself and studying."
But was the price of coming to Israel from Russia too high?
"I don't think I have any regrets,'' Madbaneko said. "But it's difficult. And maybe Mariana would have stayed alive if we hadn't come. But Mariana felt very good here."
- AP, Reuters, WP
TITLE: Jeep Drivers Take on Lake Ladoga Challenge
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Anyone sleeping in the vicinity of St. Isaac's Square last Sunday morning was awakened to the rude smell of truck exhaust, beer, and the sound of 107 engines roaring as drivers geared up for the Fifth Annual, Botchkarov Trophy, nine-day, off-road race.
The scruffy gathering of monster jeeps, camouflage-clad grease-monkeys toting tools, peering under hoods, and speaking in tongues about chassis, engine volume and piston compression, made an unlikely contrast to the sunny backdrop of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the surrounding square, the race's official starting line.
Announcers barked the names of drivers over a loudspeaker that struggled to be heard over the roaring engines. The drivers then drove their rigs onto a platform to be introduced to the increasingly deafened crowd.
The drivers came from near and far - from St. Petersburg to Kazakhstan to the Baltic States - to face the challenge of grinding their engines though the 1,270 kilometers of mud, swampland and bog that surround Lake Ladoga.
St. Petersburg's Off-Road and 4x4 Club, which has hosted the race for five years, was vague about what the prizes for the winners would be, specifying in the program only that there would be "Prizes and Certificates."
But that didn't seem to matter: the adventure of breaking an axle on a log or blowing out a tire on a rock seemed for the drivers reward enough in itself.
"We like going off road on weekends, but this is the first time we've ever taken part in an official competition," said Alexander Arkhipov, minutes before joining the rally with his wife Tatyana and his 12-year-old son Volodya.
"Of course we're in the Tourism category" he added, standing next to his diminutive white 1998 Niva.
The tourism category is the most forgiving of the three routes for the rally drivers. Second is the speed category, in which teams assemble to race souped-up jeeps of all descriptions through swamps in a race against the clock.
Arkhipov's Niva was a mere speck compared to the thundering pair of Mercedes 4x4s driven by a team from Almaty, Kazakhstan, decked out in camouflage with walkie-talkies hanging from their belts.
"We hope to drive from Dakar to Paris in a couple of years' time," said Aibek Omuraliyev, the team's navigator.
But they will have to make it around Ladoga first.
In the first day of the competition last year, only 13 of the 52 speed category racers even managed to finish the course, race official Olga Orlova states in the press release.
But the most demanding category is the raid category, a sudden death competition where the winner takes all. Drivers maneuver at high speeds through bogs, streams and mud pits. If you get stuck, good luck to you -you're out of the race for good.
The first leg of the rally on Sunday was through swampland near Vse vo lozhsk. Trucks up to their windshields in mud made their way across what was once a World War II front line, with barbed wire and trenches greeting the struggling teams the whole way.
The race will wrap up on June 12, and the drivers that make it will hose down and probably start preparing for next year's race. The rest had better call the tow trucks.
TITLE: Free-Trade Zone For CIS States
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MINSK - A long-delayed plan to create a free-trade zone among former Soviet republics is nearing completion, with agreements between most of the countries already signed, President Vla dimir Putin said.
The project was among the issues discussed at a two-day summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose coalition of 12 former Soviet republics, in Minsk.
"The free-trade zone is practically accomplished," Putin told reporters on Friday, the closing day of the talks. "The Russian Federation has signed agreements with all CIS countries" except Ukraine, he said.
An agreement with Ukraine is expected to be reached soon, he said.
The CIS leaders have long pledged to lift customs barriers, but the plan has remained on paper.
The project is among a number of ambitious cooperation programs put forward since the commonwealth was created in December 1991 in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union.
- AP, Reuters
TITLE: Alexander Column Due for Renovation
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In a city where scaffolding seems to bloom on famous monuments with the regularity of spring lilacs, the Alexander Column will soon be cloaked in ladders and bars for a two-year renovation project.
What is being renovated, however, is still a matter of debate.
City Hall's Committee to Protect Monuments says the column's foundation is slowing giving way, causing the 700-ton granite column to list slightly to the side.
According to the City Sculpture Museum, rather than the foundation it's the angel - which has cracked and deteriorated with age - at the column's opposite end that needs the attention.
Regardless of the problem, City Hall has inked a $500,000 deal with the Turkish financial firm, Hazar International, to back an overhaul on the statue in time for the city's 300th birthday in 2003 - once local experts have agreed on what needs to be fixed.
The local Intersia development firm will carry out the repairs.
The column was built to commemorate Russia's victory over Napoleon in 1812. Atop the column, an angel - whose face is modeled in the likeness of Alexander I - bears a heavy cross. But more disconcerting than any cracks or blemishes the years may have worn on the angel is the fact that the 48-meter column is not in any way anchored to its pedestal and is held in position by its weight alone.
For this reason, City Hall officials want to concentrate on fortifying the monument's foundation, which they say is sinking into the ground. Moreover, they pooh-pooh suggestions by the City Sculpture Museum that the angel is damaged.
"An investigation of the column's condition, conducted with the aid of helicopters [in March], has shown that the angel and the column itself are in good condition," said Nina Vyshinskaya of the Committee to Protect Monuments in a telephone interview on Thursday.
She was careful however, to explain that the column, in the view of her committee, is not teetering on the edge of collapse.
"I would not want you to say that the column is going to fall," she said. "But the main works are going to be done to the ground."
Vladimir Timofeyev, director of the City Sculpture Museum, had a different take on the data collected by helicopter in March.
"The helicopter research has shown that there is a small deviation, but this is not some leaning tower of Pisa - it is not dangerous at all," he said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
"The deviation is less then a millimeter and is not visible to the naked eye. The foundation built under the column is seven meters deep, and it is in good condition at the moment," he said.
Whatever the problem, Hazar International director Vladimir Mironov sees the project as the beginning of a boom in St. Petersburg for his Moscow-based company.
"This is a present for the city and a public-relations demarche, since the company plans to activate its business in St. Petersburg," he said in a telephone interview on Monday. To emphasize that point, he added that one condition of signing the renovation contract with the city was that a bold banner with his company's name be allowed to hang from the scaffolding throughout the estimated two-year renovation.
Much to the chagrin of many tourists, giant remodeling projects and bulky scaffolding covering city monuments are not rare. Just recently, the famous four-piece "Taming of the Horse" sculpture was returned to its four pedestals on Anichkov Bridge after an 11-month renovation.
A year-long restoration project that covered the Peter and Paul Fortress's spire also disappointed visiting shutter-bugs. But the project led to another study in frustration when restoration workers found a note left behind by the steeple jacks who had originally hoisted the angel to the top of the spire. Dated 1730, the note complained bitterly of wage arrears and wished future workers better luck.
TITLE: Nuclear Debate Gets Light-Hearted
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev showed up at a downtown Moscow restaurant Sunday for a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a debate with Yabloko head Grigory Yavlinsky on a controversial plan to import spent nuclear fuel.
Yavlinsky and Rumyantsev were guests of the "Bender Show" on Ekho Moskvy radio, which is broadcast live from a restaurant on Arbat and named after Ostap Bender, the charming con-man hero of the classic 1920s novel "Twelve Chairs."
Cracking jokes and assisting in the writing of a silly poem about nuclear waste, an unrelenting Rumyantsev maintained that earning billions of dollars by importing spent nuclear fuel was the only way for Russia to clean up areas contaminated by nuclear tests and storage leaks.
The State Duma in April passed on second reading a bill that would allow the import of about 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel during the next 40 years, a plan its authors say would earn $20 billion.
The Yabloko party is the loudest opponent of the bill. Dressed casually, Yavlinsky and Rumyantsev jovially debated the bill on a sunny afternoon in the middle of the street surrounded by cameras and a crowd of about 50 onlookers. The debate lasted a short 10 minutes and was dominated by journalists, who didn't give Muscovites a chance to ask any questions.
Ekho Moskvy journalists presented the men with the results of an informal street poll taken on Arbat hours earlier that showed 62 of the 67 pedestrians surveyed had voted against the import of nuclear waste.
"But I am also against importing nuclear waste," Rumyantsev said, playing with semantics. "Only, we're not planning to import waste. We'll be importing spent nuclear fuel."
"Of course, we can call it spent nuclear fuel," Yavlinsky replied. "But the countries that will be sending it to us call it waste."
Yavlinsky criticized the authors of the bill for not taking into consideration the poor state of Russia's railroads and nuclear plants, which would need to be used for transporting and reprocessing the fuel. He called for the bill to be suspended before it gets to the third reading and for a referendum to be conducted on the issue. A date for the third hearing has not yet been set.
National opinion polls show that 90 percent of Russians are against the import of spent fuel.
An earlier attempt by a group of environmental organizations to call for a referendum failed when the Central Elections Commission threw out just enough of the 2.6 million signatures to invalidate the appeal.
Yavlinsky also said that the bill in its current form presents fertile ground for corruption and that the money earned by importing fuel would end up in politicians' pockets rather than in programs for the cleanup of areas contaminated with radiation, as the ministry envisions.
"Today's Russia is not ready for such an operation," he said. "Not with nonexistent systems of control, not with our banking system, nor with our bureaucracy."
Rumyantsev agreed that the bill passed in the second reading does not guarantee transparency or public control over the way the money earned by imports would be spent. "But I am giving my word that I will keep everything transparent," Rumyantsev said.
After the debate, Yavlinsky and Rumyantsev continued their conversation in private at a coffee table on the restaurant's terrace. Outside, volunteers dressed in T-shirts with radiation danger signs and gas masks pretended to collect nuclear waste and a group dressed in white jackets swept the street in a mock demonstration of how Russia would have to clean up radiation if the bill is passed.
TITLE: Troshev Seeks Public Executions
AUTHOR: By Anna Dolgov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A top Russian general said in an interview published on Monday that he backed the public execution of Chechen guerrillas.
Russia has found it difficult to quash resistance by the guerrillas, who kill and wound servicemen almost every day.
General Gennady Troshev, commander of Russian troops in the North Caucasus region, told the newspaper Izvestia: "Yes, I am for the death penalty for Chechen fighters. If he has the deaths of dozens, hundreds of people on his conscience, what should he get?" Troshev said in an interview.
"This is how I'd do it: I'd gather them all on a square and string up the bandit and let him hang, let everyone see."
Troshev justified his proposal in particular by recalling bomb blasts in Moscow and other Russian towns in 1999 which killed more than 300 people.
Moscow blamed the rebels, citing the bombs as a trigger for sending troops into Chechnya. But the rebels accused Russia's security forces of planting the bombs to provoke a military crackdown.
Russia's main spokesperson on the campaign, Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said he was against Troshev's idea.
"There can be no talk of public executions and shootings. Fighters who do not put down their weapons deserve to be destroyed, but those who give up and are taken prisoner should go before a court," Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
Russia currently has a moratorium on the death penalty, and the Council of Europe, a top human rights and security body, recently said Russia could lose its membership if it retracted its commitment to abolishing capital punishment.
Rights groups, citing the finding of mass graves, have accused Russia of running a "dirty war" in the region and say the security forces often detain people on suspicion of being a rebel and then kill them instead of prosecuting them.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch says it has documented more than 200 cases of people disappearing in custody. Russia says the mass graves contain people who died during fighting. Russia's Chechnya rights envoy Viktor Kalamanov went partly along with the official line when he told parliamentary hearings on Monday that 930 people had been reported missing, but had mostly disappeared in January to April 2000 during fierce fighting.
He was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying 546 investigations have been launched and 384 people traced, of whom 18 were dead.
TITLE: Kremlin Tabs Ex-Convict For Restoring Chechnya
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The man convicted for embezzling millions of dollars meant to rebuild Grozny after the 1994-96 conflict looked set Monday to be named the Kremlin's pick to oversee the restoration of Chechnya.
Former Grozny Mayor Bislan Gantamirov will be appointed chief federal inspector dealing with the restoration of the war-torn Chechen economy by the presidential envoy to the region, Viktor Kazantsev, Interfax quoted sources in Kazantsev's office as saying.
Kazantsev made the decision during talks with Gantamirov in Moscow last week, Interfax said.
Officials at Kazantsev's office in Rostov-na-Donu and at the Kremlin could not confirm the appointment Monday. Gantamirov was jailed in Moscow after being convicted for stealing millions of federal dollars intended to rebuild Grozny, where he was mayor after the 1994-96 war. He was pardoned in 1999 and appointed head of the pro-Moscow Chechen militia. He was re-elected Grozny mayor last year, but he abruptly resigned in May after reportedly saying Chechen rebels must be killed on the spot without any investigation.
Meanwhile, Gennady Troshev, the Russian commander on the Chechen front, said that the military may conduct cleansing operations in Ingushetia in a bid to fix a worsening situation in Chechnya. Ingushetia borders Chechnya and is home to hundreds of thousands of Chechen refugees. Troshev told reporters in Chechnya that cleansing operations may be necessary to smoke out Chechen rebels hiding in Ingushetia, NTV reported Friday.
An outraged Ingush President Ruslan Aushev lashed back hours later on NTV, warning, "The authorities of the republic will go to court [if Troshev] conducts any unwarranted military operations in Ingushetia."
"For almost two years, Troshev has reported that matters in Chechnya are being put in order and the situation is being stabilized, and now it looks like the situation is getting worse in the neighboring republics," Aushev said.
The possible appointment of Gantamirov and Troshev's remarks are a sign that the federal government is running out of options in dealing with Chechnya, political analysts said Monday.
"Both of those actions are simply gestures of complete helplessness and despair by the generals," said Alexander Golts, military observer for the Nastoyashchiye Itogi online publication.
General Makhmut Gareyev, president of the Public Military Academy, agreed in a telephone interview, saying, "Of course it is unusual that they cannot catch three bandits for so many years. The question is, do they really want to catch them?"
Golts said Troshev's comments do not show any change in federal policy toward Chechnya. The federal army is trying to follow a standard set of field operations that are absolutely ineffective in Chechnya because the rebels are not accepting the same rules and will not surrender, he said.
"In this situation the army gets lost and becomes brutal," he said. "The situations in Algeria and Vietnam are the same right down to the details. Americans were saying that Viet Cong is hiding in Cambodia and Laos and that they must fight until the last Viet Cong guerrilla is killed."
"We all know the results," he added.
TITLE: Report: Vavilov Charged With Embezzlement
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Military prosecutors have charged a former deputy finance minister with large-scale embezzlement, according to a news report. But Andrei Vavilov's spokesperson denied the report.
The charges against Vavilov, board chairman at the Severnaya Neft oil company, were brought last Monday when he visited the Prosecutor General's Office and the military prosecutor's office, Interfax reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources "close to the investigation." After the visit, Vavilov was hospitalized with high blood pressure.
"No charges have been brought against Andrei Petrovich [Vavilov]," Severnaya Neft spokesperson Yelena Prorokova said in a telephone interview Sunday.
"He does occasionally visit the military prosecutor's office, but these visits are of a consultative nature," she said. "After all, he was a high-ranking official who has some knowledge that could be helpful to investigators."
The Interfax report said Vavilov was charged with abuse of office in a case involving the misappropriation of nearly half a billion dollars in Defense Ministry funds. The military prosecutor's office declined to comment on the report.
The case was opened in March 2000 and led to corruption charges against the Defense Ministry's then-finance chief, Colonel General Georgy Oleinik.
According to a report last year in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the money was part of a complicated funds-transfer scheme in 1995-96, involving Gazprom and Ukrainian energy officials.
Citing "well-informed sources," the paper wrote that Gazprom had borrowed $450 million from two commercial banks and used the money to pay taxes. The report said the funds were transferred to the Defense Ministry's finance department via the Finance Ministry - where Vavilov served at the time. The Defense Ministry, in turn, wired the money to British-based United Energy International Ltd. - a co-founder and agent of Ukraine's national power grid. Although the official purpose of the transfer was to purchase unspecified "material-technical valuables," the paper said UEI ultimately transferred the money back to Gazprom to pay off part of Ukraine's debt for gas.
Neither Gazprom nor Ukrainian officials could be reached for comment Sunday. It was unclear whether Gaz prom had repaid the two loans.
Interfax reported Saturday that Vavilov had agreed in writing not to leave the country. However, a number of newspapers suggested that he planned to flee to Switzerland. Prorokova said Sunday that Vavilov had no plans to leave the country.
Since his dismissal from the Finance Ministry in April 1997, Vavilov has been questioned in connection with several embezzlement cases.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Kasyanov on Shuffle
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A government reshuffle, previously planned for the end of May, has been postponed until the Cabinet has considered the 2002 draft budget, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said.
"There are a number of objective circumstances due to which the structural fine-tuning was postponed," Kasyanov was quoted by Interfax as saying Friday in Minsk, where he was attending a CIS meeting.
Kasyanov said the preparation of the budget was one of the reasons for the postponement. The Cabinet is due to consider the draft budget on June 7.
He reiterated that only minor ministerial positions would be reshuffled, although President Vladimir Putin earlier last week criticized him for failing to meet various targets in the 2001 budget.
Kasyanov said both he and Putin wanted to carry out the government reshuffle quickly. "There is a mutual desire not to drag our feet in the process," he said.
Visas to Hungary
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Hungary has introduced visas for Russian citizens, effective June 3, reported the newspaper Delovoi Peterburg. Hungarian officials stated that every effort would be made to make the application process as simple as possible. Medical insurance and income statements are not required.
Ordinary tourist visas cost $40, and multiple-entry visas cost $180.
Hungary introduced the new visa regime as part of its effort to join the European Union in 2004 and to join the 1985 Schengen accord. In 2000, 125,000 Russians visited the country.
SPS Gets Serious
MOSCOW (SPT) - Fresh from building the Union of the Right Forces into a political party, top SPS officials met over the weekend to divvy up the party's committees.
The first meeting of the party's council decided to name SPS leader Boris Nemtsov as the head of the committee on regional development, which is in charge of building a network of regional branches throughout the country, Interfax reported.
Parties are required to have such a network under a bill on political parties that passed a second reading in the State Duma last month and could become a law by the end of the year. The bill requires a party to have no less than 45 regional branches with at least 100 members in each.
In other appointments at last weekend's meeting, SPS co-chairwoman Irina Khakamada was put in charge of the external relations committee - which coordinates SPS's relations with other parties and the press - and co-chairman Yegor Gaidar was made head of a committee overseeing the party's ideology and program.
Meanwhile, another co-chairman, Sergei Kiriyenko, suspended his membership from the party, explaining that he was "a governmental official," and therefore should not be a party member. Kiriyenko is President Vladimir Putin's special representative in the Volga district.
TITLE: Two Killed in $41,000 Robbery
AUTHOR: By Masha Kaminskaya
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two people were killed and nearly $41,000 stolen in broad daylight as the result of an unprecedented armed robbery on Monday. Police are looking for an unidentified male who gunned down two almost unprotected guards and took what had been meant to be the monthly wages for St. Petersburg meteorology professors.
The assault took place around noon in a corridor of the Russian State Hydrometeorology University, located at 98 Malookhtinsky Prospect in the northern part of the city. According to the university's rector, Lev Karlin, the 1,217,000 rubles were to be paid as salary to nearly 800 employees.
According to Gennady Ryabov, head spokesperson for the City Prosecutor's office, the university's cashier entered the building with two guards - 36-year-old Nikolai Menyayev, a public safety policeman, and 26-year-old Alexei Alexeyev, the university's daytime security guard. The two guards were carrying the money in a bag. Ryabov did not know the name or age of the cashier.
The three were attacked when they entered a second-floor corridor, where the robber blocked their way and ordered them to lie on the floor. According to Karlin, who referred to evidence given by numerous eyewitnesses, the suspect was a male of average height wearing a ski mask and a bullet-proof jacket.
The cashier obeyed the order and got down on the floor, which saved her life. The guards, however, drew their gas pistols - the only means of protection they had. During the shoot-out, the robber killed Menyayev immediately and severely wounded Alexeyev. He then took the bag with the money and fled the scene. An ambulance was called, but Alexeyev died soon after doctors arrived.
According to Ryabov, police found several 5.45-mm cartridge cases at the scene and suspect the robber used a Kalashnikov machine gun, which he took when he fled.
The press service for St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police refused to comment. However, Karlin said that at 6 p.m. police were still working at the scene and interrogating the university's employees. During the day, St. Petersburg Police Chief Veniamin Petukhov came "to call the employees to increase their vigilance," said Karlin.
"There were dozens of witnesses there - students and professors," said Karlin, whose university - as part of the International Meteorological Organization - is a regional educational center preparing specialists in the environmental sciences, including foreign students from 28 countries.
"Our foreign students will have a lot to talk about when they return home - never has anything like this happened before."
According to Ryabov, the suspect must have caught the cashier and her escorts unaware. He did not rule out, however, that a university employee could have informed the alleged robber as to how, when, where, and how much money was to be delivered.
Ryabov also said that if police fail to retrieve the money, the state is not obligated to compensate for the lost paychecks, even though the university is a state organization. In this case, the university will have to look for sponsors, he said.
"We'll see what we can do to find the funds to make up for this loss," said Karlin. "But I've never seen a single sponsor in this place."
TITLE: Zhirinovsky Plays Uncle In Letter to Bush Twins
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the flamboyant leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDPR, has decided to take on the role of the wise old uncle to the twin daughters of U.S. President George W. Bush - by writing to them of his concerns and "disappointment" over the young Bushes'recent behavior.
Last week, both Jenna and Barbara Bush were cited for misdemeanor alcohol-related offenses in Austin, Texas. The sisters are 19 years old and Texas law forbids anybody under the age of 21 from buying or drinking alcohol. Paradoxically - or providentially - the law was signed by Bush himself in 1997 when he was the state's governor.
"Think of my advice as that of an uncle to his nieces," wrote the nationalist lawmaker in a letter sent Friday to the White House on the occasion of World Protection of Children Day.
In the letter, Zhirinovsky - himself no stranger to scandal - chastised the Bush sisters for drinking.
"I am disappointed," he wrote. "And I earnestly ask you not to use alcohol."
"This is the second instance in two months," said a worried Zhirinovsky in a telephone interview Monday. "It throws a bad light on their father."
"In his own youth he also suffered," he said, referring to Bush's past drinking problems. "I want to help him."
Bush won't be able to deal with the country if he can't deal with his family, added Zhirinovsky, the only Russian politician to have posed in his briefs for Playboy.
"He holds a very high post," Zhirinovsky warned the twins in his letter. "Therefore, you must behave, so that no negative information about your activities can worry him."
As a role model, Zhirinovsky suggests his son Igor, head of LDPR's Duma faction, who doesn't drink at all.
To help put the twins back on the straight and narrow path, Zhirinovsky has offered to show them around Mos cow's theaters and museums, as well as its night clubs and bars.
He laso guaranteed there would be no nasty media reports, writing that "it will never enter anyone's head to offer you alcohol."
The letter was sent to the White House through the U.S. Embassy, according to Zhirinovsky. And although Washington has yet to respond, this may not be the last they hear of the outspoken Duma deputy.
"I will carefully follow your future life," he promised the Bush twins, "and will write letters when necessary."
TITLE: Soros: '91 Was an 'Incomplete Revolution'
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Financier George Soros presented the Russian translation of his book on global capitalism and said he was optimistic about the country's future progress toward democracy.
But he also expressed concern that freedom of the press was in danger in Russia.
Soros, who has both financial and charitable interests in Russia, has been a critic both of the Russian government and of the West's policies toward the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"I think that the future of Russia is very open. If you look at Russia in the historical perspective, you had an incomplete revolution," he said at a book signing in Moscow last week, referring to the events that toppled communism in 1991. "The ancient regime was destroyed, but no new regime was created. The collapse of the old society did not lead to the establishment of an open society."
Soros compared the situation to France under Napoleon, when "a lot of the values [of the French Revolution] were preserved" even as the country reverted to autocracy.
Soros' book, "Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism" contains a chapter titled "Who Lost Russia?," which criticizes the West's role in Russia's transition.
"I'm arguing that a very complex system collapsed, and the chaos that resulted could have been better kept within bounds if there had been more help from abroad. Russia was not in a position to avoid chaos," he said.
In an interview published Friday, Soros said economic pressures - a nod to the takeover of NTV television by state-dominated Gazprom - on the grounds of unpaid debts were a big danger for the media.
"Russia has freedom of the press, but it is in danger because a consolidation of property under economic pressure is taking place," Soros told Kommersant. "Companies control media for political goals and not for business purposes. This is very difficult for independent media."
Soros said Putin's stated aim of having a "dictatorship of the law" in Russia was also a danger signal.
"What happened with NTV was dictatorship of the law. Therefore the situation is this: The prospect of Russia becoming an open society is in danger, but all is not yet lost," he said.
- AP, Reuters
TITLE: Illarionov Takes Shot at Kremlin's Plans for UES
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin's top economic adviser accused the government on Friday of trying to ram through a plan to restructure the national power grid without heeding the recommendations that Putin requested.
Putin signed off on a sweeping overhaul of Unified Energy Systems on May 19, but told the Economic Development and Trade Ministry to solicit recommendations on some specifics from members of a special government panel headed by UES board member and Tomsk Governor Viktor Kress.
The adviser, Andrei Illarionov, said the ministry, which is in charge of the restructuring, had failed to notify some of the members of the Kress commission-including Kress himself- that the deadline for submissions is June 4. And those who were notified, he said, were given less than a week.
"This means that no one ... is physically able to present comments or suggestions because of the regime set up by the ministry, which, by the way, is a violation of the government resolution [passed at the same time as the plan]," said Illarionov.
As a result, Illarionov said he expected the plan to be accepted unchanged on June 19. It is based largely on the one put forward last year by UES boss Anatoly Chubais, which calls for the state-controlled electric giant to spin off its national power grid and power stations into two holdings in three years.
Illarionov compared the plan with the infamous loans-for-shares privatization scheme overseen by Chubais in 1995-96, which he estimated raised less than 1 percent of the privatized companies' real market value. "But in this case, the government won't even get 1 percent and this property will be stolen from the real owners," Illarionov told leading foreign investors on Friday.
Minority shareholders have attacked the plan for not defining how assets would be transferred and not mentioning compensation to current owners of transmission grids when the federal grid is created.
"In the [current plan] there is no mention of any compensation," Illarionov said. "Moreover, it says very clearly that all these assets should be transferred. And those assets that cannot be transferred should be managed by this new company, Federal Grid."
The assertion by Chubais and others that the restructuring is a "de-monopolization" of the industry is a lie, he said.
"This is the creation of a super monopoly," Illarionov said. "The result would be that the whole grid ... including the distributing network, would be united in one company." The grid company would thus be able to control tariffs for both producers and consumers.
TITLE: Double Exise Stamps Closing Vodka Plants
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Alcohol producers warned Sunday of looming protests after a new law aimed at cracking down on bootleg liquor came into force - and shut down most of the country's vodka and wine production.
Flagship Moscow-based distillery Kristall and hundreds of other distilleries and wineries across the country halted production Friday when the law setting up a new excise-stamp system took effect. The system requires that two excise stamps - one federal and the other regional - be slapped on each bottle of vodka. It also requires that hundreds of excise warehouses be opened to affix the regional stamps.
But the regional stamps are not yet being made.
"All distilleries are standing still now, waiting. ... We already saw longer lines for vodka on Friday, and if [the mess] continues we will have a vodka riot," said German Klimovsky, marketing director of the Russian Wine and Vodka Co., owner of the Flagman vodka brand and the local distributor for alcohol giant Allied Domecq.
"We have stopped production because we can't deliver new batches [of vodka], and the situation will hit the market at full force in the coming week since we, like many, have only one week's worth of production," said Alexei Yegarmin, general director of the Moscow-based Serebryanoprudsky distillery.
There are 700 vodka distilleries and 400 wineries in Russia, according to the National Alcohol Association.
"Many are sending their staff on vacation," the association's head, Pavel Shapkin, said Sunday.
The government is losing up to 136 million rubles ($4.7 million) in uncollected excise and value-added tax on excise each day the industry stands idle, he said.
The law at the heart of the dispute is part of Part 2 of the Tax Code, which came into force Jan. 1. There were no regional stamps ready then, so implementation of the law was put off until June 1. But as of Friday, those stamps were still unavailable.
Before Jan. 1, producers paid 100 percent of the alcohol excise tax and placed the excise stamps on their bottles.
But with bootlegging accounting for 40 percent to 70 percent of all production, the government decided to introduce a so-called split excise system under which the tax is divided evenly between producers and wholesale excise warehouses. Producers put federal stamps on the bottles and the warehouses use the regional stamps.
The Tax Ministry estimates that as many as 1,500 excise warehouses are needed.
Producers that wish to deliver their wares directly to retail outlets have the option of paying the entire tax and placing both stamps on bottles.
According to various reports, two to 10 warehouses of the 400 ordered by the Tax Ministry are open, but with no equipment to affix the stamps they are as good as nonexistent.
Each region is required to hold a tender to make the stamps, and many of them have yet to do so.
In recent years as many as 72 out of Russia's 89 regions have been issuing their own regional quality identification stamps for alcohol. The regions had hoped that those stamps could be used as excise stamps.
But then the Finance Ministry and Tax Ministry came up with a list of companies that they wanted to make the regional excise stamps.
A brawl ensued, and no tenders have been held in many regions.
Distilleries and their wholesalers are currently allowed to sell off alcohol produced before June 1. The Tax Ministry said that they can do so until September and that there are enough reserves to last two months.
But producers argue that there is not that much vodka left. "We have stock that won't last more than a week, and I've spoken to many colleagues - directors of distilleries - who have absolutely the same situation," said Yegarmin.
"Wholesalers are still working but there was a buying rush on Saturday already and some of them chose to close down," said Shapkin. "Many hiked prices 5 percent to 10 percent."
Shapkin said urgent action is needed.
"The people within the Tax Ministry and government officials who deal with alcohol are incompetent and have to be replaced," he said. "The president must intercede."
TITLE: Arms Accord With India Nets $10Bln
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Putting behind them sharp allegations of unfair arms trade, India and Russia announced Monday that they have reached $10 billion in defense deals that include the joint development of a fifth-generation fighter jet.
Russia will deliver $10 billion worth of weapons and other military hardware to India under a framework accord on arms trade and defense cooperation that the countries clinched in 1998 and then extended until 2010, Indian Defense and Foreign Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov.
The deals include an air-defense system, submarines, ships and orders for dozens of MiG-29K aircraft.
Singh and Klebanov will sign a nonbinding protocol on the deals Wednesday. Some of the deals should be signed by the end of the year, Klebanov said.
Singh, whose predecessor was fired amid Indian reports of corruption in arms procurement at India's Defense Ministry, did not mention recent allegations by ministry officials that Russia was charging unfair prices for spare parts for previously purchased military hardware. Instead, he expressed confidence that his first meeting with Klebanov under the auspices of a new Russian-Indian arms-trade commission would be a success and be enveloped in an "atmosphere of mutual understanding."
The $10 billion in deals will include joint funding for the new fighter jet, which is reportedly dubbed the Perspektivny Aviatsionny Kompleks Frontovoi Avaitsii, or PAK FA. The plane's lead designer, Suhkoi, says the price tag for the project will check in at $2 billion.
Klebanov said India will also assist in the development of a new military transport plane based on Ilyushin's Il-214 multi-purpose plane.
In addition, the protocol will cover new air-defense deals, Klebanov said without elaborating.
Arms-export experts said India would probably buy S-300 air-defense systems and integrate them into its indigenous Rajendra radar and Akash surface-to-air missiles to create a theater-wide defense.
India wants such a system to ward off a possible attack from arch rival Pakistan, which has developed medium-range nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, according to experts at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies and the Center on Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies.
The protocol will pave the way for a long-awaited retrofitting of the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, which India would buy in the fall, and the delivery of up to 60 MiG-29K jets for the ship.
The Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies put the price for the aircraft carrier and warplanes at over $1 billion.
A contract may also be signed for India to lease four Tu-22 M3 Backfire bombers.
Russia has already sold Project 977EKM diesel submarines to India. Russia will deliver three Project 1135.6 frigates in 2002 and 2003. The submarines and frigates are armed with Club S and Club N anti-ship missile systems respectively, each of which has a range of more than 200 kilometers.
Any new surface ships India procures could be armed with the even more lethal Yakhont anti-ship missiles, which have a range of 300 kilometers and are next to impossible to intercept when flying at supersonic speeds, an industry source said.
The deals this week will most likely trigger a fresh arms race between India and Pakistan that will eventually force India to seek even more arms from Russia, said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
Russia has been delivering from $400 million to $800 million worth of arms to India every year since the mid-1990s, according to arms experts. That figure could exceed $1 billion a year if the 2000-2010 arms-trade accord is fully implemented, said Marat Kenzhetayev of the Center on Arms Control.
TITLE: Ministry Trains Sights on Monopoly Giants
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Antimonopoly Ministry is investigating two natural monopolies - Unified Energy System and the Railways Ministry - for allegedly unfairly awarding contracts to insurance companies they own.
In the case of the Railways Ministry, the investigation revolves arounds the insurance company ZHASO (a Russian abbreviation for Railways Joint-Stock Co.), which is 20.4 percent owned by the ministry and since 1994 has been the sole supplier of the mandatory passenger insurance on international routes.
The Antimonopoly Ministry contends that ZHASO has monopolized the market on all railways-connected insurance.
Railways Ministry spokesman Anatoly Yakovlev dismissed the allegations Monday and said that the Antimonopoly Ministry was only trying to "make a fool of us.
"There is a court, let it make a decision," he said.
ZHASO general director Vladimir Ivanov denied the accusations in an interview published in Vedomosti on Monday, insisting that his company was in compliance with Russian antitrust laws.
Ivanov said that only 10 percent of his company's business comes from railways-related insurance and that ZHASO was chosen by the Railways Ministry because it offered the best terms.
The Antimonopoly Ministry has had its eye on ZHASO for some time, but it has never been able to prove antitrust violations.
The investigation into national power grid UES, meanwhile, grew out of complaints from three large insurance companies - Ingossstrakh-Russia, RESO-Garantiya and Progress - regarding fully owned UES subsidiary Lider.
UES bought Lider last year and the other insurance companies say its unfair that Lider gets all of UES' business.
UES insurance expenses are estimated about $120 million a year.
"We are for fair competition," said Progress director Nikolai Nikolayev.
The Antimonopoly Minister, Ilya Yuzhanov, is also a member of UES' board of directors.
UES spokesman Yury Melekhov said that the decision to acquire Lider was made at a board meeting attended by Yuzhanov at the end of last year and all the details of the deal were known to him.
"Having our own insurance company allows us to cut our expenses significantly ," Melekhov said.
"It will be very strange if the case against UES will be proved," Me lek hov said.
Analysts polled Monday said the case against UES appeared to be political.
"There is no good economic reason why UES should not have its own insurance company. It all looks like politics to me," said Roland Nash, chief strategist at Renaissance Capital.
"I don't think there is a reason for those three insurance companies to complain," said Alexei Zabotkin, an economist at United Financial Group.
TITLE: Shtandart Helping Break Corporate Waves
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While most managers spend their time trying to improve productivity through adjusting their businesses' structures, providing incentives and monitoring employee performance, those at one company last week decided just to forget it all and go sailing.
And they think that their business will benefit from the decision.
While corporate retreats - especially more adventure-based outings - have become increasingly popular for many Western businesses, the idea has yet to really take off in Russia, although one sailing ship in the city is doing its part to change that.
The Shtandart, a full-scale replica of the first ship Peter the Great ordered and then oversaw the building of for Russia's fledgling navy, took on a distinctly corporate crew last week, when CPY Yellow Pages took to the sea. About 20 members of management from the company that publishes the city's most popular phone and firm directory spent a day and a night aboard the historic ship for an adventure-training and development program.
Given the novelty of the idea here, the Yellow Pages ended up asking a foreign-based company to run the event. Doug MacDonald, who describes himself as the "principle" at Genesis Performance Consulting, based in Toronto, says that the concept is a novelty in Russia.
"It's hard to get Russian employers to buy into the idea of creativity, innovation and risk taking," MacDonald said after one of the sessions on the ship.
But some managers say they are beginning to see the value.
"We used to be a small company with a good reputation" said Adrian Terris, general director of the Yellow Pages, "but now we've grown into a midsize company and the managers have to start thinking differently."
"This is a form of leadership adventure training that you can't do in the office," Terris added during a break between exercises.
"It's a question of the ability of a person to take on as much responsibility as necessary," the ship's captain Vladimir Martous said. "When the circumstances are quiet and safe, there is no need for responsibility."
The new "crew" spent one and 1/2 days on the ship, practicing climbing the masts and tying knots for the first afternoon, and then sailing the vessel out into the Gulf of Finland the next afternoon for a three-hour cruise with minimal supervision.
The Shtandardt itself also benefits from the experience.
"This is a good opportunity for the Shtandardt to find funding for our cadet training program. We're a nonprofit organization and can use the help," said Harms, a veteran tall-ship sailor who gave up her land life to sail on the Endeavor, the replica of Captain James Cook's ship, based in Australia. "The St. Petersburg International Business Association and the Dutch consulate have shown interest in using our ship as well."
Other companies offering corporate getaways in the area include hotels, go-cart tracks and paint-ball centers.
But MacDonald says that there is a little something extra involved when the work is a bit more risky.
"When your safety is relying on the team, it has a psychological effect on team work."
TITLE: Expanding Cash Base Is Fueling Price Rises
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A surge in money printing by the Central Bank late last year is starting to be felt, pushing up inflation and worrying the government.
Consumer prices are up nearly 10 percent since the start of the year and the money base - the sum of cash in circulation and obligatory reserves of commercial banks held by the Central Bank - is up 5.9 percent to 550 billion rubles ($18.9 billion), according to official figures.
The new figures mean that since the start of 2000 the money base has more than doubled, so consumer prices, which grew 20.2 percent last year, are beginning to catch up at an accelerating pace.
Even though most of the money printing occurred in the second half of 2000, its effects were not felt until the start of the year, with the process appearing to be gathering steam.
Money velocity, which measures the number of transactions serviced by 1 ruble of cash on an annual basis, is up to 6.55 from 6.0 at the end of last year. It hit a high of 7.4 shortly after the 1998 financial crisis, when people were trying to get rid of their rubles as quickly as possible, fearing a further deterioration in the purchasing power of the national currency.
Money velocity traditionally shoots up when individuals and corporations fear that inflation will erode their real wealth. So coupled with a growth in inflation figures, the recent increase in velocity is a worrying sign, economists say.
Aton forecasts annual inflation to reach 25 percent in 2001, well above the government's target of 14 percent to 16 percent.
With the process gathering speed, a number of top officials addressed the inflation issue in public last week.
President Vladimir Putin promised to lift restrictions in the area of foreign exchange legislation at a meeting with top business figures. With exporting companies obliged to sell 75 percent of their hard-currency incomes to the Central Bank, the bank has been printing money to buy up dollars coming into the market.
Deputy Finance Minister Bella Zlat kis mapped out plans to place a total of 130 billion rubles of debt instruments over the next 18 months to drain some excess liquidity from the marketplace.
In pre-crisis 1997, budget expenditures excluding debt servicing stood at 15.2 percent of GDP. In 1999, they dropped to 11.4 percent, later rising to about 12 percent.
Until recently, economic growth was fueled by four main factors: growth of net exports; healthy private consumption; increase in fiscal spending and growing investment activity.
With an increase in imports, a loss of the population's purchasing power due to inflation, and self-imposed limitations on budget spending, the government may be left with only investment activity to spur growth.
More investment, however, does not compensate for the decline in the other growth factors, meaning GDP will suffer.
And given that the Putin administration plans to achieve sustainable economic growth over the next 10 years, it is facing a huge workload.
"If this [growth] is to be achieved, then the huge liquidity build-up will have to be diverted into real investment," Troika Dialog wrote in a research note issued last week.
TITLE: Tyumen Oil Enters Home Stretch of Merger With Sidanco
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Tyumen Oil Co. is putting the finishing touches on a merger with Sidanco that it initiated years ago when it seized a prized oil operator, but the other oil majors are not spooked.
"What is this? Kindergarten?" said Alexei Sukhodeyev, spokesperson for Surgutneftegaz, currently Russia's No. 3 oil company after No. 1 Lukoil and No. 2 Yukos. "Our management is paying attention to this, but they aren't concerned to the point that they want to stop it. We're interested in how it will change the dynamics of the market.
In rank, at least, Surgutneftegaz would have the most to lose in a Sidanco-Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, merger. Such a deal would make TNK the third-largest oil company by production, forcing Surgutneftegaz into fourth place.
Sukhodeyev admits that such a move would resound with foreign investors.
"People have been saying for the past three years that the oil industry will boil down to three or four or five companies," he said. "What you're seeing now is that prediction in action."
Takeover and merger rumors have simmered since the summer of 1999, when TNK wrested the operator Chernogorneft away from Sidanco, a part of Vladimir Potanin's Interros holdings. Chernogorneft's assets were sold to TNK during bankruptcy proceedings, and the struggle attracted attention when BP - which holds 10 percent of Sidanco - challenged the sale.
At the end of 1999, a deal was struck where TNK would hand over Chernogorneft in exchange for a blocking stake in Sidanco. Since then, the agreement has been continuously finalized, according to TNK officials.
If and when the Chernogorneft deal is finalized, TNK will have about 66 percent of Sidanco.
TITLE: Former Star of Gas Monopoly Demoted to the Second String
TEXT: Rem Vyakhirev once thought himself one of the country's most powerful people - after the president, of course. Now the former Gazprom chief is wondering just what the Kremlin has in store for him. Vedomosti's Tatyana Lysova, Yulia Bushueva and Yelizaveta Osetinskaya report.
Last week, board members unanimously ousted Rem Vyakhirev from his nine-year position as head of natural-gas monopoly Gazprom, the world's largest gas company.
Often described as a state-within-a-state, Gazprom, the country's most important company, it is also considered a hotbed of grand-scale nepotism and corruption. Vyakhirev's fate was seen as a crucial test of President Vladimir Putin's political will to reform the Russian economy.
Now Vyakhirev - who will almost certainly receive the consolation position of Gazprom board chairman - has been replaced with a Putin loyalist, Alexei Miller, and all eyes are turned to whether the gas behemoth will be restructured and to what extent.
How did Vyakhirev land one of the most influential jobs Russia has to offer - and what is he going to do next?
Humble Beginnings
The son of a blacksmith from the village of Bolshaya Chernigovka in the Samara region, Vyakhirev got his start as a graduate of the Kuibyshev Polytechnical Institute. By the age of 31, he was head of an oil stabilizing plant. He spent the next 15 years managing oil extraction companies in the Orenburg region, where he first met future boss Vik tor Chernomyrdin, the longtime prime minister who helped form Gaz prom from the Soviet gas industry. In 1983, Vyakhirev was called to Mos cow and appointed a deputy minister for oil and gas. Six years later, he became Chernomyrdin's deputy at Gaz prom, then still state-owned.
Gazprom was privatized in March 1993, the same month then-President Boris Yeltsin made Chernomyrdin his prime minister, and Vyakhirev ascended to the post of Gazprom director. Since then - and until last week - Vyak hirev was absolute ruler at Gaz prom, answerable to no one but the president. Prime Minister Chernomyrdin helped his former colleague push forward an arsenal of government decrees and resolutions aimed at limiting the sale and purchase of Gazprom shares - and concentrating control in the hands of management. The result was a joint-stock company with unrivaled restrictions imposed upon the circulation of its shares.
Vyakhirev was then able to control all major transactions involving the shares of his company. In time, he grew confident that the only way he would leave Gazprom would be as a result of his own free will. "I have enough votes, of course," he was quoted as saying in an interview prior to last week's meeting of shareholders. "My comrades and I manage this entire process."
Seat of Power
Vyakhirev's position was most stable while Chernomyrdin was prime minister. The former Gazprom boss retained his own stake in the company and was able to protect the company's interests at the highest levels of politics. Many of those dealing with Vyakhirev often spoke of his harsh and sometimes rude manner, his supreme confidence and his total lack of respect for politicians.
"He often spoke of the country's leaders - including prime ministers - in a disparaging and scornful tone," said one state official. "He would often comment on the stupidity of all the governments with which he had had to deal."
Politicians echoed that opinion. "He avoided meeting ministers," said a former State Duma deputy. "The manner in which he spoke to even the most senior officials was quite unpleasant. If you said something he didn't like, he immediately went on the offensive. 'You don't understand, you haven't figured it out,' he'd say.
"In business meetings, he tried to awe interlocutors with his importance," added the former legislator. "He always behaved in such a way as to make it clear to one and all who was the most important person in the country."
There were exceptions. Vyakhirev is said to have actually admired former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov; the Gazprom chief was reputed to have been particularly respectful in his dealings with him. Chernomyrdin, on the other hand, was treated as an equal.
Duma Deputy Valery Yazev, who knew Vyakhirev in the later years of Chernomyrdin's tenure as prime minister - which ended in early 1998 - said their relations grew increasingly tense because the prime minister levied a large amount from the company for the state treasury. After Yeltsin dismissed Chernomyrdin's government, Vyakhirev respected his former boss still less. Later, when Chernomyrdin was considering heading the Gazprom board, Vyakhirev became downright rude. "We think it's a good thing - he'll be with us for half a year," he said. "Maybe he'll get on with business rather than sitting around somewhere."
Like many so-called "red directors" - holdovers from Soviet management - Vyakhirev had little respect for the younger generation of politicians. He spoke with contempt of former acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar - called the "father" of post-Soviet reform - and former first deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, once seen as Yeltsin's possible successor. One source said Vyakhirev "literally tricked" liberal former prime minister Sergei Ki ri yenko by refusing to pay him the amount of tax he had promised to furnish state coffers.
"This incident went all the way to Yeltsin and the question almost arose of Vyak hirev's retirement," said a former minister. "Rem understood full well that no playing about with the Gaz prom charter would help him. He was extremely scared of Yeltsin." Another state official concurred that Vyakhirev feared Yeltsin, but added that deep down, the Gazprom chief also despised the president.
Those he didn't fear, the Gazprom head is said to have treated like subordinates. Igor Bakai, former management chairman of Naftogaz Ukraine, recalled: "At a meeting, Vyakhirev told me and [politician] Julia Tymoshenko: 'I've come here to do business, and if we're going to talk rubbish then I'll turn around and leave.' Rem took the initiative in negotiations and conducted them with severity."
At Gazprom's Helm
What was Vyakhirev's main goal at Gazprom? Increasing gas extraction, maintaining the company's place on the world market or increasing the company's profits? Federal officials say Vyak hi rev had become overly distracted by export projects and paid for this in the end.
A former member of the government, on the other hand, said this was a plus point. "Because Vyakhirev put his money on exporting gas from the very start, Gazprom was preserved, and the company did not go bankrupt or fall apart due to nonpayments. The state should be thankful to him for this."
Duma Deputy Yazev says extraction was the main thing: "In general, Vyak hi rev thought gas extraction was more important than questions of transportation. I couldn't understand this for a long time, but now, when we have started to fall behind with extraction, I'm starting to realize that he was aware of this danger a lot earlier than many people."
But in interviews with Vyakhirev, even if they had been carefully edited by his press service, his main task seems to have been to preserve the unity of the mammoth company.
"We have the example of the oil companies. It's reached the stage where they have fallen completely silent. They were divided up and broken down with ease. If the same is done with Gazprom, there'll be a lot of trouble. Therefore, I continue to work," Vyakhirev said in one interview.
It is clear that the "young reformers" and international financial organizations were Vyakhirev's principal enemies. "The IMF and the World Bank are behind attempts to break up the company. They, unlike Gazprom, credit only the Russian government and then not particularly regularly," Vyakhirev said.
In response to officials' assertions concerning reforming the gas monopoly, Vyakhirev said: "We at Gaz prom are constantly engaged in reforming and improving the company's structure. And we're not doing this for the benefit of the IMF, but in the interests of Gazprom and Russia."
Vyakhirev is said to have guarded Gazprom's interests jealously. He even spoke harshly of his colleagues in the oil sector when they asked Gazprom to use its pipeline. "There will always be rip-off merchants who want to get a free ride sending Russian gas off to Paris or Nice. So here you have them complaining."
Comrades-in-Arms
Vyakhirev's few comrades were the only people he is said to have trusted. "I picked my team one by one. I trust these people entirely - I can rely on them," Vyakhirev said of his colleagues.
According to Yazev, the Gazprom head valued his first deputy Vyacheslav Sheremet above all: "Vyakhirev and Sheremet have been working in tandem for a long time. They have essentially divided authority at Gazprom between themselves. Vyakhirev was involved in the big international projects, with developing the company, strategy, the relations with the powers that be, while Sheremet was responsible for economic activities, finances."
Many observers have noted that the upper levels of Gazprom's power structure were riddled with internal intrigue. A former member of the government said, for example, that a member of the management who was close to Vyakhirev - Valery Remezov - was forced to leave due to internal competition at Gazprom.
"Vyakhirev had several close social circles, comprising four or five people," said a federal official who frequently had dealings with Gazprom through his work. "As a result, none of them knew whether they were the closest to Vyakhirev. Nor did they have a full impression of how business was going in the company. Only She remet knew."
Even Vyakhirev is said to have been uninformed as to what some of his subordinates were up to. "Questions of production, he somehow managed to keep to himself, but he gave the finance people a free hand, and therefore, they thought up various shady schemes like SIBUR," said a former minister who asked not to be identified. "This was what brought Vyakhirev down."
Indeed Vyakhirev is said to have only learned of the plan to set up the SIBUR petrochemicals holding from the media, when the process of buying up gas processing plants was already well under way. As one Gazprom employee said, Vyakhirev liked the plan so much that he immediately called in the people who developed it and who had been trying for two months to gain an audience with the Gazprom chief.
"Since 1996, his interests had been far from Russia. He said: 'Why am I sitting here with you. I need to be taking care of Yugoslavia and Moldova,'" recalls one government official.
At this time, Vyakhirev had lots of troubles at home that were not connected with the gas industry. From 1996 to 1997, he was the chairman of the board of trustees of Imperial bank, headed the Sibneft board of directors, and was involved with the NTV television company and Promstroibank. He was also Yeltsin's representative during the 1996 presidential elections.
Political Loyalty
It is difficult to say what Vyakhirev's opinion is of President Vladimir Putin. Answering this question directly in an interview, he gave the following answer: "I don't know. He's a spy, and I'm the uneducated rank-and-file, after all."
Vyakhirev, nonetheless, supported the "spy" in the presidential elections.
"I consider Putin to be the most likely candidate for the chair of president out of the others. You have to do something, you can't just sit there," said Vyakhirev on RTR television's "Zer ka lo" program in February 2000.
"Putin is a young man, he wants to work, so why not let him? It's God's will," Vyakhirev said, suggesting he again hold the post of presidential representative as he had with Yeltsin during the 1996 elections.
"I was witness to Rem Ivanovich's campaigning in the Yamal-Nenets and Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous districts and how he urged voters to choose Putin," Du ma Deputy Ya zev recalled. "He seemed extremely sincere."
However, Vyak hirev clearly had no particular political inclinations, indeed he seems to have had little time for politics in general.
"I have no intention in getting involved in all this stupidity [politics]. I'm an engineer after all," he said in an interview with Kommersant newspaper. And on the same occasion, he added: "They're in politics, which I don't understand at all."
Vyakhirev never tired of saying Gazprom and politics were "not particularly compatible." But he couldn't ignore the political world altogether. His participation in the election marathons was predetermined by the size of his corporation. He realized that millions of voters stood behind Gazprom.
However, not all his political experiences were successful. In the last Duma elections, Gazprom lost out, Yazev said. They were unable to push through all of their candidates.
"But essentially, Vyakhirev wasn't involved in this himself - other people were responsible," Yazev said.
He added that during the onslaught of the young reformers, Vyakhirev drew closer to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
"At this time, Luzhkov was part of the opposition and relations with him to an extent reflected badly on Vyakhirev [with the Kremlin]. I wouldn't say it was a political mistake, but it certainly played a role," Yazev said.
Retirement
Retirement came as no surprise to anyone, least of all Vyakhirev. He started to speak of his coming departure at the end of 1999 and even named his successor - his good friend Sheremet.
In response to a question about his future plans, he replied: "At some point, I'd like to manage a big farm. I've bought some land and started building something. God willing, I'll have a cowshed, a decent stable, hen house and sheep ... I like cattle."
"No matter what he said, I'm sure he would have wanted to stay with Gazprom and fight for it as he knew how," said a federal official.
On the eve of a general shareholders meeting in 1999 when tycoon Boris Berezovsky took up the attack on Gazprom and Vyakhirev's retirement was starting to look likely, the then-Gazprom head described the future of his company if he were to retire.
"It's unpleasant. Money will be siphoned off. Some of it will go into peoples' pockets. The majority of it will go to someone in particular."
Vyakhirev's co-workers don't believe he has left the company.
"We didn't even mark his departure yesterday. After all, in essence nothing terrible has happened, just as before, he will be alongside us," said Arngolt Bekker, head of Stroitransgaz and a member of the Gazprom board.
"And the fact that a younger man is taking his place is also perfectly natural, we will support him."
Now Bekker and Vyakhirev will be colleagues on the board of directors.
"He and I agreed that instead of drawing our pension, we'll raise chickens. But since Vyakhirev is staying, there's no rush," Bekker said.
TITLE: Union Bosses Betraying Workers
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: It often happens that the most important questions receive the least public attention. The proposed changes to the Labor Code, I think, are a perfect example of this.
The present Labor Code, adopted in Soviet times, is outdated. From the perspective of employers, it simply gives too many rights to workers while labor advocates think that it gives too little or that its high-sounding promises are simply unenforceable. Everyone, then, agrees that a new code is needed: The only question is what it will contain.
For more than a year, the government has been trying to get a draft labor code through the State Duma that really deserves to be consigned to the trash heap of history. This draft not only sharply restricts the rights of trade unions and encourages employers to spy on their employees and keep track of their political views and personal habits - it also opens the door to the widespread use of child labor and the gradual transition from an 8-hour to a 12-hour workday.
Of course, the government won't force employers to do these things. It is simply allowing them to institute "flexible" working arrangements to introduce - with the "agreement" of workers - 12-hour workdays and child labor. History shows that workers, threatened with dismissal or pay cuts, will "voluntarily" agree to anything, especially if their rights to unionize have been restricted.
Sweatshops exist in many countries and it must be acknowledged that Russia is not the worst place on Earth for workers. However, we may be on the way to becoming the first country in the world to defend sweatshops by rolling back modern norms of labor relations.
And how about our unions? How are they resisting this government initiative? The Federation of Independent Labor Unions, the largest such organization in Russia, responded by introducing its own draft, which it bills as a compromise between the Soviet code and the government proposal.
For nearly a year, the federation has pushed this proposal while many unions - adopting a more radical position - have threatened strikes and put forward their own versions. The result is that the state draft, which was expected to be made law more than a year ago, remains a bill.
Then, suddenly, the federation reversed itself and rejected its own draft. Now it is calling for a joint commission to "correct" the Kremlin's proposal. What is going on?
The answer is banal. As the heir to Soviet labor unions, the federation received control over considerable property, which has been being slowly privatized by its leadership although it continues to support an enormous bureaucracy. The federation, after all, lives primarily off the revenues it generates rather than from the paltry dues of union members. Real estate speculation is more profitable than the class struggle.
The time when labor could have stood on principles is past. Soon a "second wave" of shock therapy will begin, and it will sharply change the rules of the game. Igor Klochkov, the former head of the federation, lost his job for resisting the Kremlin and the current leadership has internalized this experience.
The proposed joint commission was supposed to buy time. If the federation could put off the code until after its fall congress, its leaders would have saved their jobs. But the Kremlin is insisting on pushing it through in June, and the federation is caving in. But not its member organizations.
Many have already announced their willingness to hold an independent congress. Even with the federation in its pocket, the Kremlin faces serious opposition with this bill.
Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.
TITLE: Soviet-Style 'Red Directors' Putting Brakes on Reform
TEXT: Two shareholders' meetings held last week by major local companies, dairy producers Petmol and the metal factory Krasnny Vyborzhets, were a strict test for their general directors. The managers of both enterprises might well be termed red directors, meaning that they prefer a Soviet-era managerial style based on administrative forces to market-oriented methods.
Krasny Vyborzhets General Director Valentin Simonov was appointed to his position in 1987, while Petmol's Valentin Polyakov became No. 1 a year earlier. They both managed to survive the privatization of their factories, and kept their share in the newly established companies up to 30 percent, usually enough to block unwanted decisions by the board of directors. Both companies paid poor dividends due to modest financial results. The profitability of Petmol, which makes up almost half of St. Petersburg's dairy market, is low - only 1.3 percent. Both directors kept all the affairs in their own hands by choosing the right partners. For instance, Petmol's biggest wholesaler was partly owned by Polyakov's son. Another member of his family is responsible for Petmol's foreign cooperation.
The Italian company Parmalat owns 26.4 percent of the St. Petersburg dairy market, while Swedish LRF has another 16 percent. Surprisingly, it was the minority shareholder North-Western Sberbank that first expressed dissatisfaction with the poor management. The bank counted on the foreigners when it proposed a new candidate to the position of general director. But the shareholders' meeting on Saturday was a failure from Sberbank's point of view - Polyakov was re-elected for the next five years.
The director of Krasny Vyborzhets was not so lucky. Holding company Interros took over the controlling interest in the company, whose equity has been distributed among 4,000 small shareholders. By calling and canceling of shareholders meetings, Interros elected a new director's board and general director, and Simonov was forced to give up his duties. He got a good price for his shares, because at Sunday's meeting it was Interros who voted with it.
The phenomenon of red directors is a very common one. The directors are often over 60 years old, growing up in the times when loyalty to the state plan was important, and not earnings per share.
They do not care about their companies' capitalization and profit, because they do not feel responsible to the shareholders. Their companies do not trade on the stock exchange. In reality, the entire company belongs to the director, who will not bother to expect a performance bonus from the directors board, but simply take everything he wants instead. They secure their business by choosing the right partners, not those who propose the most profitable conditions.
When will this nightmare for the economy end? One assumes it must happen soon, not only because of the age of the directors. The number of companies whose methods are based on market forces is growing day by day. And the inefficient companies whose main goal is feeding their top management will simply lose out in the end.
Anna Shcherbakova is the St. Petersburg Bureau Chief of Vedomosti.
TITLE: This Item Was Made Just for the Taxpayers
AUTHOR: By Maxim Popov
TEXT: "Statutory acts on taxes and duties must be formulated so that everyone knows precisely which taxes [duties], when and under what procedure she or he is obliged to pay." Thus reads item 6 of article 3 of Russia's Tax Code, which resembles old Soviet slogans in its wording. Idealistic as they were, they were never supposed to be followed literally.
But item 7 of the same article is much more demanding than article 6. It reads as follows: "All unresolvable doubts and inconsistencies in the statutory acts on taxes and duties shall be interpreted in favor of the taxpayer [payer of duties]." Leaving it to the linguists to wonder how statutory acts can have doubts (sinc having doubts is a mental act), I would say this provision was one of the most daring reforms ever of Russian tax laws.
Item 7 was the part of the Tax Code most criticized by the tax authorities and, equally, the most lauded by liberal economists. The tax authorities argued that consistent application of this provision would exempt taxpayers from many taxes. Taxpayers contended that it was not their problem, but instead, the responsibility of the authorities to explain, without uncertainty, which taxes they are required to pay - and more importantly, which they are not.
Courts in Russia's Northwest region have shown little hesitation in applying item 7. In a number of different decisions, the courts have used item 7 as the basis for their decision.
In one case where the court ruled in favor of the taxpayer, it stated that "numerous clarifications issued by experts at the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Tax Service and the Local Tax Inspectorate contain contradicting instructions with regard to procedures for reporting on and payment of VAT ... in connection with assignment of rights." Assignment-of-rights issues involve cases where the right to receive payment in an agreement is transferred from one party to another, and raise issues surrounding the question of when and who should pay VAT.
In another instance, the court said that item 7 is also applicable to tax assessments made prior to the enactment of the Tax Code. In this particular case, the court arrived at an interpretation of the law that itself was favorable to the taxpayer. However, it further referred to the "unresolvable doubts" clause to leave no doubts with regard to the result.
The court has also held that decisions should be based on whether the contradiction was present at the time of failure to pay the tax.
It is no surprise that item 7 has become a popular basis for tax attorneys' arguments before the court. However, the court's decision does not fall on the side of the item 7 defense in every case. If the contradiction can be resolved on the basis of the usual interpretation of legislative acts, it would not be considered unresolvable. In one case the court ruled that a contradiction between federal and regional laws should have been resolved by the taxpayer in favor of the instructions contained in the federal act.
Maxim Popov is a manager at Andersen Legal in St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Energy Usage Adding Up to Crisis
AUTHOR: By Evar D. Nering
TEXT: SCOTTSDALE, Arizona - When I discussed the exponential function in the first-semester calculus classes that I taught, I invariably used consumption of a nonrenewable natural resource as an example. Since the United States is now engaged in a national debate about energy policy, it may be useful to talk about the mathematics involved in making a rational decision about resource use.
In my classes, I described the following hypothetical situation. We have a 100-year supply of a resource, say oil - that is, the oil would last 100 years if it were consumed at its current rate. But the oil is consumed at a rate that grows by 5 percent each year. How long would it last under these circumstances? This is an easy calculation; the answer is about 36 years.
Oh, but let's say we underestimated the supply, and we actually have a 1,000-year supply. At the same annual 5 percent growth rate in use, how long will this last? The answer is about 79 years.
And if we make a striking discovery of more oil yet and have a 10,000-year supply - at the same rate of growing use, how long would it last? Answer: 125 years.
Calculations also show that if consumption of an energy resource is allowed to grow at a steady 5 percent annual rate, a full doubling of the available supply will not be as effective as reducing that growth rate by half - to 2.5 percent. Doubling the size of the oil reserve will add at most 14 years to the life expectancy of the resource if we continue to use it at the currently increasing rate, no matter how large it is presently. On the other hand, halving the growth of consumption will almost double the life expectancy of the supply, no matter what it is.
This mathematical reality seems to have escaped the politicians pushing to solve energy problems by simply increasing supply. Building more power plants and drilling for more oil is exactly the wrong thing to do, because it will encourage more use. If we want to avoid dire consequences, we need to find the political will to reduce the growth in energy consumption to zero - or even begin to consume less.
I must emphasize that reducing the growth rate is not what most people are talking about now when they advocate conservation; the steps they recommend are just Band-Aids. If we increase the gas mileage of our automobiles and then drive more miles, for example, that will not reduce the growth rate.
It is not, perhaps, necessary to cut our use of oil, but it is essential that we cut the rate of increase at which we consume it. To do otherwise is to leave our descendants in an impoverished world.
Evar D. Nering is professor emeritus of mathematics at Arizona State University. He Submitted this piece to the New York Times Service.
TITLE: Iraq Pulls Plug on Oil Exports
AUTHOR: By Sameer N. Yacoub
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq followed up on its threat to halt most oil exports, stopping the flow early Monday to all but neighboring Turkey and Jordan.
The indefinite halt was meant to protest a UN Security Council decision to extend by one month instead of the usual six months the program under which Iraq can sell oil. Baghdad has chafed at UN controls over its oil exports - its sole foreign exchange earner - that stem from sanctions imposed for Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
War and sanctions have crippled the Iraqi economy, leaving many Iraqis dependent on rations financed by the UN-supervised oil exports. Iraq needs the oil revenue to buy food. It has cash reserves, but it was unclear how long it could survive without further sales. It had been pumping about 3 million barrels a day.
Iraqis see the UN oil-for-food program as an attempt to control what the government can buy. The UN set up the program to allow Iraq to buy humanitarian goods, but not weapons.
Sources close to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity Monday, said pumping oil through an Iraqi-Turkish pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean port terminal at Ceyhan stopped at 8 a.m. local time. Exports through Iraq's southern al-Bakr oil terminal were also shut off, the sources said.
The sources said oil exports by road tankers to Turkey and Jordan were not affected. Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid had said Sunday that exports to Iraq's neighbors would not be affected by the protest.
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi said Saturday that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was ready to cover any shortfall in world oil production following Iraq's halt. Other OPEC nations are pumping at top capacity, but Naimi said Saudi Arabia alone is capable of covering any shortage.
Rashid announced Saturday that Iraqi oil exports would stop Monday and would not resume until the Security Council agreed on the usual six-month extension of the oil-for-food program. Rashid said Iraq has produced 3 million barrels of oil per day for the past two years, of which 2.3 million barrels per day were exported under UN program.
The one-month oil-for-food renewal announced Friday was a stopgap to give council members time to study a plan - proposed by Britain, backed by the United States and rejected by Baghdad - to amend the sanctions against Iraq.
Since 1996, the oil-for-food program has allowed Iraq to use oil earnings to buy humanitarian goods. Most other trade with Iraq is banned.
The so-called smart sanctions proposal would allow civilian goods to flow freely into Iraq - except for goods that appear on a UN list of items that could be used for military purposes.
Iraq wants all sanctions lifted.
TITLE: Powell the Frontman
AUTHOR: By Jim Hoagland
TEXT: IS Colin Powell spreading himself too thin? Or is the U.S. secretary of state being set up and then hung out to dry by more devious rivals in the Bush administration? Or is it that he is part, witting or otherwise, of a hidden master plan to ease U.S. foreign policy onto a more unilateralist path by showing how flawed and unrewarding multilateral diplomacy can be?
These questions crackle along the diplomatic grapevine after four months of puzzling foreign policy missteps by the Bush team. The buzz in foreign capitals has quickly turned from relief that the "professionals" are back in charge along the Potomac to wonderment at Washington's sustained misreadings of other nations' intentions and capabilities in matters large and small.
This buzz grew last week as Powell futilely persisted in pushing NATO's other foreign ministers to declare in a communique that the alliance faces a "common threat" from long-range rockets being developed by lunatic Third World leaders.
The Europeans declined to change to a new, more specific formulation on missile defense - as they had told the State Department repeatedly and uniformly they would in the days leading up to the meeting in Budapest. Press coverage then predictably focused on Powell's admission of his failure to move the Europeans, and ignored the otherwise positive tone and accomplishments of the NATO meeting.
This was reminiscent of the Bush foreign policy team's failure to anticipate the sulfurous reaction abroad to its abrasive abandoning of the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gases, and of the United States being voted off the United Nations Human Rights Commission largely because of the State Department's inattention to that vote.
And Powell met a new setback at the United Nations last week when Russian and Chinese opposition - again, well advertised in advance - blocked his effort to get the Security Council to adopt urgently a new set of "smart sanctions" on Iraq to pare the list of embargoed goods by 80 percent.
The impasse leaves in place at least temporarily the current UN sanctions arrangement - which Powell and his president have ridiculed as ineffective and unworkable. This approach has turned a flawed bird in the hand into a dead duck. Powell's rhetoric is being used by the Iraqis and sanctions-busters to justify Iraq's rapidly growing illegal oil exports. The illegal sales are not likely to be affected even if Saddam carries out his threat issued yesterday to cease oil exports under the U.N. plan.
There is a touch of minor-league Machiavellianism in Powell's Iraq nonpolicy. He and aides have cited the need to sell the smart sanctions effort at the UN in order to block serious discussion within the administration of other, more aggressive steps to oppose Saddam Hussein.
But the only visible results of these blocking efforts are delay and confusion within the administration itself, while Moscow and Baghdad and other Arab capitals push ahead with the rehabilitation of Saddam.
Powell seems not to perceive the coordinated and targeted rehabilitation campaign that is underway. His public statements emphasize that this is all a big misunderstanding, that other nations have not grasped that it is Saddam's evil rather than the sanctions that is the problem, that by changing sanctions we can change their attitudes.
No one knows Saddam's nature better than the Arabs, Turks and Persians who live around him. What they have understood is that the United States is not prepared to make his removal from power a high priority. They therefore have to find ways to live with him, such as buying his oil on the cheap and helping fund his regime, even after promising Powell they wouldn't.
The secretary's initial trusting reaction to Syrian promises delivered to him personally suggested that there might be a sharper diplomatic learning curve for this experienced and celebrated general than had been expected. In the Middle East, the kind of concessions he has made on sanctions are quickly pocketed and seen as an invitation to ask for more. On Iraq, Powell is leading with his chin.
Powell's charisma, distinguished record and moderation have made him the human face of Bush diplomacy for the rest of the world. European foreign ministers, and liberals here at home, court and support him as a bulwark against the isolationist cravings of more conservative U.S. officials.
His rivals are not displeased to see a growing pile of visible nonsuccesses accumulate on Powell's doorstep. They can be counted on to drop banana peels in his way. But I detect no master plot, either to discredit him or to pursue a stealthy isolationism, as some Europeans fear. Confusion, not conspiracy, is at work here.
Powell has yet to demonstrate that he can bridge the gap between the State Department's accommodationist outlook and the White House's harsher and blunter worldview. His tactic so far has been to voice the former - even when he knew the White House did not agree - and submit to the latter. No one can be happy with that pattern for very long.
Jim Hoagland is a columnist for The Washington Post, to which he contributed this comment.
TITLE: Miller's Task: What Will Gazprom Be?
TEXT: LAST week's decision to remove Rem Vyakhirev from his post as CEO of Gazprom still seems almost too good to be true, even though all indications are that Vyakhirev will be boosted up to the post of chairman of the gas giant's board. Evidence of mismanagement and malfeasance during Vyakhirev's nine-year tenure has been mounting so rapidly, apparently, that even the stubborn Kremlin was unable to ignore it.
We make no apologies for the amount of editorial attention we devote to Gazprom and its leadership. The company is rightly dubbed "a state within the state," producing about 25 percent of the world's output of natural gas and holding about a quarter of the world's gas reserves. It accounts for a massive 7 percent of Russia's economy. It also exerts an already enormous and still-growing influence throughout the former Soviet Union and even in Western Europe.
Moreover, the company is 38 percent owned by the state, which selects five of its 11 board members. As a result, the Kremlin is in a position to make the company a model for the post-Soviet economy and to set an example for other companies in corporate governance and transparency. In fact, the Kremlin is obliged to do so.
Now Yeltsin's man has been replaced with Putin's man Alexei Miller, and the country is eager to see exactly what his marching orders are. While it is unfair to put too much emphasis on Miller's first post-appointment words, we certainly hope that his designs for Gazprom extend far beyond his statement that he wants to increase production by 10 percent to 15 percent by 2010.
Miller must also get a handle on Gaz prom's enormous debts, now more than $10 billion. He must also account for the fact that the company reported 2000 revenues of just $2.2 billion while providing 23 percent of all the natural gas consumed by Europe. He should compare these revenues with assertions by Gazprom board member Boris Fyodorov that the company loses more then $2 billion annually to mismanagement and malfeasance.
Then Miller must look at spinning off Gazprom's non-core businesses, including its questionable banking and hotel interests and Gazprom-Media. He must win shareholder and investor confidence by promptly bringing Gazprom to an internationally accepted standard of corporate transparency.
After all, the bottom line is that Russia's private businesses are not going to clean up their acts as long as state-controlled companies like Gazprom are run like corrupt fiefdoms.
TITLE: Read Between The Lines of New 'Spy' Law
TEXT: OUR old Soviet leaders must be turning over in their graves in envy of our present leaders. After all, in exchange for the control that they imposed on the their citizens, Soviet leaders had to accept at least some responsibility, providing them with free, albeit low-quality, services.
But this is no longer the case. Consider, for instance, the latest invention of the bureaucrats in the Russian Academy of Sciences. The academy will now require scientists to report any contacts with foreigners and demand "a strengthening of control over [scientific] publications in the open press and information exchanges with foreign countries concerning the results of scientific research," according to an internal policy document.
The new instructions adopted by the presidium of the academy in late May bears the telling title, "The Plan of Academy Measures to Prevent the Infliction of Harm on the Russian Federation." And it is nothing more than yet another attempt by state functionaries to impose and extract the infamous "bureaucracy tax," this time targeting scientists.
Over the last six years, the bureaucracy has been very successful with maneuvers of this sort. It has managed to impose more than 900 different official regulations, as well as to enact countless "normative documents" controlling all aspects of business activity. As a result, businesses in Russia pay about 167 billion rubles each year straight into the pockets of the federal bureaucracy, according to estimates by the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development. And that is just the federal bureaucracy.
But it is never enough. Now bureaucrats with academic titles and their counterparts from the FSB have decided to take their share.
I have an old friend who works at an academy institute. Admittedly, his work has nothing to do with state secrets. He has a doctorate, and his wife, who also works for the academy, has a graduate degree as well - but their combined monthly income is just 1,200 rubles. The only way that they can manage to carry on their research and still get enough to eat is through grants from various foreign organizations.
The new regulation means that the kickback they pay their institute's bureaucracy will double. While previously the institute took about 20 percent, now another 20 percent or so - just to prevent any problems about "contacts with foreigners" or "publishing research results" - will go to the "first department," an office staffed with elderly FSB officers.
Anyone familiar with this subject can't help but find the academy's arguments in defense of the new rules laughable. The academy claims that the only purpose of the rules is to protect Russia's secrets and technical know-how.
In reality, it means that the bureaucrats in epaulets who previously served as middle-men between top-secret scientists and headhunters from countries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea will now get about twice as much money for "protecting" our secrets, given higher risks involved.
Two years ago I did some research on Russian scientists who worked on a missile project in Iran. My biggest question was how on earth did these people, with the highest possible security clearances, manage to go abroad? The answer became clear when I learned that it was security-service officers (the same ones who are supposed to be protecting our military secrets) who first connected both sides, and second processed all the necessary paperwork - in exchange for a major share of the contracts.
After I published my research, I met with high-ranking officials in the Yeltsin administration and suggested that they make a list of the 150 or so scientists who really do carry vital state secrets and arrange to pay them a decent wage so that they would not have to do "freelance" work for "exotic regimes" that may some day pose a threat to Russia. The result was predictable. My sources were approached by the FSB and warned against any further contacts with journalists. And no one added a kopeck to the scientists' meager salaries.
The new regulation will not make the state any more responsible or help scientists to get by. But it will line another set of bureaucratic pockets.
Yevgenia Albats is an independent, Moscow-based journalist.
TITLE: Nobody's Buying Bush's Gambit
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: A NUMBER of leaks from U.S. officials last week generated a stream of stories in the American media speculating about a possible deal with the Kremlin on missile defense. It has been reported that Washington will offer to purchase Russian S-300 missiles from Moscow, to be integrated into an NMD shield over Russia and Europe. The same reports claim that the United States will offer Russia participation in joint anti-missile exercises with the U.S. military and other economic and military aid as well.
In return, Moscow will be expected to cooperate with the Bush administration in scrapping the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty and to stop proliferating sensitive technologies and advanced arms to Iran, China and other potential American adversaries. Some articles even imply that Moscow is in fact ready to form a strategic alliance with the United States directed against China.
These implications are not true. Reading the administration comments, I get the impression that officials in Washington just throw away the reports of their Moscow-based diplomats without even reading them. They seem to have no understanding of the real views of Kremlin decision-makers.
The terms of an agreement on NMD was outlined to Russian officials earlier this month when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley visited Moscow. The Kremlin considered these proposals and determined, "at the highest level" that they were simply "poisoned bait in a mouse trap."
As soon as leaks of the proposed NMD deal appeared, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov rejected them out of hand, even using similar language: They said, in effect, that any sale of S-300s has nothing to do with NMD policy and would not reflect a change in Russia's position.
Russian officials believe that the leaks were made deliberately so that Washington could tell its NATO allies that Moscow is on the verge of making a deal and that they shouldn't be overly concerned about the impending abrogation of the ABM Treaty. Russia's immediate and unequivocal rejection of the proposal was intended to diplomatically outflank Washington and to reinforce European opposition to NMD.
In fact, Russia already agreed to sell the S-330B system to the United States for $100 million in the mid-1990s. But the Pentagon cheated, paying just $30 million for the radar and control equipment that the U.S. military wanted to scrutinize while leaving the Russian arms producers stuck with the rest of the hardware. In the end, the Russian government had to pay tens of millions of dollars to cover what the S-300 producers lost as a result of the U.S. deal.
The long-term partnership in MD and other fields that the Bush administration is today offering could benefit Russia in many ways in the future. But virtually no one in the Russia's ruling elite genuinely believes today in American good graces. At the same time influential power groups have much to lose if military and nuclear technology transfers to China and Iran are terminated in the near future.
Multibillion dollar deals to sell Iran new arms, including advanced anti-ship and antiaircraft weapon systems, are being prepared for signing later this year. China has been buying approximately $1 billion worth of Russian arms per year since 1992. Last year, according to industry sources, Chinese military procurement doubled to nearly $2 billion (more than 60 percent of all Russian arms exports).
If Beijing is seriously intent on building a military capability to isolate and subdue Taiwan, its procurement of Russian weapons may double again in a year or so. There have been consistent rumors in the Moscow arms-trading community that China is negotiating the purchase or lease of several Russian nuclear attack submarines and is primarily interested in Oscar II (Kursk-type) submarines. China could arm the anti-ship missiles on such submarines with its own nuclear warheads and keep American aircraft carriers at bay during any potential crisis in the region.
Any conflict with the United States over NMD or NATO expansion could affect Russian foreign and arms-export policies, prompting the Kremlin to sell its most sophisticated air and naval weapons to China and generating billions of dollars for Russia's defense community. The anti-American lobby is very powerful today in Moscow, while insiders say there is virtually no pro-American lobbying going on at all now in the Kremlin. Bush's attempts to reverse this situation are pathetic at best - or, more likely, simply insincere and designed to be rejected.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst.
TITLE: Librarians Are Pushing For Digital Democracy
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: SINCE Euclid, Ptolemy and other scholars gathered at the great library of Alexandria, Egypt, beginning in the 3rd century BC, it has been clear that science marches forward when scientists have ready access to repositories of knowledge. Many scholars had hoped the Internet would become a modern Alexandria, but in recent years scientists in poor countries and even at financially strapped U.S. universities have been unable to afford the subscription charges levied by the most prestigious online databases.
At a Paris summit on scientific publishing this year, librarians agreed that while "the cost per bit of information is getting cheaper, the cost per useful bit is getting more expensive." The problems facing Helga Patrikios, the medical librarian at the University of Zimbabwe, are typical. Though her library once subscribed to 600 medical journals, today it can afford only 170.
Patrikios' colleague, University of Zim babwe pharmacology professor Kla ra Tisocki, rightly says "important information on human health" should be seen not as a commodity but as "a right, a human right."
Librarians hope that their problems will be solved by the growth of public online journals like PubMed Central, a Web-based, full-text repository of peer-reviewed biomedical reports that the National Institutes of Health launched last year. PubMed Central is opposed by medical journals that fear it will threaten "our livelihood," as Margaret A. Winker, the deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, admitted. They have declared the venture dead in the digital water numerous times since Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus first proposed it in 1999 when he was director of the National Institutes of Health.
In recent months, however, momentum has turned in favor of "digital democracy" efforts like PubMed Central. The British Medical Journal announced in January that it would place all its content on the growing archive. And last month, 20,000 scientists announced they will boycott all online journals that charge a fee for accessing published research more than six months old.
Digital data do not need the ludicrously gargantuan level of taxpayer support called for in the "Digital Opportunity Investment Trust," which former PBS executives Law rence Grossman and Newton Minow put before Congress in early April. Their plan would budget $18 billion for vaguely defined efforts to "create a digital space" for the public.
However, PubMed Central surely deserves the $2.5 million the National Library of Medicine proposes to spend operating it next year. With Congress' direction and support, perhaps one day the Internet will prove to be a modern Alexandria after all.
This comment originally appeared as an editorial in the Los Angeles Times.
TITLE: Registering Your Car: Prepare To Stand in Line
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: If driving a car in Russia seems like a challenge, that probably means you are lucky enough to never have tried anything more demanding, such as registering one with the local traffic police or passing their car inspection.
However, chances are pretty high that life will throw you into the jungle of legal and practical obstacles put in the way of an ardent car-lover who also has a predilection for abiding by the laws of the country in which he or she lives.
There are three main documents that prove the car you are driving is legal. The one you can generally leave at home is the vehicle's "passport" or PTS - a pale blue sheet of paper issued at the moment of purchase or import into Russia, with essential technical information such as the number of the car's engine and its body. You'll probably only ever need the PTS when receiving or prolonging your registration.
The pink, laminated, credit-card sized registration document, or STS, on the other hand, you should always carry when behind the wheel. It proves that the car has a legal owner.
The third, increasingly important piece of paper is the confirmation that your car has passed the technical check-up, or the dreaded tekhosmotr. Passing the test is an achievement that, according to many drivers' stories, has nothing to do with your car's actual condition.
While it is possible, and cheaper, to register your car at one of the numerous GAI offices around town, by far the best place in the city to register your car is at the Notarialnaya Kontora at 6 Ulitsa Vosstaniya. This place is very popular with all drivers, and is usually extremely busy, but is still far preferable to anywhere else.
If you bought a new car in St. Petersburg, you will be issued temporary license plates for five days, within which you are expected to finish the registration process.
If you're buying a second-hand car, the former owner is obliged to unregister the car and give you its PTS and the temporary plates issued to him by the traffic police.
In case you imported your car - permanently or temporarily - customs officers will provide the PTS and temporary license plates.
Luckily, the kontora itself is hospitable. It's kind of a five-star hotel equivalent to the other traffic police offices in town.
Moreover, every institution you might need to deal with on your thorny path toward finally picking up your documents has its offices on the premises: a bank, a customs office and insurance companies.
But all these luxuries are there only to cushion the sting of the harsh bureaucratic reality - the procedures for obtaining car papers are as complicated and time-consuming as any in Russia.
To have an easier time of it, make sure you have all the necessary documents with you when you arrive. The easiest procedure is registering a car in a person's name - registering a car for a company, a representative office or an embassy is far more complicated and if possible, should be avoided.
To register in a person's name, you need your car's PTS, the bill proving the purchase of the car - even if the car was second-hand - both the originals and copies of your passport and visa, and if you are accredited at either the Foreign Ministry or the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, you need the original and the copy of your accreditation.
First, you hand over all your documents and then wait a few minutes while a secretary types a request for registration. After this, your name will be called and you will be given your papers back, together with the forms to be filled by the police inspector who will be taking a look under your car's hood.
The line of cars waiting to be checked will depend purely on your luck; you might get your turn immediately, or you might have to wait hours - such as, for instance, in the case that a foreign transport company had decided to get its whole car park registered before you.
Once your turn comes, the officer will check the number of your engine and the car body with the ones in your PTS. If you're lucky, these numbers will be easy to find and legible, so the whole procedure will only take a few minutes.
However, if you bought a second-hand car, and the number is unreadable, you can count on making St. Petersburg taxi drivers happy for a long time to come - your car papers will be sent to the local criminal police unit who will check whether the number has been stolen, or if it has simply corroded. This takes no less than a month, and it is more likely that it will take two.
If you were lucky, though, all it takes is waiting in few more lines, and you will leave the office a proud owner of a set of yellow number plates.
Unfortunately, this is a procedure that you'll have to repeat once a year - every time you get a new one-year visa.
At the very end of this process, you will still be asked to submit your car to the nearby instrumental checkup. An officer will check the state of your breaks, the steering mechanism, and the gases that come out of your exhaust pipe.
But even if the car is new and straight off the production line, that's still not a guarantee that it will be let go just like that.
The tekhosmotr - as the procedure is called - is the most likely place where, according to many seasoned drivers, you might have to bribe your way through.
The exact bribing mechanism is a matter of personal choice: Some suggest putting the money in the documents, while others recommend finding a more discrete way through a middleman.
If your car is less than 5 years old, inspectors will look at it on the premises. Otherwise, they'll send you to another location.
For a long time, many drivers didn't bother to have their cars checked, since the fine for not doing so was only 50 rubles (less than $2). But a recently published Interior Ministry decree allows the traffic police to stop you if the tekhosmotr card is not displayed, and if he develops a suspicion that something is wrong with the vital technical mechanisms, he can impound your car.
Notarialnaya Kontora, 6 Ulitsa Vos sta niya. M: Ploshchad Vosstaniya. Open every day from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tel: 279-1588.
TITLE: VOX POPULI
TEXT: What do St. Petersburg residents think of the projects proposed for the city's 300th anniversary? Irina Titova talked to visitors at the exhibition displaying these projects at the Mikhailovsky Manezh that ran from May 24 to 27. Photos by Alexander Belenky.
Yury Tarasyok, 45, manager
It was interesting to find out about the new park for the Primorsky district where I live. It's very important to build cultural centers in different districts of the city, because otherwise you have to go to the center for entertainment.
Anatoly Kornelyuk, 45, real estate specialist
There are many interesting projects on display at this exhibition but it's still not clear which ones will actually go ahead. Still, I think they will take place sooner or later, unless there is another default.
The commercial projects for Ko nyu shennaya Ploshchad and the Petrograd side are interesting, and I like the projects for the transport infrastructure, especially the plans for additional high-speed roads. Unfortunately, nothing here shows which of these projects will be completed first.
I don't think many of these projects will be completed by 2003. It all depends on financing.
Oleg Lopukhov, 23, student at the Naval Academy
I see the reconstruction of historical buildings and museums as the most important city projects for the city anniversary. The center is the most valuable aspect of St. Petersburg. I also liked the stands about the reconstruction of the Pavlovsk and Peterhof parks.
I came to this exhibition just by chance, but found out some valuable information. For instance, I learned some details about the construction of the ring road. I'm interested in this information because I have a car, and this road would be very useful.
Igor Kupriyenko, 35, deputy director of the St. Petersburg Small Business Development Fund
We came here because we recently bought an apartment in the Central District and we wanted to see how much the city's plans coincide with what we would like. We are interested in reconstruction in the center. We saw several projects for yard reconstruction at the exhibition, and we hope this will also happen in our yard.
As for the economic development of St. Petersburg, I'm particularly interested in the development of small and middle business in the city, which have been experiencing a slump recently. I don't like this tendency, because small business provides at least 1 million city residents with jobs, and give 40 percent of the income for the city budget. I want to see what the city administration is planning to do for small business.
The ring road definitely has a lot of importance for the city. I also think the high-speed railway project deserves attention, as well as the project for new trains for residential areas, as an alternative to the metro that takes too long to build. The city needs port projects and tourism development, or projects to build three-star hotels.
It's hard to predict how many of the city projects will be completed by 2003, but I think the money from the city budget should firstly go to the most profitable spheres: tourism, small business, and the ring road, which will have a positive effect on St. Petersburg's ecology.
Sergei Kaplunov, 42, engineer
I came here to find out what is going to happen in Sennaya Plo shchad. I've lived there for 15 years and I'm tired of the rubbish dump there. However, the stand about Sennaya Ploshchad looks like it was designed for specialists only, and I must say that Admiralteisky District is badly presented at the exhibition.
Among the other projects that attracted my attention are the ring road, reconstruction of the Admiralty Gardens, and Konyushennaya Ploshchad. We'll be even prouder of St. Petersburg if all this gets done.
I think the 300th anniversary will benefit many companies. Russia has always been a country which likes to celebrate anniversaries, and now we have a good occasion to invest money.
Anna Sno, 36, art teacher
On the eve of the city's anniversary, I think the most important projects for us are architectural. Our city should do its best to save all this historic beauty. I'm personally afraid of projects for modernization in the historical center. The problem is that sometimes they just do not suit the atmosphere of the city.
As for the economic projects on show at this exhibition, I was interested to see the ring road, because we definitely need it to get rid of traffic jams in the city. For me it's very important that our economy is developing, and I would want control packages of shares for local companies to belong to the Russian side.
TITLE: Yugoslav Composer Finds Niche in Petersburg
TEXT: Yugoslav composer and pianist Aleksandar Simic may be young, but he knows how to make himself heard. The music of the 28-year-old Belgrade composer is widely performed in and outside his home country. Simic first came to Russia a little over three months ago, when his "Lullaby for Baby Jesus" was performed in the Glinka Philharmonic by the "Rossika" choir during the "Yuletide 2001" festival. The visit was part of a tour of England, Germany, the Middle East and Russia marking 1,000 years of Christianity. Last week, Simic spoke to Galina Stolyarova when he was in St. Petersburg for a presentation of an evening of his music.
Q: This is your second visit to St. Petersburg in three months. What makes you feel close to this town?
A: My visit here in January was overwhelming. I met so many marvelous musicians - Valentina Kopylova and her "Rossika" choir, Konstantin Orbelyan and his Russian Chamber Orchestra - that I couldn't resist coming back again. I am extremely happy that these excellent performers are interested in making my works part of their repertoire.
Q: Your "Lullaby for Baby Jesus" was written during the NATO bombings of Belgrade. Would you say that this music was inspired by the war?
A: It wouldn't be sincere to say that. This piece just happened to be written during air raids over Belgrade in 1999. Naturally, the environment around you does have a certain influence, and war makes you see life in a different light, but the bombings weren't the real reason that the lullaby was written.
I am a religious person, and I believe that liturgical texts have a very explicit way of speaking of eternal issues like good and evil, light and darkness, heaven and hell. And using liturgical texts as a way to put things in context is the main reason that I compose spiritual music.
But the political situation in my country did inspire me to compose. "Prayer for Deliverance," set to a psalm by King David, is the case in point. I read King David's psalm and immediately realized that it suits that very moment in my country's history extremely well.
I wrote this piece in early September 2000, one month before the elections in Yugoslavia, as I anticipated the tremendous change which was bound to happen. I had known for a long time that those changes were going to happen, and I hoped they would happen much earlier. But as the elections approached I just sensed the time had come.
Unfortunately, we paid such a horrendous price: a quarter of a million deaths, over 5 million refugees, and just as many people thrown into misery, poverty and starvation.
What perhaps is even more upsetting is that our October revolution wasn't a real revolution, and the changes we were so optimistic about did not end up being very encouraging.
Q: As the situation has changed, do you think your "Prayer for Deliverance" will have lasting resonance?
A: I believe so. Milosevic is gone, but sadly totalitarian regimes and dictatorship have always existed and will exist. Dictators have different names - Hitler, Stalin, Mao - but they have a common nature which is reflected through the music of this piece. And more importantly, all of us have no less dangerous enemies inside us.
Q: Does the current political situation in Yugoslavia influence your work now? Is it still as inspiring as it was?
A: No, I must say it is not anymore. In pre-October Yugoslavia, things were terrible and frightening, but we had hope. This hope gave us strength to live on and fight on - it was, in a way, the source of inspiration. But the difference which the October revolution made wasn't as drastic and significant as people had hoped.
Now the nation doesn't have a totalitarian regime to resist, but in a life which is still full of troubles, people are lost as they fail to see the results of the ongoing reforms.
At the same time, it is much easier to blame Milosevic for all imaginable sins and refuse to see that the problems are much deeper in society. Most people can't be bothered with issues like ecology and the fate of humanity. They would rather die than think. And art should be there to encourage them to think and learn to be compassionate.
Q: Do you believe that art, and music in particular, can cure souls?
A: Yes, I am convinced it can. True art brings people towards genuine values, like love, family, nature, human life and compassion. Music, in particular, has the power to be a strong reminder of these values. Most people tend to imitate what they see around them, what they read in books or see on TV. And they should be getting a positive pattern. Art and music have the power of stopping people from choosing wrong paths and being evil. At least, this is what I believe and hope.
TITLE: Gogol's Errant Nose Is Commemorated in Stone
AUTHOR: By Simon Patterson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In something of a contrast to the many rather somber Soviet-era memorial plaques around the city, this irreverent sculpture on the corner of Voznesensky Propsect and Prospect Rimskogo-Korsakova commemorates a fictional character - the nose which assumes a life of its own from Nikolai Gogol's story of the same name.
Gogol's great story was published in 1836, and quickly established itself as one of the classic tales of Russian literature. It was one of the five "Petersburg Tales" along with such masterworks as "The Overcoat" and "Diary of a Madman," which did much to establish the myth of St. Petersburg as an absurd, surreal and malevolent city tragically unsuited for human beings to live in, themes which were later taken up by Dostoevsky, among others.
In this story about the "Collegiate Assessor" Major Kovalev, whose nose detaches itself from his face and masquerades as a high-placed civil servant, causing havoc around the city, Gogol undoubtedly satirized the bureaucracy of the day, but also created a strangely absurd atmosphere that was not fully appreciated until the 20th century, with the story having a marked influenced on Kafka's "Metamorphosis," and showing the way for countless other Russian writers from Vladimir Nabokov to Mikhail Zoshchenko.
Gogol, himself from Sorochintsy in the Mirgorod district in Ukraine, lived in St. Petersburg from 1828 to 1836, from the ages of 19 to 27. He initially worked as a minor civil servant before gaining fame with his stories, and going on to become a professor of history at the St. Petersburg University, a position for which, according to reminiscences from people who attended his lectures, he was far from suited. Much of the material in the "Petersburg Tales" no doubt stems from the experiences of a young bewildered provincial. Gogol, however, went far beyond simply providing a portrait of the sufferings of "the little man," which is how contemporary critics tended to interpret his work, with Russia's most famous critic of all, Vissarion Belinksy, proclaiming him as a champion of realism. While this view seems difficult to understand now, it prevailed for a long time in both official Soviet criticism and foreign reception of his work, which may also be attributed to the many subtleties that are inevitably lost from reading the writer in translation. Gogol, a master of language, is also one of Russia's most untranslatable writers, and those who have not read him in the original should be aware that they are missing out on a great deal.
Gogol's time in St. Petersburg was the most productive period of his career, and was followed by six years of travelling around Europe, including a time in Rome, where, bizarrely enough, he wrote the story which is most embued with the spirit of St. Petersburg, "The Overcoat."
In Gogol's time, Prospect Rimskogo-Korsakova was known as Yekateringovsky (Catherine's Court) Prospect. To dispense with these imperial associations, the street was swiftly renamed following the revolution in honor of the great 19th-cenutry composer. The action of "The Nose" takes place in this general area, with the opening scene, when the nose is discovered in a loaf of bread, taking place in a barber's shop located on Voznesensky Prospect.
The nose sculpture is the creation of Georgian sculptor Revaz Gabriadze, and was unveiled in 1995 as part of the anuual Golden Ostap comedy festival. Gabriadze is also responsible for the tiny "Chyzhikh-Pyzhizh" bird sculpture, which can be found on the corner of Nab. Moiki and Nab. Fontanki, near the Summer Gardens.
TITLE: Nepal Crowns New King Following Massacre
AUTHOR: By Neelesh Misra
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KATMANDU, Nepal - Prince Gyanendra inherited Nepal's throne from his dead relatives Monday, becoming king as police fired tear gas at rioting youth who demanded an explanation of a shooting that killed nine royals.
Police called for a 4 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew to clear the streets, and state-run radio issued a warning that police were told to fire at violators who ignored orders.
"Do not go out of your houses or you can be shot," the radio bulletin said. Armed riot patrols surrounded the palace, and army troops began moving into other parts of Katmandu, the capital.
The curfew call came after police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who threw rocks. Eyewitnesses said police beat demonstrators with batons and some soldiers fired shots into the air.
Many mourners refused to believe that Crown Prince Dipendra - technically king for a weekend - had killed his family and then himself, as officials privately say.
Some blamed Gyanendra for the deaths, and many Nepalese were incredulous at the new king's assertion that the bloodbath was a freak accident.
Thousands of mostly young men marched, chanting: "Dipendra is innocent," and "Punish the real murderers." Others yelled: "We don't want Gyanendra."
Earlier, thousands lined the path of a royal procession as King Gyanendra rode in a horse-drawn carriage from one palace, where he was enthroned, to another that will be his official residence - the scene of the killings that left this impoverished Himalayan nation stunned and searching for answers.
There was hardly any applause, and few people along the route clasped their hands together in the traditional Hindu greeting of respect when their new monarch passed. As Gyanendra arrived at the residential palace, a lone supporter shouted, "Long live the king," but he got no response from the crowd.
Appearing at a palace enthronement ceremony, his head shaven in a traditional show of respect for the dead, Gyanendra sat on his throne, wearing a crown topped with a large cream-colored plume.
He issued a statement promising the Nepalese people a full explanation of the palace killings - a day after blaming the deaths of King Birendra and eight other royals on "accidental" fire from an automatic weapon.
The State Council, which oversees royal affairs, met Monday morning and proclaimed Gyanendra, who had been acting king, as monarch. Gyanendra is the slain King Birendra's younger brother.
The council confirmed that Dipendra, the heir to the throne, died early Monday morning.
Officials initially said Dipendra was on life support after fatally shooting his parents - the king and queen - and six other royals Friday night before turning the gun on himself.
But on Sunday, Gyanendra, named acting king because Dipendra was incapacitated, asserted that the shootings were accidental and did not name his nephew as the gunman.
The new king offered a partial explanation Monday: Since Dipendra was technically the king over the weekend, he was above reproach under Nepal's constitution and by tradition.
"The facts could not be made public in yesterday's statement due to legal and constitutional hurdles. I will make the facts of the incident public after an investigation," Gyanendra said.
Adding to the turmoil, many demonstrators Monday shouted that they did not believe Dipendra was to blame. Some saw the royal killings as a political or military conspiracy.
"How can a gun go off and shoot a dozen people in all different directions?" asked Dhan Gurung, a rickshaw driver. "This is ridiculous."
A funeral for Dipendra was expected later in the day - with much of Nepal, a nation of 22 million, already shut down for a five-day period of mourning for the slain royals. There was no word whether life support was withdrawn before the 29-year-old died.
Senior government and palace officials privately disputed the acting king's version of events in his statement on Sunday. They reiterated that Dipendra had killed his parents and six other relatives before shooting himself. Three other members of the royal family were wounded.
The shots rang out while the royal family was gathered for dinner Friday night to discuss Dipendra's wedding. Sources close to the family said the prince wanted to marry the daughter of a former government minister who is a member of the aristocratic Rana family, which ruled Nepal until 1951.
His mother, Queen Aiswarya, reportedly rejected the idea and preferred an arranged marriage, which most Nepalese have.
Meanwhile, a newspaper reported Monday that Maoist rebels who want to topple the constitutional monarchy reportedly rejected the idea the royal family was killed by a lovestruck prince, instead pointing to a "grave political conspiracy."
Monarchs here have little formal power in Nepal, but public criticism is taboo. Under the constitution, the king is immune from prosecution, and Parliament is prohibited from discussing the affairs of the royal family.
TITLE: Hostage Crisis Worsens After Abu Sayyaf Escapes Hospital
AUTHOR: By Jim Gomez
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LAMITAN, Philippines - Aided by reinforcements swarming in from the jungle, Muslim extremists broke through an army siege in the Philippines Sunday and fled back into the dense undergrowth with an unknown number of captives.
The nighttime escape from a hospital that the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas had seized the day before - possibly in search of medicine and doctors to aid wounded comrades - dashed hopes for a quick end to the week-long hostage saga.
Amid the chaos of assaults by the military and the guerrillas' hasty departure, nine of the Abu Sayyaf's original 20 hostages, taken from a beach resort hundreds of kilometers away, managed to escape.
But the Abu Sayyaf also took an unknown number of new hostages from the hospital, including a doctor and his wife. And the bodies of two Filipino hostages taken at the resort were found outside the town, one of them beheaded.
Among the hostages were three Americans - Guillermo Sobero of Corona, California, and missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kansas - witnesses in the hospital said.
After withstanding attacks by helicopter gunships firing rockets, about 60 rebels trapped in the hospital used the hostages as shields to escape as 100 other guerrillas attacked soldiers from nearby jungle, inflicting heavy casualties, said Brigadier General Edilberto Adan.
"Fresh terrorist troops under cover of darkness used diversionary tactics to distract the troops," Adan said, adding that his men limited their fire for fear of hitting hostages.
"There were no reports of any of the hostages held being injured,'" Adan said. "We don't know where they are going."
Fighting was reported Sunday in at least five villages surrounding Lamitan, town councilor Bidong Ismael told RMN radio.
Adan said the beheaded captive found outside the town was identified as Armando Bayona, a guard at the Dos Palmas beach resort where the guerrillas seized 17 Filipinos and three Americans a week ago.
Police believe Bayona and the other dead captive were killed days earlier because their bodies were badly decomposed, Police Capt. Omar Adjid Dalawis said.
The Abu Sayyaf claims to be fighting for a separate Muslim state in the mostly Roman Catholic Philippines. The government regards the group as merely bandits.
Hostages who escaped Saturday's deadly battle told of their terror as helicopter gunships pounded the hospital with rockets.
"We lived from explosion to explosion, fearing the next one would kill us all," said Aurora Samson, 60, a teacher who had gone to the hospital with her granddaughter to pick up a prescription. "Because of the volume of gunfire, I thought there would be no tomorrow."
She said she and her granddaughter were in one room of the bullet-scarred hospital with 27 other people. She and her granddaughter huddled on the urine-soaked floor of a concrete-walled bathroom; other people hid under beds.
Roman Catholic priest Rene Enriquez, 39, said the Abu Sayyaf kept him in a room with the three Americans.
He recalled that Gracia Burnham approached him and asked, her voice shaking: "Can you pray for us so we will be saved?"
"I will pray," Enriquez answered. "I saw fear in their faces."
Hospital administrator Antonio Aguilera said at least four hospital staffers were missing in addition to the doctor: two nurses, a midwife and an accounting clerk. He had not been able to do a head count on patients.
Teresa Ganzon, one of the resort hostages who escaped Sunday, asked the government to halt its attack.
"I'm appealing to the government to ... look for another solution to the problem. The hostages will have a hard time because they know nothing about the jungle," Ganzon said.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo repeated her no-ransom policy on Sunday: "We will negotiate for their unconditional release, but no ransom. Negotiation is always part of military action, to convince them the alternative is worse: die now or face due process later."
She met later in the day at the Manila airport with five former hostages.
TITLE: Toledo Ekes Out Election Win
AUTHOR: By Monte Hayes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LIMA, Peru - Alejandro Toledo rose from a poor childhood as a shoeshine boy to become Peru's first freely elected president of native Indian descent on Sunday, defeating controversial ex-president Alan Garcia.
The election came seven months after Peruvians drove authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori from office in a corruption scandal, and signaled a return to democratic voting after elections tainted by fraud.
With few reported incidents of trouble at polling places, international observers called it Peru's cleanest elections in years.
"Tonight Peruvians celebrate the triumph of democracy," Toledo told thousands gathered in front of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Lima. "I swear, brothers and sisters, I will never let you down."
With 70 percent of the vote counted, Toledo had 51.6 percent to 48.3 percent for Garcia, said Fernando Tuesta, the nation's top election official.
"The time has come to extend Dr. Toledo my congratulations for his triumph on this democratic day," Garcia said, offering his help in Toledo's new administration.
International monitors - including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter - had said previous elections were deeply flawed. On Sunday, there were few reported incidents of trouble at polling places.
"I want to congratulate the Peruvian people for a clean election and a demonstration of civic maturity," U.S. Ambassador John Hamilton said.
Toledo may well be the first president in Latin America to win after making Indian rights a top campaign issue. There have been other Peruvian presidents of native Indian descent, but they took power in military coups.
The 55-year-old capitalized on his dark, chiseled Indian features and short stature to appeal to a mostly poor native Indian and mixed-race population that accounts for more than 80 percent of Peru's 26 million people.
Toledo's strength came also from his leadership role in the campaign to unseat Fujimori, whose regime collapsed in November amid mounting corruption scandals. Toledo withdrew from a runoff against Fujimori in May of last year, accusing him of planning to rig the results.
Like Garcia, Toledo campaigned largely on a populist platform. He has pledged to create 2.5 million jobs, raise salaries for public workers and lower taxes.
"He headed the fight against Fujimori's corrupt government. He deserves to be president," vegetable seller Apolonio Mayta said before the vote was tallied. The 53-year-old makes a precarious living working off her tricycle in a Lima shantytown.
Garcia, 52, used scintillating oratory to overcome memories of his calamitous 1985-90 presidency, marred by corruption, guerrilla violence, food shortages and hyperinflation.
In recent weeks, he had narrowed the gap with Toledo, who only a few weeks ago led most polls by as many as 20 percentage points.
Garcia returned to Peru in January to seek re-election after nearly nine years in exile waiting for corruption charges against him to expire.
His charisma and ability to transmit hope to Peruvians, especially to young voters who don't remember his government, boosted his candidacy, and despite his loss he emerges as Peru's strongest opposition voice and a force to be reckoned with in the future.
"His first government left a bad memory, but we should give him another chance," said Maria Moya, a 35-year-old divorced mother of two who moved to Lima from a village in the Andes highlands.
"Anybody can make mistakes, and he has said he is sorry for his errors."
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Attempted Coup
BANGUI, Central African Republic (Reuters) - President Ange Felix Patasse's loyalists battled to bring the Central African Republic's capital fully under control a week after a failed coup, despite foreign reinforcements and a declaration of victory.
"The rebels are driving around in stolen cars and pickup trucks," said one businessman from the southern suburb of Bimbo, one of the main targets of a government push in the former French colony. "There are bodies on the streets."
The attack on Patasse's residence in the early hours of last Monday triggered the worst wave of bloodletting since a series of mutinies in the 1990s and became an international crisis as Libyans and Congolese rebels rushed to shore up Patasse.
Despite an intense hunt by loyalists for dissident leader Andre Kolingba, there was no sign of the former army ruler who handed over to Patasse in 1993 after multi-party elections in the impoverished diamond-producing country.
Solution Sought
SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Partners in Macedonia's coalition government agreed on Sunday to work toward decentralizing power in an effort to defuse an ethnic Albanian insurgency, which threatens to spark a wider Balkan crisis.
The talks, which ended with no firm agreements, followed a day of fighting on the lower slopes of Macedonia's northeastern mountains on Saturday.
Using artillery and helicopters, the army targeted four villages held by guerrillas since the insurgency, which first erupted in February, flared up again on May 3. Long-range artillery pounded Matejce, Otlja, Slupcane and Orizare for much of the day.
President Boris Trajkovski, who chaired talks between the four main partners in the ethnically mixed coalition, said that the politicians had agreed to begin a process aimed at giving more power to local government and involving more ethnic Albanians in state institutions.
The leaders of the two main ethnic Albanian parties did not attend the talks, sending their deputies instead to represent them.
Pope's Body on Display
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - In a surreal ceremony, the exhumed and restored body of Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963, was carried Sunday in a glass coffin to a new resting place in St. Peter's Basilica where it will be visible to the faithful.
The coffin, which looked like a crystal boudoir jewelry box framed in gold, was rolled out of a side entrance of the basilica on a wheeled, red-draped platform. Inside the glass box, John's body was dressed in a white, silk cassock and red cape. His big head rested on damask red pillows. His face was covered with a wax mask. The coffin stood in the square as Pope John Paul said a mass for tens of thousands of people.
The body of John, who was beatified and put on the road to sainthood last year, was exhumed in January and found to be in surprisingly good condition.
Although some thought it was a miracle, the conservation was in fact due to the work of Professor Gennaro Goglia, a doctor who secretly embalmed the dead pope with a special liquid. In the five months since it was exhumed, technicians have been working to keep the body preserved so that it could remain visible to the faithful.
John, known as the "Good Pope" because of his jovial and benevolent nature, reigned from 1958 to 1963. Although his reign was relatively brief, he revolutionized the Roman Catholic Church by calling the Second Vatican Council, which modernized the Church
Bomb Kills 10
DHAKA, Bangladesh (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed and 16 wounded when a bomb exploded during a Sunday service at a Roman Catholic church in Bangladesh, police said.
It was believed to be the first bombing of a church in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.
Police said nine people died at the mission church at Baniarchar in southwestern Bangladesh. A tenth victim died in hospital. All were Bangladeshi men.
No group or individual had claimed responsibility for the blast.
Police said the bomb was believed to be hidden in a sack kept inside the church and it went off soon after the service began.
The blast tore through the corrugated iron roof of the brick-walled church, police said.
Archbishop Michael Rozario of Dhaka condemned the bombing and demanded a proper inquiry.
"Such an incident at any prayer place calls for condemnation. I hope authorities will conduct a proper investigation," he said.
Jawadul Karim, press secretary to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Hasina immediately ordered an investigation by army explosive experts.
Anthony Quinn Dies
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) - Two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, a former shoeshine boy and preacher who became an international leading man with a film career spanning six decades, has died of respiratory failure. He was 86.
Both Quinn's screen presence and personal style were larger than life. The barrel-chested actor fathered 13 children and starred in 100 feature films, including the fierce Bedouin leader in "Lawrence of Arabia" in 1962 and the earthy hero of the 1964 film "Zorba the Greek."
Milosevic War Crimes
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbian police have started exhuming bodies recovered from the Danube River and thought to be Kosovo Albanians that could link ousted leader Slobodan Milosevic to war crimes, the government revealed Sunday.
Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic told Belgrade radio that the bodies recovered two years ago from a refrigerated truck dumped in the Danube were being exhumed from a mass grave, but did not say where it was. He also suggested there might be more such graves.
"It is now apparent that these mass graves contain more bodies than those found in the truck lifted from the bottom of the Danube," he told the radio.
He gave a figure of 86 bodies. The number of corpses recovered by divers from the truck has been reported to be 50 so far.
Mihajlovic said, without giving details, that there had been attempts to destroy evidence, adding that the ministry would pursue the case to the very end.
Last month, Serbia's new reformist authorities accused Milosevic and close aides of covering up evidence of possible war crimes against civilians during military operations in Kosovo in 1998-99, saying they had arrived at their conclusions during investigations into the "bodies in the river" case.
TITLE: Sixers and Lakers To Battle for NBA Title
AUTHOR: By Chris Sheridan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHILADELPHIA - The people of this city had waited 18 years for this moment, and when it finally happened they stood and cheered like they had just won a championship.
The Philadelphia 76ers are moving on to play the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, but that, in a way, is tomorrow's news.
Sunday's story was their 108-91 defeat of the Milwaukee Bucks in game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, a victory led by MVP Allen Iverson, Defensive Player of the Year Dikembe Mutombo, Sixth Man of the Year Aaron McKie and Coach of the Year Larry Brown - with a big assist from someone named Raja Bell who was the property of the Sioux Falls Skyforce the last time the Lakers lost.
Iverson had his best game of the series with 44 points, seven assists and six rebounds. He shot 17-for-33, making more than half his shots for the first time since game 6 of the second round.
Mutombo, acquired in a risky trade with Atlanta in February that the 76ers hoped would propel them to the finals, was dominant, too, with 23 points, 19 rebounds and seven blocks.
McKie had 10 points and a career-high 13 assists, and little-known Bell -a rookie who signed a 10-day contract with the 76ers on April 6 - scored 10 points in the second quarter when Philadelphia took the lead for good, going on a 21-6 run after he entered the game.
Bell had two dunks and a three-pointer to help the 76ers to a six-point halftime lead that only got larger as the second half unfolded.
There were still 42 seconds remaining when Iverson, to a chant of "Beat L.A.," cupped his hand to his ear and skipped and danced around the court before jumping into the arms of his coach. Iverson then ran to hug his family as Tyrone Hill and Sixers president Pat Croce danced atop the scorer's table.
Milwaukee coach George Karl exchanged a warm hug with Brown after the final buzzer, knowing that Brown will be going to the NBA Finals for the first time in his illustrious coaching career.
The finals will begin Wednesday night at Los Angeles, where the Lakers will have been waiting 10 days since their last game.
Yet to lose this postseason, the Lakers were established as 11 1/2-point favorites in the opener.
But again, that's a story for later on. This night was about the 76ers.
The 76ers put the Bucks away after Milwaukee's best player, Ray Allen, went down with a knee injury late in the third quarter. The Bucks trailed by six when Allen left and by 12 when he returned early in the fourth. They never made a run after that.
The "Beat L.A." chant began with three minutes left, and from there it was a lovefest between the Sixers and their ecstatic fans who had waited 18 years for another trip to the finals.
The 76ers and Lakers met in the finals three times from 1980 to 1983, with Los Angeles winning twice. The exception was 1983 when Moses Malone, Julius Erving and Andrew Toney led Philadelphia to a 4-0 sweep.
Many are picking the Lakers to sweep the 76ers and become the first team to go unbeaten during the postseason. The Sixers weren't ready Sunday to focus on the next round. The ending to the latest round felt too good.
I can't even put it into words. Best feeling I ever had," said McKie, a Philadelphia native. "I always dreamed about playing the Lakers in the finals."
The 76ers did all the little things - deflecting balls, creating turnovers, grabbing offensive rebounds - that Milwaukee didn't while playing with a confidence and composure that the Bucks will have all summer to envy. Philadelphia created 15 turnovers, grabbed 17 offensive rebounds, scored 19 second-chance points and had 11 steals.
The 76ers were ahead 68-61 when Allen was called for a questionable offensive foul as he tried to drive around Eric Snow. The two banged knees on the play, and Allen stayed down for two minutes before walking off gingerly. As the Bucks came out of a timeout, Allen was helped to the locker room.
Allen returned to the bench late in the third - just in time to see Iverson step back and nail a three-pointer at the buzzer for an 82-71 lead.
Allen then reported to the scorer's table 40 seconds into the fourth quarter, giving him a perfect view directly behind Iverson as the MVP launched another three-pointer that swished through for an 85-71 lead.
The 76ers did get a scare when Iverson fell hard to the floor and jammed his left wrist while leading by 15 with about three minutes left. Iverson shook off the injury, stayed in and soaked in the adulation.
It was a storybook ending, almost - the only problem being that the story isn't over yet.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: No Comeback Yet
BOSTON - Michael Jordan's comeback - if there is one - won't start in a summer league in Boston.
The Washington Wizards, which Jordan partly owns, are among 10 NBA teams planning to send a squad to the eight-day workout league that starts July 16 at the University of Massachusetts-Boston campus. The Boston Globe, citing sources it did not identify, said officials at the school have been alerted that Jordan could begin his comeback there.
Jordan told NBC on Sunday night that he would not be playing in the summer league.
Rumors that Jordan, 38, would return have circulated for months. He is reportedly getting in shape to see if he could handle the grind of an 82-game schedule at or near the level that earned him six NBA titles and five MVP awards.
Jordan would have to sell his stake in the Wizards if he returned as a player.
Gordon Wins at Dover
DOVER (Reuters) - Jeff Gordon won the NASCAR race at Dover Downs in dominant fashion, leading for 381 of the 400 laps to conquer a 43-car field at the International Speedway on Sunday.
It was Gordon's second victory of the season and 54th of his career, tying him for seventh on NASCAR's all-time list with Rusty Wallace and Lee Petty.
Gordon won by 0.787 seconds over Steve Park and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to give Chevrolet a sweep of the top three places.
Ricky Craven finished fourth in a Ford ahead of pole sitter Dale Jarrett, also driving a Ford.
'Dirty' Ice Dancing
LONDON (AP) - Figure skating is bringing in the censors.
Following complaints about "undignified" lifts in pair skating and ice dancing, the International Skating Union has decided to penalize certain moves such as upside-down splits and backward spread eagles.
The ISU said referees and judges would deduct 0.1 from the second mark for each movement considered to be "undignified."
The deductions will apply to all programs next season.
"Following many complaints about the choice of lifts and movements in pair skating and ice dancing, there is serious concern about the display to the television public and audiences present of undignified poses/positions," an ISU statement said.
"These are being performed mainly by the ladies, for example, sustained upside-down splits, and spread eagles while leaning backwards low to the ice."
TITLE: Agassi Advances to Quarterfinals
AUTHOR: By Michael McDonough
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Andre Agassi moved a step closer to a second-straight Grand Slam title, beating Franco Squillari in five sets Monday to reach the quarterfinals of the French Open.
Agassi closed the match by blanking the 16th-seeded Argentine in the last set to complete the 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 1-6, 6-0 victory.
The Australian Open champion blew kisses and bowed repeatedly to the crowd after defeating an opponent who made the semifinals at Roland Garros last year.
"Squillari played an incredible fourth set," Agassi said. "If I didn't step my game up, I would have had a lot of problems."
The third-seeded Agassi, who won the French in 1999, will play No. 10 Sebastien Grosjean in the quarters. The Frenchman eliminated Spanish clay-court specialist Galo Blanco 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 in the fourth round.
Earlier, No. 6 Lleyton Hewitt took his place in the quarters when he beat Guillermo Canas of Argentina to complete a five-set match suspended the day before because of darkness.
Swiss teenager Roger Federer advanced to his first Grand Slam quarterfinals by eliminating Australian Wayne Arthurs 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
Agassi was surprised in the opening set by Squillari's left-handed forehand. Agassi blew seven break points in the opening game. He had 29 break points in the match and converted only eight.
During the long third game of the second set, Agassi drew applause after telling the crowd to "Shut up!" He had just lost a point throughout which fans whistled.
Squillari went on to lose control of his serve, conceding two service games with double faults. He lost that set and the next, but charged back in the fourth, sealing it with one of his 15 aces. By the final set, Agassi was able to outrun his opponent.
Hewitt survived his first real test of the tournament. The sixth-seeded Australian dropped the first two sets but rallied to win 3-6, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 in 4 hours, 12 minutes.
He was 4-2 up in the final set against the Argentine when play was suspended Sunday.
Hewitt beat a wild card and a qualifier in his first two rounds. He downed Andy Roddick in the third round when the American teenager quit because of a thigh injury.
Next up for Hewitt is No. 4 Juan Carlos Ferrero, one of the favorites to win the title.
Defending champion Gustavo Kuer ten and 1996 champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov meet in the other quarterfinal in the top half of the draw.
Kuerten narrowly escaped defeat Sunday, saving a match point in the third set before beating American qualifier Michael Russell 3-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-3, 6-1.
In the remaining quarterfinal, Federer will play 1998 runner-up Alex Corretja or unseeded Frenchman Fabrice Santoro.
Jennifer Capriati is one victory from returning to the semis of the French Open, 11 years after becoming the tournament's youngest semifinalist at 14.
Capriati and Serena Williams will meet Tuesday in by far the toughest women's quarterfinal. It is the only match between seeded players - No. 4 Capriati and No. 6 Williams - and the only contest between Grand Slam champions.
"I'm looking forward to the match," Capriati said. "I know it's going to be a tough one, but I've just got to play my game."
TITLE: Brazil Held Scoreless Again Going Into France Rematch
AUTHOR: By Peter Muello
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: IBARAKI, Japan - Brazil again failed to show much life on attack, playing a largely reserve Japanese team to a 0-0 tie Monday and stumbling into the semifinals of the Confederations Cup.
This was the second-straight scoreless game for Brazil, which plays France on Thursday in South Korea in a rematch of the 1998 World Cup final.
"Against France, the ball is going in," Brazil's Ze Maria said. "Enough is enough."
Japan, which finished first in its group, faces Australia in the other semifinal in Yokohama.
"This is a great achievement to give to the Japanese people," Japan coach Philippe Troussier said.
Japan and South Korea, co-hosts of the 2002 World Cup, are also hosts of this eight-country tournament.
In Niigata, Cameroon beat Canada 2-0 for its first victory of the tournament. Bernard Tchoutang scored in the 48th minute and Patrick Mboma made a penalty kick in the 81st.
The Canadians played Brazil, the four-time World Cup champions, to a 0-0 tie Saturday. Canada (0-1-2) did not have a goal in the tournament.
"We need to score and there's no excuse," Canada coach Holger Osieck.
In a curious reversal of roles as master and apprentice, Brazil trailed Japan coming into the game and needed at least a point to gain a semifinal berth.
The game meant little to the Japanese, who won their first two games against Canada and Cameroon and were guaranteed the home field in the semifinals. French coach Philippe Troussier rested five starters and turned the match into a party for its fans.
For the first time in the tournament, the 41,800 seats in Kashima Soccer Stadium were nearly full with thousands of blue Japanese jerseys.
Brazil was a shadow of its usual boisterous self. Gone was samba soccer, as injuries and club commitments prevented coach Emerson Leao from using such players as Ronaldo, Romario and Juninho.
"I don't know what the matter is," Brazil's Robert said. "We just have to get over this anxiety."
TITLE: Woods Reaches New Milestone at Memorial
AUTHOR: By Rusty Miller
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DUBLIN, Ohio - Paul Azinger was in total awe of Tiger Woods' latest performance.
"He's probably the most dominant athlete in the history of sports," Azinger said after Woods caught, passed and routed him in Sunday's final round of the Memorial Tournament.
Woods took the lead with an eagle on the fifth hole while Azinger was bogeying, riding that three-shot swing to win by seven over Azinger and Sergio Garcia.
"It's incredible," Azinger said, shaking his head. "I don't know if the general public appreciates it. If they don't, they should."
The victory was the latest page in the scrapbook for the 25-year-old golfer who has taken on legendary status - particularly among his fellow competitors.
"I'll be surprised if anyone makes a long-term run at him," said Stewart Cink, who finished fourth at 9-under.
"He's so in control of what he does, he doesn't care what anybody else does," John Cook said. "Basically, with his mind, he's 8- to 12-under par before the week even starts. He just has to keep from breaking down."
Woods certainly didn't break down.
The win was his fifth this year and his 37th in less than five years as a pro. He became the first player to win the same tournament three consecutive years since Tom Watson won the Byron Nelson Classic from 1978 to 1980.
The lynchpin was a 2-iron on the fifth hole - and Azinger's wayward 3-wood.
Azinger, the leader after the second and third rounds, still grasped a one-shot lead on Woods after they hit their drives into the No. 5 fairway.
Azinger's 3-wood second shot hung in the damp air and dropped into the pond in front of the green on the par-5 hole. He ended up taking a bogey.
Woods lifted a towering 2-iron that carried the water and landed on the green with almost no roll, stopping 6 feet from the pin.
"I'm amazed by some of the shots I was able to pull off this week," Woods said. "I hit the ball flush and high and the shape that I wanted. If I wanted to step up there and hit a 2-iron 250 yards [meters] in the air, I was able to do it. I did it consistently. That, to me, is kind of cool."
That was also kind of the end of the tournament.
Azinger bogeyed the next hole, too, and Woods lapped the field with birdies at holes No. 12, 14 and 15.
Woods played the par-5 holes in 14-under. His next three closest pursuers, all at the top of their games - Azinger, Garcia and Cink - were a combined 17-under.
He has won five of his last six tournaments around the world. He is also 5-0 in his last five starts in the state of Ohio.
After a while, all of the numbers and all of the achievements become overwhelming.
"Not too much amazes me anymore, but it's still amazing," said Memorial Tournament founder Jack Nicklaus.
Near the end, Azinger apologized to Woods for not giving him a better battle.
The victory did more than add to Woods' reputation. As if the golf world needed to be reminded, the pros must not only tackle Southern Hills but also Woods in the U.S. Open in two weeks.
"He's the guy to beat. He's the guy who's won the last four consecutive majors. He's the best player in the world," Jim Furyk said. "He's got an all-around game and with his length and his ability, he's got an advantage on any course."
TITLE: Webb Rises To Occasion For Win at U.S. Open
AUTHOR: By David Droschak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SOUTHERN PINES, North Carolina - Karrie Webb made a major statement once again.
Displaced by Annika Sorenstam as the top women's golfer in the world this year, Webb proved Sunday she's still the player to beat in major championships by running away with the U.S. Women's Open for the second-straight year.
This time winning by eight shots over Se Ri Pak at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club to capture the largest prize in women's golf history - $520,000.
Webb made birdie putts of 45 feet and 20 feet on her last two holes to close with a 1-under-par 69 and four-day total of 7-under 273, virtually lapping the field on this tricky Donald Ross layout.
After her win, she kissed the ball and heaved it into the stands.
"I felt fortunate to have won one open," Webb said. "To win two, I'm well, well ahead of the game."
The victory was Webb's fourth major in her last seven attempts, making her - like Tiger Woods - the player to beat when it counts the most.
"My dream year would be for my game to peak four times a year, in the four majors," Webb said. "But that would be everybody's dream. That's not always possible."
Webb also became only the seventh woman to win the U.S. Open in consecutive years, and has the most dominant stretch in LPGA Tour majors since Pat Bradley won four of five in 1985-86.
"I feel very fortunate that my game has been where I wanted it to be around the majors. And I've done the right things at the right time," she said.
Like hit a perfect 6-iron to the seventh green just moments before Pak's hit the same club over. Webb sank the 15-foot birdie putt and Pak bogeyed by missing from 12 feet as Webb was on her way to a second straight Open title.
Webb came into the final round with a five-shot lead over Pak and no other golfers in real contention - including Sorenstam - and Pak never got closer than three shots and trailed by six at the turn.
"I was still very nervous the first few holes," said Webb, who has reached $7 million faster than any female golfer. "When you have such a lead, it's your tournament to win or lose."
Pak, the 1998 Open winner, was unable to mount a charge. She, like almost all of the players in the field, never could string together birdies after Webb posted her 5-under 65 Friday.
"Everyone was trying to play catchup golf," Webb said. "And that's to my advantage because this course is a hard course to play that sort of golf on."
With Sorenstam out of the picture at 7-over par, Webb's main competition was in her group. But the Korean golfer had trouble with her putter all week, taking eight more shots on the green than Webb.
And Pak also hit a four-day low three fairways on her back nine as she faded with a closing 72 and 1-over total 281.
Dottie Pepper's closing 69 gave her third at 2-over 282, which was her best finish in 18 Women's Open. She tied for third in 1990 and 1988.
Pepper, who started the tournament with a 4-over-par 74, matched both Webb and Lorie Kane for the lowest round of the day and the only sub-par rounds on Sunday. They were also the only golfers to have two sub-70 rounds in the four-day tournament.
Sorenstam, who shot a record 59 earlier in the year and has won five LPGA events this season, knows the elation Webb feels. Sorenstam won at Pine Needles in 1996 for the second of two straight Open championships.
"There is no better feeling to play that well in a major championship, especially a U.S. Open," Sorenstam said of Webb's performance. "She had to feel great to be in control and to play this well. That's what it's all about."
TITLE: Russia's National Baseball Program To Face American Test
AUTHOR: By John Kekis
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SYRACUSE, New York - Call it to Russia with glove.
With six appearances in the NCAA Division III College World Series in the past seven years, the Cortland State University men's baseball team has made its share of road trips in the past decade. None compares to the latest, though - a trip to Russia.
College officials believe the two-week, five-game excursion marks the first time that an American college baseball team will compete on Russian soil.
"It's still very, very hard to believe," Cortland coach Joe Brown said Sunday just moments before the team took off from Hancock International Airport.
It shouldn't be.
The State University of New York (SUNY) has the oldest direct university-to-university relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation. It began in 1976 and SUNY has since established a university center in Albany, New York, to promote education exchanges, research and other initiatives with Russian institutions of higher learning.
"This really is a diplomatic mission," said John Ryder, dean of the College of Arts and Science at Cortland. "But part of it, too, is to help solidify the relationship and advance the work of the center. Baseball is a great cultural vehicle. People there are increasingly interested because they're interested in the United States, and baseball is something we do well."
Baseball diplomacy was a natural in this instance, especially considering the players. The vice rector at Moscow State University likes the sport, and SUNY Chancellor Robert King, who privately raised the money for the trip, is enamored with it. He still plays the game in an over-30 league.
"This trip will not only provide us an opportunity to share America's pastime with our Russian hosts, but also to continue the expansion of an important educational and cultural relationship," said King, who has a batting tee in the basement of his home and plans to see if he can hit Russian pitching.
"In this new age, understanding foreign languages and cultures is a critical part of a superb education. This trip and others to follow will help grow these exchange opportunities for our students and faculty."
The lucky ones this time are 24 members of the Cortland team, the most successful baseball program in SUNY history. They will compete against Moscow State University, St. Petersburg University and the Russian National Team.
"I'm a little bit shocked," said senior pitcher Anthony Sprague, of Hoosick Falls, New York. "It'll be interesting to see how they play the game compared to how we play it and how much more they have to develop. And it'll be interesting to see the contrast of cultures. I have to say that I'm a little bit nervous. I really have no idea what to expect."
That aura of excitement and uncertainty was prevalent at the airport.
"Now that we're going, I'm kind of excited," said pitcher Brian Silsbee, of Horseheads, New York "I want to get to know another culture, but I'm also kind of nervous. Going to Russia, you don't know what to expect. It will be weird."
Moscow State University competes in a six-team league, and while Cortland State is there the Russian championship will be played, Ryder said. The Russian capital also boasts a Little League of 250 kids, and the Red Dragons will host a clinic for them next week.
"For most of our players, this trip will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Brown said. "They'll be able to experience firsthand the Kremlin, Red Square and the many treasures of St. Petersburg. But most of all, they'll be able to interact with the Russian people through our national pastime of baseball. For two weeks, they will be America's ambassadors playing America's sport in a country eager to learn more about baseball."