SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #676 (43), Friday, June 8, 2001
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TITLE: WWII Slaves To Get Compensation
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 
 and Robin Munro

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Yevgenia Uzdinskaya, an 80-year-old St. Petersburg pensioner, shows the scars on her arms. They are the traces left from numerous injuries received while working as a slave laborer in a cable weaving plant in the German town of Herborn from 1942 to 1945.
 "The plant was surrounded by a fence. We slept on beds stacked four high and ate bad soup," Uzdinskaya said in an interview on Wednesday. Not that there was much time for rest, though. Try as she might, Uzdinskaya cannot remember how many hours a day she was forced to work by her Nazi overseers. 
 "I was afraid then even of my own shadow," she said with tears in her eyes. "How can I have been expected to keep track of time?" 
 Uzdinskaya was one of thousands of Soviet citizens who were taken prisoner during the Nazi occupation and sent to concentration camps or literally sold off to German companies as slaves. She is also one of an estimated 27,000 former slave laborers still left in St. Petersburg. 
 As early as next month, Uzdinskaya and 19,999 other former Soviet citizens forced into involuntary servitude in Germany under Hitler's Third Reich may become eligible for compensation of up to 15,000 Deutsche marks ($6,600).
 Nearly 300,000 more may shortly be eligible for the reparation pay as well. 
 On Wednesday, Russian and German officials from the foundations managing the 835 million Deutsche marks ($365 million) payout to Russians forced to work for the Nazis were scheduled to meet in Berlin. The talks were postponed because of the appointment of Natalya Malysheva - who had been in charge of local and national budget-funded programs in St. Petersburg - as the new head of the Russian foundation. 
 When the talks take place, they will focus on two points according to Vyacheslav Ba tayev, whose ministry oversees the Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation, which is in charge of providing lists of recipients and distributing the payments in Russia.
 The first is to determine how much the Germans will pay the foundation and Sberbank, which will process the briefs. The second is to establish a way of ensuring the money gets to the right people. 
 Batayev said he regretted the delay in the talks. "Those who will receive the money are dying off," he said. "We all - the directors, the ministry and the government - understand that the sooner these payments are made, the better."
 The agreements will likely be signed next week, after Malysheva has had time to familiarize herself with them, Batayev said.
 On Wednesday, the foundations were to discuss an agreement to compensate an estimated 317,000 surviving Russians who were forced into involuntary servitude by the Nazis.
 The first payments, however, will still be made to the first 20,000 beneficiaries in July as originally scheduled, said Batayev, adviser to Labor Minister Alexander Pochinokin, in a telephone interview Thursday. 
 Although Germany has been partly paying compensation to slave laborers from the former Soviet Union - known as <i>Ostarbeiter </i>- since 1993, this latest reparation program became possible last week after German lawmakers gave the green light for $4.5 billion in payments to the remaining uncompensated Nazi victims. About $364 million of that has been earmarked for the Russian foundation, which is also responsible for Central Asia, the Transcaucasus region, Latvia and Lithuania. 
 The German funds will be provided 50-50 by the federal government and more than 6,000 companies. Parliament approved the payoff last week only after a U.S. court dismissed claims brought against German companies by survivors of slave labor camps. To ensure &quot;legal closure,&quot; recipients of the symbolic reparations must waive their right to take legal action against the German government or the firms that exploited them.
 Uzdinskaya was 17 when the fascists caught her near the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk, along with hundreds of other young men, women and children. They were packed into closed freight cars with no ventilation except for two holes cut in the floor of the wagon, which were meant to serve as toilets. 
 &quot;But we had practically no use for them because we ate nothing,&quot; recalled Uzdinskaya, almost beneath her breath.
 Another St. Petersburg resident, 77-year-old Alexander Yerofimov, was sent at age 17 to Auschwitz. Yerofimov - who miraculously managed to hide his own Jewish roots while there - survived. 
 Because of his heritage, he has received 250 DM ($115) a month since 1993, when the Russian foundation was established. But he said in an interview Wednesday reparations were insufficient.
 &quot;There is no money to pay back what the Nazis did to people. There is no money to compensate death,&quot; he said. 
 While in Auschwitz, Yerofimov was assigned to a <i>kapo </i>or work unit that stripped down German planes that had been shot down for scrap. Horrific abuse was a part of every workday.
 &quot;Our boss, Max, had a ritual,&quot; said Yerofimov. &quot;Every morning before our team set off for work, he would call one of us up, and make him lie down with his head on a rail. The boss then stomped on the prisoner's head with all his strength, breaking the laborer's spine.&quot;
 Alexei Troshkin, the Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation's secretary until a reshuffle last week, said 317,000 people in Russia and other republics under the foundation's jurisdiction have been identified as eligible since 1993. Some 312,000 have received reparations, while 80,000 applicants were rejected, he said in a telephone interview.
 He added, however, that some 30,000 eligible former slaves have not yet applied to the foundation before the Aug. 12 deadline. Berlin officials estimate that only about 1.2 million eligible recipients are living worldwide.
 According to former Duma Deputy Lyudmila Narusova, who chairs the foundations oversight committee, an estimated 200 eligible ex-prisoners of German slave labor die in the former Soviet Union every day, Izvestiya reported. 
 Last year, before Troshkin's tenure as secretary, news reports said the Labor Ministry and the Audit Chamber had discovered that the foundation had misappropriated 80 million marks. The circumstances were unclear, but Troshkin's predecessor resigned after the case. Michael Jansen, chairman of the board at Germany's Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation - which is responsible for administering the payoffs from the German side - said great pains would be taken to ensure that the money did not wind up in the wrong hands.
 &quot;We have introduced a number of controls,&quot; Jansen said by telephone from Berlin. &quot;We will pay the money out in smaller amounts, and we will send teams to Moscow to inspect the applications and auditors to the foundation,&quot; he said.
 
 <i>Valeria Korchagina also contributed to this report. </i>

TITLE: Duma Approves Nuclear Imports
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: The State Duma gave final approval on Wednesday to legislation opening Russia to imports of spent nuclear fuel, a project environmentalists say will turn the country into a nuclear dump.
 Lawmakers voted 243-125 in favor of the package of amendments, which advocates say could earn $20 billion over 10 years and help clean up the country's existing stock of nuclear waste.
 &quot;I am voting for this bill because I don't want places in my country remaining dead zones, contaminated by radiation,&quot; said Deputy Yegor Ligachyov, a Communist and a former member of the Soviet Union's ruling Politburo.
 The bills now have to win the approval of the Federation Council upper chamber and then be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.
 The international environmental group Greenpeace reacted to the vote by calling on Washington to veto any shipments of spent fuel to Russia from U.S.-designed reactors, a move it said could foil the whole project.
 Washington responded to the vote Thursday by reiterating that the U.S. would not give its consent for importing fuel of American origin unless Moscow takes into account U.S. security concerns.
 A statement posted Wednesday on the State Department's Web site said Russia could count on U.S. approval if it were to sign a Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which would oblige Moscow to cease nuclear cooperation with &quot;third parties&quot; - so-called rogue countries such as Iran and North Korea.
 But this was not the only condition.
 &quot;The U.S. would need to be assured that the planned transportation and disposition of the fuel complied with appropriate standards of safety and security,&quot; the statement said. &quot;The U.S. would want to be assured that the transfer was for eventual disposal, and not for reprocessing.&quot;
 Environmentalists and liberals have mounted opposition to the bills on the grounds that proceeds might be spent in other ways, meaning the radioactive waste would remain buried indefinitely.
 Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yab loko Party, and an opponent of the bills, urged the Duma to reject the bill for the sake of future generations.
 &quot;The vote today can make history,&quot; Yavlinsky told deputies. &quot;One hundred million Russian citizens are against it and only 500 people are for it - 300 members sitting here and 200 bureaucrats who will be getting the money.&quot;
 Yavlinsky says opinion polls show that up to 90 percent of Russians reject the plan.
 Before the debate got under way, Yabloko launched a last-ditch attempt to stall the bills by asking deputies to put off the vote and hold a referendum. The Duma rejected the move.
 Deputies backing the bills said calls to postpone it or vote it down played in the hands of foreign competitors trying to keep Russia from entering the lucrative market of fuel reprocessing.
 The United States controls about 90 percent of the world's spent nuclear fuel, since most countries that use the fuel buy it from the United States and are contractually obligated to receive U.S. approval for any transfer of such material.
 Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Ru myantsev said Wednesday he was aware that these restrictions could leave Russia with access to only 10 percent of the world's spent nuclear fuel.
 But on Thursday, Rumyantsev cautioned that Russia was in no shape to take imports before the end of the year, even if the bill becomes law. His deputy, Bulat Nigmatulin, said Russia would need to spend $300 million to upgrade its reprocessing and storage facilities.
 Under the project championed by the Nuclear Power Ministry, Russia would import about 1,000 tons of fuel a year, roughly the amount produced by its own power plants and those in Ukraine, which sends spent fuel for reprocessing.
 The reprocessing foreseen by Rumyantsev's ministry would result in increasing Russia's stocks of separated plutonium 238, which is used mainly for military purposes. Limiting these stocks has been one of the U.S.' goals for decades.
 The ministry plans to use the reprocessed fuel in a new generation of reactors - called breeders - which produce even more plutonium as waste.
 Environmentalists have said breeders are dangerous and expensive, but Russia already has one of the world's most successfully operating breeders at the Mayak reprocessing facility in the southern Urals near Chelyabinsk. The reactor was built for slightly less than $1 million.
 The charge for imported fuel - which could possibly finance the breeder program - is to be stored until 2021 while Russia upgrades its reprocessing facilities with the money earned from prospective exporters, such as Taiwan, Japan, China, Iran and Eastern Europe.
 Greenpeace immediately called on U.S. President George W. Bush to ban all shipments of spent fuel to Russia from U.S.-made reactors around the world, which would drastically reduce Moscow's prospective customer base since plant designers have a say in how waste from reactors is treated.
 &quot;Without U.S. support, the whole grandiose Nuclear Power Ministry program shrinks down to the simple old Soviet practice of taking back spent fuel from the socialist brother countries,&quot; Greenpeace International said in a statement.
 Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev says France and Britain have carved up the market for depleted nuclear fuel and Russia will have to fight to secure a share. Reprocessed fuel can be used again, leaving small quantities of unusable radioactive waste.
 Rumyantsev lashed out at critics of the bills on the eve of Wednesday's vote.
 &quot;An extremely negative public relations attack is under way. We are constantly being defamed,&quot; Rumyantsev said Tuesday night on ORT television.
 A letter by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences said that the &quot;[m]ass imports of spent nuclear fuel mean unavoidable catastrophic consequences for the ecology that will threaten the lives of Russians for centuries to come.&quot;
 The letter was handed out by demonstrators outside the Duma.
 A group of about 100 environmental activists and Yabloko members rallied outside the Duma before the vote.
 
 <i>-Reuters, SPT, AP </i>

TITLE: Putin Gives Go-Ahead to Interior Ministry Revamp
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan 

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin has authorized a long-awaited overhaul of the Interior Ministry under which its organized crime, economic crime and criminal investigation directorates will be merged into a Criminal Police Service, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said Tuesday.
 The decree, which Putin signed Monday, also stipulates that the ministry's public security directorate, traffic police, firefighters and visa and registration service will be grouped together and overseen by a deputy interior minister, Gryzlov said on a visit to St. Petersburg, according to news reports. 
 The Criminal Police Service will be headed by another deputy interior minister, and logistics will be handled by a third deputy. 
 The announcement comes as Gryzlov steps up a Kremlin-mandated drive to mop up the ministry. &quot;The reforms aim to reinforce a single chain of command,&quot; Gryzlov said Tuesday in televised remarks.
 Gryzlov drafted the decree signed by Putin on Monday.
 Under the reforms, all regional departments of the Interior Ministry will report to regional police chiefs, instead of the current system under which some departments answer directly to the Interior Ministry in Moscow.
 The Interior Ministry's main organized crime directorate is among the regional departments that have become independent of regional police chiefs in recent years. Such independence was sought to make those police officers less susceptible to demands from regional governors, who until recently had a say in the hiring and firing of regional police chiefs.
 Those regional police chiefs are to report to Interior Ministry heads in each of the country's seven federal districts, Gryzlov said.
 The Duma passed a bill this spring that would stop the Interior Ministry from consulting with governors when picking regional police chiefs. But Gryzlov vowed to continue to seek their advice. As a result, Gryzlov could well confer with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and decide to sack acting Moscow police chief Viktor Shvidkin, whom Luzhkov has repeatedly tried to oust.
 Gryzlov said that 500 bureaucrats in the Interior Ministry's central staff will be laid off under the reforms. It is unclear how many people are currently employed in the central staff.
 The interior minister did not say Tuesday whether the new decree introduces any changes to the Interior troops. Last Saturday, however, he confirmed that the force would be slashed by 37,000 troops, which is 17,000 more troops than announced by the Security Council after considering Interior Ministry reforms last year. Speaking at a meeting of interior troop leaders, Gryzlov insisted that the 200,000-member force would continue to report to the Interior Ministry and not be put under the General Staff of the Armed Forces. 
 On Monday, Gryzlov hinted at other possible changes coming to the ministry. He told reporters in Moscow that he supports a plan by presidential aide Dmitry Kozak to set up a Russian version of the FBI called the Federal Service of Investigations. 
 In an interview with Izvestia last week, Gryzlov also vowed to put an end to a Soviet-era practice that linked a police force's efficiency with the number of crimes it registers and solves. The practice often compels the police to ignore complaints from victims to register and investigate crimes in order to make its overall statistics look rosy.

TITLE: Zoo Director Finds Support From Citizens
AUTHOR: Simon Ostrovsky

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Several dozen protesters, dressed in animal masks, gathered Thursday at the Leningrad Zoo in support of zoo director Ivan Korneyev, who may be losing his job for alleged financial improprieties, and to protest plans to move the zoo to the suburbs. 
 Korneyev's critics - including members of the City Cultural Committee and the zoo charity fund, Zoosad - say he was mismanaging zoo finances and forcing staff to work long hours, and are accusing him of misappropriating 13 million rubles. They also say a suburban zoo would be more environmentally sound for the animals. 
 Korneyev and his supporters claim these accusations are unfounded, and believe that the plans to oust him and move the zoo to the suburbs are all part of a city government plot to clear the animal park off land that would constitute a real estate gold mine. 
 They also insist that a new zoo on the outskirts of town would cost as much as $11 million to build and $5 million a year to run, because of the larger variety of animals that would be on display. The zoo's current - though insufficient - budget is $36,000 a year. 
 The zoo science secretary Yelena De nisenko - who also doubles as its press secretary - said at Thursday's protest that Zoosad and the Culture Committee began to put pressure on Korneyev when announcements were made May 6 that the zoo would finally be building its long-promised elephant cage, using donations. 
 &quot;That's when Zoosad and the City Administration realized that if [the elephant exhibit] was built using citizens' money, they would never be able to get rid of the zoo. On May 21 our director was called into the culture committee to sign a voluntary resignation. He refused.&quot;
 The two-hour protest was organized by the Citizens' Choice group, who vowed to take the issue to Northwest Governor General Viktor Cherkesov, who has so far kept his distance. 
 Governor Yakovlev, however, said at a press conference Tuesday that plans to move the zoo were conceived for the welfare of the animals. Calling the zoo conditions &quot;intolerable,&quot; Yakov lev said animals &quot;cannot live in stone boxes,&quot; Interfax reported. Yakov lev also said the poor air quality and noise of the zoo's location behind the Peter and Paul Fortress were too stressful on the animals. 
 He dismissed the notion that the city government and Zoosad were working in collusion to tear down the zoo for the potentially promising real estate it sits on, Interfax said. 
 But the role Zoosad plays in the debacle is murky. Founded by the City Administration in 1996 as a nonprofit organization, its goal was to raise funds and design projects for the zoo. The organization's most prominent patron is Irina Yakovlev, Governor Yakovlev's wife. 
 In 1998 Zoosad - which has no administrative authority over the zoo - proposed the construction of a new zoo in Ozero Dolgoye - a fifteen minute car ride from Pionerskaya. Korneyev has accused them of pressuring him to resign and accusing him of incompetence.
 The bigger headache for Korneyev is the Cultural Committee, which last week told him he was being fired but did not specify when.
 Officials at the committee remained cool when asked about the situation. 
 &quot;I haven't heard of any protest,&quot; said Alexander Platonov, head of the Culture Committee's department of theaters and concerts, under whose jurisdiction the zoo falls.
 He said Korneyev was asked to resign because he is not qualified to be director.
 &quot;We inspected the zoo. The zoo was supposed to make some changes, but they did not complete the work they were charged with,&quot; said Platonov in a telephone interview Thursday. 
 Korneyev has complained, however, that he was not given the appropriate funding to carry out the reforms. 
 &quot;Perhaps Korneyev should look for the money that the zoo gets from renting out its concert hall [theater] - which [Korneyev] doesn't include as part of the zoo's income,&quot; Platonov said. 
 Despite repeated attempts, representatives of Zoosad could not be reached for comment. 
 At City Hall, the attitude toward the flap was distinctly <i>laissez-faire.</i>
 &quot;Whether to fire the director of the zoo or not is the prerogative of the Culture Committee - the zoo is a government organization, and the committee has the right to do anything it sees fit,&quot; said Governor Yakovlev's press secretary, Aleksander Afanasyev, adding that the conflict had been exaggerated. 
 &quot;All these rumors about handing the territory of the zoo over to businessmen is unfounded - under no circumstances would the zoo's land ever be given away,&quot; he said. 
 &quot;Zoosad is an organization that is proposing a project, and there is nothing wrong with that. If the zoo's current workers don't like Zoosad's plan, they can propose their own - nobody is stopping them.&quot; 
 Besides Korneyev and the protesters, thought, perhaps the most concerned people are those who go to the zoo. 
 &quot;We live on Vasilievsky Island,&quot; said Svetlana Samarina, who came to visit the zoo Thursday with her son Artyom. 
 &quot;If the zoo was somewhere far away we would only go if we really, really needed to.&quot;

TITLE: 3 Chechen Mayors Quit Amid Spate Of Killings
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The heads of three village administrations in Chechnya resigned Wednesday, saying they feared for their lives after the killings of two leaders in other villages.
 Dzhamli Yelikhanov, head of the Gikalo village administration in the Grozny district, was gunned down last week. On Tuesday night, the head of the Gekhi-Chu administration in the Yasayev district was shot and killed while driving from his village to Roshni-Chu. He died on the way to the hospital. No suspects have been held in the killings of the Kremlin-backed officials, which the police are blaming on rebels.
 Seventeen administrative heads have been killed this year with no arrests, said Shahid Dzhamaldayev, head of the Grozny district administration. Three of them were from the Grozny district.
 Dzhamaldayev would not identify the three men who resigned Wednesday nor say which villages they had represented.
 They quit &quot;because they don't want to be killed like partridges by rebels who can break into anything and kill them at any time,&quot; Dzhamaldayev said by telephone from Tolstoi-Yurt.
 &quot;Administration heads have almost no authority in their villages,&quot; he said. &quot;They are getting zero funds for restoration, and their wages, from 1,800 rubles to 3,000 rubles a month, have not been paid for three months.&quot;
 The heads of districts in Chechnya have armed bodyguards or weapons, but the heads of towns and villages are not allowed to have such protection.
 &quot;I think federal officials refuse to arm us because some of us feel sympathy for the rebels,&quot; said one administration head who asked not to be identified.
 A number of other municipal leaders are thinking about following the path of the three men who resigned Wednesday, according to the heads of several Chechen districts. 
 &quot;Out of our nine village administration heads, three people told me they are ready to resign,&quot; said Salaudin Bakhayev, deputy head of the Itum-Kale district administration. 
 &quot;We have no weapons, nor do we even have a radio to inform the police if something happens. It is almost impossible for us to get a permission to have weapons to resist bandits,&quot; he said.
 A village head in his district was killed three months ago &quot;just like a rabbit,&quot; he said.
 The Itum-Kale district is one of the most difficult regions in Chechnya because it is surrounded by forests &quot;that are swarming with rebels,&quot; Bakhayev said. &quot;It is so difficult to find and keep people in administrations. We hope the matter [of arming them] will be resolved soon.&quot;
 Urus-Martan administration head Shirvani Yasayev said a few of the administrators in his district say they are thinking of quitting, but none has resigned.
 &quot;We must do something to protect them. I today invited the commandant of our district - and we expect a representative of the military - to get together for talks about arming our officials,&quot; Yasayev said.
 Alla Vlazneva, spokesperson for Che chen Prime Minister Stanislav Ilya sov, said Ilyasov's government has discussed the issue of protection many times.
 &quot;This is a problem now because there is no funding,&quot; Vlazneva said. &quot;We are waiting for the opening of a treasury office here to receive money transferred from Moscow. But I don't know when it will open.&quot;

TITLE: Petersburg, Moscow Compete To Bring Formula 1 to Russia
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov announced last week that he planned to build a $100 million Formula One speedway, a St. Petersburg firm raised the capital's bet, announcing plans for a $200 million speedway of its own. 
 Both cities are in competition to hold the 2003 grand prix races, but for that to happen, the cities have to cross the hurdles of the the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile in Switzerland, which organizes Formula One competitions around the world and certifies Formula-One tracks. 
 Then - provided both cities are able to met the criteria in time - the final choice of venue will be left up to Barry Eccleston, the chief of Formula One headquarters in London.
 On a visit to Moscow in May, Eccleston was encouraging of the Moscow project, saying: &quot;We're very, very happy with the venue. I'm quite sure that a really super Formula One circuit can be constructed.&quot; 
 But Alexander Berezhnoy, head of St. Petersburg's <i>Pulkovskoye Koltso, </i>or &quot;Pulkovo Ring&quot; company, which - though currently without major financial backing - is planing to building St. Petersburg's speedway, is not daunted by Eccleston's vote of confidence in Mos cow at all. 
 In fact, he has cocksure enthusiasm - not to mention the &quot;approval&quot; of President Vladimir Putin. 
 His proof of this presidential support is a draft of the project shown to the president in May. &quot;Wish you luck,&quot; the president had scribbled on Berezhnoy's draft in response before returning it to Berezhnoy.
 The track would be built on the Mos kovsky Shosse between the Pul ko vo 1domestic air terminal and the Tsarist-era town of Pushkin 
 &quot;We are not direct competitors [with the Moscow projects],&quot; said Berezhnoy in an interview on Wednesday.
 &quot;We are competing with [Moscow] only in terms of who gets to host the 2003 Formula One Grand Prix - and it's going to be us.&quot;
 And the $200 million project doesn't stop with a race track for 150,000 spectators - which alone will cost $56 million. It will also include a water recreation complex ($16 million), a marine animal park, a circus, a hotel, motels and camping ($36), a $12 million railroad station, plus a few more million in amenities. 
 &quot;We hope to start the construction this year,&quot; said Berezhnoy, adding afterwards - in an apparent self-contradiction regarding the countdown to the 2003 Grand Prix: &quot;We don't have any deadlines. If we won't succeed in building it by 2003, we'll complete it in 2004.&quot;
 Officials at the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile said in a Wednesday telephone interview that neither St. Petersburg or Moscow had submitted applications to become part of the Grand-Prix circuit. 
 Eccleston, who was away from his London office, could not be reached for comment. 
 At the moment, there are two speedway projects in Moscow, though both are still on paper: one in Nagatino and another to go up near Sheremetyevo Airport. The projects are reportedly backed by Moscow Deputy Mayors Valery Shantsev and Joseph Ordzhonikidze.
 Berezhnoy said he is in the process of negotiating with investors and expects to find one who will foot the whole bill by June. 
 City Hall is divided about the project. It was approved by the City Committee for Architecture, but others think the plan is a mirage. 
 &quot;It is possible to build, but it would be a question for investors whether it's realistic or not,&quot; said Alexander Ka sharny, deputy head of the committee in a telephone interview on Monday.
 &quot;Formula One requires not only a motor speedway, but also places to locate all those hundreds of thousands of people who would gather to watch,&quot; he said.
 Another source from the committee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said City Hall officials were even opposed to the idea. On the one hand they say it is unrealistic, the source said. On the other, they don't want thousands of fans pouring into the city.
 &quot;There would be 150,000 of them - people with money, bad drinking habits, and a low level of moral behavior,&quot; said the source. 
 The source also added that tickets - which for Formula One events usual start at $150 and climb to $500 - would be prohibitively expensive for the general public to enjoy the spectacle.

TITLE: Tycoon Revamps Media Outlets
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr. 

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Vitaly Tretyakov, the founder and editor of the first post-Soviet newspaper not controlled by the state, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, announced Wednesday that he had been sacked by the paper's owner, tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
 Tretyakov's firing marks the demise of a media institution whose importance as a &quot;cat that walked by itself&quot; was acknowledged even by its opponents. It also reflects Berezovsky's continuing effort to better use his media holdings as an instrument of opposition to the Kremlin.
 Tretyakov, who described his boss's decision as &quot;political,&quot; said in televised comments that he and Berezovsky have &quot;the same diagnosis for the state of the country, but see different remedies for getting out of this grim situation.&quot;
 In a telephone interview from France, Berezovsky said he and Tretya kov &quot;have always been on the same side of the political barricades,&quot; but the newspaper should be revamped to appeal to the younger, &quot;most active&quot; part of the population - &quot;the new middle class.&quot; Otherwise, he said, there is too much overlap between the readership of his two newspapers, Nezavisimaya Ga zeta and Kommersant. 
 He also said the consistently money-losing newspaper cost him &quot;hundreds of thousands of dollars per month&quot; and should, under the new management, &quot;at least break even.&quot;
 Grigory Zaslavsky, Nezavisimaya's arts editor, who picked up the telephone in Tretyakov's office Wednesday afternoon, said Berezovsky's decision was likely a result of the paper's being too moderate vis-a-vis the Kremlin to serve the tycoon's new role as an opposition politician.
 Both Berezovsky and Tretyakov declined to say who the new editor will be but said a decision is likely to be announced after a general shareholders meeting scheduled for Friday. 
 Media reports named several potential candidates for the positions of editor and director, including the duo of Be rezovsky's trusted journalists Tatya na Koshkaryova and Rustam Nar zi ku lov, former general director of ORT television Igor Shabdurasulov and the recently ousted editor of Vladimir Gu sin sky's Segodnya newspaper, Mikhail Berger. None of the rumored candidates could be reached for comment Wednesday.
 Nezavisimaya Gazeta has served a unique function in Russian media as a low-circulation, influential newspaper for the political and intellectual elite. The newspaper had several supplements specializing in areas ranging from religion to military affairs, all valued by experts in the corresponding fields. 
 Occasional articles, particularly those written by Koshkaryova and Nar zi kulov, were seen as reflecting Berezovsky's political agenda. Otherwise, it was Tretyakov's moderately conservative and nonpartisan editorial stand, expressed openly in his trademark front-page articles, which defined the paper's editorial policy. 
 A respected person in political circles, Tretyakov has never been seen as part of any interest group and often ran commentaries that conflicted with Berezovsky's policies of the time.
 
 *****************
 Svetlana Sorokina, arguably Russia's most popular television personality, premiered Monday night in her nearly forgotten role of news anchor. At 9 p.m., she presented the news on Boris Be rezovsky's TV6 channel, where a large group of former NTV employees has moved after new management took control of the television company.
 Sorokina's decision to join ousted NTV head Yevgeny Kiselyov at TV6 crowns the first phase of the channel's painful restructuring to reinvent the channel in new conditions, where former NTV journalists share studios and time slots with old TV6 producers and have to work without the resources they enjoyed at NTV.
 Sorokina, who quit NTV in April and maintained last month that she would not follow Kiselyov to TV6, said she changed her mind after being pressured to stay away from TV6.
 &quot;During the past few weeks, some people began to tell me very insistently how bad it would be for me to appear on TV6,&quot; Sorokina was quoted as saying in the Vremya Novostei newspaper on Monday.
 &quot;These were real threats, one could say blackmail,&quot; she said.
 &quot;When these threats began, I called [TV6] and said that I would go on the air.&quot; 
 Sorokina refused to name the people who had threatened her.
 Last week, TV6 began to implement a fresh lineup of news programs in a bid to eventually show the news every two hours. 
 The weekly NTV shows <i>Itogi, </i>hosted by Kiselyov, and <i>Itogo, </i>hosted by Viktor Shenderovich, have taken the 9 p.m. time slots on Sunday and Saturday, respectively. And in a move also aimed at boosting the channel's ratings, the shows are preceded by new episodes of the popular <i>Menty </i>crime drama series, which revolutionized Russian television programming when NTV first launched the show two years ago.
 Modifying the face of the youth- and entertainment-oriented TV6 was one of Kiselyov's conditions for accepting the job as TV6's general director. 
 He said that some of TV6's most popular programming, such as the <i>Ya Sama </i>talk show on women's issues, should remain on the schedule, but the new management would &quot;breathe new life&quot; into them.
 Ratings are picking up at TV6 under Kiselyov's leadership. According to Gallup-Media, TV6's daily average share of the viewership grew in Moscow from 7.7 percent in April to 8.4 percent in May. The national share grew from 5.2 percent to 5.6 percent. The sample covered viewers 16 years and older who watched television for at least one hour every day.
 By comparison, NTV's share has dropped in Moscow from 17.6 percent in April to 13.5 percent in May, and in Russia from 13.9 percent to 11.6 percent.

TITLE: 2002 Budget Adds $1.5Bln In Extra Defense Spending
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Defense Ministry will get an extra $1.5 billion next year to spend on weapons, research and hardware upgrades under a draft 2002 budget discussed by the government Thursday.
 The funds will give new Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov the means to give servicemen salary hikes and implement reforms to build the military into a leaner and meaner force, analysts said.
 The draft budget allots 262.9 billion rubles, or $8.31 billion at next year's projected average exchange rate of 31.5 rubles to the U.S. dollar, to the Defense Ministry. The amount is 2.55 percent of next year's forecast gross domestic product of 10.27 trillion rubles. By comparison, the 2001 budget earmarks 218.9 billion rubles ($7.29 billion), or 2.82 percent of this year's planned GDP, for defense spending.
 The Cabinet met Thursday to discuss the draft budget handed over by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday.
 The additional $1.5 billion will be used for arms procurement, research and development, the Finance Ministry said Thursday, Interfax reported.
 This year, the ministry is getting 57 billion rubles ($1.9 billion) for arms procurement, research and development. The military is expected to spend more than the allotted amount, and the government has pledged to transfer part of an expected 2001 budget surplus to the ministry.
 The draft 2002 budget also provides for $460 million to $470 million of defense spending to be used on military reforms, the Finance Ministry said. Planned reforms include slashing the armed forces from 1.2 million servicemen in 2000 to 800,000 in 2003 and raising salaries for junior officers by 100 percent and senior officers by 50 percent.
 The planned increase in defense spending, while relatively large, still falls below the 3.5 percent of GDP that then-President Boris Yeltsin ordered several years ago.
 However, the Defense Ministry's budget is likely to be increased as it winds its way through the State Duma and Federation Council to President Vladimir Putin for approval. In previous years, the Duma has upped defense expenditures before giving its approval.
 The planned hike in expenditures will allow Defense Minister Ivanov and his team of recently appointed deputies to spend heavily on repairs and upgrades to the fourth-generation weapons systems currently being used by the armed forces.
 Ivanov has repeatedly said that keeping those systems operational and improving them is a top priority next year. He also says that he wants to improve combat training.
 Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies said upgrades next year could include installing attack planes and helicopters with systems that would allow them - at night and in any kind of weather - to attack both air and surface targets and share targeting and other data while in flight, he said.
 The Defense Ministry also needs next year to spend heavily on C4I systems, which boost the coordination and combat readiness of units in Chechnya and elsewhere, Makiyenko said. C4I stands for Command, Control, Communication, Computer and Intelligence. The army currently only has two divisions, in the Nizhny Novgorod region and Tajikistan, that are always combat ready. A third division is being formed in Chechnya.
 While the ministry will spend money on repairing and upgrading hardware, it doesn't plan to spend very much more on procuring new arms, said a source in the defense industry. The source, who asked not be identified, said Russian arms makers will continue limited production of the arms needed to battle in Chechnya. These arms include the Ataka air-to-surface missiles that have been used by attack helicopters in Chechnya.

TITLE: Murder Conviction Overturned
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Supreme Court overturned Thursday the conviction of the widow of prominent lawmaker General Lev Rokhlin for his death and ordered a new investigation into the 1998 murder.
 The court also ordered that Tamara Rokhlina be freed from prison.
 Rokhlina has been in prison since her arrest on the night of her husband's killing in July 1998. The Naro-Fominsk district court in the Moscow region found her guilty of murder in November 2000, and subsequently sentenced her to eight years in prison. In December, the Moscow regional court reduced her sentence to four years.
 Rokhlina will not be able to leave Moscow while prosecutors carry out a new investigation, Rokhlina's lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said.
 &quot;But the most important thing now is that she will be released,&quot; Kucherena said.
 Rokhlina initially confessed to the killing of her husband, who was a vocal critic of then-President Boris Yeltsin, when she was arrested. However, she later said that her confession had been made under pressure, and she added that her husband had in fact been killed by unknown assailants for political reasons.
 Relatives and supporters have suggested that Rokhlina confessed because her husband's killers threatened her children.
 The Prosecutor General's Office said Thursday that it stands by its original investigation, and plans to appeal the Supreme Court's decision.
 Prosecutor Sergei Gribinyuchenko said no evidence had been found to support Rokhlina's testimony that someone had entered her house the night of the murder.
 Rokhlina's lawyer said the Supreme Court's decision to order a new trial was probably based on contradictory testimony from Alexander Pleskachyov, Rokhlin's bodyguard, as well as the insufficient investigation into what a guest might have been doing at the Rokhlin house the night of the killing.
 Kucherena added that he doubted prosecutors will be able to come up with any new evidence.
 &quot;The verdict was not based on evidence but on assumptions made by the investigators,&quot; he said.
 Lev Rokhlin, a career soldier, won wide praise for his performance during the 1994-96 Chechen war. He later refused to accept a medal for valor in combat, saying he didn't want to be decorated for a war that involved attacks on fellow Russian citizens. 
 Rokhlin was elected to the State Duma in 1995 and gained popularity by exposing military corruption and calling for an opposition political movement in the ranks. He was shot to death with his own pistol while he was asleep in his country house outside Moscow.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Sentence Reduced
 

MOSCOW (AP) - A court in southern Russia on Thursday cut the prison sentence of an American Fulbright scholar jailed on a drug conviction from 37 months to one year, his lawyer's office said. 
 The regional court in Voronezh was conducting a procedural review of the conviction of John Tobin of Ridgefield, Connecticut, on charges of illegally obtaining, possessing and distributing marijuana. 
 He has insisted on his innocence. 
 Tobin was doing political research at a university in Voronezh, about 400 kilometers south of Moscow, when he was arrested outside a local nightclub in January. 
 The case attracted wider attention after the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, alleged that Tobin had connections with U.S. intelligence. 
 No espionage charges were filed, and Tobin said in e-mails to friends and the Fulbright program that he was framed because he refused to become a spy for Russia. 
 
 
Shutov Has Operation
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Yury Shutov, a local lawmaker and former aide to Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, has undergone a neurosurgical operation in a regional prison hospital, Interfax reported on Monday, citing Shutov's lawyer, Andrei Pelevin. Shutov, who has now been held in a remand prison under numerous criminal charges for two years, will stand trial on Oct. 1.
 According to Pelevin, the operation was aimed at "eliminating a compression of the elbow nerve of [Shutov's] left arm." Shutov, who is still in the hospital, will soon undergo X-rays for the upper part of his spine at the neck, which will determine whether a second operation on his neck is necessary, said Pelevin, according to Interfax.
 According to the report, Pelevin said that Shutov's poor state and the possibly difficult operation require that he be transferred to a special neurosurgical clinic. He said that "[Shutov's] arm is practically immobilized due to a deadened nerve."
 Shutov was arrested in February 1999 on charges of organizing a criminal gang and masterminding a string of high-profile contract hits.
 
 
Belarus Election Set
 

MINSK, Belarus (Reuters) - The Belarussian parliament on Thursday set Sept. 9 as the date for an eagerly awaited presidential election. 
 Incumbent Alexander Lu ka shenko, criticized by European states for his record on democracy and human rights, is expected to contest the poll. 
 Earlier this year Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager, said anyone seeking to unseat him in the poll would replace his "iron" rule with anarchy. 
 Elected by a landslide in 1994, Lukashenko has sought ever closer ties with Russia and presided over an economic policy likened by Western economists to Soviet central planning. 
 
 
Mirilashvili Transferred
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Mikhail Mirilashvili, a well-known local Russian-Israeli businessman and philanthrop ist, has been transferred to a remand prison of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Interfax reported on Monday.
 According to the report citing Mirilashvili's lawyer, Yury Novolodsky, his client was moved from the notorious Kresty prison a no-less-notorious building at 4 Liteiny Prospect for personal security reasons. 
 According to Novolodsky, Mirilashvili has insisted that he had documents showing that an attempt on his life was being prepared by people who he claims are members of an ethnic Georgian criminal group. "Although this [transfer] should have been done about two months ago, I - as Mirilashvili's lawyer - am satisfied by this decision," said Novolodsky, according to Interfax.
 
 
Hostage Freed
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A 61-year-old woman hostage was freed by the Anti-organized Crime Police, or RUBOP. The police also seized one of her abductors, Interfax reported on Wednesday.
 According to the report citing RUBOP's press service, the hostage - whose identity the report did not reveal - was kidnapped on May 31 by unidentified suspects, who then contacted her son, the director of a large local factory, to demand a $800,000 ransom. After negotiations, the suspects reduced their demand to 70,000 rubles ($2,300), said Interfax.
 The police arrested one of the kidnappers - a 37-year-old former convict, identified by his last name, Lysenok - when the money was being handed over. They then found the hostage in a garage on Vasilievsky Island, the report said.
 The RUBOP also found 400 grams of dynamite, a detonator, various explosives and several ski masks in the garage. The identities of suspects of the crime are being determined and the suspects searched, according to Interfax.
 
 
Baltic Gangs on Rise
 

HELSINKI, Finland (Reuters) - Russians and Estonians have a strong grip on drug trafficking in Finland, where the number of foreigners in criminal gangs grew sharply last year, Finnish police said. 
 Since the end of the 1990s, violent gangs originating in the Baltic states have strengthened their position in Finland, the National Bureau of Investigation said in a statement this week. 
 "It is especially worrying ... that Baltic citizens, especially the leading Estonian and ethnic-Russian Estonian criminal leaders, have taken a leading position in the Finnish drug trade markets," it said. 
 Finland has a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia, and the capital, Helsinki, lies just 70 kilometers north of the Estonian capital Tallinn, across the Gulf of Finland. 
 The bureau said smuggling was now more large-scale and flagrant than before, and Estonian criminals not only smuggled drugs into Finland but were also in charge of distributing them on the streets. 
 
 
Tower Needs Funding
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Repair works on the landmark Ostankino television tower, which was damaged by a fire in August, have been stalled due to lack of funds, Gosstroi said Thursday.
 Anvar Shamuzafarov, head of Gos stroi, the state construction committee, said that the government has allocated funds to start costly repairs, but they were only enough to buy 140 steel cables intended to stabilize the 540-meter structure. 
 Workers had mounted only some of the cables when the money ran out, Sha muzafarov said, according Itar-Tass. 
 He added that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development hasn't yet delivered a promised loan to help finance repairs. 



TITLE: Little New at Bank Conference
AUTHOR: By Anna Shcherbakova

PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The 10th annual International Banking Conference opened in St. Petersburg on Thursday with speeches by Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko and his deputy, Tatyana Paramonova.
 The theme of the conference, which was attended by representatives of more than 100 Russian and international credit organizations, banks and other entities, was improving the corporate management at Russia's lending institutions.
 Gerashchenko's speech contained no surprises. He stated that by the end of September the Central Bank would introduce measures designed to ease the entry of foreign banks into Russia. He also promised that he would not create any new state banks.
 However, Gerashchenko noted the necessity of reforming the banking system and said that one of his priorities over the next two years would be removing weak lending institutions from the market.
 Gerashchenko criticized &quot;economic extremists who were educated in St. Petersburg.&quot; Later he said that he had been referring to President Vladimir Putin's economic advisor, Andrei Illarionov.
 Conference participants stated that they felt the theme of the conference was interesting, but not their highest priority. Vitaly Savelyov, managing director of Menatep-SPb, said that capital flight is a more serious issue. &quot;As soon as we are able to solve this problem,&quot; Savelyov said, &quot;Russian banks will get access to funds, the absence of which is preventing the banking system from moving to the next qualitative level.&quot;
 Paramonova touched on this topic in her presentation, noting that the level of capital flight has held stable over the last few years at an annual rate of $20-25 billion. 
 She also emphasized the negative role of poor management in the August 1998 financial crisis. &quot;Many managers were not focused on the public interest, but on gaining personal profits. After the crisis, lending organizations generally improved the quality of their management and, as a result, have been able to survive,&quot; Paramonova said.

TITLE: Russian Producer Receives Mark of Quality Approval
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Next time you're stuck in a swanky supermarket in Western Europe thirsting for some <i>mors, </i>don't panic: Russia's ill-defined national berry drink could be right in front of you.
 That's because Chudo Yagoda, or Wonder Berry, has become the first Russian product to be given the green light by the British Retailer Consortium - a sort of hall pass to the collegium of international food retailers.
 &quot;This is the first Russian company to come to our attention,&quot; said a spokesperson for the London-based BRC in an e-mail interview Tuesday.
 Nearly every major food retailer worldwide requires an independent certificate of quality before it will use own-label suppliers, and the so-called &quot;technical standard&quot; certificate of the BRC, which represents 90 percent of all British retailers, is one of the most prestigious, industry players say.
 The maker of Wonder Berry, juice and dairy giant Wimm-Bill-Dann, calls getting BRC approval for one of its products - which entails a thorough inspection of production facilities and technologies - a major development in its quest to expand its exporting operations around the world.
 Wimm-Bill-Dann already sells small amounts of Wonder Berry in stores in several countries, such as Holland, Germany, Israel, Mongolia and Canada.
 But the new certificate will be a big bargaining chip in its current negotiations with Britain, France, Australia and the Scandinavian countries, said WBD spokesperson Yulia Belova.
 The top supermarket chains in Europe have between 60 percent and 90 percent of the entire retail food market and all of them require an international certificate like BRC, she said. And once WBD has a certificate of quality for one product, it will be easier for it to get others, such as for its domestically best-selling J-7 juice line.
 &quot;Working to the BRC Technical Standard should confer an important marketing advantage to WBD when it comes to selling its products. It will open up new markets for them,&quot; said the BRC.
 Belova said the reason her company chose mors - a sort of berry compote without the chunks - to be its first internationally certified product was simply because of its uniqueness. &quot;After extensive marketing research we decided that mors would be the first WBD product on the international market because it has no equivalent,&quot; Belova said.
 Wonder Berry is produced from berries collected in the forests of Russia, not cultivated. A similar product is also produced in Ireland, but it is not exported, Belova said.
 &quot;WBD can enter the international market and survive there only if it offers an original product or, better yet, a national Russian product,&quot; said Vadim Zuykov, president of the National Trade Association. Without novelty, Russian products - missiles, oil and caviar notwithstanding - have no chance of success in the West because of the colossal investment needed, he said.
 Despite the obstacles, however, retail specialists say that if any Russian producer of foodstuffs can succeed exporting to the West, it is WBD.
 &quot;Wonder Berry is a unique product, but to make sales profitable abroad it needs to spend a lot,&quot; said Alexei Krivoshapko, retail analyst at UFG.
 Belova said WBD is planning a marketing campaign abroad for Wonder Berry, but she wouldn't give any details.

TITLE: '02 Budget Draft Does Not Dodge the Debt
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Foreign creditors can get ready to heave a sigh a relief. Unlike this year, the government intends to service its maturing debts in full in 2002.
 The Finance Ministry on Tuesday handed over to the cabinet a 2002 draft budget that seeks to avert a repeat of the embarrassing showdown with foreign creditors that came to a head in January when Russia refused to make first-quarter payments, saying the budget had no provisions for them. The government eventually amended the budget to pay the debt.
 Next year, the government will pay out as much as $20.4 billion in debt, according to the ministry's draft budget. In 2003, when payments peak, a total of $27.5 billion will be spent on those debts.
 The 2002 budget sent to the cabinet on Tuesday sets spending at 1.51 trillion rubles ($52.17 billion) and revenues at 1.64 trillion rubles ($56.62 billion). Gross domestic product will grow to 10.27 trillion rubles, up from 7.75 trillion forecast in this year's budget.
 &quot;Revenue and expenditure targets will be met both in pessimistic and optimistic commodity-maket scenarios,&quot; Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.
 In addition to creditors, the budget honors all obligations to pensioners, public servants and the army.
 If any cash is left, it will be plowed into a stabilization fund aimed at smoothing out fluctuations in global energy markets and giving the cabinet some breathing space in 2003, when major interest payments on debts come due.
 The plan to set up the stabilization fund was strongly backed by President Vla dimir Putin's economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, who hammered this proposal into the president's state of the nation address in April.
 The budget assumes that oil prices will hover close to $22 per barrel, compared to this year's average of $18 per barrel, and that the exchange rate will average 31.5 rubles to the dollar.
 Earlier, government officials squabbled over setting oil prices at a more pessimistic $17 per barrel versus $22, but the more optimistic $22 prevailed.
 &quot;Of all possible ways to balance the 2002 budget, the Finance Ministry has chosen the easiest one - to raise the expected oil price,&quot; said Natalya Orlova, analyst with Alfa Bank.
 Orlova said the government will run a deficit of $3 billion to $4 billion if oil prices dip to $17 per barrel and current spending totals 12 percent of the GDP.
 The government intends to keep nondebt expenditures at 12 percent of GDP, up from 11.3 percent in 2000 and 10.7 percent in January-April this year.
 &quot;Twelve percent of nondebt expenditures is a bit too much but only if one assumes that all of it will be spent on current paychecks,&quot; said a White House official, who asked not to be named. &quot;But if money is used to carry out structural reforms and the percentage of nondebt spending declines in the future, this week's proposal may be viewed as a neutral development.&quot;
 Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Tuesday that the amount of nondebt expenditures written into the budget will &quot;allow the further stabilization of macroeconomic conditions and the laying of foundations for further growth.&quot;
 The amount to be spent in 2002 on debt repayment and interest is forecast at 643.8 billion rubles ($20.4 billion), a sum that includes foreign and domestic debt. Foreign debts will account for $14.2 billion, $7.4 billion of which will come in the form of interest payments and the remaining $6.8 billion will go to repay debt principal.
 By 2004, the government hopes to increase its tax take to 17.82 percent of GDP, or some $78 billion assuming an exchange rate of 31.5 rubles per dollar for that year.
 On the downside, already in 2002 projected budget revenues will drop by 47 billion rubles if parliament fails to approve a package of tax bills submitted by the government earlier this year.
 Analysts were divided in their interpretation of the Finance Ministry's budget proposal. While Alfa Bank and United Financial Group warned that the draft suggested a possible easing from this year's tight fiscal policy, Aton called the plan realistic. It said the stabilization fund proposal was not crucial as long as a cautious fiscal policy was pursued.
 &quot;The estimates are rather conservative given the current level of oil prices,&quot; said Georgy Trofimov, senior researcher with the Institute for Financial Studies.
 The budget parameters must be approved by the cabinet and the draft of the budget law should be submitted to the State Duma by the fall. Last year, the cabinet forwarded its budget proposal to the Duma in August.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Reserves Hit $33.6Bln
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign currency and gold reserves rose $600 million to an all-time high of $33.6 billion for the week ending June 1, the Central Bank said on Thursday.
 The bank rarely comments on reasons for changes to its level of reserves.
 Under Russia's foreign currency regulations, exporters are obliged to sell 75 percent of their hard currency proceeds to the Central Bank for rubles.
 
 
$7Bln Budget Surplus?
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin said Thursday that the 2000 budget surplus could reach 200 billion rubles (about $6.86 billion), Prime-Tass reported.
 Kudrin told reporters that 165 billion rubles of additional revenue had already been received in 2001, and another 35 billion rubles was expected.
 He said that the additional revenues would allow for replacing revenues expected from privatization auctions that had not been received, with the rest held in reserve.
 
 
TNK Wants Rospan
 

MOSCOW (NYT) - Oil major Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, said Thursday that it had acquired most of the debts of Rospan, a Siberian gas producer that once belonged to Gazprom, the giant state-controlled energy company.
 TNK did not give the total value of the debts it acquired, but a spokesperson, Vladimir Bobylyov, told Dow Jones that Tyumen planned to take over Rospan and increase its role in the gas market.
 Rospan is 51 percent owned by Itera, which paid Gazprom $300 for the stake after Gazprom had invested over $50 million. Its fields in western Siberia are believed to hold 560 billion cubic meters of reserves.
 One of Rospan's creditors, Nafta Energiya, began bankruptcy procedures against Rospan in March 2000 to recover the $70 million it said it is owed by Rospan. Itera has been fighting to keep the company out of bankruptcy.
 
 
$47M RusAl Loan
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian subsidiary of Raffeisenbank Zentralbank has organized a $47 million syndicated loan for Russia's biggest aluminum group Russian Aluminum, Russian Aluminum said Thursday.
 The one-year loan is earmarked for production development and exports of primary aluminum and alloys, Russian Aluminum, or RusAl, said in a statement.
 In addition to Moscow-based Raffeisenbank Austria, the credit syndicate includes Russian banks Mosnarbank, Russian Development Bank and Khanty-Mansiysky Bank. 



TITLE: Cyprus Leads List in Quarterly Investment
AUTHOR: Kirill Koryukin 

PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - For the first time in Russia's history, more quarterly investment in the non-banking sector came from Cyprus than any other country.
 Analysts say this means that the volume of funds repatriated by Russian companies through their favorite offshore haven is higher than the flow of funds coming from the United States, Germany and other economic giants. 
 The new data - compiled by the Rubicon agency's macroeconomic research center and based on State Statistics Committee numbers - mean Russian companies are increasingly using offshore tax havens to reinvest their profits in Russia, rather than simply keeping their money like they did before the crisis, said Nikoil analyst Aleksei Kazakov. 
 Overall, foreign investment in Russia is on the upswing, with a total of $2.7 billion committed to the non-banking sector in the first quarter of the year, up 11.1 percent over the same period last year. 
 Cyprus accounted for 17 percent of the all foreign investments for the quarter, ahead of Holland (another famous haven for capital fleeing Russia) with 14.6 percent and former leader the United States, which had 14 percent. 
 Direct investments amounted to $962 million, or 35.4 percent of the total volume, a rise of 12.8 percent over 2000. The main branches of industry that received the investments were, as before, the food industry, the metals industry and the oil industry, with 13.5 percent, 10.4 percent and 5 percent respectively. 
 Russian companies are not the only ones using Cyprus, however. Foreign multinationals have also set up their own Cyprus &quot;subsidiaries.&quot; 
 When George Soros invested in Svyazinvest through Mustcom, the funds formally came form Cyprus. 
 Even so, analysts polled said there is no doubt most of the Cyprus money is Russian money returning. The kind of investments being made with money from Cyprus requires knowledge of a Russian company's economic development, ownership rights and financial flows - things most foreigners don't understand, said Yelena Matrosova, director of Unicon's macroeconomic research center. 
 Unicon's report has one clause that seems illogical at first glance. Though new investment at the start of this year was higher than for the first three months of 2000, the volume of accumulated foreign investment in Russia's economy had actually fallen by 0.3 percent to $31.9 billion and the volume of accumulated direct investment had fallen by 1.2 percent to $15.9 billion. 
 But even these figures can be used as evidence that the economic situation in Russia is improving: Long-term loans are factored in, so as they are repaid the volume of accumulated investment falls.

TITLE: Financier Weighs In On Debate At Gazprom
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth Wolfe

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - International financier George Soros said Tuesday he had given the government his own blueprint for liberalizing Gaz prom's two-tiered trading system, a proposal that would level the playing field for foreign shareholders.
 Soros said he has a &quot;significant interest&quot; in the gas monopoly and that he told Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref that foreigners should be allowed to buy domestic shares.
 Under the current two-tier system, foreigners are prohibited from trading Gazprom shares on the local market and can only own American Depositary Shares, or ADSs, which trade at a significant premium to domestic shares - although the fineprint of the law leaves plenty of room to circumvent it.
 &quot;Every ADR [American Depositary Receipt] holder, in addition to holding an ADR, would have the right to buy an additional share in the domestic market,&quot; Soros said at a news conference Tuesday, wrapping up his weeklong Russia trip.
 It would reduce the difference between the two shares by half, he said, and increase demand from foreign investors.
 Soros said the recent management change is an opportunity to improve transparency. Last week, President Vla di mir Putin engineered a boardroom coup at Gazprom that ousted CEO Rem Vyakhirev in favor of Deputy Energy Minister Alexei Miller.
 &quot;If the authorities acted on my proposal for taking down the ring fence - which I think they have an intention of doing anyhow - I think it would send a very strong message to the international investment community,&quot; Soros said.
 He also met Monday with Communications Minister Leonid Reiman to discuss the overhaul of state telecoms holding Svyazvinvest, in which a Soros-led consortium, Mustcom, owns a 25-plus-one stake.
 Mustcom paid $1.9 billion for the stake in 1997 - a deal Soros calls the worst investment decision he ever made.
 Soros last year began lobbying the government to allow Mustcom's stake in Svyazinvest to convert into shares in the new companies to be created from the restructuring.
 Soros said Reiman supports the idea, which would require issuing golden shares so that the state maintains control over the companies, while relinquishing equity control. The regional companies could not issue additional shares, nor attract more capital if the state keeps majority stakes, he said.
 In remarks reported by Interfax, Reiman said that transferring Mustcom shares into stakes in the pan-regional companies was &quot;completely possible,&quot; but only after consolidation was done, and only after the government had assured its stake through a special provision in each new company's charter.
 Soros painted his trip as more humanitarian than business, emphasizing that a directive last week from the Russian Academy of Sciences - which seeks to control its affiliate institutions in their contacts with foreigners - could stymie the amount he invests here, in business and through his charitable activities, on which he has spent close to $1 billion.
 &quot;I think there is a threat to [Russia's] economic reforms if it is combined with political oppression, and I think this document goes over that line,&quot; he said.

TITLE: The Next 20 Years
AUTHOR: By Michael Gottlieb

TEXT: I REMEMBER standing on a beach on an overcast day in 1985, feeling as if I knew a tragic accident was about to happen and no one could hear my warnings. Now the world knows about what I feared then - the enormous size of the AIDS epidemic - but to look ahead from here is to feel again that not enough people appreciate how a failure to act effectively would undermine the quality of life for everyone on the planet.
 In the 20 years ahead, AIDS can be brought under much better control in the United States - if we don't let down our guard - but it will be devastating in some other parts of the world.
 The incidence of new cases of HI. could decline in the U.S. from an estimated 40,000 a year to a few thousand by 2010. Future generations of antiviral drugs will reduce the virus further in body fluids. For those already infected, new drugs can be expected to push HI. into a deep state of dormancy, though not to eradicate the virus. But to keep AIDS from continuing to spread, we need more culturally focused prevention programs, HIV education in the schools must be routine, and we must treat drug addiction as a medical problem, so that drug users stop transmitting the disease through needle sharing and unprotected sex.
 Drug companies and government researchers are working now to develop vaccines. Promising candidates should be in use within 15 years but will require continuous modification to keep pace with the virus's prodigious mutation rate and recombination of strains. In the United States, the vaccines will probably be made available on a voluntary basis, especially to gay men, intravenous drug users, heterosexual partners of HIV-positive men and women, the incarcerated, and people traveling to regions with high infection rates.
 But in Africa, the Far East and the former Soviet Union, HIV is now spreading virtually unchecked, and there is every indication that it will continue to do so for the next several years. According to United Nations statistics, the number of people who will have been infected worldwide by 2021 will easily top 150 million.
 The United States Census Bureau has projected that in several African nations, deaths from AIDS will peak between 2010 and 2020. In Nigeria, 1.25 million are likely to die in 2020, at the peak of its epidemic, and by 2050 its population will be 73 million below pre-AIDS forecasts. In Southeast Asia, deaths in several countries are predicted to peak between 2015 and 2025. The Russian Ministry of Health recently predicted that 12 percent of the population of Russia will be infected by 2015.
 By 2020, HI. will have caused more deaths than any disease outbreak in history. The constant experience of suffering and death, and the privation that results as economies fail in AIDS-ravaged countries, especially in Africa, could lead to the downfall of governments and the breakdown of law and order.
 The United States, the European Union, Japan, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and prominent American foundations have an opportunity to mount a coordinated effort at damage control. It is estimated that $10 billion annually is needed to develop health systems to deliver basic medical care and antiviral medications in Africa. In my opinion the effective deployment of these medications could reduce the mortality rate by at least 50 percent from what current estimates would predict, and completely eliminate transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies.
 Action by relief agencies will be needed to tend the dying and to assist the millions of healthy children orphaned by AIDS. The United States could foster stability by forgiving debt owed by African nations hard hit by AIDS. By the year 2010, I believe, several of the most promising H.I.V. vaccine candidates could be under study in controlled clinical trials in countries with the highest rates of new HIV infection. And by 2021, one or more of these could have reached a level of effectiveness and safety that would allow its administration to children and adults in regions where the infection is most common.
 We in the developed countries are finally beginning to grasp the size, scope, complexity and seriousness of the global HIV pandemic. It took AIDS to teach us what Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg meant when he said: &quot;The world is just one village. Our tolerance of disease in any place is at our own peril.&quot;
 If we provide the money for effective action now, when the costs are still relatively low, we can minimize the setbacks that AIDS will cause at home and abroad. If we stand by or make token gestures, we will allow AIDS to spiral even further out of control.
 
 <i>Michael Gottlieb, an immunologist, identified AIDS as a new disease in 1981 and reported it to the Centers for Disease Control. He contributed this comment to the Los Angeles Times. </i>

TITLE: Slave Laborers Deserve Our Protection
TEXT: NO matter how many times one hears them, the stories of horror and inhumanity from the World War II period, like those in today's front-page story about St. Petersburg residents who were forced to work as slaves in Nazi factories, never fail to chill the blood. 
 It is estimated that about 27,000 local residents - now mostly in their 70s and 80s - endured these unspeakable torments, a life of daily humiliation and torture.
 Naturally, those of us who have not experienced such an existence can never really imagine what it was like, although we owe it to ourselves and to them to look into their faces and to listen to their words. Listen, for example, to Alexander Yerofimov, who found himself in Auschwitz at the age of 17 and who worked for a sadistic boss who started each shift by killing a randomly chosen worker under the heel of his boot.
 It is estimated that of the more than 300,000 former slave laborers still living in the former Soviet Union, about 200 die each day.
 Obviously, the fact that the German government and the German corporations that used slave labor have finally worked out a $4.5 billion program to recognize their responsibility for the suffering these people endured is good news. Even if the German companies involved are mostly motivated by a desire to limit their legal liability and head off further lawsuits from their victims. 
 It is anticipated that victims in Russia will begin receiving payments of about $6,600 each as early as next month. Not much, of course, but somewhat more than a symbolic victory, considering the poverty in which many of these senior citizens now live.
 Now, though, is the time for the national and local authorities to take measures to ensure that this money actually gets to the people who deserve it and who need it so badly. The various Russian funds and foundations created to help victims of the war have a lamentable track record of corruption and mismanagement. In 2000, the State Duma's Audit Chamber found that the Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation was unable to account for nearly $8 million intended as assistance.
 Moreover, one can easily envision that some former slave laborers will be targeted by criminals and others will be taken advantage of by unscrupulous relatives. It would be a bitter irony indeed if this gesture of responsibility, intended to provide some relief to these victims, merely turned out to bring further suffering and frustration upon them.

TITLE: Trying To Find The Root of The Problem
TEXT: I DOUBT anyone would argue that Governor Vla di mir Yakovlev has vast experience in the toils of subway construction.
 When Yakovlev was elected in 1996 he inherited a massive underground head ache - the collapsed metro tunnel between Les naya and Ploshchad Muzhestvo metro stations, which caved in in 1995 when it was swamped by an underground river. The collapse cut off three stations and 500,000 city residents from direct access to the city center.
 But despite Yakovlev's numerous pledges over the last six years to address the problem, nothing has been done. 
 First in the series of Yakovlev's promises was his forecast that the collapsed line would be running again before 2000. When that deadline came and went he rescheduled to autumn of 2001. Then, this week St. Petersburg subway officials announced that the renovation will last until the first quarter of 2003.
 Of course, we can't <i>really </i>say that this is <i>all</i> Yakov lev's fault. The city budget, after all, cannot stomach the estimated $126.4 million it will cost to raise the tunnel - especially after building the $89 million Ice Palace hockey arena last year. 
 As such, City Hall turned to Italy for credit on the reconstruction project, and the Italians agreed. The Italian-Swedish company Impredzhilo was chosen as a main contractor because it has experience in repairing such disasters, and the price was right.
 Meanwhile, by some act of God, Yakovlev was appointed as the head of the Federal Subway Commission, which is charged with the task of advising authorities in other cities how to deal with their subway systems. Yakovlev's first piece of advice to his minions was: &quot;Do not deal with foreign companies.&quot;
 This Tuesday I asked the governor to explain these seemingly ungracious remarks. The Italians were poised to save the day - provided they were paid up front, which can only happen when Mos cow secures the loan offered by the Italian authorities. 
 Basically Yakovlev was fed up with the Italians, who &quot;talk a lot, offer different schedules and don't work.&quot; He said local workers could do the job faster. 
 Indeed, that could be: There is no lack of highly qualified specialists right here. But their methodology is often confusing. 
 For example, in 1973, metro workers slaved digging the line that runs through Ploshchad Muzhestvo and Lesnaya in order to complete it for the 25th Party Congress of the Soviet Union. Their speed was the result of a decision to build the tunnel through an underground river rather than by means of a complex rerouting of the tunnel. The results of these expert decisions are apparent enough today. 
 Meanwhile, the Italians and their machinery are ready to go - pending that pesky loan guarantee that the Kremlin can't seem to issue, said local Yabloko Party member Olga Pokrovskaya.
 According to her, the source of the delay is a fundamental discord between Western and Russian business practices. 
 &quot;The Italians follow the rule 'money in advance or no deal.' This is not the Russian style, which allows workers to operate with debts,&quot; she said. 
 It isn't just Yakovlev who can't grasp Western business. Vadim Alexandrov, director of the subway construction firm Metrostroy, said this week that &quot;it seems that Italians have developed a sense of responsibility and worked out a new schedule.&quot;
 But neither Alexandrov nor Yakovlev said anything about their own sense of financial accountability.

TITLE: Global eye
TEXT: Yum, yum. You'll be glad to know that the chemists and engineers who concoct your favorite snack foods have come up with a new use for olestra, the delicious diet coating on &quot;Fat-Free Pringles&quot; and other such delicacies:
 Toxic waste clean-up.
 It seems the good folk at Procter & Gamble were a bit put out that their whiz-bang &quot;fat substitute&quot; has not quite set the culinary world on fire. (Perhaps the fact that all olestra products are required to carry a label warning that they can cause &quot;abdominal cramping and loose stools&quot; has something to do with it.) Anxious to recoup their $500 million investment in the fake food, they turned it loose on some toxic waste, USA Today reports.
 In what will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever ingested a Fat-Free Pringle, researchers found that an olestra variant can eat through industrial toxins like so many piranhas on a leg of lamb. The company hopes to recoup their losses by selling the voracious chemical to firms dealing with the most contaminated sites in the country.
 Not that P&G has given up on pouring more olestra down <i>your </i>gullet, mind you. Company officials are pressing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to remove the warning label. They say olestra products &quot;don't cause any more digestive problems&quot; than other junk foods. While some might not find this an altogether comforting argument, it is expected that P&G will find a sympathetic ear in the new &quot;business-friendly&quot; FDA.
 So bon appetit, everyone! Or as they like to say around the P&G labs: Stay loose!
 
 Third Way
 Fox in Charge of Henhouse, No. 346: This week the Bush Administration is expected to name J. Howard Beales III as head of consumer protection for the Federal Trade Commission, CNN reports.
 Beales III will be in charge of &quot;policing misleading and deceptive advertising and business practices.&quot; He is of course well-versed in the subject - not &quot;policing,&quot; but deceptive advertising - having made his bones shilling for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.
 Third's shining moment in this noble cause came when he testified on behalf of Joe Camel, the cartoon character whose ubiquitious image pushed cigarettes at children for most of the 1990s. Third told federal regulators that Smokin' Joe - clad in hot leather, surrounded by bodacious babes, rocking out on stage or quaffing brewskis in his top-down Caddy - was <i>not </i>designed to encourage teenagers to smoke.
 Right. He was obviously designed to lead them to Jesus. Beales will now be empowered to apply this kind of keen insight and blazing honesty to the whole of American consumer culture.
 Next up: FTC approves P&G's new &quot;Ollie Olestra&quot; ad campaign. &quot;No, we don't think this little, diaper-clad, chip-chomping cartoon scamp is causing toddlers to eat more Pringles,&quot; says FTC consumer protection chief J. Howard Beales III. &quot;Listen, kids get abdominal cramps all the time. And loose stools? Hey, that's why God made plastic diapers.&quot;
 Corn Shucks
 Fox in Charge of Henhouse, No. 716: The Bush administration has nominated Thomas Dorr of Iowa to be Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, Reuters reports.
 Dorr will be overseeing administration efforts to meet President Bush's earnest campaign pledge to &quot;save the family farm,&quot; source of the nation's &quot;heartland values.&quot;
 To further this noble cause, Dorr has proposed that farms should be consolidated into mammoth agroindustrial complexes with an average size of 225,000 acres. Agricultural economists at the University of Iowa point out that if the Dorr-Bush dream is realized, &quot;there would be 138 farms left in Iowa, down from the 90,000 we have now.&quot;
 Yeah, but you could probably make a lot more Fat-Free Pringles that way.
 
 Making Nice
 President Bush's oft-repeated pledge to &quot;bring a new tone of civility&quot; to American politics is paying off. His aides and allies have certainly responded to the defection of Vermont Senator James Jeffords in a quiet, mature manner.
 Bush officials have been quietly deriding Jeffords as &quot;quirky,&quot; &quot;grasping&quot; and &quot;addled,&quot; while their spear-carriers in the Wall Street Journal and various Murdoch and Moonie rags opt for mature sobriquets like &quot;crybaby,&quot; &quot;traitor,&quot; and &quot;stupid jackass.&quot;
 Top marks, however, go to the Bush operatives at the National Journal (where the execution of Chelsea Clinton was recently mooted as a &quot;preventive measure&quot; to keep her out of politics); they would like to see &quot;a half-starved weasel sewed into Jeffords' intestines.&quot;
 In fact, the <i>Bushvolk </i>have been so civil that Jeffords is now under police protection following a number &quot;serious and credible&quot; death threats, Reuters reports.
 In keeping with the new civility, however, the rightwing assassins will surely be using silencers.
 
 Correction
 Two weeks ago, we subjected our old friend Bob Barr to some good-natured ribbing that was perhaps a bit off the mark. As we all know, Barr, Republican congressman from Georgia, is an honorable man: a fierce campaigner for &quot;family values&quot; (having left a wife and family to be with another woman only twice, so far), and a vociferous champion of the pro-life movement (having procured an abortion for a woman he recklessly impregnated only once, so far).
 To our shame, we insinuated that this good man possibly harbored unkind thoughts toward those of different ethnic origin. We must now apologize for implying that Barr is a racist.
 We should have stated it as a <i>fact.</i>
 Last week, Barr was charged with hurling racial epithets and other profanities at airport security guards when they dared slow the progress of his van as it roared into a no-entry zone, Atlanta's WXIA-TV reports. In a written complaint, the guards say that in addition to more generic ethnic abuse (e.g., &quot;Let me through, you big black idiot!&quot;) Barr also employed the linguistic corruption of &quot;Negro&quot; once so popular amongst the paler denizens of that storied region.
 We apologize to Congressman Barr, to his many wives and to his loyal constituents. We promise never not to call him a racist again.

TITLE: hermitage throws open gates
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Living up to its status as a treasure house of the arts, the State Hermitage Museum marks the new millennium with an international project that will open its doors for the art of music.
 Though the museum, which currently boasts its own Musical Academy (in addition to the chamber orchestra and theater venue), has already hosted the occasional concert, the Tuba Mirum project juxtaposes an exhibition and a series of concerts to be held in the museum's church, halls and courtyard, which has never been open to the public before.
 Tuba Mirum kicks off on June 12 with an exhibition of musical instruments, most of the items of which come from the collection of the Trumpet Museum in Bad Sachingen, Germany. The trumpet became the symbol of this town back in the middle of the 19th century after Victor von Scheffel wrote the epic poem &quot;A Trumpeter From Sachingen.&quot;
 The St. Petersburg Museum of Theater and Musical Arts is also contributing to the display, with its &quot;cornet quartet&quot; that once belonged to Russian tsar Alexander III.
 Remarkably enough, the four cornets will also be played, by Swiss musicians from the brass quintet &quot;Basel Concert Brass&quot; on Wednesday June 13 at 3 p.m. in the Knight's Hall of the New Hermitage.
 The concert on Wednesday June 27, which also starts at 3 p.m. in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace, provides a rare opportunity to listen to church music performed by a clerical choir in a sacred place. The Swedish &quot;Maria Vocal Ensemble&quot; under the baton of Ragnar Bohlin will perform works by Sergei Rakhmaninov and Ingvar Lidholm, along with other Russian and Swedish composers.
 The project will culminate on June 29 with the Russian premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki's oratorio &quot;The Seven Gates of Jerusalem,&quot; written for Jerusalem's 3000th anniversary in 1996, which will be conducted by the maestro himself.
 With the performance of the oratorio, by nearly 400 musicians from Russia, Israel, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania, the Hermitage will mark the opening of the Palace Main Gates leading to the museum's courtyard.
 As Sergei Eisenstein's legendary film &quot;October&quot; has it, those very gates were the last thing to separate revolutionaries from the palace in the October 1917 revolution.
 &quot;The Seven Gates Of Jerusalem&quot; is comprised of seven parts, set to psalms and excerpts from biblical texts. &quot;I am happy about the Russian premiere of this oratorio at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg,&quot; Penderecki said. &quot;And I hope that music written for the 3000 anniversary of Jerusalem will encourage composers to devote their new music to your magnificent city.&quot;
 Tuba Mirum looks set to become an annual event. Next year, Haydn's oratorio &quot;The Creation&quot; will be performed to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a public museum in the tsar's residence. The program for the city's 300th anniversary in 2003 is yet to be announced, as a competition will be organized for composers to write a piece of music inspired by St. Petersburg. The three best works will have their world premieres at the Large Courtyard of the Hermitage.
 
 <i>Links: http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/ For more information on the project, call 311-50-59. </i>

TITLE: former prison hosts torture show
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Is humankind innately brutal? While philosophers may not have an instant answer, most visitors to the new torture exhibition at the Peter and Paul Fortress are likely to reply with an instinctive shrug.
 Inspired by the darker side of the human mind, over 60 torture tools people once used against each other are on display in the Trubetskoi Bastion<i> </i>prison, which has a grim history of its own.
 Such delightful tools as &quot;the rack,&quot; &quot;the knee-breaker&quot; and &quot;the neck trap,&quot; which were used by civil and religious courts alike, make up the exhibition which was organized by the Italian association &quot;The Third Millennium.&quot; As they make their way from cell to cell, visitors are able to trace the history of torture in Medieval Europe.
 To punish musicians whose poor performance offended noble ears, &quot;the noisemaker's fife&quot; was created. Put around the criminal's neck, with the victim's fingers locked in a special vice, the instrument had to be worn for up to several days.
 And this wasn't the only musical instrument developed for peace offenders. Centuries ago, husbands could threaten their disobedient wives with the &quot;violin of disgrace,&quot; made of iron or wood. Women had their arms bound at the wrists in the violin's two small holes. The similar-looking &quot;godmother's violin&quot; was used for those accused of blasphemy.
 A saw was once perceived as the best tool to give homosexuals the most painful death possible. Hung upside down, with their feet tied up separately, the victims were slowly sawn in half by two executioners.
 As if the devil himself was behind the tools used against alleged witches, these torture instruments make up the most shocking part of the exhibition. And indeed, the executioners were diabolically creative. The &quot;virgin of Nuremberg&quot; - which received its name owing to its exterior, resembling a typical Bavarian girl - is a body-shaped container with sharp, inward-pointing spikes meticulously installed so as not to rupture vital organs. Locked inside the sarcophagi, the victim eventually dies from bleeding, with the torture sometimes lasting several days.
 Frocks of penance made of rough fabric embroidered with red crosses, meant for moral tortures during pilgrimages to major sanctuaries, provide a brief relief from this chilling sight.
 Each item is accompanied by extensive historical commentary - in Russian, English, Italian and German - and most have drawings illustrating how the tool was applied.
 The exhibition also tells much about the customs of torturers. For instance, water torture - where victims had huge amounts of water poured down their throats through special funnels till their stomach's grew swollen, and were then beaten with sticks - wasn't considered a form of torture at all. The confessions obtained through this method were considered voluntary and spontaneous, received without the use of torture.
 Though centuries have passed since most of the tools were used, some of them are still applied. Neck traps - long sticks topped with large rings with nails inside, used to stop an unarmed prisoner in a crowd - are still in use in certain countries, though they have been modified and now can also produce electric shocks.
 Though the exhibition doesn't seems a likely choice for little children, kids and their parents have so far made up most of the visitors to the exhibition. &quot;This is to prevent enemies from invading,&quot; was how one father explained the purpose of a chastity belt to his two sons who didn't look more than seven or eight years old. They seemed to believe him.
 
 <i>The exhibition can be seen until the end of November. Tickets cost 60 rubles (100 rubles for foreigners). For more information, call the museum at: 238-45-40. </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Deadushki</strong>,the electronic act formed by former members of the seminal St. Petersburg ska band Stranniye Igry, will showcase its new album this weekend. Called &quot;PoRno,&quot; it is the band's second album of new material since its record debut in 1998.
 In the meantime, Deadushki put out two full-length collaboration albums (with Boris Gre ben shchikov and Vya cheslav Butusov) and a number of remixes of differing quality.
 The band, which consists of Victor Sologub on vocals, keyboards and guitar, Alexei Rakhov on keyboards, saxophone and bass, and Andrei Orlov on drums, will introduce its new songs at a show at the unlikely venue Poligon - notorious for its rowdy public, early times (gigs start at 6 p.m.) and many rules, one of which forbids one leaving the place for a gulp of fresh air. 
 For an occasion like a Deadushki concert, which comes on <i>Friday, </i>the rules and face control will be even more strict, as the club's official site warns. See more details at http://polygon.cool.ru.
 Meanwhile, the details of several festivals which will take place later this month have been unveiled.
 The <strong>Pushkinskaya 10 </strong>alternative arts center will celebrate its 12th anniversary with a traditional concert. After the reconstruction that made open-air shows in the center's yard impossible, the festivities moved into Lensoviet Palace of Culture in 1999. Akvarium, Vyacheslav Butusov, DDT's Yury Shevchuk and Kurylev Band will take part in this year's event on June 27.
 Just as last concert's proceeds went towards publication of the Pushkinskaya 10 photo album, proceeds from this year's concert will go towards similar goals. Tickets will cost between 100 and 300 rubles.
 <strong>Andrei &quot;Dyusha&quot; Romanov </strong>will be remembered at <i>SpartaK </i>club - to mark 12 months since the former Akvarium flautist died in the venue on June 29.
 Romanov, who led his own, Irish-tinged band Trilistnik after the band split up in the late 1980s, is said to have expressed the idea of gathering together various projects by ex-Akvarium musicians in one concert.
 The concert called &quot;The History of Akvarium: The Workshop of Arts&quot; will be the first in the series of &quot;Dyusha Romanov's Project&quot; and features Boris Grebenshchikov, Sergei Shchurakov's Vermicelli Orchestra, Alexander Lyapin, Trop and Slon v Temnote - with the last two groups featuring ex-Akvarium drummer Pyotr Troshchenkov.
 A large open-air stadium festival - also featuring Akvarium - will take part at Kirov Stadium on July 1. Called <strong>Pitersky Rock Festival, </strong>it's a rehash of the same-name festival promoted by DDT in the mid-1990s. The show, which will start at noon, promises 11 hours of music.
 Finally, get ready for the <strong>Tequilajazzz </strong>concert at Faculty on June 15. According to the band's frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov, it will be a &quot;usual club show with no other agenda,&quot; adding that he likes the place for its young audience and democratic feel. According to Fyodorov, two thirds of Tequilajazzz's forthcoming album have been already recorded.
 
 <i>- by Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: phantom haunts the nighttime air
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: &quot;Sergei Shnurov's Show and Tell&quot; on the newly launched Phantom FM radio station is something that Russian air waves have never experienced, and can easily send an unprepared listener into a state of shock.
 During the last show, which was expanded to two hours on Wednesday, Shnurov, the leader of the popular folk-punk band Leningrad, was raising funds for the Museum of Shit, insulting Russian celebrities and being rude to everyone.
 A clear case of love-it-or-hate-it, one of the program jingles has Shnurov saying, &quot;If you don't like it, don't watch and don't listen.&quot;
 The visual element is also present - as the show is broadcast from a transparent glass studio on Nevsky Prospect, it allows for some feedback from passers-by and fans of Leningrad who come to see Shnurov drinking vodka, yelling obscenities and playing his off-the-wall favorites.
 With Shnurov as the face of the radio, the rest of the programming is also strikingly new and refreshing in contrast to the bleak and uninteresting world of Russian music radio.
 Phantom FM is the brainchild of Denis Rubin, who works as the station's program director and claims to compile its playlists single-handedly. Although it shares the frequency and some of the resources with Radio Nostalgie, which specializes in old pop music such as ABBA or Demis Roussos, Rubin claims it's pretty much a separate radio station.
 The station, which went on air in test mode in early April, has been broadcasting in its full format, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., since May 1. There are also plans for a morning show.
 &quot;If we're speaking about the format, it's trendy, advanced and, deeper into the night, features more alternative and independent music,&quot; says Rubin. &quot;Roughly speaking, the most pop end of it is Britpop, while the most alternative is punk and hardcore. It's similar to a U.S. college radio, which plays diverse music.&quot;
 Rubin has had four years of musical experience from working in local record shops. Educated as a theater director, he was the manager of Lenin grad and art director of the Saigon Club in its former, rock incarnation. Until very recently he worked as a producer for Radio Modern, but was asked to leave when its management found out about his involvement with Phantom FM.
 &quot;[Russian] radio stations are oriented toward the '80s - eurodance, disco. Recently we thought about it and realized that early '90s music has already become classic. The stations don't accept this for some reason. Red Hot Chili Peppers are [still] seen as a novelty, but they can be played as oldies, which we do. We moved the slant from the '80s to '90s.&quot;
 Rubin reasons that you can read reviews of interesting contemporary music in such magazines as Fuzz and Ptyuch, and can buy it on import labels at record shops, but it is still not heard on radio.
 As to Russian music programming, it's based on the St. Petersburg scene. &quot;Firstly, we want to play exclusive stuff, and secondly we are absolutely convinced that 90 percent of quality music of this kind is made in St. Petersburg, it's a fact,&quot; says Rubin.
 The main Russian music show on Phantom is - in the station's typically perverted style - in English.
 &quot;Private Ryan's Diary,&quot; which is broadcast twice a week, is a casual conversation with listeners, whom the host, Ryan Atkinson, believes are primarily English-speaking foreigners. However, the show's audience seems to have outgrown the expat community, with many Russian students hooked.
 Atkinson, who comes from Kansas City, admits he has played in bands although he has no experience on the radio, but is still evidently influenced by U.S. college radio.
 &quot;That's kind of what I'm trying to do, because at home college radio was the only free radio, and that doesn't exist anymore,&quot; says Atkinson whose day job is teaching English. &quot;So I want to remind people 'You can play what you want, you can say what you want, it's free radio.'&quot;
 Atkinson, who lists the Flaming Lips, the Chemical Brothers, Manifesto and the Buzzcocks among his favorites, devotes his one-hour show exclusively to Russian music and describes its content as &quot;all the kinds of music that don't suck.&quot;
 &quot;The idea of the show is that we are playing only Russian rock music. It's everything that I choose for the show,&quot; says Atkinson. &quot;I'm able to pick whatever I want, more or less. I think Russian rock is great, it's very progressive and has a lot of freedom behind it. I want to expose foreigners to Russian music, it's my number one.&quot;
 According to Rubin, &quot;The listener isn't tired of English speech, because the music is Russian, and at the same time he or she can learn the language from the show. Also many say they have a pleasant feeling - you turn on the radio and feel like you're abroad.&quot; According to Rubin, the show will also develop into a kind of survival guide for foreigners in St. Petersburg.
 Although one of the station's most attractive aspects is the almost total absence of advertising, Rubin says there will be advertising at some stage, though probably not in standard forms. 
 &quot;It's because we want to pay the hosts,&quot; he said. &quot;'Private Ryan's Diary' will be sold, there's already a buyer, but it's unlikely that somebody will buy Deadushki's show, which lasts until 5 a.m,. though we want to pay them as well. However, it's mainly based on enthusiasm, as a thing like this should be.&quot;
 
 <i>Phantom FM is on air at FM 105.3 daily, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
 &quot;Sergei Shnurov's Show and Tell&quot;: Wed., 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.
 &quot;Private Ryan's Diary&quot;: Thurs., 12 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Sun., 11 p.m. to 12 a.m.
 &quot;Deadushkin Son&quot; with Deadushki's Alexei Rakhov and Andrei Orlov: every second Wed., 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. 
 Denis &quot;Kashchei&quot; Kuptsov of Spitfire's ska show: Mon., 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. </i>

TITLE: a real korean experience
AUTHOR: by Simon Patterson

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: For a city that has dozens of Chinese restaurants, ranging from cheap cafes to very lavish establishments, it is perhaps strange that other Asian countries get such poor culinary representation. St. Petersburg has four Japanese restaurants, only two Indian restaurants, and, most upsettingly, absolutely no Thai restaurant at all. There is, however, one Korean restaurant.
 I had been warned off Shilla, the restaurant in question, by friends who had ventured in and been greeted by a terribly expensive menu in conditional units. I was surprised, therefore, to see various menus pinned to the door showing prices in the 100- to 200-ruble range - so we decided to give the place a go.
 Unfortunately, the menu outside seemed to have nothing in common with the one we were handed once seated. The conditional units were, indeed, out in force (though at 29 rubles, they were slightly less than the Central Bank's rate). Presumably, the information we had seen referred to a &quot;business lunch&quot; of some kind, though there was no indication of when this was available.
 While such dubious marketing tactics are certainly not to be encouraged, we found that once we had gotten over our initial shock, we didn't feel inclined to leave. A closer examination of the menu revealed that one dish would be more than enough, as they were all served with a range of cold starters. The drinks menu was not exactly inspiring, though, with soft drinks and Botchkarov beer going for 2 conditional units. We each had a beer, which was served somewhat warmer than we would have liked - at that price, they could have at least kept them cold, we thought.
 However, from there on in, things improved dramatically. Our very helpful waitress guided us through the cold starters, which ranged from shredded carrot - the one item of Korean cuisine to achieve worldwide fame - to stuffed cucumbers and shredded raw potato, with seven different dishes altogether. We found the spicy raw potato especially delicious, and there seems to be no reason why it couldn't attain the popularity of the carrot if it was made more widely available.
 I ordered the &quot;Techi Pulkogi&quot; (20 conditional units), a pork dish, while my wife ordered the &quot;Khe Mulpdchon&quot; (16 conditional units), essentially a large seafood omelet to our non-Korean sensibilities, served with soy sauce. The best part of the meal was the fact that it was cooked in front of us, on a trolley that was brought to our table.
 My meal was quite a challenge to eat, and my chef gave me instructions beforehand: First I was to take a lettuce leaf, smear it with some sauce, add rice and pork, wrap it all up and eat it, washing it down with a sip of bouillon. Feeling rather self-conscious, I set to it, though my lettuce-leaf wrapping skills could certainly use some work. The meal was delicious, the crisp pork blending well with the lettuce and rice, with the bouillon providing a relief from the hot sauce.
 Shilla is obviously not a restaurant for a cheap ethnic night out, but can be relied upon to give a truly authentic Korean meal. While the decor seems to have nothing Korean about it, with views of Italy painted upon the ceiling, it is precisely this that makes the restaurant authentic: It does not need to advertise its Korean-ness, as the food speaks for itself. Why the waitresses have silver skirts with the Union Jack emblazoned on them is another matter, but the service is excellent and our waitress was happy to enlighten us on the finer points of Korean food. One can only hope that more Korean restaurants will follow in Shilla's wake. 
 
 <i>Shilla, 1/6 Konyushenny Pereulok, 311-69-71. Open daily, 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. Dinner for two with beer, 1,160 rubles ($40) Credit cards accepted. </i>

TITLE: a film that will live in infamy
AUTHOR: by Michael Wilmington

PUBLISHER: the baltimore sun
TEXT: &quot;Pearl Harbor,&quot; the much-anticipated three-hour epic about the day of infamy that pushed the United States into World War II, is a movie meant to explode off the screen - and it's at its best when those explosions are going full blast. The movie's 40-minute recreation of the shocking Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor itself is worth the ticket price: a racing, teeming, hellishly exciting sequence that actually makes devastation and death exhilarating.
 As director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer pull out all the visual stops, they show us waves of fleet Japanese bombers and Zero fighter planes streaking through halcyon Sunday morning vistas, battleships ablaze, sailors trying to claw their way out of flooded ships, plucky American fliers racing to their planes - and even one amazing shot following a dropped bomb down to its target. This is modern Hollywood technique at its giddiest, most excessive and madly entertaining: war history as a huge incendiary video game.
 Unfortunately, pasted around that stunning sequence is a story so clogged with cliches of every description, so overblown, bombastic and agonizingly sentimental that it's hard to watch it with a straight face. If &quot;Pearl Harbor&quot; succeeds as action spectacle, it mostly fails as drama - and its best comedy is almost all unintentional.
 With its heavy romantic triangle (Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as buddy fliers torn by their mutual love for nurse Kate Beckinsale) in the midst of a famed, full-blown historical disaster, &quot;Pearl Harbor&quot; is obviously meant to be the &quot;Titanic&quot; of World War II movies - teary, thrilling and awesomely spectacular - just as the raid sequence is probably meant to one-up the shattering D-Day scene in &quot;Saving Private Ryan.&quot; But it doesn't match its predecessor in either case
 Director Bay can make almost anything leap off the screen, but screenwriter Randall Wallace seems incapable here of dreaming up any fictional character who hasn't already inhabited 20 other movies. Wallace focuses mostly on his dreamy star trio. Rafe McCawley (Affleck) and pal Danny Walker (Hartnett) bond in boyhood amid cornfields and crop dusters. Rafe and brisk nurse Evelyn Johnson (Beckinsale) fall for each other, then he hustles off to the Battle of Britain. When Rafe is mistakenly reported killed in action, that leaves Evelyn to be consoled by Danny. Then Rafe unexpectedly returns, and all three are hurled into romantic turmoil - alleviated when the Pearl Harbor attack begins and the two guys once again become brothers in battle.
 To Bruckheimer's credit, he always uses good, unusual actors. Both Affleck and Beckinsale are smart, offbeat choices: actors who deliver more brainy intensity and style than a script like this deserves. But Hartnett fits the skin-deep material too well: a glamour boy who doesn't yet act very well. When Affleck's Rafe was reported dead, I cringed at the prospect of two hours with Danny as sole hero and would have accepted any plot device - including a mad scientist - to get Rafe back.
 There are times during &quot;Pearl Harbor&quot; when a mad scientist seems vaguely possible. At one war meeting, when Jon Voight's FDR rises up from his wheelchair, you may be reminded of Peter Sellers' Dr. Strangelove screaming, &quot;I can walk!&quot; And when I started to scribble down overused cliche lines halfway though, I had to give up: I was copying down most of the script. 
 What a colossal waste of great historical material! The attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the watershed moments in American history, a cataclysm that blew away the country's innocence and triggered the bloodiest world conflict ever. It's a tale filled with grand strategies and amazing blunders, incredible twists of fate and great characters. Most of it is far more interesting than the lovelorn trio here. 
 Still, you can't deny &quot;Pearl Harbor&quot; its peculiar power or stretches of slam-bang excitement. One reason critics underrate Bay as a director is that he's able to make stale material work on screen, excusing himself with the disclaimer: &quot;They're only popcorn movies.&quot;
 Maybe. But should Pearl Harbor have been turned into popcorn? When a moviemaker strives at least partly for epic grandeur and historical sweep, he'd better have a vision to match his budget - or he'll wind up, like Bay and Bruckheimer, with one terrific battle scene and a thousand cliches.
 
 <i>&quot;Pearl Harbor&quot; is now playing at the Barrikada and Crystal Palace Cinemas. </i>

TITLE: Khatami Faces Little Opposition as Iran Goes to the Polls
AUTHOR: By Brian Murphy 

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's colorless election campaign came to life on the last official day of campaigning Wednesday, with supporters of President Mohammad Khatami encouraging voters with leaflets, posters and banners.
 Some of Khatami's nine challengers at Friday's polls prepared last-minute appeals to try to stave off an expected landslide by the popular moderate cleric.
 In the streets of the crowded, smog-choked capital, cars plastered with pictures of Khatami, who is opposed by the country's religious hard-liners, honked their horns while veering through traffic.
 Young women in brilliant white and green headscarves, worn to observe the Islamic dress code, yelled &quot;Yes to Khatami&quot; at passing motorists. A huge sign waved from a pedestrian overpass over a highway in Tehran, proclaimed: &quot;Khatami you are in the hearts of the people.&quot;
 Khatami's presidential rivals, meanwhile shifted their own election campaigns into higher gear.
 Khatami's most prominent challenger, Defense Minster Ali Shamk hani, was to make a last minute appeal to voters at a rally later Wednesday at Tehran's Shiroudi stadium.
 Ali Fallahian, an ex-spy chief who has little popularity and is not expected to make much of a showing at the polls, was campaigning in the northern provinces to drum up support.
 Campaigning is banned after midnight Wednesday.
 Showing confidence in his expected victory, Khatami looked ahead Tuesday with sweeping goals for change and a terse message to conservative foes: There will be no &quot;surrender.&quot;
 The popular president's vision sketched out some concrete missions: broader freedoms, more accountable judicial authorities and a better climate for foreign investment.
 Khatami also tread into the intangible - trying to instill a sense that religious hard-liners who have blocked him on every turn, cannot win the ideological duels. He scoffed at &quot;cowards&quot; trying to oppose the will of voters.
 &quot;I will not surrender to violence and extremism,&quot; Khatami insisted at his first major news conference in years.
 His blunt challenges resonated well beyond the upcoming vote. They offered a possible hint of Khatami's next moves in the struggles that have left activists in jail and dozens of pro-reform publications silenced.
 Political leaders increasingly cite their duty to the voting majority after elections put reformers in charge of Iran's parliament and many municipal posts. A Khatami landslide would only boost their momentum during his next four-year term. The powerful subtext is that religious conservatives could provoke a social upheaval if they press too hard with detentions and edicts.
 But Khatami acknowledged the reality of Iran's theocracy: All power flows down from the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his inner circle of clerics. Any direct showdown will be a lost cause for reformers. So Khatami looks to a slow - yet &quot;irreversible&quot; - evolution.
 Some in Iran have lost patience with Khatami, and his refusal to confront his hard-line rivals head on. But many in Iran still believe in a man known for his sincerity.
 &quot;I think it is too naive to expect to see the results of Khatami's reforms immediately,&quot; said Fariborz Anaraki, 22, handing out portraits of Khatami on the street. &quot;I think Iranians should be smart. They should acknowledge his achievements and not lose patience.&quot;

TITLE: Senate Power Shifts to Democrats
AUTHOR: By Alan Fram 

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The Senate met under new, Democratic management on Wednesday, completing an unprecedented shift in power that dislodged Republicans and ushered in a new era of divided government. Majority Leader Tom Daschle swiftly suggested changes in the GOP-crafted budget.
 &quot;Both sides have to come to the middle. We can't just lob bombs,&quot; the South Dakota senator said, although he also made clear he was prepared to oppose President George Bush on occasion in his role as leader of a &quot;very, very slim majority.&quot;
 Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the GOP leader, ceded power to Daschle with a pledge of &quot;continued friendship&quot; - and a list of accomplishments forged in six years of Republican rule.
 &quot;I think you will not see him more combative but much more aggressive,&quot; Senator Bill Frist, said of Lott. &quot;He'll be able to more closely define and articulate Republican views without having to pay respect to the other side.&quot;
 The new power relationships will take weeks or months to develop, and negotiations resumed during the day on a plan to reorganize committees along lines that reflect the new party breakdown. Senator Larry Craig told reporters a &quot;rough draft&quot; of an accord could be ready by Thursday, and final agreement approved next week.
 Other changes took place swiftly.
 West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, 83 and the longest-serving Democrat, replaced South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond, 98, as president pro tem, a constitutional office that makes him third in line for the presidency.
 Senators debated education legislation, picking up where they had left off on Tuesday - almost. Senator Judd Gregg supplanted James Jeffords of Vermont as the Republican manager of the bill.
 Jeffords, whose switch from Republican to independent aligned with Democrats triggered the seismic shift in power, sat on the Democratic side of the aisle for the first time. &quot;I was at awe knowing that I was entering a new phase in my life,&quot; said Jeffords, whose desk had been moved overnight.
 Daschle praised the Vermont lawmaker for his &quot;courageous decision.&quot; It was a topic that Lott did not mention.
 The formal switch occurred as House Republican leaders reviewed an internal poll that reported a slight slippage in support for congressional Republicans as well as for Bush.
 &quot;Senator Jeffords' decision to leave the Republican Party was clearly not good news and had two significant ripple effects - however temporary - for House Republicans,&quot; said a memo circulated by Representative J.C. Watts, a member of the leadership.
 &quot;It fostered a national forum for criticism&quot; of Republicans, he wrote, and news of the switch &quot;saturated the media coverage of politics, making it much more difficult to communicate to the American people&quot; at a time when the House was considering Bush's education legislation.
 The change in command brought to an end the first period in 50 years in which Republicans held control of the White House and both houses of Congress. It also marked the first time in history that one party ceded power to another without an intervening election.
 The Senate had been split 50-50, meaning that Republicans held control by virtue of Vice President Dick Cheney's ability to break ties. Lott and Daschle forged a unique power-sharing agreement last winter that gave Republicans committee chairmanships but handed Democrats equal representation on each committee.
 Jeffords' switch ended that, and the two sides bargained behind the scenes over a new organizational plan. Republican talk of a filibuster has faded in recent days. And while Daschle said Democrats would rely on precedent in dealing with judicial and other administration nominees, he was at pains to pledge fairness when dealing with Republicans and Bush's appointments - a key demand made by the GOP.
 &quot;You've heard us lament and in some ways criticize the majority when we were in the minority for the lack of fairness. I think it would be hypocrisy at its worst if we were to take the same tactics. So we're not going to do that,&quot; he said.
 Democrats have said previously the budget written by the administration and Republicans shortchanges education, Medicare and Social Security overhaul, environmental protection and other areas.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Judge Denies Stay
 

DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) - Lawyers for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, racing the clock to stop his scheduled execution on June 11 after a federal judge refused to grant him a stay, were expected to file a rush appeal of that ruling on Thursday.
 The lawyers said they would appeal a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch that 4,400 pages of potential evidence in the case just handed over by the FBI could not change the fact that the once model soldier was "the instrument of death and destruction."
 That appeal will be filed with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal, which has promised to act quickly on the request. If McVeigh, 33, is rejected there, he could appeal again to the U.S. Supreme Court.
 McVeigh is due to die by lethal injection on Monday for planting the bomb that killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995 - the worst act of terrorism on American soil.
 Legal experts said McVeigh could win a delay in his death sentence from a higher court. But he is fighting an uphill battle to get it overturned - in part because he had already admitted in court documents to planting the bomb.
 
 
Basques Defiant
 

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) - Basque separatist group ETA will continue to shoot and bomb opponents of Basque independence from Spain, despite a stinging defeat for its political allies in an election last month, ETA said in an interview on Thursday.
 
"ETA's message is clear. All politicians who guarantee, support and participate in the oppression of Euskal Herria [the Basque homeland] are targets," two masked ETA representatives said in the interview with Basque newspapers Gara and Egunkaria.
 It was the first time ETA has spoken since a party widely seen as its political arm, Euskal Herritarrok (EH), lost half its 14 seats in elections for the Basque parliament on May 13.
 The anonymous ETA spokespersons said their party's loss of votes was due to "fear and weakness" among nationalists.
 They also claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting of Santiago Oleaga, financial director of regional newspaper El Diario Vasco, who was gunned down in a car park on May 24.
 ETA has killed some 800 people in a more than 30-year campaign of bombings, shootings and kidnappings to back its demands for an independent Basque state including parts of northern Spain and southern France.
 
 
Smoker Wins $3Bln
 

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A jury has ordered tobacco giant Philip Morris to pay more than $3 billion to a lifelong smoker with lung cancer who argued the company failed to warn him about the health risks.
 The Superior Court jury found against Philip Morris on Wednesday on all six claims of fraud, negligence and making a defective product.
 Richard Boeken, 56, was awarded $3 billion in punitive damages and $5.5 million in general damages. It is the largest judgment against a cigarette maker in a lawsuit brought by an individual. Philip Morris said it plans to appeal.
 "I hope other lawyers step forward," said Michael Piuze, Boeken's lawyer, after Wednesday's verdict. "I hope it's given them a ray of hope."
 The largest judgment against the tobacco industry in a class-action lawsuit was $145 billion awarded last year to thousands of sick Florida smokers. Philip Morris was one of five tobacco companies in that case.
 Boeken took up cigarettes in 1957 at age 13 and said he smoked at least two packs of Marlboros every day for more than 40 years. He was diagnosed in 1999 with lung cancer, which has spread to his lymph nodes, back and brain.
 
 
Cease-Fire Threatened
 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Deep distrust and outbreaks of violence threatened a fragile cease-fire on Thursday before planned talks between U.S. CIA Director Geor ge Tenet and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
 Tenet was expected to fly to Israel from Egypt and hold separate meetings with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the afternoon, but U.S. officials gave no details of his schedule.
 In the latest violence, Israel's army said Palestinians wounded three Jewish settlers as they drove near the West Bank town of Ramallah late on Wednesday.
 Jewish settlers had earlier rampaged near a Palestinian town and staged a rally in Jerusalem urging Sharon to take tougher action against the Palestinians.
 Israeli officials again dismissed Arafat's five-day-old cease-fire as a temporary tactic in an eight-month-old rebellion. But Palestinians said Israel's own limited cease-fire was a sham and that new political proposals were needed to remove the underlying causes of the violence to make any truce hold.
 
 
Drug Problem
 

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) - The United Nations has branded Cambodia one of the largest suppliers of marijuana to the world, with business estimated to generate nearly $1 billion a year.
 The value of the export of marijuana is estimated to be on par with that of Cambodia's top foreign exchange earner, the garment industry, which employs more than 100,000 people, the UN International Drug Control Program said in a report.
 "With Cambodia as one of the world's largest suppliers of cannabis, and in combination with the destabilizing effects the illicit profits of this trade has on the country, this situation is clearly not acceptable," said the report, obtained by Reuters late on Wednesday.
 The report said more than 200 tons of high-grade Cambodian marijuana had been seized abroad since 1996, primarily in Europe but also in the United States, Australia and Africa.
 
 
Floods Hit Bangladesh
 

DHAKA, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Monsoon floods sweeping northeastern Bangladesh have killed at least seven people, made thousands more homeless and disrupted rail and road communications, officials said on Thursday.
 "Four persons were killed in landslides and floods after the Manu and Dhalai rivers burst embankments," Abdul Quader, relief and rehabilitation officer of Moulvi Bazar district, told Reuters.
 He said some 50,000 people were stranded by floods in the district.
 Three other people died after water from the Khowai river flooded part of Habiganj town, another official said.
 Officials in the tea-growing northeast said the floods destroyed around 7,000 thatched homes, and inundated 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) planted in rice and vegetables.
 Agriculture officials said they feared no major losses to crops due to the floods, which they believed would be short-lived.

TITLE: England, Germany Win In World Cup Qualifiers
AUTHOR: By Robert Millward

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: England put itself on track to qualify for Europe's World Cup playoffs with a 2-0 victory at Greece on Wednesday night.
 Italy, a runaway leader in its group, failed in its bid to become the first country in qualifying to secure a berth when Romania won 2-1 at Lithuania. Italy was idle.
 Germany won 2-0 at Albania to maintain its six-point lead over England in Group 9 and clinch no worse than a playoff spot.
 At Athens, Paul Scholes scored in the 63rd minute and David Beckham curled in a 25-meter free kick with three minutes left. England, under Sven-Goran Ericksson, has won its first five games under a new coach for the first time.
 At Tirana, Marko Rehmer scored in the 28th minute and Michael Ballack in the 68th. Germany (5-0-1) leads Group 9 with 16 points, six ahead of England (3-1-1) and 10 ahead of third-place Greece (2-4).
 The nine European group winners qualify for next year's tournament in Japan and South Korea, and the second-place teams advance to playoffs.
 At Kaunas, Romania got goals from Adrian Ilie in the 31st minute and Viorel Moldovan in the 49th. Arturas Fomenka scored for Lithuania in the 88th.
 Italy (5-0-1) has a four-point lead in Group 8 over second-place Romania (4-2) and can clinch with a win at Lithuania on Sept. 1.
 At Goteborg, Sweden (5-0-2) routed Moldova 6-0 to take the Group 4 lead as Henrik Larsson scored four goals, three on penalty kicks.
 At Bursa, Turkey (4-0-3) dropped to second behind Sweden, rallying behind three goals from Ozalan Alpay for a 3-3 tie at home against fourth-place Macedonia (1-3-3). Azerbaijan (1-5-1), which had been last, beat visiting Slovakia 2-0 at Baku for its first World Cup qualifying victory since defeaating Switzerland 1-0 in August, 1996.
 At Tel Aviv, Israel (3-2-1) gained a 1-1 tie against Spain (4-0-2), the Group 7 leader. Haim Revevo scored in the fourth minute for third-place Israel, and Raul Gonzalez tied it in the 63rd. After recent bombings, more than 1,000 security personnel were at the game.
 At Toftir, Mateja Kezman scored three goals as visiting Yugoslavia beat the Faeroe Islands 6-0. Yugoslavia (2-1-3) is fourth in Group 1, eight points behind Russia (5-0-2), four behind Slovenia (3-0-4) and two back of Switzerland (3-2-2). Russia won 2-1 at Luxembourg and Slovenia won 1-0 at Switzerland.
 At Tallin, Group 2 leader Ireland (5-0-3) beat Estonia 2-0 on goals by Richard Dunne (ninth minute) and Matt Holland (39th). Portugal (4-0-3), which trails by three points, beat visiting Cyprus 6-0 to move past the Netherlands (4-1-2) into second place.
 In other games, it was the Czech Republic 3, Northern Ireland 1; Denmark 2, Malta 1; and Iceland 1, Bulgaria 1 in Group 3: Armenia 1, Poland 1, Ukraine 1, Wales 1, and Norway 1, Belarus 1 in Group 5: Croatia 1, Latvia 0, and Belgium 4, San Marino 1, in Group 6; and Hungary 4, Georgia 1 in Group 8.

TITLE: Philly Deep-Sixes Lakers With Overtime Win
AUTHOR: By Tim Brown

PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - Shaquille O'Neal leaned down to the microphone and looked across the room, and perhaps across two months and five days of something close to perfection, a stretch of dynamic basketball that put the Lakers into the NBA Finals against what all agreed was an overmatched team.
 &quot;Now,&quot; O'Neal said, &quot;It's a series.&quot;
 Postseason perfection was dead, gone in a rain of jumpers by Allen Iverson, gone in a defense more frantic than their own, gone, perhaps, in a nine-day layoff. It took an overtime, and 48 points by Iverson, and a handful of their own poor decisions and missed free throws, but the Lakers suddenly found themselves looking up, not at history, but at the very plucky Philadelphia 76ers.
 The 76ers defeated the favored Lakers, 107-101, in game 1 of NBA Finals on Wednesday night at Staples Center, reclaiming the home-court advantage they lost on the last day of the regular season and reminding the Lakers that this championship won't be preordained.
 O'Neal scored 44 points and took 20 rebounds, but he missed 12 free throws, including seven of his last 10. It was the second time in Finals history that opposing players scored 40 or more points in the same game.
 What the Lakers will remember, for a day at least, is that Iverson scored seven of the 76ers' last 11 points, and that as a result the Lakers blew a five-point lead with three minutes left in overtime. From a 99-94 deficit, the 76ers scored nine consecutive points while the Lakers had two turnovers and two point-blank misses.
 Kobe Bryant, who was 7-for-22 from the field and scored only 15 points, less than half his playoff average, brought the Lakers to within 103-101 with a 7-meter turnaround with 31 seconds remaining, but the Lakers didn't score again.
 The Lakers hadn't lost since April 1. The winning streak -19 games, the last 11 in the playoffs - fueled rampant predictions of a Laker sweep, of a perfect 15-0 postseason, the first in league history. While the Lakers held their palms down and swore they would be content with a victory in game 1, and then to go from there, the 76ers seemed to find fury in the predictions.
 Regulation time ran down with Laker reserve guard Tyronn Lue desperately denying the ball to Iverson, and Eric Snow, exasperated, forcing a long, off-balance shot from the left wing. It hit the rim hard, and the Lakers exhaled.
 Thirty-four seconds before, Dikembe Mutombo hit the back of the rim on two free throws, either one of which might have won it for the 76ers in regulation.
 Snow scored the final points of regulation on a driving layup with more than a minute remaining. It tied the score, 94-94. When the Lakers scored the first five points of overtime, it appeared their streak would survive Iverson's 48, and Mutombo's 16 rebounds, O'Neal's free-throw misses, and their own 19 turnovers, many against the 76ers' pressure defense.
 But Raja Bell made a scoop shot in the lane, Iverson made two free throws and then a three-pointer from the left wing and then a 7-meter shot from the right corner. On that, he stepped dramatically over Lue, who had fallen. Lue had hounded Iverson for half of the third quarter and all of the fourth, succeeding in disturbing Iverson where Bryant and Derek Fisher had failed. The Laker starting backcourt, so strong in 11 previous playoff games, combined to shoot 7-for-26. Fisher missed all four shots and did not score in 23 minutes.
 It had been so long since the Lakers looked like a fallible basketball team that Staples Center ran quiet, and the crowd was given to periodic, desperate standing ovations.
 The place hung on every O'Neal free throw, and the Lakers clung to O'Neal, and every whistle seemed to take the breath out of the game. Philadelphia's defense was frantic, and Bryant could not penetrate, but the Lakers made a big run at the end of the third quarter that brought them to within one point. Mutombo was on the bench with foul trouble, and O'Neal scored 14 points in that run, leading to the taut fourth quarter.
 It wasn't until the overtime before the Lakers lost their momentum, the momentum of a game and of a 19-game run.
 By midway through the second quarter, Iverson had the whole thing going. He was hitting his fall-aways. He found somebody in the second row to ride, and by the end of the first half he was saying hello to friends in the crowd.
 His shots seemed to hang in the air, and when they fell they barely moved the net, and Lakers stole quick glances at each other.
 It might not have been the 76ers best playoff half. It might not have been the Lakers' worst. But it reinforced the 76ers' notions they could play with the Lakers, and it had to have jarred the Lakers.

TITLE: Mariners Sweep Rangers To Extend Win Streak to 14 Games
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEATTLE, Washington - The Seattle Mariners stretched their winning streak to 14, the longest in the American League in seven years, by beating the Texas Rangers 7-3 Wednesday night.
 Jamie Moyer (8-1) allowed just three hits over seven shutout innings, and Edgar Martinez homered to lead Seattle. The Mariners, 46-12, haven't lost since a 12-11 defeat at Minnesota on May 22.
 Seattle, which took a 7-0 lead in sweeping its fourth-straight series, matched the second-best 58-game start since 1900, trailing only the 1912 New York Giants (47-11). The 1907 Chicago Cubs and the 1939 New York Yankees also started their respective seasons at 46-12.
 The last AL team to win 14 straight had been Kansas City from July 23-Aug. 5, 1994. Atlanta won 15 in a row from April 16 to May 2 last year.
 Moyer, who struck out seven, joined teammate Aaron Sele (8-0) as the second eight-game winner in the AL. Arizona's Curt Schilling has 10 victories.
 Darren Oliver (4-2), activated from the disabled list before the game, gave up one run and five hits in seven innings. He pitched for the first time since May 7, when he was hit in the left thumb by a liner off the bat of Tony Graffanino.
 Martinez homered in the first, a drive to center just over a leaping Gabe Kapler.
 Seattle broke open the game with a six-run eighth, getting seven hits.
 Martinez and Bret Boone had RBI singles off J.D. Smart, pinch-hitter John Olerud had a two-run double off Juan Moreno and, David Bell and Dan Wilson added RBI doubles off Jeff Zimmerman.
 Bullpen coach John McLaren was 4-0 while filling in for manager Lou Piniella, who went to Tampa, Fla., for his father-in-law's funeral. Piniella is expected to return for Friday night's game against San Diego.
 Ken Caminiti hit an RBI single in the ninth off Jose Paniagua, and Ruben Sierra hit a two-run single off Arthur Rhodes.
 
 <strong>Arizona 4, Los Angeles 1. </strong>Curt Schilling pitched a six-hitter to become the major leagues' first 10-game winner as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1 Wed nesday night.
 Schilling (10-1) struck out eight and didn't walk a batter in his major league-leading fourth complete game, his third in four starts.
 Damian Miller drove in two runs with a home run and a double, and Jay Bell also homered and doubled for the Diamondbacks, who had lost the first two of the four-game series between the top two teams in the NL West. The victory once again opened up a two-game lead for the Diamondbacks.
 Mark Grace extended his hitting streak to 15 games with an RBI double.
 Shawn Green spoiled Schilling's shutout bid with a one-out homer in the ninth.
 Luke Prokopec (6-2) allowed four runs and nine hits in six innings for the Dodgers.
 Schilling, off to the best start of his 12-year career, allowed a bloop single to Paul Lo Duca starting the game, then retired 13 batters in a row before two-out singles by Mark Grudzielanek and Adrian Beltre in the fifth inning. Schilling then struck out Jeff Reboulet on a 3-2 pitch to get out of the jam and end the inning.
 Bell's ninth homer, which bounced off the top of the fence in front of the Arizona bullpen in the left-field corner, gave the Diamondbacks a 1-0 lead in the first.
 Arizona made it 2-0 in the fourth when Steve Finley, 0-for-15 in the homestand up to that point, singled to the opposite field with one out. On a hit-and-run play, Miller doubled to right-center and Finley scored from first.
 In the third, Bell doubled with one out, then scored on Grace's two-out double.