SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #681 (48), Tuesday, June 26, 2001
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TITLE: 8 Russians Make Forbes' Rich List
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova 

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky is the wealthiest man in Russia with an accumulated fortune of $2.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's richest people released Friday.
 Seven other Russians - including two former Gazprom officials - are also counted, giving Russia the most billionaires on the list since Forbes first included Russians in 1997. 
 The list is topped by Microsoft Co. founder Bill Gates, who has held the magazine's title as the world's wealthiest man since 1998. 
 Khodorkovsky, who at 38 heads the country's second-largest oil company, Yukos, is in 194th place. The second- most-wealthy Russian, according to Forbes, is Vladimir Potanin, the president of the Interros financial-industrial group and the only Russian billionaire to make Forbes listings for a third time. This year Potanin is ranked 272nd with $1.8 billion, up from $1.6 billion in 1998 and $700 million in 1997.
 No Russians were included on the Forbes lists in 1999 and 2000.
 This year, Surgutneftegaz head Vladimir Bogdanov is the third-most- wealthy Russian on the list, ranked 312th with $1.6 billion, former Gazprom head Rem Vyakhirev is 336th with $1.5 billion and oil and media tycoon Roman Abramovich is 363rd with $1.4 billion. 
 LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov and Alfa Group head Mikhail Fridman are tied at 387th with $1.3 billion each, while former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin rounds out the list at 452nd with $1.1 billion.
 The overall list of this year's billionaires grew to 538 members, up from 482 last year, because Forbes for the first time included all billionaires; on previous lists, it counted only the "working rich" billionaires, to differentiate between those who ran businesses and those who were living off their wealth.
 The magazine, which keeps tight-lipped about its calculations, said only that it had estimated the wealth of billionaires with publicly traded fortunes by using share prices and exchange rates from May 21 in order to calculate net worth. The value of art collections and real estate was also added when possible. 
 The Russians on the list have been keeping quiet for years about their personal assets.
 Abramovich's ranking as the fifth- richest Russian - well behind four oil and energy tycoons - contradicts earlier media reports naming the 34-year-old as the wealthiest man in Russia ,with estimated personal assets of more than $2 billion.
 Abramovich controls Russia's No. 5 oil company Sibneft, and last year acquired a major stake in Russian Aluminum, the world's second-largest aluminum producer, and 49 percent of ORT, the country's No. 1 television station. He is also the governor of the Chukotka region.
 Forbes had little good to say about the Russians on the list other than that Khodorkovsky had wisely invested into his business and Bogdanov, who runs No. 3 oil company Surgutneftegaz, was "a competent and honest industrial tycoon."
 Here's what Forbes had to say about the other rich Russians on its list:
 The magazine reported that Vyakhirev had built his fortune as chief executive of the Gazprom gas monopoly by acquiring stakes for himself and his family in the company and its subsidiaries. Vyakhirev was ousted from his post by President Vladimir Putin last month amid reports in The St. Petersburg Times and other media that documented various improprieties at Gazprom.
 "There's enough money sloshing around Gazprom for Vyakhirev and his children to take a big chunk without rocking the boat," Forbes said. "Together they have a stake in the parent company, as well as in the sales and distribution companies, equipment importers, construction and financial companies that service this unwieldy giant." 
 Forbes said that the 51-year-old LUKoil head, Alekperov, "used his close friendship with the fuel and energy minister to muscle into lucrative oil deals around the Caspian Sea in the early 1990s."
 Chernomyrdin, who founded Gazprom and served as prime minister from 1992 to 1998, "missed out on much of the privatization windfall, but not all of it," Forbes said. "He and his family own significant Gazprom stakes and related properties."
 Chernomyrdin was appointed Russia's ambassador to Ukraine in May, and is expected to handle disputes such as the theft of and nonpayment for Russian gas at his new post in Kiev. 
 He was named Russia's wealthiest man in March 1997 by the French newspaper Le Monde, which put his wealth at $5 billion.
 He has repeatedly denied reports of his vast personal wealth.
 Chernomyrdin was the only billionaire named by Forbes to comment on the list publicly, calling his ranking "nonsense."
 "A few years ago they wrote that I had $5 billion, while now they write that I have $1.1 billion Where did the nearly $4 billion go? Who stole it?" Chernomyrdin said in remarks reported by Interfax.
 "If Forbes shows me where my $4 billion is, I will give $1 billion to the magazine and $100 million to Interfax," Chernomyrdin said.
 The former prime minister's estimated $1.1 billion in wealth is just some $300 million less than the $1.4 billion Ukraine owes Russia for gas.
 Russians first appeared on the Forbes list in 1997, when Boris Berezovsky was named the richest Russian, in 97th spot, with an accumulated wealth of $3 billion. He was then in a company of five other of his fellow countrymen, including Khodorkovsky, Alekperov, Vyakhirev, Potanin and the founder and head of Media-MOST, Vladimir Gusinsky.
 Gusinsky has lost much of his once-sprawling empire over the past year to creditor Gazprom.
 Shortly before Forbes released its annual listings, Russian media reported that the magazine had bowed out of a lawsuit with Berezovsky over a 1996 article entitled, "Is He the Godfather of the Kremlin?" 
 The unsigned story, among other allegations, described Berezovsky as a "powerful gangland lord" and indirectly linked him to the 1995 contract killing of Vladislav Listyev, a television celebrity who had been appointed chief executive at ORT shortly before his slaying.
 Russian media reported that Forbes even paid $250,000 in court expenses to Berezovsky.

TITLE: London Recruits Local Teachers
AUTHOR: By Barnaby Thompson

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In an effort to combat Britain's chronic teacher shortage, a London primary school has turned to an unlikely source of help to teach its pupils English. Russians.
 To add to an already international staff from Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America, Gloucester Primary School in Peckham, south London, has recruited a trio of experienced St. Petersburg women to teach the British national curriculum, which includes the subjects of English, mathematics, science and physical education. 
 Yulia Tanina, Irina Leontyeva and Yelena Loktionova are to start at the multi-ethnic 900-pupil school at the beginning of the academic year in September. And while Gloucester Primary - described by its head teacher, John Mann, as "one of the most challenging schools in London in one of the most challenging areas" - may seem a far cry from anything St. Petersburg's education system has to offer, few doubt that the Russians will cope.
 "I have every faith that they will be able to adapt without problems," said Leonid Romankov, head of the Legislative Assembly's education committee, in an interview last week. Education Minister Vladimir Filippov was just as positive. "This proves yet again how well we train our specialists," he said in an interview with the newspaper Izvestia.
 But Filippov also sounded a warning that Russia may lose more of its well-trained teachers. "I do think there is some danger that young teachers who speak foreign languages will leave Russia ... and it is now extremely important that we raise the prestige of the teaching profession, not least by raising their salaries."
 Mann was unapologetic about poaching in Russia. "I need a professional staff that's going to stay with me and bring ability and dedication to the job - and the Eastern European teachers I've already got do that." On the staff of Gloucester Primary are a Bulgarian and a Yugoslav, who have been there for four and seven years respectively.
 "There is a huge recruitment problem in the U.K., up to 40,000 teaching jobs that need taking. I had nine places to fill and I had to do something about it."
 The three Russians - who will be joined by five Bulgarians hired by Mann - will earn Pound17,300 ($24,500) a year, well above the absolute maximum salary they could hope for in a Russian state-run school, which is about $600. They will also also get an additional $4,250 allowance in recognition of London's high prices. Although the British capital's high cost of living is one of the main reasons why the city is experiencing a teacher shortage, Mann says it won't take the new teachers long to increase their salaries - in one case, perhaps up to $42,000 in a few months.
 He is also taking three more teachers whom he doesn't need, optimistic that he will be able to interest other schools in London in his experiment, and find them placements, as well.
 However, Tanina, Leontyeva and Loktionova, who beat off competition from approximately 90 candidates, stress that they are mainly coming for the adventure. "When I saw the advertisement for the job, I went for it because I wanted to work abroad, anywhere abroad," says Tanina, who has nine years' teaching experience, although she was working as an administrator for a construction company when she applied.
 None of them seem fazed by the prospect of a multi-ethnic primary school in Peckham, although they have all been asked by journalists if they are scared about working in "one of the most criminalized areas of London," with one television interviewer wanting to know why they were going to go and actually "teach criminals."
 "The language will be the biggest problem," said Tanina, "rather than discipline. My first year of teaching was difficult, but after that it was fine." While one would never mistake them for native speakers, the Russians speak good, natural English, and it will probably take little time before they are fluent.
 Nor can it be said, however, that they would have done anything to get out of teaching in St. Petersburg. "I think teachers here are satisfied with everything except the salary," said Leontyeva. "We don't live well, but we are able to survive. The government could do more to help us - we will never have a luxurious life, but we should be able to have a decent one."
 Sergei Gorsky, head teacher atSchool No. 510 located in the south of St. Petersburg, said that if any of his staff wanted to go abroad to work, he would be very unwilling to give them up - particularly since this city is also suffering from a teacher shortage. 
 "My teachers are irreplaceable, and I'd be afraid that if they went abroad they wouldn't come back," he said in an interview on Friday.
 But both he and Romankov said that poor pay was a major factor in alienating people from the profession. To top up their budgets, Russian state schools have to rely on donations from the personal reserve funds of local politicians, and appealing to parents, whose money went into much of the interior repair work done at school No. 510.
 Gorsky added that money was a constant worry for his school. "Before 1991, we got more or less everything we wanted," he said. "Money from the St. Petersburg budget was practically unlimited. Now, although education gets 19 percent of the city budget, which is a good chunk, it's only enough to pay salaries and some utilities. Today only 30 out of 550 of our children get free school meals, and we frequently have our gas and lights turned off - mostly during or just before the holidays, mercifully."
 The Russian trio leaves these problems behind to face the unfamiliar challenge of adjusting to a new curriculum and new ways of teaching. After a two-week training course in Bulgaria, they will fly on to London for another fortnight of acclimatization.
 "We will show them how we teach [at Gloucester Primary], the idea behind our class organization, as well as behavior management," said Bob Worth, the deputy head of the London school. "Our fundamental philosophy is that children make choices, whereas the Russians are probably more used to being the leader within their own classroom."
 Mann said he foresaw few problems. "In reality, they have a broad capability and will have very little trouble," he said. "We are putting a great deal of effort into looking after this group of teachers, developing them and raising their salaries."
 "They certainly are very able people - I've not interviewed a group like that in 12 years as a head teacher. I know I've done the right thing, and I feel privileged to be able to employ them."

TITLE: Russia, Jews Topic of Solzhenitsyn's Book
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr. 

TEXT: Daring a foray into one of the most explosive areas of Russian history and identity - the so-called Jewish issue - Nobel Prize-winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Tuesday released a new book reflecting 10 years of painstaking research.
 The 500-page work, published by Russky Put and edited by Solzhenitsyn's wife, is the first book of a two-volume study called "Two Hundred Years Together. 1795-1995." It explores the history of Russian-Jewish coexistence and conflict from 1795 - when about a million Jews became subjects of the Russian empire as a result of the partition of Poland - until the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, in which Jews played a crucial role.
 While much of Solzhenitsyn's fictionaddresses historical themes, the new book is a strictly scholarly work and features a staggering 1,600 footnotes.
 In his preface, Solzhenitsyn says he undertook the project with the aim of producing an objective, balanced study that could be understood by both Russians and Jews.
 "I would be glad not to test my strength, especially on such a sensitive topic," he writes. "But I believe this history, an attempt to examine it, should not remain 'forbidden.' It is like walking on the razor's edge. On both sides you feel possible, impossible and evergrowing rebukes and accusations."
 He called the book a "search for all points of common understanding and all possible paths into the future, which would be cleansed of the bitterness of the past."
 In an interview in last week's issue of Moskovskiye Novosti, Solzhenitsyn, 82, rejected past accusations of anti-Semitism. He also said he began the book in 1990 as a spin-off from "Red Wheel," his historical novel on the Revolution. He said that he could not address the idea that the Revolution was caused by destabilizing "Jewish intervention" - an idea widespread among Russian nationalists - because he would not have been able to explore the broader issue of Russian-Jewish relations.
 In the book, Solzhenitsyn attempts to critically examine the stereotypical - and in his view oversimplified - scheme that in tsarist Russia Jews were persecuted, during the Revolution they were allowed to flourish, and after World War II they were persecuted again.
 Solzhenitsyn said in the interview that he made a number of "discoveries" while doing his research - such as the role of the People's Will revolutionary terrorists in igniting Jewish pogroms in the late 19th century or Jewish assistance to the tsarist army during Russia's war against Napoleon in 1812-14.
 While saying the role of Jews in history remains an "enigma" that cannot be fully grasped by the human mind, Solzhenitsyn nonetheless singled out the theory that Jews "are sent [by God] as a catalyst of public life."
 Viktor Moskvin, director of Russky Put, said the second volume, which covers the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, is still in the works and could not say when it would be printed. He said the first book's print run exceeded 10,000 copies but was less than 100,000.

TITLE: Putin Hosts Austria's Klestil in St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin and Austrian President Thomas Klestil, who arrived in St. Petersburg with their wives for a two-day visit on June 23, described themselves as satisfied with the results of their meeting and the relationship between their countries, Interfax reported.
 At a press conference on June 24, Putin said that Russia and Austria "are big countries from the point of view of the valuable contributions to world history and culture they both have made."
 Putin also told journalists that during the visit the two presidents held long talks about relations between the countries and about the future of European integration.
 The presidents and their wives toured the State Hermitage Museum on Saturday, guided by Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky, who conducted the tour in German.
 Later on, the delegation travelled to Peterhof to celebrate the peak of White Nights.
 On Sunday, Klestil and his wife visited the State Russian Museum and St. Isaac's Cathedral.
 President Klestil met Governor Vladimir Yakovlev on Sunday to discuss the development of cultural and economic collaboration.
 According to Interfax, there has been a slight decrease of trade volume between Austria and St. Petersburg in recent years. In 1997, $31.4 million in goods changed hands, while in 2000, the figure was just $27.5 million.
 Yakovlev also discussed the preparations for the city's tricentennial in 2003 with Klestil.
 The Austrian leader also participated in the opening ceremony of the local office of Austria's Raiffeisen Bank. President Putin said that this event is "a good sign for the business world of St. Petersburg," according to Interfax.

TITLE: Prince To Show the 'Real' Russia
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Prince Michael of Kent fulfilled a promise that he made in April by bringing a group of British journalists to Russia this weekend in order to let them see for themselves what is happening here.
 "I wanted to give the opportunity to journalists to come with me, to be able to see the great difference of the life in this country," Prince Michael said at a round-table on Internet development at the St. Petersburg Internet Education Federation on Saturday.
 "I want to show them the music, the culture, the education, the whole feel of the country, but especially the very positive aspects of its life, and that is something that doesn't come through enough in England," he said.
 The prince will take the group of about 15 journalists to Murmansk, Yekaterinburg and Nefteyugansk, in addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg. 
 Prince Michael - who is the cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and the grand-nephew of the last Russian tsar, Nicolas II - is known for his warm attitude toward Russia. He visits regularly on numerous charity and business projects, and also speaks some Russian. 
 "He sees it [Russia] as his second home. He feels at home here," said Stephen Robinson, foreign editor from The Daily Telegraph, one of the journalists travelling with the prince.
 "We are interested in what Russia is really like," said Katherine Bersen, a journalist from America Online, adding that she is just discovering Russia and doesn't really have to change her mind about the country.
 "Maybe some of us, the older ones who have former perceptions of Russia, need to change their minds, but for me it's new," she said.
 Robinson said that he considers the coverage of Russia in his newspaper to be good.
 "I think that people, countries, politicians or businessmen of some countries often think that the international press has too much negative coverage of the country. In the case of Russia, I don't think it's negative. We do report the problems that there are here. It would be ridiculous not to have problems in Russia 10 years after such big changes," he said.
 Michael Binyon, a senior writer from The Times who used to report from Russia, said that Russia is one of the major stories in international journalism today.
 "Every big newspaper has its correspondent in Moscow, and I think we report not only the negative things but also its progress and other interesting things," Binyon said.
 While in St. Petersburg, Prince Michael and the journalists met with Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, Northwest District Governor Viktor Cherkesov and representatives of Menatep-St. Petersburg Bank.
 "Our first impression [of Russia] was Moscow, which is not as nice as St. Petersburg," commented Simon Heffek, a reporter with The Daily Mail. "This city is very beautiful."

TITLE: Customs Terminal Head Assassinated
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Vitold Kaidanovich, the general director of the Northwest Customs Terminal, was shot to death on Monday morning in his car as he pulled out of his driveway on the elite residential area of Kamenny Ostrov
 "An investigation has been launched, but it is too early to draw any conclusions," said Gennady Ryabov, City Prosecutor Ivan Sydorukh's senior spokesperson. 
 "Kaidanovich was pulling out of his driveway. When the electric gates in front opened up, the killer was ready for him outside and shot him three times with a TT pistol through the side window. The car continued to roll and hit a tree in front of house number 23 on Prospect Dinamo."
 According to police, the crime was reported at 9:25 a.m. Kaidanovich, a prominent local businessman, was 42 years old.
 The Northwest Customs Terminal is a private warehouse in which imported goods are stored while they await customs clearance.
 Dmitry Kopka, a spokesperson for the Northwest Customs Administration, said that, "the Northwest Customs Terminal could be called a structure close to the State Customs Committee, but nevertheless, it is not a state organization."
 It is, in fact, a closed joint-stock company, which means it is not obliged to devulge its financial figures publicly or hold open shareholders' meetings.
 Lev Savulkin, an analyst at the independent Leontief Center, said that the murder may have been connected with the Northwest Customs Terminal. "These terminals store goods that haven't been dutied, and the customs officers may have contracts with the storage facilities, which are in fact bribes - not to let some goods through so that they have to be stored at the terminal. Somebody could lose a lot of money that way and they could get angry."
 Kaidanovich also owned a 5-percent stake in the textile factory Severny Tekstil, which he purchased from the Federal Property Fund in the summer of 1999.

TITLE: District 209 Heading to Polls Again
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Central Elections Commission announced on Friday that the second special election to fill the city's 209th electoral district will be held on Oct. 14, the daily newspaper Izvestia reported.
 The seat was vacated by Sergei Stepashin when he was picked to head the State Duma's Central Audit Chamber last year.
 On Monday, Interfax reported that the Kremlin-backed Unity Party and the Fatherland Party had entered into negotiations to combine their tickets for the election. Unity's and Fatherland's respective representatives for the St. Petersburg region, Alexander Mikhailushkin and Lev Karlin, made the announcement at a joint press conference, and added that the Union of Right Forces' representative would also be included in the negotiations.
 The first special election, which was poorly publicized, failed to produce the minimum voter turnout required by law - 25 percent - and was thus ruled invalid. Both St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and Northwest District Governor Viktor Cherkesov committed themselves to get-out-the-vote drives, hoping to make the second special election conclusive.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Air All Clear
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The State Sanitary-Epidemiological Inspectorate reported that the concentration of chemicals in the air surrounding the Tekhnolog plant "does not exceed allowable norms," Interfax reported Saturday.
 One woman was killed and nine rescue workers injured as a result of an explosion at the factory on Wednesday. The blast destroyed a vat containing 200 kilograms of nitric acid, releasing a toxic cloud into the surrounding area. No residents were evacuated and the authorities say there is no danger to the public.
 The Sanitary-Epidemiologial Inspectorate has announced that it will continue to monitor the area until "the complete liquidation of the traces of the accident, and until the site receives an official certification of safety," according to Interfax.
 
 
Down on the Farm
 

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush spent some "quality time" at his central Texas ranch on Friday as White House aides sized it up for a September summit with President Vladimir Putin. 
 Coming off his first trip to Europe since taking office and heading into a round of meetings with other international leaders next week, Bush went to his 647-hectare Prairie Chapel ranch for three days of rest and recreation. 
 After their summit in Slovenia, Bush said he found Putin to be a straightforward, honest man and invited him to visit his Texas home. Putin accepted Bush's invitation to come in September. A specific date has not been set.
 
 
Minsk Holds American
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Belarus authorities have arrested the American director of a U.S. student exchange program on charges of marijuana use and possession, the country's security services said on Friday.
 Charles Periello, 40, director of the Belarussian branch of the American Council for Collaboration in Education and Language Study, was arrested Thursday night "while using drugs" in his apartment in Minsk, Belarus KGB spokesperson Fyodor Kotov said. He said authorities raided Periello's residence on a tip that a drug user occupied the apartment.
 "It turned out to be Mr. Periello, and the apartment was his, and the marijuana was his," Kotov said. Periello is being held in a detention prison in Minsk. 
 David Patton, the U.S. program's regional director for the Newly Independent States, said he was in close contact with the U.S. Embassy in Minsk and was doing "everything possible to find out the details and secure his [Periello's] release."
 "We have been working in the region for 26 years, and this is the first time something like this has happened to us," Patton said. He added that he was unaware of Periello using marijuana in the three years that he has known him.
 
 
Army Base Blaze
 

MOSCOW (AP) - A bolt of lightning ignited container cars full of ammunition at a military base in Siberia on Friday, prompting a barrage of explosions and a fire, officials said. No casualties were reported in the incident in the Chita region. 
 More than 10,000 people living on the base and the nearby villages of Nerchinsk, Zarechny and Nagorny were evacuated when the explosions started, Itar-Tass reported. Officials said explosions continued into Saturday.
 Valery Shcheblanin, a spokesperson for the local military district, said on NTV television on Saturday evening that the fire was out but cleanup workers could not yet move into the area for fear of more explosions in the ashes. 



TITLE: Pope Prays for Ukraine's Victims
AUTHOR: By Victor L. Simpson 

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV - Touching on painful memories, Pope John Paul II paid tribute Sunday to Ukrainian Christians persecuted during the "dark times of the communist terror" and Jews murdered by the Nazis. 
 "Land of Ukraine, drenched with the blood of martyrs, thank you for the example of fidelity to the Gospel, which you have given to Christians the world over," John Paul said during his first Mass on Ukrainian soil. 
 The pope invited the leaders of Ukrainian religious denominations to a meeting, which the Moscow-linked majority Orthodox Church pointedly skipped. But the leader of a splinter Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Filaret, showed up. 
 "We hope that your visit will contribute to the development of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue and not a deepening of the rift, as Moscow thinks," Filaret said. 
 The pope also spoke of the memorial at Babi Yar, a ravine in Kiev where up to 200,000 Jews and others were shot and killed by the Nazis. He called the massacre "one of the most atrocious of the many crimes" of the 20th century. 
 "May the memory of this episode, a murderous frenzy, be a salutary warning to all," the pope said ahead of a visit to Babi Yar on Monday. 
 After his meeting with the church leaders, the pope traveled to the site of another atrocity of the century: the mass graves of up to 200,000 Ukrainians who were killed in Kiev jails between 1929 and 1941. He stood in prayer for two minutes before a 6-meter bronze cross. 
 Yellow ribbons around tree trunks mark the spots in the Bykivnia Woods where the victims' bodies were dumped. On some trees, simple wooden plaques list victims' names and carry such messages as "You are Stalinist hangmen." 
 Arthur Lukovski, of Dyer, Indiana, learned two days ago that the pope would be coming to the woods, and flew to Kiev because his father is presumed to have been buried in Bykivnia. 
 He was 9 years old when his father, Joseph, was taken away in Kiev, and only after then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev decided to open the files in 1989 did he learn of his father's fate. He died at the hands of the Communist secret police. "I still today cry - 9 years old, and bandits took my father," Lukovski said, weeping as he told the story. 
 Although the pope's overtures to the leaders of the main Orthodox Church in Ukraine have been ignored, the Vatican expressed delight that a number of Orthodox attended the pope's Mass on Sunday morning. The service was held on a rain-swept, grassy airfield 16 kilometers outside the capital. 
 "We are here because God is one and we love God," said Valentyna Checkan, from the town of Teteriv near Kiev. "Every nation has its own ceremonies, but the priests are the same." 
 The church had expected that the Mass, celebrated in the Western rite, would draw as many as 350,000 people. However, organizers said just 20,000 to 30,000 showed up. Kiev police estimated that some 150,000 had turned out, according to papal spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls. 
 Amid a sea of umbrellas, worshipers held up cloth banners imploring the pope to "Strengthen Our Faith" and "Bless Ukraine." Others held up their national flags, from Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Belarus and other countries and one group hoisted a banner reading "Greetings From Siberia." 
 Navarro-Valls said John Paul's visit to Ukraine was the fulfillment of a dream and that he has not given up his hopes for visiting Russia one day. 
 The pope kicked off the five-day visit Saturday by declaring, "I come in love," upon his arrival in Kiev.
 Responding to frequent complaints from Moscow that the Vatican is seeking to extend its influence in traditional Orthodox lands, John Paul issued assurances that, "I have not come here with the intention of proselytizing." 
 Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma welcomed the pope at the airport, clasping his hands and holding him by the elbow as he walked slowly to the covered podium in front of the airport building.
 The pope flew from Rome following days of street demonstrations in Kiev and condemnations of the visit by the Moscow Patriarchate, the main branch of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. "We hope [the visit] will not stop the improvement of our relationship. But that could happen," Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II warned during a visit Saturday to Belarus. 
 The pope visited the western Catholic stronghold Lviv on Monday. He will on Wednesday beatify 28 Ukrainians, most of them priests tortured by the communists.

TITLE: Russian Jets Evade Swiss Firm's Grasp at Air Show
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two Russian jets flew away from an attempted seizure by French officials at the Paris Air Show on Friday.
 The airplanes, an Su-30 fighter and a MiG/AT trainer, streaked into the sky to avoid being seized by a French Justice Ministry bailiff trying to enforce a French court ruling in favor of Swiss trading firm Noga, which claims the Russian government owes it $495 million.
 "[Noga] tried to swallow too much at once," Sergei Gorbunov, spokesperson for the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, or Rosaviakosmos, said in a telephone interview from Le Bourget, where the show was held. Rosaviakosmos supervised the 90 or so Russian companies represented at the show, which ended Sunday.
 Gorbunov said the two planes left Paris "owing to technical reasons," though they were scheduled to participate in demonstration flights Saturday and Sunday.
 The Su-30 and MiG/AT are priced at $35 million and $12 million, respectively.
 Noga lawyer Christopher Ayela, from the Paris-based firm Stasi and Partners, said that the planes left the small airport in Le Bourget despite the bailiff's order to the control tower prohibiting them from doing so. Ayela said the bailiff was trying to impound the planes in accordance with a May ruling by the Paris court of appeals in favor of Noga.
 The verdict was the latest in a series of legal actions taken by Noga against the Russian Federation that have resulted in the confiscation of a boat and the freezing of the French bank accounts of both the Central Bank and the Russian Embassy in Paris, decisions that were eventually overturned.
 Until late last year, Noga chief Nessim Gaon maintained that the Russian government owed his company $63 million from oil-for-food barter deals signed in 1991 and 1992. The government stopped paying Noga in 1993, but an international arbitration court in Stockholm, Sweden, ruled against it in 1997.
 Last November, Noga submitted a revised list of claims to a court in New York that totaled $495 million. However, Ayela said that as of last month Noga was willing to settle for $100 million.
 Ayela failed to identify exactly which Russian official or representative was served the injunction Friday.
 "Whoever showed up [at the Russian exposition] showed no documents," Gorbunov said. "We were not obliged even to listen to what they had to say."
 Whoever let the two planes leave violated the court order and will be sued by Stasi and Partners for "facilitating the departure of the arrested planes," Ayela said. He refused to say whether or not other attempts to seize Russian hardware would be made.
 Ayela said his firm had tried to seize the Su-30MK and the MiG/AT because it believed the two aircraft belonged to the Defense Ministry. In reality, however, the Su-30MK is owned by the Sukhoi Design Bureau, a joint-stock company that is 51 percent owned by the Russian government. The MiG/AT was designed by the state-owned Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG's Mikoyan Design Bureau, but it is legally a joint project with several French firms.
 Officials from both MiG and Sukhoi said they were outraged by Noga's actions, with a Sukhoi spokesperson saying seizing the Su-30 could have resulted in the theft by spies of valuable technologies.
 Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov described the attempted seizure as "another provocation by Noga," and called on the French government to help resolve the issue.
 Interfax quoted "a senior Moscow-based political source" as saying that the action might cloud French President Jacques Chirac's scheduled visit to Russia next month. Chirac visited the Russian exposition at Le Bourget earlier this week and personally inspected the Su-30MK.
 Last year's seizure of the sailing vessel Sedov exacerbated the already-tense relations between Moscow and Paris and was cited as the reason President Vladimir Putin did not meet with his French counterpart during the Group of Seven summit in Okinawa, Japan.
 Deputy Primer Minister Ilya Klebanov, who led Chirac on a tour of the Russian part of the exhibition, accused Noga and its president of trying to spoil relations between Russian and France.

TITLE: Deputies Face Fallout From Nuclear Vote
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: By an overwhelming margin earlier this month, the State Duma approved the third reading of controversial amendments to the law on Environmental Protection that would permit the import of nuclear waste for reprocessing. The Kremlin and the Nuclear Power Ministry have lobbied actively for the plan, which they say will bring Russia as much as $20 billion over 10 years.
 However, public opinion has run sharply against the project. Polls over the last year have consistently shown that about 90 percent of Russians oppose the plan. A national survey conducted by the ROMIR independent research center last November, for instance, found 93 percent opposed. 
 After Greenpeace released a similar poll in May, Alexei Yablokov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a leading anti-nuclear activist, commented on the effect of public opposition. "I think it will make the deputies think [twice] about passing this law," he said, according to The Associated Press.
 The Nuclear Power Ministry, however, has countered the opposition with a plan that is primarily financed by the West in order "to eliminate one of the most important, life-saving branches of the Russian economy," according to a brochure the ministry distributed in the Duma in May. 
 "We feel we must state openly and unequivocally that most talk about saving the Russian environment is an attempt to misinform the Russian public and is based on lies and garbled facts, often bordering on anti-scientific raving," the brochure states. "They have lied openly about broken down nuclear containers, nuclear waste dumps, polluted drinking water, and human mutants. They have warned of hundreds of Chernobyls."
 Most of St. Petersburg's single-mandate deputies voted against the plan, perhaps indicating a greater responsiveness to public opinion than is found among party-list deputies. Five out of the eight local single-mandate deputies voted against the plan in the third reading, while one supported it, one abstained and one did not vote (<i>see box</i>).
 Local deputies who were elected according to party lists, however, showed considerably greater support for the proposal. Twenty-seven of the 41 party-list deputies voted yes on the third reading, while six voted no, seven did not vote and one abstained. Most of those deputies are affiliated with pro-plan parties including Unity, the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. 
 Konstantin Sevenard, an independent single-mandate deputy from St. Petersburg who abstained from the final vote but voted yes in the first two readings, said that he considered the proposal necessary to finance improvements to the aging nuclear-power infrastructure.
 &quot;Since I used to be the first deputy director of the Northwest Unified Energy System, I very well know what's going on with, for instance, our two nuclear stations in the Leningrad Oblast, as well as all around the country,&quot; he told The St. Petersburg Times. &quot;The fact is that both our stations have already exceeded their operational lives. They urgently need either new construction or closure,&quot; he said.
 &quot;Honestly, I don't see any other source than the billions of dollars which will come from the countries that deliver their nuclear waste here,&quot; Sevenard said.
 However, Sevenard abstained from the final vote because he was uncertain whether the planned revenues would actually be used for this purpose.
 &quot;I'm really worried about the disorganization of the public processes in the country and about the fair distribution of finances within the field,&quot; he said.
 Sevenard said he is particularly dissatisfied because the amendment does not mandate allocations for the construction of new nuclear-power plants.
 Antonina Romanchuk, a local party-list deputy from Unity, voted for the amendment, also citing the need to find financing for the nuclear-power sector. Asked whether she had taken public opinion into account, Romanchuk said the issue was too complicated for the general public to understand.
 &quot;It was difficult even for those of us with access to the many documents and papers on the topic to clarify this difficult question. I think that most people just do not know the problem well, and they are motivated only by the fear of something they don't know,&quot; she said in a telephone interview last week.
 Deputies who opposed the bill generally said that they did so because of fears that the money would squandered or stolen. Igor Artemyev, a party-list deputy from Yabloko, opposed the bill, as did his entire faction. 
 &quot;What kind of economic profit and way out for the Russian energy system can we talk about under the conditions of such total corruption and gigantic financial scandals?&quot; Artemyev said. &quot;It will be another big manger for people lobbying this. Besides, everybody knows that appearance of such nuclear waste is immediately followed by the appearance of international mafia.&quot;
 Alexander Shishlov, another Yabloko party-list deputy, said the proposal is potentially dangerous for the environment.
 &quot;Even known scientists stand up against such imports,&quot; he said.
 Oksana Dmitriyeva, a single-mandate deputy from Fatherland, said before the voting started that she would definitely oppose the measure, citing the lack of security at all stages of the process and predicting a potentially high number of illegal deals.
 &quot;I'm not even going to get into the financial side of all this,&quot; Dmitriyeva said. &quot;What Russia is doing with its own spent fuel is an example of mismanagement.&quot;
 Meanwhile, a national ROMIR poll conducted in April shows that more than three-quarters of Russian voters will not vote for deputies, parties or factions that supported the importing plan during the next election. In the northwest region, only 0.5 percent of those surveyed said that they would vote for parties that favored the bill.
 &quot;This research shows that Russia may face serious a parliamentary crisis in the future since many deputies may not be re-elected,&quot; said Yelena Surovikina of Greenpeace.

TITLE: Agreement Signed on Compensation for Former Nazi Slaves
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: German and Russian foundations signed an agreement on Friday in Berlin to distribute 835 million Deutsche marks ($366 million) in compensation to an estimated 350,000 former slave workers for the Third Reich in the former Soviet Union.
 The payments, part of 10 billion marks ($4.37 billion) that Germany last year agreed to give survivors of Nazi slavery, will start being disbursed in July, said Hans Otto Br&auml;tigam, a member of the board of directors of the German foundation.
 Soviet citizens who were held in ghettos or prison camps are entitled to 15,000 marks each, and those who were forced to work are entitled to up to 5,000 marks. The bill is being footed by German corporations and taxpayers.
 Foundations in Poland and the Czech Republic and one for Jewish claimants received their first payments from Germany last week, but the agreement on the Russia payout was delayed by administrative changes at the Russian foundation. The payments became possible only after U.S. courts dismissed class actions brought on behalf of Nazi victims against German firms over their use of slave labor. Austrian firms are still waiting for all such suits to be dismissed.
 Representatives of Russia's foundation are also waiting to begin distributing funds from the Austrian Reconciliation Foundation totaling 725 million Austrian schillings ($45 million) for up to 25,000 Nazi victims. The Austrian foundation cannot disperse funds while class actions are pending in the United States.
 Applications for the Austrian money close on Nov. 22, 2002.
 Applications for compensation from Germany are set to close Aug. 11, but Br&auml;tigam said he believed the deadline would be extended.

TITLE: A Telegram Remembered 85 Years Later
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth Wolfe

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A secret telegram in the fall of 1916 from Russia's ambassador in London to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow assured that the newly created Russo-British Chamber of Commerce (RBCC) would be endowed &quot;with an image of professionalism, solidity and prestige.&quot;
 Written in French - the language of the Russian court - and approved by his imperial majesty Nicholas II, the document reveals the urgency felt by the creators of the partnership 85 years ago.
 &quot;It was of paramount importance to avoid the deep embarrassment of witnessing the birth of another institution which would act independently and misguide English trade, as has happened in the past,&quot; wrote Ambassador A.K. Benckendorff.
 Unfortunately for members, a revolution the following year derailed plans for fostering trade between the two countries. Cannon fire and the rise to power of Vladimir Lenin quickly overshadowed debates over chicken feed.
 The chamber survived and picked up again in the 1920s, albeit under a noticeably noncommercial Soviet regime. It wasn't until the 1980s that it could foster true business-to-business contacts and not merely be a go-between for British companies and the Ministry of Foreign Trade, with its office in Moscow opening in 1987.
 And the organization is still here 85 years later, with 500-plus members, Russian and British, and with the same name, although this hasn't always been the case. In 1975 the name was changed to the British-Soviet Chamber of Commerce and then, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was changed again to the less inaccurate but equally meaningless acronym BSCC.
 Using its 85th anniversary as a celebratory excuse to bring together business and government leaders, the RBCC held a daylong event in Moscow (there is no separate St. Petersburg chapter) last week to wax on the theme, &quot;Russia: A Focus for Foreign Investment?&quot;
 More debate than conference, the day saw friendly fire exchanged over whether government fosters or hinders domestic and foreign investment in industry and business. And whether Russia - businesses and government - even wants foreign investment.
 In the enormous atrium of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, a small business owner from Rostov-na-Donu stood up to ask Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin why he must obtain dozens of different documents just to fish.
 Some things never change. Ralph Land, chairman of the RBCC executive council, recalled that, when he worked for Xerox two decades ago, he was required to get permission from 15 separate entities and the signature of a deputy prime minister before he could import a copying machine. Users had to be KGB approved for fear they might churn out <i>samizdat</i>.
 Foreign trade officials could not sign an order to buy British goods until there was enough convertible currency available from the Finance Ministry and Gosbank. In lieu of that, British companies were sometimes offered barter deals. Land, who has done business in the Soviet Union and Russia since 1972, once had to turn down untrained falcons and moose skins offered as payment.
 RBCC president Norman Wooding said that the chosen topic of debate could not have been more appropriate.
 &quot;The time is absolutely right to create new momentum for new investment into Russia,&quot; said Wooding, president since 1988.
 The morning was filled with three jointly held sessions on corporate governance; the government's role in attracting investment; and a session titled &quot;Money to the Wind?&quot; about development of the financial sector.
 The afternoon was taken up by a debate facilitated by BBC correspondent Tim Sebastian, with panelists Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko faction in the State Duma, arguing with Gazprom financial director Sergei Dubinin over whether government actually wants foreign investment.
 Yavlinsky disagreed in an interview that it does: &quot;The Russian people, yes. The government, it doesn't care because there are no incentives.&quot;
 While some said they saw no grounds for optimism, others tipped their hats to the Putin administration's reform efforts - judicial, tax, pension and land.
 Still others called for no change at all, saying that what's really needed is consistent rules of the game.
 &quot;Probably the best situation is when businesspeople do not need any assistance from the government, except stability - understanding and stability,&quot; said Irina Kibina, vice president of corporate affairs at Sun Interbrew.
 &quot;For [the beer] market, the best recipe should be not to change anything,&quot; she said.
 About easing the bureaucracy, British Ambassador to Russia Sir Roderic Lyne summed up the concerns of many investors by asking, &quot;The intention is good - are we going to see the action?&quot;
 The day was broadcast live on the Internet, allowing people to send in their questions. One anonymous inquiry, directed at Kudrin, asked why the government was foot-dragging on introducing international accounting standards. Kudrin said that it takes time to prepare and train accountants and that a new system will be in place by 2003.
 Last year Russia saw $2.7 billion in foreign investment, 20 percent less than in 1999, according to the International Monetary Fund.
 Direct foreign investment rose 11 percent year-on-year to $900 million in the first quarter of the year, according to the State Statistics Committee. With investments of more than $800 million in 2000, Britain is the fifth-largest investor in the Russian economy, the RBCC said.
 While exact figures for British direct investment in the Northwest region are unavailable, Paul O'Connor, British deputy head of mission, consul (commercial) in St. Petersburg, says that there are 80 companies from Great Britain doing business in the region, some of them with significant levels of investment.
 &quot;The three biggest are the Unilever factory, located in the south of the city, Cadbury, which is located in Chukovo, in the Novgorod Oblast and British American Tobacco,&quot; O'Connor said. &quot;Although I can't put an exact figure on it, we're looking at about $100 million in all three cases.&quot;
 Corporate governance was one reason touted as deterring foreign investment. One foreign lawyer advised potential investors that quick money was impossible: &quot;If you want to take the long-term view, then Russia is for you.&quot;

TITLE: Interros and Alfa Fight For Oil Co. Drags On
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Another deadline has come and gone with no resolution to an 18-month battle between two of Russia's most powerful conglomerates for control of a prized oil producer, prompting accusations of deception and threats of legal action.
 Vladimir Potanin's Interros group, which includes oil major Sidanko, has been battling Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, 50 percent owner of rival Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, for the return of Chernogorneft since TNK wrested it away in a bankruptcy auction in November 1999.
 A month later, TNK struck a deal with three main Sidanko shareholders - Interros, Kantupan and BP Amoco - to return Chernogorneft in exchange for a blocking stake in the holding. But the negotiations have dragged on ever since and Sidanko set June 22 as a deadline for Chernogor neft's return.
 &quot;Alfa/TNK continue their pattern of deception when they profess to remain committed to returning Chernogorneft to Sidanko on commercial terms agreed during 18 months of negotiations,&quot; said Interros spokesperson Larisa Zelkova late Friday.
 Chernogorneft produces 7 million tons of oil a year, an equivalent of some 140,000 barrels per day, and has been estimated to be worth as much as $2 billion. 
 &quot;For the last 18 months, the Alfa Group has sought to create the impression that it would honor the 1999 agreement,&quot; said Todd Shafer, partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP, legal advisers to Interros.
 TNK, however, may no longer be willing to negotiate with Potanin, although it may hand over Chernogorneft to Sidanko to save a deal it has with British Petroleum. &quot;Our main counterparty is British Petroleum,&quot; said a source close to TNK. &quot;Tyumen Oil will react if any statements follow on their part.&quot;
 For its part, BP is trying to keep its hands clean in an increasingly public fight. &quot;We want both Interros and Alfa to sign the agreement,&quot; said Ian Stewart, spokesperson for British Petroleum in London, on Monday.
 Sidanko's shareholders are &quot;actively considering&quot; further action against TNK, according to sources close to the talks.
 From the beginning, Alfa has been opposed to the deal, but it eventually agreed after BP reportedly offered a broader strategic partnership with TNK.
 In the summer of 2000, a version of the agreement was drafted that called for BP to undertake a multi-year commitment to run Sidanko, according to a source close to the talks. And while BP still has something to offer TNK, Interros will clearly end up on the sidelines as a result of TNK's recent acquisition of Kantupan's 40 percent stake in Sidanko, which, together with the blocking stake it will get for returning Chernogorneft, would make it the main shareholder.

TITLE: Defense Industry Merger To Create Major Holding
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The makers of Russia's two best-selling air-defense systems will unveil a merger plan this week in what experts say is an attempt to prevent the government from establishing an even larger holding that would include their arch-rival.
 Top officials at the Almaz Central Design Bureau and Concern Antei on Wednesday will announce the creation of what is tentatively being called Air Defense Concern, sources at both of the Moscow-based companies said Monday. 
 Almaz has designed and integrated S-300PMU systems, while Antei is best known for developing and manufacturing the S-300V and shorter-range Tor-M1 systems. Both have been transformed into joint stock companies, but are still controlled by the government.
 Both sides said they have no plans to invite Oboronitelniye Systemy, or Defense Systems, a rival that unites the designer of S-300PMU's missiles - Fakel - with the Avangard plant where these systems undergo final assembly. Almaz, however, said it would like to include both the Fakel design bureau and Avangard, thus, stripping Oboro ni telniye Systemy of its key assets.
 &quot;Oboronitelniye Systemy acts as a mediator that one doesn't need,&quot; one Antei official said Monday. 
 The official, who asked not to be named, said it would take Almaz and Antei two to three years to unite and projected that the planned holding will sell up to $1 billion worth of air defense systems, parts and upgrades annually.
 The merged company - which would be under state control and be able to exports its systems independently, as Antei presently does - can begin this year, said Vla di mir Simonov, chief of the Agency of Control Systems, which supervises the air defense industry.
 An air defense industry source said the government would probably decide to invite Oboronitelniye Systemy into the planned concern, even though the company is not controlled by the state. Oboronitelniye Systemy plans to emit new shares and hand them over to the federal government, although it remains unclear when, one official at the company said.
 &quot;We support the formation of this concern and we will be entering it,&quot; said Igor Meshchan, spokesman for Oboronitelniye Systemy, which is presently forming a Russian-Belarussian air defense group and has invited Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov to be co-chairman.

TITLE: Reform, But at Whose Expense?
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Matsuk

TEXT: THE consensus is that German Gref, economic development and trade minister, is the main force behind reform in President Vladimir Putin's administration. He and his colleagues will soon delight the nation with a package of reforms that will touch nearly everyone: municipal housing, social security and pensions. Health-care reform is not far behind.
 The basic idea is simple. The population must assume the cost of these programs. One will have to apply for subsidies, and the poor will have to demonstrate their poverty. The assumption is that the prosperous will never stand in line for subsidies, so the additional revenues can be used to help the truly needy. This approach seems reasonable. But anyone who has experienced real life in Russia has a lot of questions. According to data from Gref's ministry, in the first quarter of 2001 there were 54.4 million Russians (one in three!) earning less than $100 a month. Opinion polls show that about 70 percent of the population feel they have suffered as a result of post-Soviet reforms. Given these facts, lines for housing and other subsidies will start forming immediately all over the country.
 Of course people with money won't be there. They will pay to get whatever they want without any bother. I hate to think what will become of the rest of us. My neighbor, a widowed pensioner, already stands in line for three hours to get a document for her rent subsidy. I remember reading that the former first secretary of the Moscow committee of the Communist Party, Viktor Grishin, died of a heart attack while standing in line for his pension.
 How can people holding several temporary jobs to make ends meet demonstrate their poverty? What about people like me, surviving on unpredictable honoraria? Are we going to have to make the rounds for documents every single month? Imagine an artist who sells a painting for $1,000. Who knows when he might sell another. Is he rich or poor? If the whole population is wasting time getting documents, how will we have time to make a living and, God willing, pull ourselves into the middle class? Only thieves and bureaucrats will make money under such a bureaucratized system.
 Our bureaucrats involve themselves in anything involving money or a chance to demonstrate power. I recently applied for my taxpayer identification number. I filled out the form and phoned my local tax office to ask if I could mail it. &quot;You can,&quot; a young man told me helpfully, &quot;but no one will look at it.&quot;
 What will we be paying for? Take communal services. When my building underwent general repairs a few years ago, workers replaced the faucet in my kitchen and destroyed a good square meter of my tiles. They then told me I would have to use the neighbor's toilet for a few days, but if I paid extra they could fix it the next day.
 My 78-year-old neighbor had to lug buckets of water from a neighbor's for more than a month while she waited for a plumber. It took half an hour to fix when he showed up. Municipal workers spent two months last winter replacing the windows in my mother's apartment. In the spring, one would not close - and the dispatcher could not even find a record of the job.
 Pick up any paper in any city inRussia on any day and you will find similar stories. &quot;If you don't want to deal with municipal authorities, form a condominium and your own administration,&quot; says one of our reformers. What are they saying? Most of us don't get to choose our neighbors. With whom should I form a condominium? With the alcoholic on the first floor or with the single mother next door who goes around the building every month asking for 10 rubles to pay her electricity bill? Or maybe with the hooligan upstairs who cursed at me when I tried to have a lock installed at the common entry?
 The present system needs reform, but not this. Instead of taking people's last kopeks, the state should reform itself. Force our bureaucrats to act like public servants rather than cash-sucking ticks. We need to remove the bureaucratic element in the provision of goods and services. Only then will we know who should pay and what we are paying for. But that would mean ousting bureaucrats from their cushy posts. It won't happen soon and it won't be easy.
 
 <i>Tatyana Matsuk is a freelance journalist in Moscow. She contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: All Investors Might Need Is a Place They Can Stay
TEXT: THANK God they're only coming one country at a time.
 Over the last year, St. Petersburg has regularly played host to high-placed foreign dignitaries as President Vladimir Putin has been doing his best to promote his native city and, despite the traffic jams they invariably engender, visits of this type can bear economic fruit for Russia's former capital. Businesses often follow politicians - as was the case this weekend during the visit of Austria's President Thomas Klestil. 
 While Klestil was being entertained by Putin, a delegation of about 70 Austrian businesspeople was meeting with Russian colleagues and city officials. They were encouraged by improvements in the economy, as well as recent changes in their government's policy on state credit guarantees, which are provided provided through Vienna's Oesterreichische Kontrollbank.
 But even given these factors, the risks in Russia may still be perceived as being too, great and Austrian businesses have every right to be wary.
 In the early 1990s, Kreditanstalt Bank Austria lent roughly $100 million to the Nevskij Palace Hotel. This loan has yet to be paid back, though City Hall guaranteed it. Kredistanstalt has since been bought out, but the new owner is still negotiating with Smolny. The lesson: Official guarantees don't always mean you'll get your money back. 
 So the question is this: has this history ruined St. Petersburg's image among international investors? I think the answer is yes. The number of foreigners who have dared to step into the hotel market remains small (the majority of the players still comprise Russian companies, most of which earned their money from other pursuits - construction and distilleries being two examples).
 St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev doesn't seem concerned. Without even blinking, he invited the Austrians to invest in the hotel business here.
 You can't blame him for trying. The city desperately needs new hotels and not only because of dreams of a sea of tourists pouring into town for its 300th anniversary. St. Petersburg's growing international role will be difficult to play without a sufficient number of suitable hotels. St. Petersburg, for example, could not host a G-7 summit for the simple reason that a separate hotel would be needed for each governmental delegation. Unfortunately, there just aren't seven hotels in St. Petersburg that could pass muster.
 But perhaps there's hope. Next weekend Jacques Chirac will be in town. There are a lot of hotel companies in France.
 
 <i>Anna Shcherbakova is the St. Petersburg bureau chief of Vedomosti newspaper. </i>

TITLE: Forex Amendments Open Some, But Not All, Options
AUTHOR: By Igor Gorchakov and James Hitch

TEXT: THE new federal law &quot;On Amendments to the Russian Federation Law 'On Foreign Exchange Regulation and Foreign Exchange Control'&quot; has been signed by President Vladimir Putin and comes into force on July 6, 2001. It introduces important changes to Russia's Foreign Exchange Act of Oct. 9, 1992, which are directed at liberalizing foreign-exchange regulation.
 The law makes significant changes to the procedure for foreign-exchange transactions involving residents of Russia. The most notable new development, in our opinion, the &quot;green light&quot; given to to undertake certain types of foreign-exchange transactions involving the movement of capital, without obtaining any prior special authorization from the Central Bank.
 For example, residents will be allowed to transfer up to $75,000 in foreign currency from Rusia in a calendar year, in order to acquire rights in securities expressed in foreign currency, or to exercise their rights in such securities. This provision is, in fact, the first-ever authorization for residents to purchase foreign securities lawfully and directly. Previously, such acquisitions required the prior authorization of the Central Bank, which was all but impossible to obtain. If foreign securities purchased by a resident are placed and traded only outside of Russia, then the offering prospectuses do not need to be registered with the Russian Federal Securities Commission (as required by Article 16 of the federal law &quot;On the Securities Market&quot;).
 Further, this provision permits foreign companies to give Russian employees the option of buying such foreign companies' shares as part of incentive (bonus) programs, known as stock-option plans.
 In addition, residents and corporate entities will also be allowed to repatriate foreign-exchange proceeds from certain categories of exports, including specific types of machinery, equipment, and vehicles, within three years of the date on which the exports crossed the Russian customs border. Previously, they were obliged to have such proceeds repatriated within 90 days from the date of the shipment. Otherwise, they were obliged to obtain a Central Bank-issued license allowing them a longer period for the repatriation of these proceeds.
 In general, the law represents a positive development in Russian currency- control legislation. However, certain other expected changes, such as the reduction of the amount of foreign currency received from export transactions subject to mandatory sale to the Central Bank from 75 percent to at least 50 percent, were still not covered. One hopes that they will be addressed in subsequent amendments.
 
 <i>James T. Hitch is managing partner and Igor Gorchakov an associate at Baker & McKenzie law firm's St. Petersburg office. </i>

TITLE: Auto Production One Key to Industrial Revival New Breed of Owners Tries To Bury Old Habits
TEXT: Oleg Deripaska says he'll turn the creaking and sputtering Gorky Automobile Factory into a modern, profitable carmaker. He and the other young industrialists who hope to revitalize the aging manufacturing sector have their work cut out for them. </i><strong>Sabrina Tavernise</strong><i><strong> </strong></i><i>of The New York Times reports.
 </i>NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Central Russia - A new sign hangs at the entrance of the Gorky Automobile Factory, one of Russia's biggest carmakers, located 420 kilometers east of Moscow: &quot;The Buyers of Our Cars Pay Our Salaries.&quot;
 At this Soviet-era factory, quality had never been a priority. Nor was profit. The plant has been teetering on the brink of insolvency for years. Its trademark Volga sedan, the limousine of Soviet bureaucrats, has not changed much since the early 1970s, when it was designed.
 Recently, however, Oleg Deripaska, a 33-year-old aluminum magnate, took control of the factory. He says he intends to sort out its tangled finances and make better cars. To start, he put up the sign - a message to the workers to shape up.
 
 <strong>YOUNG INDUSTRIALISTS</strong>
 Deripaska is one of a handful of young businessmen flush with profits from selling oil and other raw materials who have begun a quiet transformation of industries in Russia's heartland. In the last year, they have snapped up companies in previously neglected areas of Russia's economy, including its aging manufacturing sector - carmakers, bus makers, engine producers and a television factory.
 If they are successful in reviving Russia's languishing industrial base, the change would free the country from its dependence on the fickle world commodity markets and perhaps spread the benefits of market reform to the country's depressed rust belt.
 Still, their intentions are far from clear. Past practices of diverting company revenues and bare-knuckled takeovers still leave people here - cynical after a decade of robber-baron capitalism - wondering whether things will be different this time around.
 Analysts say the very fact of these new purchases is a promising sign. Throughout the 1990s - the wild and woolly first decade of privatization - the standard practice was to hide profits in bank accounts offshore. But investing in Russia has become more attractive for owners here. A currency devaluation three years ago made local manufacturing profitable. A stabler political situation under President Vladimir Putin has also helped keep money home.
 &quot;Russian money is going into Russian assets - that's new,&quot; said Roland Nash, chief economist at Renaissance Capital investment bank in Moscow. &quot;It's different from the stealing and rape we saw during the 1990s.&quot;
 As with all those who made their fortunes over the last decade in Russia, notably in aluminum, Deripaska is not without his share of controversy. His reputation in the West took a beating when three little known metals-trading companies filed suit in a federal court last December in New York. The suit accuses Deripaska and some associates of, among other things, using extortion and murder to gain control of a Russian aluminum plant. The suit has drawn much attention internationally; as part of the fallout, Deripaska was denied a visa to the United States.
 He and the other defendants deny the accusations. Last month, they filed motions to dismiss the suit, arguing that it should be transferred to the Russian courts. The real force behind it, they say, is a business rival, who is wanted in Russia on charges of conspiring to murder a leading politician.
 Despite the overseas allegations, in Russia, where garish accusations are routinely traded during business disputes, Deripaska's reputation is relatively clean. And his move to help rescue the car industry is a boon to that public image.
 His company, Siberian Aluminum, paid $300 million for a controlling stake in the Gorky Automobile Factory, known by its Russian acronym, GAZ. He has also been buying other automotive companies and has grand plans for a giant industrywide holding company.
 
 <strong>'YESTERDAY'S CARS'</strong>
 In a country where the average income is modest by Western standards and where there are only 14 cars for every 100 people - less than one-third the share in the West - cheap domestically made cars make a good investment, said Deripaska, sitting at a conference table in his sleek downtown Moscow office building.
 But the auto industry is a mess. Even the government, which counts it among the country's economic priorities, says so. At a meeting with auto company owners early this month in the Kremlin, Putin derided them as producing &quot;yesterday's cars.&quot;
 GAZ, built in 1932 with the help of engineers from Ford Motor Co., has made cars with no eye to market demand. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government continued to provide a steady diet of state subsidies and debt forgiveness in return for promises of eternal employment for the company's more than 100,000 workers.
 &quot;It was a preserved island of socialism here - absolute stagnation,&quot; said Viktor Panyushkin, one of Deripaska's new managers at the plant.
 Then there were the post-Soviet problems. Local car dealers took control of the company's cash flow, paying for more than half of their purchases in goods like headlights and metal. The factory's suppliers, often middlemen linked to management, vastly overcharged on everything from batteries to fuel oil.
 Record keeping was, at best, sketchy. The factory, which produced about 220,000 cars, minivans and trucks last year - only 2.2 per worker, about one-tenth the number produced by the average Ford worker - did not even have a formal list of its assets.
 &quot;They didn't even know what they owned,&quot; said an exasperated Panyushkin.
 The problems added up. The company reported about $190 million in losses last year and was bogged down in about $486 million in old debts - to suppliers, the government and even the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, whose $65 million loan to GAZ went into default in 1999.
 Deripaska's team, men in their 40s and 50s, say they have moved quickly to impose order on the company's finances. Viktor Belyayev, the general director, who was poached from elsewhere in the Russian auto industry, said he had demanded that all buyers pay only in cash and had eliminated middlemen. Plans for a new-car model that he said had no market were canceled. The new management cut one of the factory's shifts, tailoring production to meet demand. A few thousand employees have left the payroll, but only those who volunteered to go, plant managers say.
 
 <strong>INSIDE TRACK</strong>
 Rich and politically connected business owners like Deripaska may be the only hope for this country's foundering manufacturing sector. As they cherry-pick assets, they are exploiting their ability to dominate markets by Russian rules.
 So far, forays by Western investors have met with very limited success, as Russia's tangled business environment has served to overwhelm foreign auto companies.
 &quot;Foreigners are very bad at understanding how things are really done,&quot; said Anders &Aring;slund, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. &quot;With the weak rule of law and in the unclear decision-making environment, Russians have a clear advantage.&quot;
 BMW is producing a handful of cars for a wealthy clientele. Fiat agreed in 1997 to make passenger cars with GAZ, but the venture has yet to build a single automobile.
 Russia's largest car factory, AvtoVAZ, another ailing Soviet giant, which accounts for more three-quarters of the country's passenger car market, spent years persuading General Motors to work together to produce a Russian-style jeep, to which GM finally agreed earlier this year.
 Ford has a plant outside St. Petersburg that is scheduled to begin production of less-expensive versions of its American cars this year.
 Portfolio investors also have little place in the new era of takeovers. GAZ, a publicly traded company, has lost a lot of allure since Deripaska bought it. Fearing an upset of the status quo, many investors sold their shares, sending the stock price plunging. And those who stayed say they regret doing so.
 &quot;In retrospect, we would have rather had cash,&quot; said Ian Hague, a partner at Firebird Management LLC, a hedge fund based in New York that has a 1 percent stake in GAZ. &quot;It was a blue chip in the stock market, and now it's a dog.&quot;
 GAZ, Russia's second-largest automobile producer by revenue, has just 15 percent of the Russian passenger car market. The sell-off has caused the value of the company to fall below $100 million.
 Hague said he had received no information about the company's finances from the new owners but that he hoped the investment would pay off over time.
 Deripaska, who grows exasperated when asked questions about transparency, says he is in the business to make money, not to please minority stakeholders. After acquiring control last autumn, in part by buying shares on the stock market, he began to work on what he says is most important: setting a clear, coherent course for the company, something never done before because the company's ownership was splintered.
 &quot;Imagine if some unit of General Motors were buying motors independently, another one was buying paint and still another was selling cars independently - total chaos,&quot; he said. &quot;That was the situation here.&quot;
 He said the company had been so poorly run that it would have been worthless if he could not have established full control. &quot;Management wasn't responsible for their actions - they generated losses&quot; and began programs that were not realistic, he said. &quot;There were small shareholders, but who asked the general director for the results of the quarter, when we weren't there? Who? There was no one.&quot;
 As was the case with many of companies sold by the government to private owners in the mid-1990s, ownership at GAZ was divided among many small shareholders. As a result, companies like GAZ often remained under control of their Soviet-era managers, who continued to run companies in part as social welfare agencies.
 
 <strong>'A SWAMP'</strong>
 The big question is whether these companies even are salvageable. Some economists say they will never be good investments because they were designed to operate in the Soviet system. One consultant who did some work at GAZ earlier this year referred to the company as &quot;a swamp.&quot;
 Some Russian tycoons, like Mikhail Fridman, are also skeptical. His Alfa Group, a business conglomerate whose holdings include an oil company, a bank and a chain of grocery stores, is betting instead on Russia's new economy: it plans to invest $300 million to $400 million this year in two start-up telecommunications companies. Russia's ailing carmakers are not worth investing in, said Fridman, chairman of Alfa Group, because they have too many problems.
 &quot;That industry is too low tech - it would be better to start from zero,&quot; he said, adding, &quot;Telecoms, on the basis of cash flow, they're not so profitable, but they have big potential.&quot;
 Deripaska brushes aside such skepticism. The carmakers' assets are cheap, he said, and all that is needed to turn around the companies are some elementary management skills.
 Besides, the group has friends in high places. In an early display of his influence in the Kremlin, Deripaska and other auto industry executives persuaded Putin last week to raise tariffs on imported used cars, a major competitor to GAZ's Volgas. Putin also supports Deripaska's broad purchases in the auto industry as well as the grouping of the industry into large holding companies.
 Back at the GAZ plant, the marketing people are viewing an advertisement they ordered from a popular music video director in Moscow.
 The television commercial, which features a stylish young woman driving a Volga, rock music blaring, will try to get Russians to forget the car's association with stodgy bureaucrats. The ad ends with the flashing caption: &quot;You surprise me!&quot;
 And maybe, just maybe, GAZ will.

TITLE: GE Bracing For EU To Stop Deal
AUTHOR: By Paul Geitner

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS, Belgium - Antitrust officials from the 15 European Union countries took up on Monday the draft decision of merger regulators on General Electric Co.'s proposed $41 billion purchase of Honeywell International Inc., a deal expected to be formally rejected next week.
 The advisory committee, comprising representatives from national competition agencies, reviews conclusions made by the European Commission, the EU's executive body, on big merger deals and makes recommendations.
 EU officials say, however, that the commission is unlikely to change its position when the merger comes up for a vote, expected on July 3. GE's president Jeffrey Immelt said in an interview published last week that he saw &quot;zero&quot; chance the deal would be approved.
 Enforcement of antitrust law is one of the few areas in the EU where the commission is empowered to act on its own. Its decisions can be challenged in court, as MCI Worldcom did after the EU rejected its purchase of Sprint, but companies usually abandon their deal long before any court ruling can be made.
 The EU's hard line on the General Electric-Honeywell deal, which won conditional clearance in the United States last month, has provoked criticism from the Bush administration and members of the U.S. Congress.
 Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said that the EU's decision would not be swayed by attempts at &quot;political intervention.&quot;
 In its last attempt to meet EU objections to the deal, General Electric said that it offered to divest Honeywell units totaling $2.2 billion in annual sales, but that the commission was demanding &quot;billions&quot; more.
 But Monti said that General Electric could have kept some of the Honeywell units it was offering to sell if it had agreed to &quot;a structural commitment to modify the commercial behavior of&quot; GE Capital Aviation Services, the firm's aircraft financing and leasing unit.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Euro Readiness
 

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - More Europeans realize that the euro will replace their national currencies next year - and they're worried, according to the results of a survey released on Monday.
 The monthly Eurobarometer prepared for the European Union's head office found that 86 percent of people living in the 12 EU countries that are adopting the euro knew that notes and coins would hit the streets next year. Sixty-one percent even got the date right: Jan. 1.
 But for the first time since March 2000, those thinking the euro will mean more advantages than disadvantages are in the majority, 47 percent to 41 percent.
 
 
Golden Deal
 

TORONTO (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp. said Monday it will buy gold producer Homestake Mining Co. in a $2.3 billion share swap that will create the world's second-biggest gold miner.
 Barrick, currently North America's second-largest gold producer, said that it was offering 0.53 of a Barrick share for each of Homestake's 263.3 million outstanding shares, valuing each Homestake share at $8.71.
 Barrick shares, halted briefly pending the announcement, fell $1.31 Canadian ($0.86) to $23.74 Canadian ($15.63) on the Toronto Stock Exchange after the announcement. Homestake shares rose $1.35 to $8 in New York.
 "Homestake's high-quality, low-cost assets are very complementary to Barrick's," Barrick Chief Executive Officer Randall Oliphant said in a statement announcing the deal.
 
 
Purchase in the Air
 

PARIS (AP) - French charter company Aeris said Monday it is interested in acquiring the charter business of ailing regional airlines AOM and Air Liberte.
 Aeris said in a statement it aims to create "a real, modern and independent charter service" to respond to market needs. Charters represent 25 percent of AOM and Air Liberte's total business.
 AOM and Air Liberte, which are owned by Swissair Group and French investment group Marine-Wendel, filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of June. A French court has given the airlines three months to find potential buyers for the group. 



TITLE: Catholic vs. Orthodox
AUTHOR: By Sergei Chapnin 

TEXT: THE Russian media's attention to the pope's foreign trips is intensifying as recent papal visits form a ring around Russia.
 The five-day visit of John Paul II to Ukraine has resonated widely through Russian society. This is in no small measure due to the fact that in making his trip to Ukraine, the pope for the first time disregarded one of his main rules and did not first win the agreement of the country's largest Christian denomination, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
 Is the pope friend or foe? Behind that question lies fear, pain and hope. In the Orthodox world, it causes deep divides within society and splits national elites.
 The political establishment in Ukraine interprets the pope's visit as one of the symbols of the Western world's recognition of the country, an important sign of its integration into the Western world.
 In the words of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko, the visit testifies to &quot;the unconditional recognition of Ukraine by the Holy See and the international community,&quot; while at the same time it &quot;confirms the path of Kiev toward European integration.&quot; Comments in the same spirit were made earlier by the political leaders of Romania and Georgia where the pope made his first visits to traditionally Orthodox countries in 1999.
 But members of the Orthodox Church, both from the hierarchy and simple believers, when asked the question &quot;friend or foe?&quot; have answered unequivocally, &quot;of course, foe.&quot; Because - such is their centuries-long memory - in places where Catholics gain power, the Orthodox expect oppression and even forced conversion.
 Orthodox Greece will not forget the Fourth Crusade, which ended with the establishment in 1204 of the Latin patriarchate in Constantinople and the institution of Catholic dioceses on continental Greece accompanied by the coercive subjugation of the Orthodox congregations by the Latin bishops with the help of the state. Ukraine remembers the crushing of the Orthodox dioceses and forcing of the Orthodox into the &quot;Unia&quot; with Catholics - i.e. subjugation to the Roman See at the end of the 16th century. And Russia remembers the mission of Cardinal Michel d'Herbigny, a French Jesuit who in the 1920s tried to take advantage of the Bolsheviks' persecution of the Orthodox Church to expand Catholicism to the East. In other words, undisguised proselytizing of Orthodox believers has been a consistent policy of the Vatican toward Eastern Christianity.
 For the sake of fairness, it should be said that last month, during his visit to Greece, the pope apologized for the Fourth Crusade. And although on his first day in Ukraine, John Paul II said he had no intentions of proselytizing during the visit, how can one explain the refusal of Catholics to discuss proselytism, even theoretically, at joint theological discussions with the Orthodox Church?
 The Orthodox hierarchy has no illusions about the future. Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail, one of Ukraine's leading pro-Moscow bishops, said that &quot;the semblance of peace between Orthodox believers and Greek Catholics, which supporters of the visit have spoken about, represents an attempt to construct a peace without justice, which will never be a truly Christian peace and will seal for many years the Uniates' 'achievements' in their struggle against the Orthodox Church.&quot; And Patriarch Alexy II said bluntly a few days ago: &quot;The pope's visit to Ukraine could irrevocably close the door to an improvement in relations between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.&quot;
 Orthodox groups in Ukraine call the papal visit &quot;a desecration of the sacred soil of Kievan Rus,&quot; and an anti-Catholic demonstration in Kiev two days before the beginning of the visit drew 10,000 participants. Nevertheless, the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church has asked believers to refrain from protests during the pope's visit and no one is likely to violate that order, even more so because the Ukrainian special services have taken unprecedented security measures. 
 But at the same time, Orthodox believers are not able to overcome the ambivalence in their attitude toward Catholics. On the one hand, Catholics are seen as heretics, but on the other, they maintain an intellectual leadership in the Christian world. Orthodox experts relied on the Catholic experience in devising the Orthodox Church's first social doctrine and building a new model of church-state relations in Russia. Even in a harsh statement, a Moscow Patriarchate spokesperson acknowledged that the &quot;social activity of the Catholic Church, its care for the helpless and deprived, can only inspire respect.&quot; 
 What is surprising is that from the moment the pope's visit to Ukraine became inevitable, the position of the Moscow Patriarchate has not changed. This irritates the Vatican. &quot;The Russian Orthodox Church, opposing the visit of the pope to Ukraine, is falling behind the train of history,&quot; said Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro Vals. 
 Why does Pope John Paul II so strongly desire to travel to Orthodox countries despite the breakdown in theological discussions with the Orthodox? Perhaps not the least because Catholicism is steadily losing its position in Western Europe and the Vatican is concerned with preserving its influence. It is essential to attract new believers and if that is not possible in Western Europe, then why not make more active attempts to convert the Orthodox? 
 In an interview not long before his death, Sir Steven Runciman, a British diplomat and scholar, said: &quot;Sometimes I feel great disappointment with Western churches. However, I am happy in the thought that within 100 years, the Orthodox Church will be the only historical church that will be strong. I believe it offers people genuine spirituality, which other churches can no longer provide.&quot; 
 That historical optimism, unexpected in the context of a secular society, is typical of most Orthodox believers today. And Pope John Paul II wants to partake of this optimism.
 
 <i>Sergei Chapnin is editor of the Internet magazine Sobornost. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Forbes List Both Hides And Reveals
TEXT: SO what happened to former prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's missing $4 billion? Can it be that Kremlin darling and Chukotka governor Roman Abramovich really has less scratch than former Gazprom CEO Rem Vyakhirev? And has Abramovich's mentor, the infamous Boris Berezovsky, really fallen so far that he can't pull together a measly billion dollars to save his reputation?
 These are just a few of the questions that have Russia-watchers scratching their heads as they read the latest Forbes magazine list of the world's richest people. Of the 538 billionaires in the world, eight are Russian, with Yukos' Mikhail Khodorkovsky leading the charge at $2.4 billion. 
 The poorest of the richest Russians, according to Forbes, is none other than Chernomyrdin, reportedly worth $1.1 billion. Chernomyrdin calls the report &quot;nonsense,&quot; just as he did a 1997 report in the French newspaper Le Monde that alleged he was worth $5 billion. 
 And, in fact, the Forbes list probably is nonsense as far as the Russians are concerned. No one can even reasonably guess at the sizes of Russia's personal fortunes for the same reason that no can guess at, say, the market value of Gazprom, the company that made Chernomyrdin and Vyakhirev - by any standard - rich men indeed. As long as transparency remains what it is here, such exercises as the Forbes list remain little more than amusements. 
 In fact, running through the list confirms the well-worn notion that opacity is the main asset of Russia's richest men. Vyakhirev and Chernomyrdin, of course, owe everything to it. The long-time oligarchs Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Fridman and Vladimir Potanin certainly used it to get their starts and continue to benefit from it.
 The list also tells us again that political capital in Russia is a lot more valuable - and a lot more volatile - than the ordinary kind. The absence of Berezovsky and Media-MOST founder Vladimir Gusinsky, both of whom made the list when Russians debuted in 1997, looms like a silent memorial to this principle of Russian &quot;free market&quot; economics. The state gives and the state takes away.
 As Forbes rightly notes, Lukoil head Vagit Alekperov &quot;used his close friendship with the fuel and energy minister to muscle into lucrative oil deals ... in the early 1990s.&quot; 
 Given the value of political clout in Russia, Abramovich's stake in the national television network ORT - which he reportedly &quot;inherited&quot; from Berezovsky - should count for at least three times a similar share of, say, an oil company or an airline. How much is Abramovich's current insider status worth? We'll find out in, say, 2005.

TITLE: The Actions of Our Leaders Speak Volumes
TEXT: TELLING images. First, Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Alexy II coming to the support of Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Second, Pope John Paul II, at almost the exact same time, apologizing to 300,000 Ukrainians in their native tongue.
 And these images give us insight into what went wrong in Russia and the majority of the former Soviet republics, compared to their longtime &quot;friends in misfortune&quot; - the former communist nations of central Europe
 The difference between Alexei Ridiger and Karol Wojtyla is the same as that between the first Russian post-communist president and the former regional Communist Party boss, Boris Yeltsin and, say, the first post-communist Czech president and former political dissident, Vaclav Havel.
 It is just by the nature of their jobs that Ridiger and Wojtyla have become known as Patriarch Alexy II and Pope John Paul II, whereas Yeltsin and Havel will go down in history under their given names. However, the tasks imposed on these men by history were the same: to help their nations confront their pasts, to acknowledge past sins in order to begin the long journey into some brighter future.
 But to complete this task, the two Russian leaders, one secular and the other spiritual, first had to acknowledge and repent of their own personal sins. Both had the chance to do so, and both failed.
 In the early 1990s, many religious leaders in post-Soviet Russia were accused by their own colleagues and by the press of making pacts with devil - the KGB - during Soviet times. The accusations ranged from betraying confessions given in church to state organs, to &quot;bringing in line&quot; dissident monks. One of those who was exposed by the KGB archives as an agent named &quot;Drozdov,&quot; who was awarded an honorary citation by the KGB chairman, was said to be Alexei Ridiger, shortly thereafter promoted to the position of the Patriarch.
 The initial response of the Church hierarchy was to propose its own investigation. But the follow-up was not quite so hopeful. All the investigations into this area were stopped by the patriarch himself. The same happened with Boris Yeltsin, who was once tempted by his democratic allies to disclose in full the crimes of the Soviet regime, including those of which he was a part. But he quickly reclassified the files once they had been declared open.
 By contrast, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla never became entangled in any deals with totalitarian state in Poland. Nonetheless, after he became pope, John Paul II took upon himself the burden of acknowledging and condemning centuries of past mistakes by the Catholic Church. By doing so, he forced the leaders of Poland, including those with communist backgrounds, to recognize their own sins. And this, I think, is what has made Pope John Paul II one of the greatest politicians of his age
 Corrupted leaders corrupt nations, a truth that can be statistically measured. According to research by the World Bank, corruption in Russia and most other former Soviet republics is at least eight times higher than in countries like the Czech Republic and Poland. So it is no surprise that while these central European countries are clearly moving toward becoming the part of civilized world, Russia is heading in the opposite direction. The message of intolerance and confrontation delivered over the weekend by the patriarch is just one more sign of that.
 
 <i>Yevgenia Albats is an independent, Moscow-based journalist. </i>

TITLE: Russia Needs Some Tough Love
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer 

TEXT: TWO days before presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin met on June 16 in Slovenia, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters that the summit will &quot;not achieve anything much in substance, but the atmospherics of bilateral relations will improve dramatically.&quot; What then happened was almost identical to U.S.-Russian summits during the 1990s - known as &quot;Boris meets Bill&quot; get-togethers.
 Like Slovenia, the &quot;Boris meets Bill&quot; summits were also informal. Washington apparently hoped friendly relations between the top leaders would help advance issues of greatest concern to the United States, namely missile defense and the proliferation of Russian weapons and military technologies to Third World countries including &quot;rogue states.&quot; But the end results were minute, while the Kremlin was given free reign to do whatever it wished at home, especially in Chechnya.
 Bush administration officials have stated repeatedly that they will drastically change former president Clinton's ineffective foreign-policy ways. At last weekend's summit, Bush and his foreign policy team had a chance to show whether their words have any meaning. It turns out that they do not.
 International human-rights organizations, as well as some Russian officials and generals, charge that grave war crimes committed in Chechnya have resulted in the death or disappearance of thousands of innocent civilians. There have even been credible accusations that some orders to attack civilians came directly from the top or may have been authorized bythe Kremlin. These crimes have gone largely unpunished, and the Kremlin has denied the allegations rather than credibly investigating them.
 Without a serious investigation into these allegations, it is impossible to say whether Putin himself is involved in war crimes or in a cover-up. However, in comments about the conduct of the war in Chechnya and during the tragic sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk last August, Putin has definitely made public statements that afterward were proven to be untrue. Nonetheless, Bush looked Putin &quot;in the eye&quot; in Slovenia and proclaimed him &quot;straightforward and trustworthy.&quot; He even invited Putin to visit his Texas ranch this fall.
 Most likely, Bush and his foreign policy team believe such appeasement will encourage Kremlin concessions on major issues of U.S. concern and will reduce anti-American feelings in Russia. Perhaps they even think it will enhance the influence of liberal reformers in Russia. In fact, though, Bush gave Putin everything the Kremlin wanted from this summit and got nothing at all in return.
 Before the summit the Kremlin was seriously worried that Russia might be purged from the G-8 group of industrialized nations and otherwise isolated because of its human rights record, the suppression of press freedom and other authoritarian measures. Now, all such fears have been put to rest. It's impossible to exclude from the G-8 a leader who visits the president of the United States at his ranch. In fact, Bush gave Putin carte blanche to continue as before in Chechnya and to continue building an authoritarian, bureaucratic police state.
 Moreover, Russia will continue to sell advanced weapons and military technologies to states that Washington does not like and to stonewall in bilateral consultations on missile defense.
 Russian defense and foreign policy today is determined by a small circle of Kremlin bureaucrats - Defense Ministry and intelligence community chiefs (the so-called <i>siloviki</i>) - without any public discussion. This group is afraid of neither American missile defense nor NATO expansion, since neither of these poses any immediate military threat.
 However, they will use both missile defense and NATO expansion for anti-American propaganda purposes. They are convinced that a perceived external threat will keep Russians united behind the Kremlin, while anti-Americanism abroad may keep the West disunited and encourage Western European countries to forge closer relations with Moscow.
 After the summit, the Kremlin has no incentive to make further concessions. This week, Putin told U.S. reporters that Russia might increase the number of its nuclear warheads if the Americans go ahead with missile defense. During future &quot;consultations,&quot; Russian officials will be even less conciliatory. Washington will press for more summits with the &quot;straightforward and trustworthy&quot; Putin to overcome these difficulties, but will surely get nowhere. In Slovenia, Putin more or less recruited Bush as his &quot;agent of influence.&quot; Bush won't get away soon.
 
 <i>Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst. </i>

TITLE: Hope for AIDS Victims In Global Fund Proposal
TEXT: THIS week's United Nations special session on AIDS is the latest sign that the international response to the crisis is gaining momentum. Pharmaceutical companies that once resisted the idea of discounting AIDS drugs for poor countries have recently relented. Governments of developing countries that hesitated to discuss AIDS are now showing new openness. Meanwhile the governments of rich countries are signaling their desire to step up their response by creating an AIDS fund. The challenge at this hopeful moment is to avoid the bickering that has frustrated previous anti-AIDS efforts. 
 The proposal for a global AIDS fund has already triggered three kinds of argument. The first is over who should run it. The rich countries that would contribute to the fund want to keep it free of UN bureaucracy, rightly preferring to have some nimbler organization administer it. The poor countries, meanwhile, favor the UN structure because it gives them more say. Two tasks for this week's UN gathering, therefore, are to persuade developing nations that an agile fund is in their own interests, and to come up with a management formula that placates rival development agencies that want to play first fiddle. 
 The second argument concerns the balance between prevention and treatment. Until recently, both developing countries and rich-country medical experts agreed that treatment was all but hopeless: Anti-retroviral drugs were prohibitively expensive, and the challenge of administering them seemed too much for the creaky health systems in poor countries. But drug discounts plus promising treatment programs in places such as Brazil have proved that treatment should be part of AIDS-control programs. As well as extending healthy lives, treatment can usefully encourage people to come forward for HIV tests. This in turn reduces the taboo surrounding the disease, which greatly helps prevention efforts. So this week's gathering should avoid wasting time on the false choice between treatment and prevention.
 Resolving these first two arguments is crucial, because there is a pressing need to focus on the third one. This concerns the resources that the rich world should contribute to AIDS relief. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, has said that between $7 billion and $10 billion is needed per year; he has been criticized for overreaching, as pledges have so far proved modest. But Annan is right to set an ambitious goal; and the Bush administration should be ashamed by its meager offering of $200 million. AIDS has become a catastrophe because of human denial - especially among poor-country governments and their people. A plague of rich-country denial about the cost of meeting the challenge is the last thing that is needed. 
 
 <i>This comment originally appeared as an editorial in The Washington Post. </i>

TITLE: Writers Revel in the White Nights
AUTHOR: By Sam Charap

PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg's White Nights have long been the occasion for profound reflection and literary ruminations. Such works as &quot;The Bronze Horseman,&quot; with Alexander Pushkin's image of the poet working late into the night with only the gray dusk to illuminate his page, and Fyodor Dostoevsky's brooding and angst-ridden search for meaning in the perpetually lit streets, have become a basic part of the city's identity.
 This long-standing intellectual tradition of St. Petersburg has now been taken up by the Summer Literary Seminars (SLS), a program accredited by Oklahoma University. 
 From June 18 to July 13, SLS is offering an ambitious series of seminars, readings and lectures on topics ranging from &quot;Non-Fiction Writing&quot; to &quot;Literary and Philosophical Discourse in St. Petersburg.&quot; The program is being hosted by the Herzen University, located near the Kazan Cathedral.
 The SLS faculty this year boasts some of the leading names in both Western and Russian intellectual life. Among the Western participants are celebrated American playwright Constance Congdon, author of &quot;Tales of the Lost Formicans&quot; and &quot;Dog Opera&quot; (produced by the Joseph Papp Public Theater), and Irish novelist Collum McCann, author of &quot;Songdogs&quot; and &quot;This Side of Brightness.&quot; Russian representatives this year include Arkady Dragomoschenko, a noted local poet and translator, and Andrei Zorin, the Moscow-based literary critic.
 Participating in the program are 70 aspiring young American writers, most of whom are enrolled in graduate programs in the United States.
 But why did they come all the way to St. Petersburg to take courses?
 &quot;Some of them just want to hang around famous writers, while others want to see this city of very strong literary allusions, very strong literary associations,&quot; said Mikhail Iossel, the SLS program director.
 &quot;It's an exotic, interesting and faraway place for many of them.&quot;
 Iossel, a Leningrad native, was a <i>refusnik </i>and <i>samizdat </i>writer in the late 1970s and early '80s, before emigrating to the United States in 1986 at age 30. He has since been published widely in America, and is currently a writer-in-residence at Union College in New York state.
 By all accounts, SLS has been successful in instilling its students with the literary spirit of the White Nights. &quot;I don't know if I will ever again be among so many good writers, or if I will ever be able to match the brilliant experience of the White Nights in St. Petersburg,&quot; said U.S. student Amy Pandya, who participated in the program last year.
 And the students aren't the only ones happy to be in Russia's historic literary epicenter. Congdon characterized the SLS as a &quot;tremendous treat&quot; for the faculty as well. The writers have grouped themselves in the spirit of a Russian <i>kolektiv, </i>staying up late into the night, working on their writing and sharing new ideas. &quot;I haven't done that since college,&quot; the playwright said. 
 Congdon - who had previously visited the city as a tourist in 1989 after one of her plays was produced by a Moscow theater - said that she found the &quot;tremendous literary history&quot; of the city &quot;inspiring and concentrating.&quot;
 &quot;The change [from when I was here before] is amazing,&quot; Congdon said, adding, &quot;Although the ride down the Neva River is still the same, there's a lot more neon!&quot;
 Although the seminars are restricted to program participants, the lectures and public readings - which will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the duration of the program - are open to the public. These will be conducted in English; Russian speakers will be interpreted.
 All St. Petersburg residents are welcome, said Iossel. &quot;The more the better, absolutely.&quot; Those interested should meet at 11:45 a.m. for lectures, and 7 p.m. for readings, in the lobby of the Herzen Institute's hotel at 6 Kazanskaya Ulitsa. From there, the group will head toward one of the institute's lecture halls
 The readings are informal, lively events. Last Tuesday, Maxine Chernoff, an American poet and novelist, read from one of her novels, &quot;A Boy in Winter,&quot; and treated the audience to one of her short stories, which will be published next year.
 Chernoff and her colleague, poet Paul Hoover, also shared some of their thoughts on the creative process, and discussed what had inspired and motivated their work.
 Iossel founded the program three years ago with the idea of bringing the American writing-workshop model to his native city.
 &quot;The idea for the program was relatively simple: I just wanted to get back to St. Petersburg in my new capacity as an American writer and to bring some of my fellow American writers with me ... and maybe introduce the Russian public to certain aspects of American writing,&quot; Iossel said.
 &quot;The goal of these summer seminars is to take people out of the context of their lives, to give them a creative jolt. When you are not steeped in the routine of your life, your eye is sharper, you get a fresher perspective,&quot; Iossel continued, calling St. Petersburg the &quot;ultimate environment&quot; for the program.
 
 <i>Here is the program of public events for the Summer Literay Seminars:
 </i><i><strong>Tuesday, June 26:</strong></i><i> Lecture by Yevgeny Pavlov of Moscow State University on the particularities of the translation of Russian literature - 11:45 a.m.
 Reading by U.S. author Robert Coover - 7 p.m.
 </i><i><strong>Thursday, June 28:</strong></i><i> Literary round-table discussion with the American faculty - 11:45 a.m.
 Readings by Constance Congdon and Dagoberto Gilb - 7 p.m.
 </i><i><strong>Tuesday, July 3:</strong></i><i> Readings by Amy Bloom and Joy Johannessen - 7 p.m.
 </i><i><strong>Thursday, July 5:</strong></i><i> Reading by Dagoberto Gilb - 7 p.m.
 If you would like further information about any of the SLS programs, please call Marina Novozhilova at 941-00-97. </i>

TITLE: The Man Who Put the Alcohol Into Our Vodka
AUTHOR: By Simon Patterson

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One of the great figures in the history of science is commemorated near the Tekhnologichesky Institut metro station, with the statue of Dmitry Mendeleev and the periodic table of elements that he established painted in its full glory on the wall behind him.
 Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, in 1834, the youngest in a family of 14 children. His brilliance was apparent from an early age, and he enrolled in St. Petersburg University in 1850. Despite his rapid progress, Mendelev suffered from poor health and was struck with tuberculosis in his third year at the university. His doctor gave him two years to live, at most, unless he could find a more suitable climate.
 Fortunately, a move to Simferopol in the Crimea proved beneficial, and in a year's time he had recovered completely. 
 Mendeleev's greatest claim to fame, the establishment of the periodic table of the elements that is one of the foundations of modern science, was achieved in 1869. At the age of 35, Mendeleev found himself at the summit of the scientific world. He later said that the idea for the table came to him in a dream.
 Mendeleev is also remembered because he established the correct chemical make-up of vodka. He was awarded his doctorate for his dissertation &quot;On the Combinations of Water With Alcohol,&quot; which he saw as part of his general drive to benefit his fellow countrymen. His declaration that the alcohol percentage of vodka must be 40 percent can certainly be said to have had a major influence on Russian society. To this day vodka firms cash in on the Mendeleev name, using his portrait to decorate their labels.
 Mendeleev's contribution to Russian society was not limited to alcohol, however. He wrote important works on a variety of subjects, from agriculture to oil drilling, that he believed were socially useful. As he said, he was driven by a &quot;vision of the Russian people&quot; whom he knew he could aid by science.
 Mendeleev himself cut a rather unconventional figure in Russian society, resigning from the university in 1890 when he was urged to not meddle with politics. Mendeleev's lectures were extremely popular, often drawing crowds of students and casual listeners who were not particularly interested in science.
 The periodic table has changed dramatically from Mendeleev's original version depicted here. But he was able to predict the existence of a number of then-undiscovered elements such as aluminum and silicone.
 Strangely enough, Mendeleev could also have had an important, if indirect influence on Russian literature. His daughter, Lyubov, married the Symbolist poet Alexander Blok and was the inspiration for his volume &quot;Poems on the Beautiful Lady.&quot;
 Mendeleyev died in St. Petersburg on Jan. 20, 1907.

TITLE: Penderecki To Conduct in 'Russian Jerusalem'
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki calls St. Petersburg a Russian Jerusalem - in a cultural, not a religious, sense. He hopes that his oratorio &quot;The Seven Gates of Jeruselam,&quot; dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Jerusalem and first performed in 1997, will have lasting resonance in a city that is nearly 10 times younger. On June 26 the oratorio will have its Russian premiere, and first-ever open-air performance in the courtyard of the State Hermitage Museum. On the day before the event, Penderecki spoke to The St. Petersburg Times.
 <i><strong>Q: </strong></i><i>Do you think the atmosphere of the Hermitage courtyard will suit this work?
 </i><strong>A: </strong>I think the concert organizers have chosen a magnificent spot. For me personally, it is the most beautiful and the most important place in the city. Naturally, as it is going to be the first time the &quot;Seven Gates of Jerusalem&quot; has been performed outdoors, I myself don't know how the music will sound. The performance will coincide with the ceremony of the opening of the main gates of the Hermitage, and symbolically it is very important, as it is connected with the text of the oratorio where the prophet Isaiah says that the gates must always be open.
 <i><strong>Q:</strong></i><i> You yourself compiled the text of the oratorio. What principle did you use?</i>
 <strong>A: </strong>First of all, I didn't want the oratorio to become a political piece. Initially, there was an idea that the work should link together the three religions co-existing in Jerusalem [Judaism, Christianity and Islam] but then I thought that this interpretation would be too simplified. So I turned to the Old Testament and selected everything relating to, or written in, Jerusalem, focusing on the resurrection.
 The Book of Ezekiel contains one of the most ancient texts concerning this. Though all the other psalms and texts are sung in Latin, we have kept excerpts from the Book of Ezekiel in Hebrew as it was originally written. 
 In certain cases, I must admit, I make exceptions, and the excerpts are sung in the language of the country where the oratorio is being performed. At the June 26 concert in the Hermitage Courtyard, they will be sung in Russian.
 
 <i><strong>Q: </strong></i><i>How many times has the &quot;Seven Gates of Jerusalem&quot; been performed since it premiered in 1997?</i>
 <strong>A:</strong> I can say that it is currently my most frequently performed work. It has been performed about 50 times in cities all over the world, including New York, Chicago, and Dresden, and I've conducted it over 30 times.
 
 <i><strong>Q: </strong></i><i>What inspired your interest in conducting?</i>
 <strong>A:</strong> I began to study conducting after I studied violin and before I started learning composition. I think for the composer to conduct his own works is quite natural. Centuries ago it was common enough. Now, unfortunately, there are too many conductors who can neither play nor compose.
 
 <i><strong>Q:</strong></i><i> Are you going to participate in any events related to the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg?</i>
 <strong>A: </strong>So far, I haven't been invited to any, but I certainly will if I have an opportunity. Every year I visit St. Petersburg, and will perform again next year and in 2003 with the Shostakovich Philharmonic symphony orchestra.
 I also have to say that as a composer I plan my work for a long time in advance. I usually compose one piece a year, and know that producing any more isn't possible. My Concerto Grosso for three cellos and orchestra recently premiered in Tokyo. The next work will be a piano concerto commissioned for Carnegie Hall in May 2002. 
 I don't compose spontaneously; my music needs time to grow. It took years, and many trips to Jerusalem, to complete the &quot;Seven Gates.&quot;
 
 <i><strong>Q:</strong></i><i> If you had a chance to compose an autobiographical piece, which genre would you choose?</i>
 <strong>A: </strong>As a composer, I do not have any particular preference as far as genre or musical form is concerned, and thus I have composed symphonies, operas, orchestra, chamber pieces and so on. In my own life, I am similarly experimental, and am interested in exploring many different things. I am constantly trying to get to know this world better and transform my experiences into music.
 
 <i><strong>Q: </strong></i><i>What inspires you?
 </i><strong>A:</strong> I would say that my muse is my garden, my trees. My garden has about 1,500 types of trees, and is a natural continuation of my life, just like my children. 
 I can compare its shape to a musical score, with just one difference: The score becomes reality during the performances only, while the garden requires years before it takes the desired shape.
 <i>Penderecki will conduct &quot;The Seven Gates of Jerusalem&quot; on June 26 as part of the opening ceremony of the State Hermitage main gates. Concert starts at 10 p.m. </i>

TITLE: A Month of Cold Showers?
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg residents like to get out of the city in the summer for a number of reasons - the center is overrun by tourists, the heat can be very unpleasant, and the hot water in your apartment can be turned off for anything up to an entire month. Notices are usually posted on the door to warn you of this, though usually this is done only a couple of days beforehand.
 The city's poorly designed plumbing means that all hot-water pipes must be extensively repaired every year, and this is a notoriously slow process.
 To get more advance warning as to when your water will be turned off is a complicated business. Each region is served by a number of different boiler-houses, which operate on different schedules. You are best off calling your regional information service to find out when the water in your apartment building will be turned off (rest assured, English is not spoken).
 The only region where hot water is turned off in all buildings simultaneously is Vasilevsky Ostrov, whose residents can look forward to three weeks of cold showers from July 4 to 28.
 Those who are unable to leave the city while their hot water is turned off can resort to a number of solutions: shower at friends' apartments where the water is still on; spend hours boiling water to fill a bath; or alternatively, invest in a hot-water cylinder, or kolonka, which retail from around $100<i>. </i>
<strong>How to find out when you'll lose your water. </strong>
<strong>Region Phone</strong>
 Admiralteisky 315-90-47
 Central 273-15-82
 Frunzensky 166-05-77
 Kalininsky 542-07-50
 Kirovsky 252-65-23
 Krasnogvardeisky 227-48-49
 Krasnoselsky 130-65-32
 Moskovsky 298-13-60
 Nevsky 567-33-37
 Petrogradsky 232-16-65
 Primorsky 301-40-77
 Vasileostrovsky 356-96-14
 Vyborgsky 550-29-78

TITLE: Massive Earthquake Kills Dozens in Peru
AUTHOR: By Rick Vecchio 

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AREQUIPA, Peru - Peru rushed aid to cities and towns in the south Sunday, after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake toppled adobe homes and stone buildings and killed at least 71 people, leaving thousands too terrified to return home amid recurring aftershocks.
 In Arequipa, the country's second-largest city, dozens of homes were flattened and chunks of ornate stone architecture were strewn in the streets of the colonial center. One steeple fell from the city's historic cathedral - first constructed in 1656 but rebuilt after an earthquake in 1868 - and large pieces of stone work fell out of the other.
 The city's San Agustin Church withstood Saturday's quake, which injured more than 850 people in the region. But worshippers held Mass outdoors Sunday after a tense night of aftershocks.
 Peru's Geophysical Institute said Sunday that 106 aftershocks, some registering a 3-magnitude, had occurred since the initial quake.
 A landslide blocked the main road into Moquegua, 99 kilometers southeast of Arequipa, hampering efforts to deliver emergency food and medicine to the devastated city, where 17 people were killed, 162 injured and 80 percent of the houses seriously damaged or flattened.
 There were conflicting reports about how many people died in the 7.9-magnitude quake, which rocked the region for more than a minute Saturday afternoon.
 Peru's Civil Defense Institute on Sunday raised the death toll to 71. In addition to the Moquegua deaths, the institute said rescuers found 33 more bodies on Sunday around Arequipa, 744 kilometers southeast of the capital Lima, to bring the total number of dead in that area to 47. Some 564 people were injured there.
 The institute said another seven people were killed in Tacna, near the border with Chile, and some 200 people were injured.
 A doctor in the small coastal town of Camana said 14 people drowned and more than 30 were injured after Saturday's quake caused a tidal surge that washed more than a half-kilometer inland over rice and sugarcane fields. But those deaths could not be confirmed and were not included in the total.
 Dr. Neri Medina told radio station Radioprogramas the 14 had drowned. &quot;Bodies are being found in the agricultural fields,&quot; he said.
 Hundreds of people camped out in parks and in the streets of Arequipa overnight despite 9 degree Celsius temperatures, radio reports said.
 Aftershocks &quot;were coming every 15 or 30 minutes. Sometimes they rattled the windows and walls, and the light fixture was swinging from the ceiling,&quot; said Enma Verastegui, 40, as she prepared to join Sunday's Mass.
 Evangelina Yamoc, 70, wept as she stood in what had been her bedroom in her wrecked home in a dusty hillside settlement on Arequipa's outskirts.
 &quot;If I had been sleeping here, I would have been killed,&quot; she said, standing amid fallen blocks of light-colored volcanic stone, called sillar, the main material for most of buildings in Arequipa, a city of 1 million.
 &quot;I'd fix this, but I don't have any money,&quot; she said, wiping away tears.
 President Valentin Paniagua flew over the devastated area in a helicopter with his health minister on Sunday morning. Later, he appealed for calm and patience to ensure effective aid efforts.
 He said from the airport in Tacna that officials &quot;were ready to adopt any and all measures that are necessary to get help quickly&quot; to those who need it.
 Two cargo planes stocked with 19 metric tons of food, blankets and medicine landed in Arequipa before dawn. Three other planes were en route to Moquegua and Tacna, the Civil Defense said.
 U.S. Ambassador to Peru John Hamilton, who was in Arequipa when the quake struck, said material aid from the United States would start arriving within two days. The European Union said Sunday that it was awaiting aid requests from humanitarian agencies, and would be able to mobilize funding quickly under new streamlined procedures.
 President-elect Alejandro Toledo, who takes office July 28, postponed a visit to the United States set for Sunday and instead flew to Arequipa.
 He said he still planned to go Washington and Europe in the coming days to seek aid for an economic recovery plan - and quake assistance.
 The powerful quake rattled residents in Lima and was felt in Bolivia, 416 kilometers east of the epicenter, and in Chile, 360 kilometers southeast.
 Peru is intermittently shaken by earthquakes, and was battered by a 7.7-magnitude tremor in May 31, 1970, that killed approximately 70,000 people.
 On Nov. 12, 1996, 17 people were killed and some 1,500 injured in a 7.7-magnitude quake that struck Nazca. On May 30, 1990, 137 people were killed in a 6.3-magnitude quake in northern Peru.

TITLE: Remains of World War I Regiment Discovered
AUTHOR: By Sue Leeman 

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LINCOLN, England - Known as &quot;The Chums&quot; in life, they lay together in death, their arms linked.
 But the 24 British World War I soldiers unearthed near Arras in northern France will never be identified, and are likely to be reinterred under headstones labeled &quot;Known Only to God,&quot; the Ministry of Defense says.
 &quot;How can we identify them?&quot; said a ministry spokesperson, Gaye Jones. &quot;With so many millions killed in that war, where do you begin?&quot;
 Four of the men - all noncommissioned officers - carried insignia from the Lincolnshire Regiment of eastern England, said Jones. &quot;And the supposition is that the rest are from there.&quot;
 Even that is not certain.
 Although there are no badges or dog tags to prove it, it is believed the men were in the regiment's 10th Battalion, raised in the fishing port of Grimsby near Lincoln and christened &quot;The Chums.&quot;
 The bodies - lying in a neat row, their arms linked, probably by whoever buried them - were unearthed nearly a month ago at the construction site of a BMW car factory.
 Officials kept the discovery quiet until last week to avoid crowds.
 Twenty of the corpses were found in a 15-meter-by-2-meter trench that served as a common grave, officials said. Four had shoulder flashes from the Lincolnshire Regiment, which fought at Arras in April 9 to 14, 1917.
 The remains of three other soldiers were found buried in a hole with munitions. Another soldier who is believed to have fought with the Royal Naval Division was discovered apart from the others, officials said.
 Captain John Lee, a spokesperson for the Lincolnshire Regiment, said it couldn't be proved the dead belonged to the 10th Battalion, but &quot;there is a fairly strong likelihood that they were Grimsby Chums.&quot;
 Lee said the men were probably buried by someone unfamiliar with military procedure. All dog tags and other identifying items were removed, and the arms were linked, instead of being crossed over the chest in military style.
 The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which marks and maintains the graves of British empire soldiers from both world wars, will oversee the reburial of the bodies with military honors next year.
 The forerunner of the Lincolnshire Regiment was formed in 1685 by John Granville, Earl of Bath, to help King James II put down a rebellion, and has seen service around the world.
 One of its soldiers was wounded by the first shot fired in the American War of Independence in 1775, in Massachusetts - described as &quot;the shot heard around the world.&quot;
 Regimental records show the 10th Battalion was decimated at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, but The Chums managed to rebuild in time for the attack on Arras.
 With other members of the regiment, The Chums captured the forward slopes of the strategically important Vimy Ridge.
 &quot;Near Arras, our troops leap to the attack in the midst of such artillery fire as the world has never seen,&quot; William Beach Thomas reported in a dispatch to The Daily Mail on April 10, 1917.

TITLE: Turkey Stumbles on Road to Democracy
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's top court banned the pro-Islamic Virtue Party, the main opposition party, in a verdict Friday that threatens the stability of a government already struggling to overcome an economic crisis.
 The move is also likely to be a setback for Turkey's push to join the European Union, which is demanding more democratic reforms.
 The Constitutional Court voted 8-3 to close Virtue on the grounds it was a focal point for anti-secular activities. Turkey is a staunchly secular state and Virtue is the latest in a series of pro-Islamic parties to be shut down.
 The verdict is a &quot;a blow to Turkey's search for democracy and law,&quot; Virtue leader Recai Kutan told party lawmakers at what probably was one of their last meetings.
 &quot;Let nobody be deceived,&quot; Kutan said. &quot;In Turkey in its present state, there is no democracy.&quot;
 Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said he was &quot;saddened&quot; by the decision.
 &quot;Let's not inflate this. It must not be allowed to shake Turkey's stability,&quot; said Ecevit, who earlier had called for a postponement of the court's decision.
 The court also expelled two of Virtue's deputies in parliament, leaving the party's 100 remaining lawmakers to decide whether to form a new party, join other parties or remain independent.
 Ecevit's Democratic Left Party, with 132 deputies, is the senior member of the ruling coalition. Virtue deputies, however, are more likely to join the far-right Nationalist Action Party, which needs only seven more seats to replace Ecevit's party as the largest in the 550-seat parliament.
 The nationalists have been uneasy with some measures of the economic program, such as cuts in farm subsidies and an end to political influence over key sectors of the economy.
 Analysts, however, said that even if some of the former Virtue legislators join the nationalists, the far-right party may be hesitant to upset the coalition in a time of economic crisis.
 The decision came shortly after the closing of financial markets, which fell in expectation of the ban. Istanbul's benchmark share index was down 6 percent this week, while the lira declined some 6 percent against the dollar.
 In its decision, the court expelled deputies Nazli Ilicak and Bekir Sobaci from parliament and banned them from politics for five years. Three other party members who are not in parliament were also banned from politics for five years.
 The three former deputies included Merve Kavakci, a lawmaker who outraged the government by wearing an Islamic-style head scarf in parliament. Kavakci was later expelled from parliament and stripped of her Turkish citizenship for becoming a U.S. citizen without first notifying authorities.
 The Virtue party did not call for an Islamic state, but pressed for a relaxation of secular laws which, for example, bar women working in government offices or students from wearing Islamic-style head scarves.
 The Islamic movement reached its height in 1996, when Welfare Party leader Necmettin Erbakan became prime minister in a coalition government.
 That coalition fell after just a year in office, under heavy pressure from Turkey's powerful army, which considers itself the guardian of secularism.
 Erbakan, who is now banned from politics but widely seen as Virtue's behind-the-scenes leader, said Friday he was &quot;sorry on the nation's behalf&quot; at the party's closure. He insisted that political Islam would continue to be a force in Turkey.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Baby Killers To Go Free
 

LONDON (Reuters) - The parents of murdered British toddler James Bulger were divided on Monday on the future of the soon-to-be-freed killers of their son - one voicing hate, the other appealing for calm.
 
The tabloid Dai ly Mirror quoted James's father Ralph as backing the government's call for restraint. He said innocent people could suffer in any vigilante campaign against teenagers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables who as children killed the 2-year-old.
 His mother Denise told the Daily Mail, however: "I am consumed with hatred and anger and fear. ... I believe they are both still dangerous." She has already warned that there is no place for Thompson and Venables, both 18, to hide.
 In 1993, at the age of 10, the pair kidnapped James from a shopping mall and tortured and beat him to death.
 Britain's Times newspaper reported Monday that a recent photograph of Thompson was being sought by foreign magazines willing to pay up to 49,500 pounds($70,000) for its use.
 Publications in Spain, France and Italy - not subject to an English court injunction designed to keep the killers' new identities secret - were anxious to obtain a closed-circuit television image of Thompson taken as he was visiting a shopping center during his rehabilitation, the newspaper said.
 
 
Sharon in U.S.
 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has begun a visit to the United States during which he is to hold talks with President George Bush on prospects for building on a fragile cease-fire with the Palestinians.
 Fresh bloodshed provided the prelude to the visit. Sharon landed in New York late on Sunday, less than a day after the killing of a Palestinian militant in the West Bank dealt another blow to the battered U.S.-brokered truce.
 Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction accused Israel of assassinating Osama Jawabreh, sought by the Jewish state, in a bomb blast at a phone booth in the heart of the Palestinian-ruled city of Nablus.
 Sharon's trip included a stop in London Sunday for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during which Sharon repeated a call for a complete cessation of Palestinian violence as a condition to moving ahead with peace moves.
 
 
Eruptions Continue
 

LEGAZPI, Philippines (Reuters) - Villagers began returning to their homes around the Philippines' Mayon volcano on Monday after a series of powerful weekend eruptions and despite warnings from scientists that the danger was not yet over.
 More than 25,000 people have fled their homes since Mayon began erupting at noon on Sunday but, with the volcano calmer on Monday, hundreds hiked back to their villages, complaining of overcrowding and lack of facilities in evacuation centers.
 Mayon, one of the Philippines' 22 active volcanoes, has a history of 45 violent eruptions since its first recorded eruption in 1616. The deadliest occurred in 1814 when it buried a town under mud and rocks and killed 1,200 people.
 The volcano in Albay province, 330 kilometers southeast of Manila, unleashed a series of thunderous eruptions on Sunday, ejecting superheated gases and boulders described by a vulcanologist as "bigger than trucks."
 
 
Macedonia Cease-Fire
 

SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Three days of high military drama lurching between tragedy and farce have ended in a cease-fire in Macedonia, but the Balkan country's divided people are no nearer to lasting peace.
 Macedonian Foreign Minister Ilinka Mitreva travels to Luxembourg on Monday as part of Sunday's cease-fire deal that halted the army's bombardment of a village from which Albanian rebels had threatened to shell the capital.
 Mitreva's mission will be to inform her European Union counterparts on prospects for peace talks, which hit deadlock last week before helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery began pounding Aracinovo village in the army assault.
 But she will be able to report none of the "substantial progress" toward a deal to end a four-month Albanian guerrilla revolt that had been hoped for by the EU, whose envoy Javier Solana brokered the cease-fire.
 Instead she can report only that the peace process is back where it was before the Macedonian army unleashed its new arsenal of weaponry on Aracinovo.
 Solana, who has spearheaded Western efforts to wrest Macedonia from the brink of civil war, said the end of the assault was a "very important" step and political leaders said they would resume peace talks on Monday.
 President Boris Trajkovski was due to hold the talks with leaders of all the political parties, including the ethnic Albanian ones, in the latest of a series of such meetings that have failed so far to bring any breakthrough.
 
 
Dylan Home Sold
 

DULUTH, Minnesota (AP) - Bob Dylan's boyhood home has been sold for $94,600 on eBay, the online auction service.
 The Web listing, posted May 24 on Dylan's 60th birthday, described the duplex as "a must-have for the ultimate diehard Dylan fan."
 Owner Kathy Burns of Solomon's Island, Maryland., opened the bidding at $85,000.
 The top bid - submitted by "Srueff" - edged out the next highest by $100.
 Burns bought the property, near downtown and with a view of Lake Superior, for $62,000 in October 1996. 
 Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth in 1941 and lived there until he was 6. He graduated from Hibbing High School in 1959.
 
 
No Fujimori Deal
 

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Monday it would deny any request for the extradition of Peruvian ex-president Alberto Fujimori, despite the arrest of his former right-hand man.
 Peruvian President-elect Alejandro Toledo said on Sunday the arrest of fugitive ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos in Venezuela the previous day "could facilitate or improve" the chances of extraditing Fujimori, fired last year amid a corruption scandal.
 However, Japanese Deputy Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Tokyo was sticking to its position that unless there were special conditions it does not hand over its citizens.
 Japan, which does not usually extradite its nationals, has recognized Fujimori as Japanese because his name was entered in a family register in Japan after his birth following his parents' emigration to Peru in the 1930s.
 In any case, the two countries have no extradition treaty.
 Fujimori fled to Japan in November and resigned as president. Congress rejected his resignation and instead sacked him for being "morally unfit."
 The former president's 10-year, iron-fisted regime came to a crashing halt when videos emerged showing Montesinos handing over wads of cash to politicians and businessmen.

TITLE: Neva Plays Host to the World's Best Jet Skiers
AUTHOR: By Sam Charap and Christopher Hamilton

PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Although Peter the Great designed the Peter and Paul Fortress to defend against foreign attackers, this weekend the beaches of the 18th-century structure were the site of a veritable seaborne invasion.
 Unlike the Swedes that Peter feared, these foreigners came from all over the world, and on jet skis, as opposed to attack boats.
 St. Petersburg, for the fourth year running, played host to the biggest names in the sport of jet skiing, hosting the Russian Grand Prix of the World Aquabike Championship.
 The event on the Neva is the third of the sport's six Grand Prix events. The competition began this year in Santiago de Cuba on April 1 and continued on to Iseo in Italy. After this weekend, the competitors head to Gallipoli, Italy, then to Poland, and end the competitive year in Benidorm, Spain on Sept. 30.
 But for many of the competitors and the organizers of the sport, St. Petersburg represents the best place for jet skiing.
 &quot;It's a beautiful city, simply great. For me and the contestants, it is a great privilege to have our championship in this city,&quot; said Mauro Ravenna, the chief promoter of the International Union of Water Sports, the organizer of the championship.
 The event did provide spectacular viewing for all those involved. Petersburg residents were treated to races, a freestyle competition, and even &quot;Extreme Shows,&quot; which featured some of the contestants using their jet skis - a term which renders itself rather awkwardly in Russian as either <i>akvabaik, skooter, </i>or <i>vodny motorsikl </i>(water motorcycle) - in fantastical ways. 
 The competitors themselves were duly honored to practice their craft on the Neva River, with the Hermitage, Palace Embankment and the Strelka of Vasilievsky Ostrov, the torches of which were specially lighted for the occasion, serving as background for the races. The Grand Prix in St. Petersburg is the only such event to be held in the center of a major city.
 &quot;It's a very impressive place. ... It's nice to be here, as there are not many places where we can ride where there is a city and these beautiful palaces. It's usually on the seaside and there's nothing but beaches,&quot; said Giampaolo Marcante, an Italian freestyle competitor. Marcante also commented that, despite the pollution, the Neva provides an optimal environment for the sport. 
 After a day of qualifying rounds and races to determine pole position on Saturday, the main event of the championship, the Grand Prix races, took place on Sunday.
 Five-time world champion Didier Narvarro's team, DNR, hailing from France, dominated the third stage, taking first place in both racing competitions - the Ski Division and the Runabout 1,200 CC - as well as taking possession of the yellow jersey for first place overall in the Runabout 1200.
 Jerome Boyadjian of DNR took first place in the Ski Division, completing 12 laps in 22 minutes, 42 seconds.
 &quot;Woohoo!&quot; screamed the 21-year-old Frenchman after winning his second-consecutive race. &quot;I had some difficulties, but everything came together for me.&quot;
 With two wins in two races Boyadjian has accumulated 50 points, and jumped from fourth to second in the world standings. He now looks like a favorite to capture the yellow jersey at the next stage in Gallipolo, Italy.
 &quot;I am [trying] hard to improve and reach the next level. The next stage is in the sea, and I think it will be a great challenge for me.&quot;
 Despite the beauty of the its regal backdrop, the Neva presented some obstacles for the competitors, who described the course as one of the most difficult they had faced. 
 &quot;The combination of long and short lanes makes it difficult to find a good rhythm. But the wind is really what makes it difficult, at 100 kilometers per hour with all the chop it is difficult to maintain balance and stay on the bike,&quot; said jet-ski veteran Alberto Monti, who is currently ranked first in the Ski Division competition.
 &quot;I made a very big mistake and it cost me,&quot; he said, in reference to a critical error - taking the wrong side of a buoy. &quot;I lost first place and then I followed him [Boyadjian] all the way to the checkered flag.&quot; Monti finished second, completing the course in 22 minutes, 51 seconds.
 Narvarro took third place in the Ski Division finishing 11 laps in 22 minutes, 47 seconds. He remained focused, however, on what he considers his event, the Runabout 1200 CC, where he took first-place honors and won the yellow jersey.
 Completing 18 laps in 30 minutes, 39 seconds, he edged out Italian Gimmi Bosio by 9.67 seconds, and captured first place in the world rankings with 54 points, just one point ahead of Bosio. &quot;I am much more confident in my skills and my bike,&quot; Narvarro said. 
 &quot;I am happy with the organization and everything was completely fair. Didier is the champion,&quot; conceded Bosio. Lorenzo Benaglia placed third, finishing 18 laps in 31 minutes, 19 seconds, and is in third place overall with 43 points.
 Between the races, spectators were dazzled with moves like the barrel, the reverse, and the pizza-spaghetti - all part of the freestyle competition.
 In the end, Italians swept the competition, with the judges awarding first place to Federico Bufacchi. Gianopaolo Marcante took second prize and the bronze was awarded to Sergio Marcolini.

TITLE: Jones Keeps 6-Year Streak Alive
AUTHOR: By Bert Rosenthal

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EUGENE, Oregon - Marion Jones was fast, Regina Jacobs was durable.
 Showing the form that has made her the world's best female sprinter, Jones extended her six-year winning streak in the 200 meters at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championship on Sunday.
 Jones, who last lost a 200-meter race in 1995, was timed in 22.52 seconds while running into a headwind of 5.8 kilometers per hour to win her fourth-straight national 200 title.
 &quot;My ego is not that big that I think I'm invincible,&quot; Jones said. &quot;I've never said that. These women keep me on my toes.&quot;
 The victory earned Jones a place on the U.S. team for the world championships at Edmonton, Alberta, in August. At the last worlds in 1999 at Seville, Spain, Jones pulled up with a severe back injury in the 200-meter semifinals.
 Then, she was attempting to win gold medals in the 100, 200, long jump and 400 relay. She won the 100 and finished third in the long jump before getting injured.
 This time, she likely will try for four again - in the 100, 200, 400 relay and 1,600 relay. That is, if the coaches put her on the two relays, and there shouldn't be any doubt about that.
 On Sunday, Jones got out quickly, and never was seriously challenged, winning by about 2.5 meters over runner-up LaTasha Jenkins (22.88). On Saturday, Jones won her semifinal heat in 22.23, the fastest time in the world this year. On Sunday, she was hampered by the headwind, but under the conditions, her time was impressive.
 Jones bemoaned the bad weather - 10 degrees Celsius, with strong headwinds and slight rain - that hit Hayward Field.
 Jacobs became the first woman to win the 800 and 1,500 in 17 years, then finished second in the 5,000 in a bid for an unprecedented triple.
 The 37-year-old Jacobs, who won her 10th 1,500 title Saturday, used the same strategy in winning the 800 Sunday in 2:00.43, the fastest time by an American this year.
 Just as she did in the longer race, when she stayed off the right shoulder of front-running Suzy Favor Hamilton until the final 60 meters, Jacobs ran off the shoulder of Hazel Clark until the final 80 meters.
 Then, she accelerated into the lead and won by 3 meters, becoming the first 800-1,500 champion since Kim Gallagher in 1984.
 In the 5,000, Jacobs was never a serious challenger to visually impaired Marla Runyan, who won in 15:08.03, the fastest time by an American this year. Jacobs was timed in 15:10.78.
 Jacobs won the 1,500 and the 5,000 at last year's Olympic Trials, but did not compete at the Sydney Games because of illness.
 Asked why she attempted such a difficult triple, Jacobs replied, &quot;Why not?&quot;
 &quot;I needed to get some hard running under my belt,&quot; she added. &quot;Plus I wanted to do something historic.&quot;
 Jacobs ruled out running the 800 at the World Championship, but said she had not yet decided whether to compete in the 1,500 or 5,000 or both.
 Seilala Sua also was a double winner. She won the women's discus on Thursday and the shotput on Sunday with a career-best 17.69 meters, ending the nine-year winning streak of Connie Price-Smith.
 Price-Smith, 39, who was the runner-up at 16.96 meters, was the last to sweep the shot put and discus in the same year, accomplishing the feat from 1992-94.

TITLE: Webb Quickest To Win Career Grand Slam
AUTHOR: By Doug Ferguson

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WILMINGTON, Delaware - No one ever won a career Grand Slam as quickly as Karrie Webb, or made it look so easy.
 If only everyone knew how hard it was - picking up the final leg of the Grand Slam while her grandfather lay dying in Australia after a stroke.
 Webb delivered an early knockout Sunday with three-straight birdies, then ignored a late charge from Laura Diaz to win the LPGA Championship by two strokes and become the youngest woman to complete the Grand Slam.
 &quot;This is for you Granddad,&quot; Webb said as she walked off the 18th green, tears streaming down her face.
 Mick Collinson, 71, suffered a stroke Thursday, and took a turn for the worse Saturday. Webb didn't decide to play the final round until 8 a.m. Sunday, then turned it into a tribute that affirmed her as the best player in women's golf.
 &quot;I don't know how I did what I did today,&quot; she said.
 Despite bogeys on the last two holes that she could afford, Webb closed with a 2-under-par 69.
 Coming off an eight-stroke victory in the U.S. Women's Open just 21 days ago, Webb led by as many as six strokes early in the Sunday's round and was never seriously challenged. She finished at 270 and earned $225,000.
 It was another dominant performance by Webb, who has won her last four majors - including consecutive U.S. Opens - by a combined 25 strokes.
 The 26-year-old Australian became the fifth woman to win the LPGA's four majors. The others are Juli Inkster, Louise Suggs, Pat Bradley and Mickey Wright, who was 27 when she won the career Grand Slam in 1962.
 &quot;To do it a year ahead of Mickey Wright, at a time when the depth of talent is the best it's ever been, will ultimately go down as one of the biggest achievements in women's golf,&quot; LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw said.
 Tiger Woods is the youngest player to complete the slam, doing it last year at St. Andrews when he was 24.
 But no one has won all four in such a short period of time.
 Only two years ago, Webb was getting annoyed by questions of when she would win her first major. Just like everything else in her career, the response was swift and decisive.
 It took her only eight majors to complete the Grand Slam - Woods went 15 majors between the first and final leg.
 Webb now has won five of the last eight majors, the most dominant stretch in women's golf since Wright won five of six from 1961-62. Even more shocking is the way she has overwhelmed the best fields on the best courses.
 &quot;As far as pure golf, she's the best I've ever seen,&quot; said Inkster, who won the U.S. Open and LPGA Championship just 21 days apart in 1999 to complete the slam. &quot;She makes it look so effortless.&quot;
 Next up for Webb is the Women's British Open, which has replaced the du Maurier Classic as a major championship. Webb won the British at Sunningdale in 1995 as a 20-year-old, the first glimpse of a career that has exceeded even her own expectations.
 It was her 25th win on the LPGA Tour, which she joined in 1996 after finishing second in the qualifying tournament despite playing with a broken wrist.
 Diaz, an emerging American star and daughter of a north Florida teaching pro, had four-straight birdies to get within range of Webb with six holes to play. She never made up any more ground, and missed a 5-foot par putt on the 18th to finish with a 68.
 Maria Hjorth of Sweden, who got within two strokes of Webb after the first hole, took a double-bogey on No. 15 and shot 70. She tied for third at 274 with Wendy Ward (71).
 Laura Davies, two points short of making the Hall of Fame, could have qualified by winning the LPGA Championship. Four strokes behind to start the day, she shot herself out of contention early by hitting into the trees on No. 2 and taking a double-bogey.
 Davies had a 71 and was six strokes back at 276.

TITLE: Hingis Biggest Upset on Wimbledon's First Day
AUTHOR: By Howard Ulman

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WIMBLEDON, England - Top-ranked Martina Hingis, hampered by an aching back, was eliminated on Wimbledon's opening day Monday by an opponent ranked 83rd in the world.
 Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain stunned Hingis 6-4, 6-2 on an unusually hot London afternoon as fans, sensing the huge upset, cheered more loudly as the match reached its climax.
 When her last forehand went into the net in the final game, Hingis was an opening-round loser as the tournament's top-seeded player for the second time in three years.
 &quot;There are no excuses whether you're injured or not. If you step out there you should play,&quot; said Hingis, who complained of tendinitis in her lower back. &quot;I was just afraid to move.&quot;
 Hingis, clad in a long-sleeved outfit with a white cap to shield her from the sun, made it to last year's quarterfinals before losing to Venus Williams, the eventual champion.
 But the form that she showed in reaching the semifinals in her last three tournaments was rarely in evidence. As her match progressed, her little-known opponent seemed to gain energy.
 &quot;I'm still dreaming now. It's unbelievable,&quot; Ruano said. &quot;I feel very comfortable today out on the court.&quot;
 Hingis said she first felt the back problem about a week ago and had acupuncture treatment. But as late as Saturday, she said, she wasn't sure she'd compete.
 &quot;I knew I had a chance against Virginia. I mean, if I thought I had to play some other player, like I said, I wouldn't even have come here,&quot; Hingis said. &quot;I wasn't playing well, but she just hit great shots.&quot;
 Ruano lost both her previous matches against Hingis but was in control despite being an overwhelming underdog. She saw no sign that Hingis was hurt.
 &quot;She ran on the court and she served and she did everything so I don't know she was injured,&quot; Ruano said. &quot;If she says she was injured I'm sorry for her.&quot;
 The loss added to Hingis' unhappy history in Grand Slam events. After winning the 1999 Australian Open, she's been seeded first in the 10 Grand Slam events since then. And she hasn't won any of them.
 Two other high seeds among the women had predictable straight-sets victories.
 No. 4 Jennifer Capriati, halfway to the Grand Slam, overcame a slow start to beat Maria Alejandra Vento of Venezuela 6-3, 6-2. And No. 5 Serena Williams needed only 40 minutes to dispose of lefty Rita Kuti Kis, 6-1, 6-0.
 On the men's side, top-seeded Pete Sampras won his 29th-straight match at the tournament, beating Francisco Clavet of Spain, who prefers the slower clay surface, 6-4, 7-6, 6-4.
 Sampras is aiming for a record eighth Wimbledon title, A victory would give him five straight, matching Bjorn Borg's run.
 &quot;I love the [Center] court, and when I step out there I draw a lot of memories,&quot; said Sampras, who had 19 aces. The surface was &quot;like it always is the first day. It's very slippery. ... I lost my footing a couple of times.&quot;
 The most dramatic time was on the last point of the second set when Sampras skidded and fell while hitting a deep backhand and watched Clavet's return sail long.
 Sampras' win was the 54th in his last 55 Wimbledon matches. But, at 29, his game is down from its peak. He hasn't won a tournament since last year's Wimbledon.
 Capriati's Wimbledon success came earlier than Sampras' - she became the youngest woman to reach the semifinals in 1991 at age 15. But personal problems derailed her career and she slipped to the 101st ranking in 1998. She was 14th last year and is seeded fourth at Wimbledon this summer.
 &quot;I have a pretty good game plan of how I want to play on this [grass],&quot; said Capriati, who won 11 of the last 13 games. &quot;I've been practicing well on it for the last couple weeks.&quot;
 Monday's temperature hovered in the lower 20s Celsius as Williams took the court at high noon and didn't break much of a sweat.
 &quot;This is like heaven compared to what it's like back home in Florida,&quot; she said.
 London's unusually dry stretch reached its ninth day as the two-week tournament, often plagued by rain, began. More traditional weather was expected Tuesday: isolated showers with possible late thunderstorms.
 That's when Serena's sister Venus begins defense of her championship.
 Neither sister has played since the French Open , but Serena felt comfortable despite a lapse in the sixth game of the first set, which she lost despite having three break points.
 &quot;I'm a kind of insatiable person so I've never had a perfect match,&quot; she said. &quot;I think I lost a little focus out there. I started thinking of different things. My eyes started wandering.&quot;
 Unlike Williams, Hingis never had the luxury of a big lead, although she did not go without a fight.
 Down 5-1 in the second set, Hingis won an 11-point game after squandering a 30-0 lead, holding the advantage three times but never facing match point.
 That would change in the last game, as Hingis failed to win a point against Ruano's serve.
 &quot;Once you lose the first set and you're losing 3-0, it doesn't look very rosy,&quot; Hingis said.
 When the match ended, Ruano smiled and raised both arms to the crowd. Hingis sat down quietly, put on a white jacket and left the court with her racket bag slung over her right shoulder.
 &quot;Sometimes you just need some time to recover your body and soul and now I have some time to do it,&quot; she said.
 Ruano played patiently, while Hingis was largely unsuccessful as she tried to come to the net. Hingis did most of the running but never caught up to Ruano.
 In 1999, Hingis lost to Jelena Dokic 6-2, 6-0 at Wimbledon. Dokic, now one of the top players on the women's tour, was ranked 129th at the time.
 &quot;I know that my backhand, my slice, is good for this surface, my forehand, too,&quot; Ruano said. &quot;I don't serve and volley but I'm good on the baseline so I know I can play here.&quot;
 Other notable winners included, on the men's side, fourth-seeded Marat Safin of Russia and sixth-seeded Tim Henman of Britain. Eleventh-seeded Jan-Michael Gambill of the United States lost to fellow American Chris Woodruff. No. 2 Andre Agassi and No. 3 Patrick Rafter play Tuesday.