SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #703 (70), Tuesday, September 11, 2001
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TITLE: Yakovlev Calls for Unification Vote
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Governor Vladimir Yakovlev called last week for a public referendum on the question of combining the city of St. Petersburg and the surrounding Lenin grad Oblast into a single subject of the Russian Federation.
"Unifying the city and the oblast is exactly what needs to be done. [Historically], the two have always formed an integral whole. Even now, despite the fact that they are distinct federal entities, the two have much in common," Yakovlev told reporters last week.
"Sooner or later, unification will happen. But it won't happen in one day. It will be necessary to hold referendums, to take into consideration a range of opinions and to amend the constitution [of the Russian Federation]," Yakovlev said.
Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov, however, came out against the idea of unification in general and against the referendum proposal in particular. In the past, Serdyukov has stated that a merger would mostly benefit St. Petersburg.
"The economic situation in St. Petersburg is not strong enough to enable the city to incorporate the oblast, and the Leningrad Oblast is not in such a bad situation that it must move under someone else's roof," Serdyukov said last week. He also speculated that St. Petersburg politicians and businesspeople might be behind the merger talk in an effort to get access to the oblast's natural resources.
"The real issue to be discussed is not a merger, but a more efficient partnership between these two subjects of the federation," Serdyukov said.
The proposal to merge the city and the oblast is not new, having first been proposed by former mayor Anatoly Sobchak nearly a decade ago. Carrying out such a merger would require the consent of the federal government and amending the constitution.
"The Kremlin has made neither encouraging nor discouraging statements on this issue, which may show that Mos cow approves the idea but does not yet know who it thinks should run the combined subject," said Tatyana Protasenko, a researcher with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
A survey of 831 oblast residents conducted by the Institute of Sociology and the St. Petersburg Sociological Research Center this summer revealed that 57 percent of respondents thought the merger plan was "a perfectly correct idea," while another 14 percent said they would "sooner agree than disagree" with the proposal. Just 8 percent said the proposal was "absolutely wrong."
The same survey found that 39 percent of respondents thought the unification would be beneficial to both the city and the oblast, while 21 percent said that St. Petersburg would be the primary beneficiary. Nineteen percent said that the oblast would gain more, and 8 percent said that both would lose out.
"The Leningrad Oblast has no capital, and so its citizens instinctively look to St. Petersburg," Protasenko said. "Also, the higher living standards in St. Petersburg make ordinary citizens of the oblast look to the merger in hopes that it would help solve some of their everyday problems, including, for instance, unemployment."
Analysts were divided on whether or not the merger proposal is a good idea.
St. Petersburg Duma Deputy Konstantin Sevenard believes a merger would enhance St. Petersburg's status. "This merger is inevitable and will definitely be of benefit to both sides as it will reduce administrative obstacles and bureaucracy. But more importantly, increased political weight will improve the region's attractiveness to investors," Sevenard said.
Natalia Kudryavtseva, executive director of the St. Petersburg International Business Association, said that the merger - if properly executed - could make both regions more attractive for investors.
"St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast are quite distinct now as investment destinations. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. However, I do not expect the merger to happen in the near future, because it is a very complicated and time-consuming process," Kudryavtseva said.
The merger would most likely have little or no effect on tourism, according to Lyudmila Botkina, deputy head of the City Tourism Committee. "Having joint tourist information centers would definitely improve the overall infrastructure," Botkina said. "Tourists could be offered both cultural attractions and activities like hunting. However, to be honest, in terms of promotion, we have already reached an efficient level of cooperation and there isn't much need for more collaboration."
Boris Vishnevsky, a spokesperson for the St. Petersburg branch of the Yab loko political faction, emphasized the difficulties of the proposal.
"If we are serious about a merger, then we will have to create a unified legislature and executive. These bodies won't be efficient because oblast lawmakers and officials aren't familiar enough with the problems of the city and vice versa for St. Petersburg lawmakers and officials," Vishnevsky said on Monday.
Lev Savulkin, an analyst with the Leon tief Socio-Economic Research Center, emphasized the possible political motives behind Yakovlev's support for the idea. He noted that the constitution forbids the governor from running for a third term when his present term expires in 2004, and the merger proposal may be his attempt to retain power.
"The merger, if it happens, would not have much influence on either the city's or the oblast's economic situation," Savulkin said. "The days when the oblast was in dire straits are past. Now the pace of investment is 1 1/2 times higher in the oblast than in the city, since the oblast has significant natural resources and less complicated investment procedures."
Projects such as the Baltic Pipeline System, a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline project that will extend to an oil terminal at the oblast town of Primorsk, have attracted the attention of the St. Petersburg business community to the oblast, Savulkin noted, as have the oblast's abundant natural resources.
TITLE: Putin Lashes Out at Nemtsov
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin struck out at Duma Deputy Boris Nemtsov on Friday for proposing talks with Chechen rebel leaders.
Putin, who repeatedly has refused to negotiate with the rebels, at first seemed to soften his position by saying "talks are always better than actions involving the use of force and we are ready for contacts with anyone."
But he ruled out any compromise with the rebels and imposed strict conditions for agreeing to talks.
The rebels must lay down their arms, give up their bid for independence and hand over "especially odious bandits who are up to their elbows in the blood of the Russian people," Putin said in remarks shown on television.
These conditions would be unacceptable to the Chechen separatists.
Annoyed at Nemtsov's call to begin talks with rebel leader Aslan Mask hadov, Putin challenged him to get the Chechen rebels to accept these conditions or else give up his seat in the State Duma.
"If there are any deputies in the State Duma, including Boris Nemtsov, able to ensure fulfillment of these conditions in the foreseeable future, let's say in a month, let them do it. If they are not capable, they should stop messing around on the country's political stage and give up their mandate as deputy," Putin said after meeting with regional officials in the southern city of Kislovodsk.
"President Putin did not appoint me and it is not his place to dismiss me," Nemtsov told an interviewer on TV6.
"It must be borne in mind that there are a variety of points of view in the country, points of view that will continue to be expressed, and the president has to get used to criticism."
Nemtsov, who recently traveled to Chechnya, said Putin should appoint a special representative for talks with the Chechens.
Reaction from Putin supporters Friday reinforced the idea that serious negotiations are still a remote possibility. "There can be no talks with Mask ha dov," said Akhmad Kadyrov, the Mos cow-appointed chief administrator for Chechnya, since neither Nemtsov nor Maskhadov is able to meet the conditions put forward by the president.
The presidential representative for the Southern Federal District, Viktor Ka zantsev, also ruled out negotiations with Maskhadov. "The time for negotiations has passed," Interfax quoted Ka zantsev as saying.
Maskhadov was elected Chechnya's president in a 1997 election that the Kremlin considered valid at the time, but he is now wanted on charges of leading an insurrection and Moscow has frequently rebuffed his calls for talks.
The normally unflappable Putin has often shown flashes of anger when the question of peace talks with the Chechen rebels has beenbroached.
************************* The nephew of Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Akhmad Kadyrov was killed Monday along with three friends, victims in a rebel campaign of murder and intimidation against Mosc ow loyalists.
About 10 of Kadyrov's close relatives have been murdered over the past year by rebels making good on threats to punish anyone collaborating with federal forces or even those close to perceived collaborators, according to Interfax.
Interfax reported Monday that Ka dyrov's nephew, Lecha, and three friends were killed after their car came under fire when Lecha was on his way to give blood for his sister, who is hospitalized.
Interfax quoted prosecutors in Chechnya as saying that Lecha was not the intended victim, but he fell victim to an attempt on Makkhal Taramov, the head of the Kurchaloi District.
The report said that Lecha's car came under fire as it was passing a convoy carrying Taramov and other local officials traveling along the road leading from Kurchaloi to Belorechye.
In separate incidents, two servicemen were killed and two wounded when rebels ambushed a reconnaissance unit on the border between Chech nya and Ingushetia, police said Monday.
Six rebels attacked the unit Sunday near the village of Verkhny Alkun, said Madina Khatziyeva, a spokesperson for the Ingush Interior Ministry. She said all the rebels managed to flee but a local villager, Elber Kurayev, was mistaken for a militant and killed.
Also Sunday, 12 soldiers were injured, seven of them gravely, when a military truck crashed on an Ingush mountain road.
An armored train carrying troops detonated a land mine placed under the tracks by rebels on Friday, and four soldiers were injured, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration said Saturday.
****************************** State Duma Deputy Yury Shche ko chik hin said in comments published Monday that he was the legislator who met with representatives of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in Switzerland last month. Reports of the meeting originally appeared in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps.
Shchekochikhin gave no details of the meeting, saying only that he spoke with Ilyas Akhmadov, the self-proclaimed Chechen government's foreign minister, as a "private citizen" rather than a government official.
Shchekochikhin said the meeting took place in Montreux on the sidelines of a conference called "Globalized Responsibility and Action" organized by Initiatives of Change, an international organization focusing on "historical reconciliation," chaired by a former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
- Reuters, SPT, WP, AP
TITLE: Countrywide Search for Escapees Yields Nothing
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - A countrywide search for three prisoners who escaped from the infamous Butyrka prison last week has yielded no results, although one of them was reportedly spotted in the northern part of the Moscow region.
Several inhabitants of the Sergiyev Posad District, some 40 kilometers north of Moscow, have reported seeing fugitive Anatoly Kulikov, according to Alexander Volkov, the head of the Moscow prison authorities.
The inmates - identified as Boris Be zotechestvo, Vladimir Zhelezoglo and Kulikov - escaped on Wednesday by tunneling through the floor of their cell into a basement.
Prison-service officials said blanket checks were under way at railway stations and airports to find the fugitives.
RTR reported late Thursday that searches in Butyrka's basement were halted after police found a driver who saw the men's mug shots and recognized them as passengers he'd driven from Belarus Station to Zelenograd.
Butyrka, built under Catherine the Great in the 18th century, has a reputation for dire conditions. "One can dig a tunnel in its concrete floors with his fingers," said a prison spokesperson, speaking on conditions of anonymity. "All that's needed is time."
"This is a unique escape, everything was worked out to the last detail," said Vadim Mikhailov, the head of the Moscow Diggers, a group that explores the city's underground passageways and that is assisting the police in this case.
After tunneling down some 1.5 meters into a basement, the prisoners "moved, presumably in the dark, along the tunnel until they reached the sewage pipe, which led them on to the surface outside the prison," Mikhailov said.
"We found fragments of pipes, a makeshift lamp, a cup, their robes - everything evincing that we were following their route," Mikhailov said.
Given that the guards apparently did not enter the cell for about five days, the inmates had plenty of time not only to dig a tunnel in the floor but descend underneath several times to make preparations for the escape, Mikhailov said.
In the meantime, an investigation at Butyrka showed that the staff was overworked and poorly paid, Volkov said at a news conference Friday. There were only 22 guards, instead of the 79 required, and most were from outside Moscow and lived in the prison dormitory. They earned 2,000 rubles ($70) a month.
Volkov could not rule out that the guards were "pushed" to cooperate with the prisoners because of their "social problems," Strana.ru reported. Interfax said the prison staff is now being questioned with the help of lie detectors.
- AP, Reuters, SPT
TITLE: ORT Names Cultural Figures as Directors
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Cultural figures including film director Nikita Mikhalkov and State Hermitage Museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky replaced people like Boris Berezovsky's daughter Yekaterina and most-trusted journalist, Sergei Dorenko, on the board of directors of the country's biggest television channel, ORT, at its general shareholders meeting Friday.
The meeting was originally scheduled for June 29 but was postponed because the proposed board made up entirely of government officials "did not reflect the essence of public television," Press Minister Mikhail Lesin said at the time. Last week, sources in the ministry floated the idea of having no government officials on the board.
The new board consists of President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Alexei Gromov; First Deputy Property Minister Alexander Braverman; Northern Ossetia President Alexander Dzasokhov; First Deputy Press Minister Mikhail Seslavinsky; ORT General Director Konstantin Ernst; his first deputy, Alexander Lyubimov; former editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Vitaly Tretyakov; Mikhalkov; Piotrovsky; lyricist Ilya Reznik and composer Alexander Chaikovsky.
"For the first time since ORT [or Public Russian Television] was created, its public status is confirmed not in name alone, but on paper," Lyubimov was quoted by Kommersant newspaper as saying Friday.
The company's ownership structure, however, has remained nontransparent, and the government is set to call the shots at the 51 percent state-owned television station.
Traditionally, ORT's board had little influence on the channel's operations but was seen as an indicator of the balance of forces between the Kremlin and Berezovsky. Earlier this year, Roman Ab ra mo vich, oil tycoon and Chukotka governor, reportedly bought out Berezovsky's 49 percent on behalf of the government.
Radio Liberty media analyst Anna Kachkayeva said in a telephone interview Sunday that it was still unclear who was behind the privately held 49 percent.
"So far, it only looks like a cosmetic observance of democratic procedure," she said.
Instead of Berezovsky's LogoVAZ, ORT's charter now shows a mysterious OOO Betos with 11 percent. Radio Liberty reported that the company is registered in an offshore zone in Kalmykia. Thirty-eight percent is still held by a company called ORT-Consortium of Banks, whose ownership structure has never been revealed.
TITLE: Tretyakov: Berezovsky Threatened Me
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Vitaly Tretyakov, the founder and former editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, came out Friday to accuse Boris Berezovsky, who controls the newspaper, of threatening his life because of his refusal to give up his minority stake.
Tretyakov, who was sacked in June, said a representative of Berezovsky's gave him a month to decide whether to sell his 20 percent stake in the paper during a meeting Tuesday.
"I was told: It's unclear why you're so calm.... The full control of Nezavisimaya Gazeta depends on one person - you. If there's a person, there's a problem.... Imagine you walk outside and a brick drops on your head," a visibly nervous Tretyakov told a news conference.
According to his account, the representative, whom Tretyakov declined to identify, said Berezovsky and his entourage would do nothing to harm him, but they could sell their stake to a third party with its own methods of convincing Tretyakov to relinquish control.
The representative's name was reported Saturday by the Kommersant daily, also controlled by Berezovsky.
In a brief interview, Yuly Dubov, deputy director of LogoVAZ, the car dealership founded by Berezovsky, said he spoke with Tretyakov on Tuesday.
"I will not drop bricks on him," Dubov was quoted as saying.
Dubov said the meeting was on "ensuring his [Tretyakov's] interests" after his dismissal, according to Kommersant.
"I appreciated that he did not mention my last name," Dubov said. "But he did not do this out of altruism. It was done to make [the allegations] scarier."
Tretyakov said he viewed the threats as psychological pressure; nonetheless, he has hired three bodyguards and said he would send the bill to Berezovsky.
Berezovsky, now living abroad in self-imposed exile, sacked Tretyakov over disagreements about editorial policy shortly after announcing his intention to create an opposition party in Russia.
"My dismissal is fair and it would be ridiculous to argue with it," Tretyakov said, referring to Berezovsky's right as the majority shareholder to fire him, but he added that the tycoon cannot consider the newspaper his property.
Tretyakov said 80 percent of Nezavisimaya is owned by the joint-stock company Redaktsia Nezavisimoi Gazety, formed in 1996 by Berezovsky-controlled Obyedinyonny Bank. But the remaining 20 percent, he said, belong to a non-commercial organization also called Redaktsia Nezavisimoi Gazety, formed by Tretyakov and 14 other members of the editorial team in 1994.
He said the noncommercial organization - where Tretyakov is editor and general director - transferred the right to publish the newspaper to the joint-stock company for an indefinite time, while retaining the rights to the paper's brand name, supplements, photo agency and publishing house. The noncommercial organization is also the legal entity that rents the newspaper's offices.
Tretyakov said that since his ouster, the newspaper's new leadership has repeatedly asked him to sign and stamp various bureaucratic documents. Meanwhile, he cannot retrieve documents related to his noncommercial organization from Nezavisimaya's offices. Tretyakov said his foes have no legal means of forcing him to give up control of the noncommercial organization.
No one could be reached for comment at Nezavisimaya on Friday.
Later in the day, media reported that Tretyakov had been appointed to the board of ORT television, controlled until recently by Berezovsky. Dubov suggested in the Kommersant interview that the appointment was compensation from Berezovsky's opponents for Tretyakov's allegations.
TITLE: Independent Media Accused
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The publisher of The Russia Journal has filed a complaint with the Antimonopoly Ministry accusing Independent Media of "monopolistic and anti-market" activities.
The complaint accuses Independent Media - parent company of The St. Petersburg Times, The Moscow Times and about a dozen glossy magazines, including the Russian version of Playboy - of "colluding with major U.S. and European publishers to illegally dominate both the English- and Russian-language print market in Russia," said a statement from Norasco Publishing Ltd.
Irina Silayeva, a member of Independent Media's board of directors, said the company's advertising and distribution strategies and policies are in compliance with global practice and Russian law. "We are not breaking the law. We are not monopolists," Silayeva said.
Ajay Goyal, chairman of Norasco Publishing and former editor of The Russia Journal, an English-language weekly, disagreed. "Independent Media has been pushing us against the wall. I consider we have lost $2.5 million because of these practices of Independent Media," Goyal said in an interview Friday. "Somebody has to pay for it."
A spokesperson for the Antinonopoly Ministry confirmed that the complaint was filed in mid-August and is being looked into. The ministry expects to decide by the end of September whether the complaint merits further investigation, she said.
TITLE: Ekho Moskvy Editor Plans To Start New Station
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The seemingly resolved conflict between Ekho Moskvy radio station and its majority shareholder, state gas giant Gazprom, reignited this week, as Ekho's editor announced plans to start up a new station.
Editor Alexei Venediktov said in a telephone interview Thursday that he and his team have bid for a new FM frequency set to be auctioned off later this month because Gazprom-Media, which holds a 52 percent stake in the station, has dragged its feet on a deal to sell part of its stake to a neutral third party.
"There have been no developments on the part of Gazprom Media since July," Venediktov said.
According to the compromise deal, announced at a July 17 news conference, Gazprom-Media was to sell a 9.5 percent stake of Ekho shares to former Economics Minister Yevgeny Yasin, who hosted a program on the station. The deal was meant to ensure that no one shareholder would have a controlling stake. The station's journalists hold a 34 percent stake.
Venediktov said Gazprom-Media was supposed to complete the sale by Aug. 1, according to an agreement between him and Gazprom-Media chief Alfred Kokh. Venediktov said, however, that the agreement had not been sealed in writing.
"The only evidence of the deal is a ... videotape of our joint press conference where we talk about the terms of the sale," he said.
Gazprom-Media denied that a deadline for the deal had been set.
"It is not fixed anywhere," spokes person Aelita Yefimova said by telephone Thursday. "We sent the necessary document to Gazprom's board of directors for approval in July and now we are awaiting for their decision."
Yefimova said she did not know when that decision might be handed down.
Gazprom-Media got control of the radio station in April as part of its politically charged take-over of NTV television and other assets owned by Vla di mir Gusinsky's Media-MOST.
Venediktov said that working at a station controlled by Gazprom-Media would effectively mean working under the Kremlin, and those who did not wish to do so would be forced to look for new options.
The embryonic Radio Arsenal, which was registered by Venediktov and several Ekho top managers in Yekaterinburg in July 2000, will take part in a tender set for Sept. 26 in a bid to win one of two FM frequencies to be sold off by the Communications Ministry. Kommersant reported Thursday that 36 radio stations have already thrown their hats in the ring.
Venediktov said Arsenal's format would be talk radio.
He also said he feared the review of Arsenal's tender application could be biased due to government pressure, since five of the nine tender commission members are on the state's pay roll.
"Being considered in opposition to the state leadership will be a minus for us during the vote," he said.
However, Viktoria Sukhareva, a radio analyst with the Association of Regional Radio Broadcasters, said that both Ekho's professionalism and its political status might work in Arsenal's favor.
"Ekho Moskvy is a symbol of democratic Russia for many," she said in a telephone interview. "It would be unwise for the country's authorities - regardless of their own political preferences - to ruin such idols."
TITLE: Five More Years for Lukashenko
AUTHOR: By Sergei Shargorodsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINSK - The authoritarian president of Belarus swept to a new five-year term after campaigning on promises to merge with Russia and to stand up to the West, according to election results his chief challenger called fraudulent.
Incumbent Alexander Lukashenko had 75.6 percent of the vote in a preliminary count early Monday, the state-run Central Election Commission said. The final results would be announced later in the day.
Opposition leader Vladimir Goncharik had 15.4 percent of the vote and centrist politician Sergei Gaidukevich had 2.5 percent, election commission chairperson Lidia Yermoshina told a news conference.
With tallies of the vote just beginning Sunday night, Lukashenko eagerly claimed he had won "an elegant and beautiful victory.''
Lukashenko - dubbed Europe's last dictator by his foes for his crackdown on independent media and political opponents - had widely been expected to win.
The 47-year-old leader has promised to boost living standards and farming and industry over the next five years. But critics fear he will further isolate this impoverished former Soviet republic of 10 million in the heart of eastern Europe.
Goncharik told The Associated Press he would not accept the election results and accused Lukashenko of "seizing power."
He demanded a new election, claiming that according to an independent count, Lukashenko won 46 percent to his own 40 percent.
"This is clear falsification caused by replacing ballots during early balloting and at closed polling stations," Goncharik said.
Despite rainy weather, the election commission said 83.9 percent of voters turned out.
Tension was high in an election campaign punctuated by police raids on independent media and opposition campaign offices. In recent weeks, former security officials accused Lukashenko's government of sponsoring death squads to eliminate his critics.
Casting his ballot, Lukashenko denied those accusations and brushed off allegations of vote tampering and fears the election results might not be recognized by the West.
"Our elections do not need anybody's recognition," he said.
After claiming victory, Lukashenko sounded a softer note. "We had a head-on-head collision with the West and we know the result. Let us recognize this in a civilized way and start rebuilding relations," he said.
Sunday marked Lukashenko's first electoral test since 1996, when he pushed through a referendum that extended his five-year term by two years - a vote the United States and others refused to acknowledge.
The United States has stopped calling him "president" because he remained in office beyond the five-year term he began in 1994.
Most Belarussians voted Sunday, but those with a compelling reason were allowed to vote up to five days in advance - a practice U.S. officials and opposition leaders had said could lead to tampering.
The Bush administration has also said Lukashenko stacked the electoral commission with loyal people and that he "regularly obstructs and impedes" the electoral process. The State Department said Sunday that it would not immediately comment on the election.
Lukashenko's policies have drawn sharp criticism from the United States and unnerved many of Belarus' neighbors in central and eastern Europe, which are trying to shed their communist pasts and strengthen their ties with the West.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Patriarch on Chechnya
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Patriarch Alexy II stated Monday that Russia should not negotiate with Che chen rebels in an effort to end the conflict in that region, Interfax reported.
Speaking to reporters after a three-day visit to St. Petersburg, the patriarch said that negotiations must be held, "but not with fighters who plant bombs, destroy people or carry out terrorist acts." He emphasized that talks should continue with the heads of regional administrations in the republic.
"Experience has shown that it is senseless to conduct negotiations with people who are international terrorists," the patriarch said, according to Interfax.
Art-Theft Suspects
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City police have detained a group of about 10 suspects from Estonia in connection with the theft of a 19th-century painting, stolen from the State Hermitage Museum in March, a spokesperson said on Monday.
Police spokesperson Alexander Rostovtsev said the group was detained three weeks ago and was engaged in the art-forgery business. "Among other works, they had made a copy of the [stolen] picture," Rostovtsev said.
He declined to release any names or to say whether the suspects are Estonian citizens. The Estonian Consulate could not be reached for comment.
The painting, "Pool in a Harem" by the French artist Jean-Leon Gerome, was insured by the museum six years ago for $1 million. It was cut from its frame on March 22. Museum workers said that the exhibit hall where the painting was hanging was closed to visitors at the time of the theft.
U.S. Monitors Russia
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Air Force said Sunday it will be sending fighter aircraft to locations in Alaska and northern Canada to monitor a Russian Air Force exercise in the Russian arctic and north-Pacific region.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, based at Colorado Springs, Colorado, said in a statement it conducted a similar operation during the first two weeks of December last year in response to a similar, but smaller Russian deployment of long-range bombers at northern Russian air bases.
It said that the NORAD operation involved more than 350 U.S. and Canadian military personnel.
NORAD did not say when the Russian exercises were expected to begin.
Kursk's Third Saw
MOSCOW (AP) - Divers on Saturday installed a third underwater saw to cut off the bow section of the sunken Kursk submarine, and officials said the cutting operation was almost complete.
The cutting operation was suspended Friday after one of the saws became jammed, Interfax reported. The operation resumed Saturday, but was halted again Sunday while divers did further repair work, the news agency said, citing Russian Navy spokesperson Igor Dygalo.
The front section is being cut away because of fears it could break off during the planned raising of the submarine.
Journalists Win
MOSCOW (SPT) - Journalists of Lipetsk's TVK television company won a standoff against new management on Friday when city police left the premises.
Several courts ruled in favor of the old management led by Alexander Ly kov against Dmitry Kolbasko, installed in late August by one of the shareholders and supported by Lipetsk Region Governor Oleg Korolyov. The majority of journalists protested the management change. Last week, a group of journalists, who had been locked out of the editorial offices, snuck past police guards and staged a sit-in strike.
Pro-governor media in Lipetsk alleged that Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant head Vladimir Lisin, who is considering a run for governor next year, stood behind the protesting journalists.
Lykov was attacked by unknown people Friday shortly after police left. In a telephone interview, he said it was a "provocation" aimed at bringing police back to TVK's offices.
TVK lawyer Lyudmila Mironova said Sunday that Lykov and his team were in charge at the station, but the conflict was not over and more court hearings were coming.
TVK, one of the most professional regional television stations, has been critical of the governor's administration.
Bomb Injures Two
MAKHACHKALA, Dagestan (AP) - Two people were injured Sunday when a bomb placed in a car parked next to a wholesale market in Dagestan exploded, police said.
The bomb was placed inside a Mercedes belonging to the owner of a local cafe, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said. The driver and a passerby were badly injured, Itar-Tass reported.
Police said the blast was most likely due to gangland war, and they were looking for two men who leaped out of the car just before the blast, the report said.
Arafat To Visit
MOSCOW (AP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will visit Moscow by the end of the year, a Palestine Liberation Organization official said Saturday.
Mahmoud Abbas, a top aide to Arafat, said he will discuss the visit with Arafat when he returns home after talks this week in Moscow.
Abbas told Itar-Tass that his talks were successful, saying, "I am pleased with the answers that the Russian side gave both to the Palestinians and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon," who visited Moscow last week.
Colonel on Trial
ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia (AP) - A military court on Friday began hearing the case of a former colonel in Chechnya accused of corruption, the judge handling the case said.
Colonel Alexander Petrov is charged with taking bribes, extortion and abuse of office, Judge Igor Po tap chen ko said. Prosecutors say Petrov, who served as military commissar in Chech nya, took bribes in the form of money and jewelry.
Reactor Revved Up
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's first new nuclear-power plant since the Soviet era was turned up to full capacity, officials said Thursday.
Reactor No. 1 at the Rostov Atomic Energy Station, which began pumping electricity in March, was working at full capacity as of Wednesday, the state-owned nuclear power company Rosenergoatom said in a statement.
Over the next 40 days, plant workers will conduct 46 tests to make sure the reactor is working properly, the company said. It said the radiation levels around the reactor were normal.
Officials say the new reactor is the country's safest, but its construction met with strong opposition in the nearby town of Volgodonsk.
TITLE: Reiman Talks 3rd GSM License
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Given the paucity of realistic competitors for a third GSM-standard cellular license in St. Petersburg, federal Communications Minister Leonid Reiman seems to have given up trying to appear impartial or diplomatic.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Reiman singled out Vimpelcom-R, the regional subsidiary of the Moscow-based provider, as having the inside track on receiving the third local GSM licensey, once the ministry decides to grant it.
"I think [Vimpelcom] has a good chance," he said. "In any case I think that if the situation there hasn't already fully matured, then it is definitely at least close to the situation where a third license will be issued."
For its part, Vimpelcom refused to comment on Reiman's statement, but the company has made very little effort to hide its interest in picking up a license here as part of its general focus on Russia's regions.
"The statements made by the minister only concerned the possibility of our coming to St. Petersburg, so it's too early to comment on that," Mikhail Umarov, spokesperson for Vimpelcom, which owns 100 percent of Vimpelcom-R, said Monday. "But we have talked about our goals in improving our network and becoming a strong regional operator on more than one occasion."
Two firms are presently licensed to operate GSM-standard cellular systems in the Northwest Region. North-West GSM has been operating here since December 1994, and Telecom XXI, which was purchased by Moscow-based MTS in March, is close to completing the construction of its network and will begin operations late in the fall.
The Telecom XXI deal was seen as opening the local cellular market to greater competition, but this appears now to have been only the first step.
The ministry has long said that it will only grant a third GSM operating license in regions where the total penetration of cellular usage reaches 10 percent of the population. The ministry divided Russia into eight regions when it began handing out the licenses and presently only the Moscow region has three operators, with newcomer Sonic Duo joining MTS and Vimpelcom in the market.
Moscow's cellular penetration rate is about 14 percent, while St. Petersburg's is about 7 percent, according to statistics from Renaissance Capital research company, suggesting that there is significant room for growth in the local market.
Industry experts have been predicting that the 10 percent threshold will be surpassed by the end of the year, and they say that the fact that it seems the winner of the tender is already all but decided is not surprising.
"There are no precedents in Russia where licenses to provide cell-phone service were handed out through a fair tender," Andrei Braginsky, telecoms analyst at Renaissance Capital said on Monday. "Most licenses were issued by administrative order, like the license for the Sonic Duo and Telecominvest-Povolzhye firms [in the Volga Region]."
"Of course there is a law that sets out fair procedures for tenders but, in reality, that law has already been ignored twice this year alone."
While the looming grant of a license to operate in the region is positive for Vimpelcom-R, it might spell more difficulties for MTS - through Telecom XXI - in establishing itself here.
Should Vimpelcom move into the local market in the near future, as appears likely, then St. Petersburg would become a sort of testing ground for a competition taking shape in Russia's cellular market as a whole.
That competition will be amongthree companies: MTS, in which Sistema Telecom owns a 43-percent stake; Telecominvest, which is the chief shareholder in North-West GSM and is moving into the regions with its Megafon project; and Vimpelcom/Vimpelcom-R.
Analysts say that the outcome of the competition will largely be the result of the interplay of three factors: the number of licenses held, financing and political connections.
According to Renaissance Capital's Braginsky, no matter how it actually happens, eventually the third license here will be controlled by Vimpelcom's ownership in some way.
"This could happen through Vimpelcom's new investor: Alfa-Group [which owns a 25-plus-one stake in Vimpelcom]," Braginsky said. "The lobbying strength of this company can't be ignored."
Braginsky also said that if the license isn't issued - or isn't issued soon , which is still a possibility - Vimpelcom might purchase or set up a partnership with Petersburg Telecom, another St. Petersburg cell-phone operator that provides AMPS-based cellular service under the FORA Communications brandname. Vim pel com could then apply for conversion from the analog AMPS standard to GSM-1800, which is digital.
Last September, Petersburg Telecom announced that it was kicking off a CDMA system but the system has yet to start operations.
Acting general director of Petersburg Telecom, Victor Sadovnikov, said in August that FORA expects to be granted a license to operate a system on the GSM-1800 standard in the city and, as such, plans to develop the CDMA system further have been put on hold.
"Building of a network in GSM 1800 standard is a little - about 15 to 20 percent more expensive than construction of GSM-900 or 900/1800 network," he said. "But equipment prices are falling by about 10 to 15 percent per year, so the price will eventually not differ by much."
According to Ari Krel, an analyst at United Financial Group, FORA might use the chance to built a GSM-1800 network itself if it could find a serious investor.
"The third player in a cell-phone market always faces serious competition, so it needs serious financial sources to cover about $100 million in costs for building a network," Krel said. "Vimpelcom has that kind of source in the form of Alpha Group, its new investor, so it could easily purchase FORA."
And the connections between Vimpelcom and FORA are already there. In June, Alexei Mishchenko, who was the head of Petersburg Telecom at the time, was appointed general director of Vimpelcom-R.
According to the ComNews.ru information Website, Mishchenko has denied rumors that his appointment was related to a future purchase of Petersburg Telecom.
Vimpelcom started providing cell-phone service in 1992 using the AMPS standard. The company received a GSM-standard license in Moscow in 1997.
In first quarter of 2001, Vimpelcom returned to profitability for the first time since the end of 1998. The company posted a $5.1 million profit, compared with losses of $11.8 million for the same period last year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose to $27.9 million, from $11.2 million in 2000.
Vimpelcom has been viewed as lagging behind MTS and Telecominvest in positioning itself in the regions, but Vimpelcom's GSM license area - covering 70 percent of the country, or 100 million people - is the largest among the three operators.
TITLE: Local Cellular Leader Moves Into Tajikistan
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth Wolfe
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Becoming the first leading Russian cellular operator to take its business across the border, North-West GSM has formed a joint venture with Tajikistan's fixed-line operator.
TT Mobile, which was created in August as a 75-25 joint venture of the local cellular provider and state-owned Tajiktelecom, received a GSM license from the Tajikistan Communications Ministry last week and plans to start operations in the capital city, Dushanbe, in February, North-West GSM announced Friday.
The new company will be the second GSM operator on Tajikistan's tiny, undeveloped cellular market, where Somoncom, commercially launched in the north of the country in March 2000, claims around 500 subscribers. Although less than 5 percent of Tajikistan's population has a regular phone, North-West GSM sees "big potential" on the mobile market, said spokesperson Maria Gavrilova.
Russia's third-largest mobile operator, with almost half a million subscribers, North-West GSM plans to invest $5 million by 2003, Gavrilova said. She declined to detail how Tajiktelecom is contributing financially or how many subscribers TT Mobile could attract.
The joint venture will compete with another start-up, Indigo-Tajikistan, majority owned by U.S. MCT Corp., which controls Somoncom.
TITLE: Strategic Partnership Reached With China
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Russia and China, striving for deeper economic and political ties, put real money on the table Saturday in deals to pump Siberian oil to China and sell new Russian jetliners to Beijing.
During talks between Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Chinese counterpart Zhu Rongji, officials said they had agreed to build a 2,400-kilometer pipeline by 2005 that will eventually carry 30 million tons (219 million barrels) of oil per year.
Beijing also agreed to buy five Tupolev 204 jets, with a view to buying 10 more at a later date, in a deal that could be a lifesaver for Russia's struggling civil-aircraft industry.
"The accent today stresses cooperation in economic and civil spheres ... and shows that the term 'strategic partnership' is supported by real content," Kasyanov said on RTR television.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin and President Vladimir Putin signed a cooperation treaty in July, their third meeting in a year, and have backed closer economic and political ties between the Cold War-era rivals.
Interfax quoted Kasyanov as hailing the increase in trade between the countries this year to an expected $10 billion, up from about $5.5 billion in 1999. Russia is China's ninth-largest trading partner, while China is Russia's sixth-biggest.
Russia's Energy Ministry said No. 2 oil producer Yukos, state pipeline monopoly Transneft and China's National Oil Co. had signed an outline deal to build the pipeline from the giant Kovykta field in eastern Siberia by 2005.
The cost of construction, tariff levels and details of Russia and China's cooperation on the project should be finalized by July 2002, and a blueprint of the pipe and its route should be ready by July 2003. The Energy Ministry said Friday the deal would be worth $2 billion.
"The signing of a general agreement takes cooperation between Russian and Chinese oil companies to a new level, with the creation of a new direction for Russian oil exports and the diversification of energy sources for China," Interfax quoted Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky as saying.
Last year, China imported 1.45 million tons of crude from Russia, most of which was shipped by rail. But imports of Russian oil have been included in China's development plan for 2001 to 2005 because of dwindling energy sources.
China, a net crude importer since 1993, saw imports peak in 2000 at 60 million tons, about a quarter of consumption. More than 60 percent of imported crude came from the Middle East.
Besides a Russia-China pipeline, the Russian government is to mull a project for a pipeline to the Pacific coast from the Siberian hinterland, state pipeline monopoly Transneft said last week.
The government will decide whether to build both pipelines or just one sometime after the middle of 2002.
Kasyanov said China had agreed to buy five of Russia's new Tu-204 passenger jets "as a kind of test" and could go on to buy another 10 in future. The first five will be delivered in two to three years, officials said.
Industry sources have said the plane deal could be worth up to $160 million and aerospace analysts say the sale may be a major breakthrough for Russia's struggling civil-plane builders.
In addition to economic cooperation, Moscow and Beijing are interested in boosting relations to counter what they consider U.S. hegemonism and plans for a national missile-defense system.
- Reuters, AP
TITLE: Moscow To Set Aside Debt Fund
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasya nov said Monday the government plans to set aside $5 billion this year for a 2003 peak in foreign-debt payments, helped by a tough budget policy.
Kasyanov, speaking to an investment conference, also said that the government plans to raise a similar amount - 150 billion rubles ($5.1 billion) - in domestic bonds, including short GKO bonds and long OFZ bonds, in 2002.
"The volume of domestic financial instruments will be seriously increased next year," Prime-Tass quoted him as saying.
On debt repayments, Kasyanov said Russia was busy building the necessary funds. "If we can accumulate this $5 billion, then the 2003 payment tension will be lifted," Kasyanov was quoted by the government information office as saying.
He was referring to $19 billion Russia is to disburse in foreign-debt payments and servicing in 2003, compared with around $14 billion this year and next. He said a planned budget surplus of 1.5 percent of GDP this year would help with this goal and insisted a ratio of 60 percent of foreign debt to gross domestic product was on a "normal, European level."
Russia's coffers have been filled in the last two years by high prices for its main exports of oil, gas and metals, which has given the government breathing space to implement structural reforms and pay down debt.
- Reuters, SPT
TITLE: Russia To Remain on 'Dirty-Cash' Blacklist
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia has escaped global "dirty-cash" sanctions but will continue to be blacklisted by an international task force on money laundering for at least another year.
The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force on Friday said after a three-day meeting that while Russia had "enacted significant legislation over the summer," it had yet to do enough to be taken off the blacklist of "noncooperative jurisdictions" altogether.
The key for Russia being removed from the list is the "effective and timely implementation" of new laws, FATF chief Clarie Lo, who is also Hong Kong's narcotics commissioner, said in Paris, news agencies reported.
The FATF, an arm of the 29-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, also added two countries, Ukraine and Grenada, to its blacklist, bringing the total number of countries and territories to 19.
Top Russian officials hailed achieving the main goal of avoiding sanctions, which would have made it extremely difficult for Russian citizens or entities to do business or open new bank accounts in the world's major industrialized countries. Financial transactions by exporters and importers, for example, would have been subjected to much greater scrutiny by law enforcement bodies and financial watchdogs in FATF member countries.
They also said that remaining on the blacklist was a political embarrassment.
"It would have been great if they had struck us off the blacklist altogether," said Yury Chikhanchin, head of currency controls at the Finance Ministry and head of Russia's delegation in Paris. "But ... most important is that sanctions will not be applied," he said.
Alexander Shokhin, head of the State Duma's banking committee, said Russia had avoided the worst but still had a long way to go before foreign financial institutions dropped their mistrust of Russian companies. He told Reuters that the simple fact that Moscow remained on the FATF's blacklist was reason enough for financiers around the world to shun Russian counterparts.
Some $1.5 trillion is laundered globally each year, with $2 billion of that going through Russia, according to the FATF.
Russia has been on the FATF's blacklist since 2000, and in June was warned, together with the Philippines and the Pacific island of Nauru, that it would face sanctions if it didn't clean up its act by the end of September. On Friday, the FATF said that it was keeping its sanctions deadline of Sept. 30 for the Philippines, while Nauru, a tiny island with a reputation for being one of the biggest transit points for grand-scale laundering schemes, was given another month to show clear signs of improvement.
The threat of sanctions played a major role in the recent push by President Vladimir Putin to deliver on a number of prominent, although mostly declarative, measures to soften up the FATF.
These measures include an anti-money-laundering law signed by Putin this summer and creating a financial watchdog with unprecedented powers to fight "hot-money" financial schemes.
The law, which requires banks to report large or suspicious transactions by their clients, will bring Russia into compliance with an international convention on money laundering. Russia joined the convention in May 1999, but the Duma didn't ratify it until April 2001, a delay that contributed to Russia earning a place on the blacklist.
The new law, however, does not become operative until February, and the new monitoring body won't be up and running for a year after that, prompting concerns about just how eager Russia is to conform to international financial standards and curb capital flight.
"I don't think that Russia will be moving much further down the path of tougher control over financial flows," said Alexei Moiseyev, a senior economist with Renaissance Capital investment bank.
"The problem for Russia is that its money-laundering problems are less related to actual money laundering, as with funds linked to, say, drug dealing," said Moiseyev. "It is mostly the economic conditions within the country that [encourage] businesses to send their capital to safer places or to invest it outside of Russia."
According to Moiseyev, capital flight, - a major reason for Russia's poor reputation with the FATF - is dropping. This is not because of international efforts to combat money laundering, but because businesses and investors find the domestic economic climate more friendly. In July, for example, he said that a total of $900 million left Russia, through either legitimate investments, criminal capital flight or money laundering - down from $2 billion in July 2000.
Joining Russia on the FATF blacklist are the Cook Islands, Dominica, Egypt, Guatemala, Grenada, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, the Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, Niue, the Philippines, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Ukraine.
TITLE: Investment's Red-Tape Troubles
AUTHOR: By Tom Adshead
TEXT: IN his government's mission statement for 2000, written on the eve of his becoming acting president, Vladimir Putin wrote: "I freely admit that without foreign investment this country will only recover slowly and with difficulty. We don't have time for a slow renaissance. That means we have to do everything we can to bring foreign investment to our country."
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is low in Russia compared with other emerging markets, especially considering that much of it is flight capital returning. Russia has one of the lowest ratios of FDI to gross domestic product in the emerging markets: about 10 percent.
What are the key factors deterring potential investors? A survey by the Russian and European Center for Economic Policy highlighted the instability of the tax regime and insecure property rights as the main issues. Corruption and organized crime were well down the list.
So the government is mainly to blame for the absence of foreign investors. Taxes are frequently and arbitrarily changed, and some investors complained that whenever the local tax office had a target to meet, they would just turn up at the big foreign company with extra demands, rather than deal with their local nonpayers, who were better connected politically. Insecure property rights stem from the relative ease with which Russians can expropriate foreigners using corrupt local courts, loopholes in the law, and support from local government.
Procter & Gamble points out that to introduce a new cosmetic line in Germany, it just notifies two government bodies when they release it. In Lithuania, they need approval from the Center of Public Health, which takes four weeks. In Russia, they need five separate approvals, including three separate ones from the Health Ministry, which can take up to 25 weeks.
The bureaucracy's finest hour comes with natural-resource projects. Both the government and investors would like to use production-sharing agreements (PS's) to regulate taxation for natural-resource projects. The fact is that the PSA law has gone through parliament twice but is still not workable because the government is dragging its feet on enabling legislation and has revoked key tax breaks that investors thought had been agreed upon years ago.
A quote from Alexander Natalenko, deputy natural resources minister, gives a taste of the opposition. "We are now asking the question: Do companies have the right to maintain three offices in Houston that we pay for with our oil?" In other words, goodness help foreign oil companies if they have the temerity to make a profit out of their projects in Russia.
There is a lot of good news, though. Every non-Russian reader of this newspaper either is an employee of a foreign firm that has invested here or knows a number of people who are. Why do investors come to Russia? Most come for the size of the market, as Russia is one of only nine countries in the world that can boast a population of over 100 million. Others are drawn by the skilled labor force, which costs much less than workers with equivalent skills elsewhere. Many of them have built their biggest plants in Europe in this country.
Not all of Russia is a graveyard for foreign investors. The right local government can be a crucial ally in overcoming bureaucracy. Eighty-three percent of FDI in Russia goes to 10 of the 89 regions. The attitude of the local government is the most critical determinant of the success of an FDI project. Troika Dialog has looked at these 10 most successful regions in a report to be released this week. Governors who have supported investors in their regions have been able to bypass obstruction from the federal bureaucracy and ensure that their own bureaucrats are helpful.
They have established a friendly tax regime for investors, especially in the early stages of projects. Tax breaks are useful but not critical for foreign investors. They send a signal to the local bureaucracy that foreign businesses are to be treated fairly. As long as the rules of the game are transparent, stable and observed, then foreign businesses can make and follow business plans.
It's a good thing that Russia has a president committed to attracting investment. Those investors who have invested and reinvested in this country, and also those governors who have helped them do it, deserve to be applauded. However, it will be even easier to recommend investing in Russia when a Russian court is seen awarding damages against a ministry for the costs they impose on entrepreneurs, whether foreign or Russian.
Tom Adshead is political analyst for Troika Dialog Investment Company. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Don't Give Up After Just Asking the First Question
TEXT: Ask 10 people about their goals, professional or personal, and half will find working out a structured answer an easy task. Such people will soon produce to-do lists.
Dig further for details and you will probably also hear about time frames, necessary resources and the probability of success. The best one or two will even provide alternative plans to follow if their main plan turns sour.
But what about the other participants? When answering, they will scratch their heads while looking around the room searching for the answer.
Many managers would dismiss the person in front of them, close their file, lock the drawer and go home.
But one more question asked can often bring a surprising result: "What are the things you would like to avoid in your professional and personal life?"
The hand that was scratching the head a minute ago will likely grab a pen and start a list almost as systematic as those from the first group. Surprise! This group can also often visualize the future.
Most of us are striving for something. We all move and, when we feel it's important enough, we all run. But, while 50 percent run toward something, the other half are running away from something else. The name of this fundamental psychological characteristic is the motivation to achieve.
The motivation to achieve is the foundation for a number of qualities, including the planning abilities and ability to look ahead mentioned above. Initiative, entrepreneurial character, and the ability to take calculated risks are commonly used synonyms for motivation to achieve.
But those motivated by the drive to avoid negative results, to not letting things go wrong, also have their employment niches. This kind of personality can be adept at job functions, such as inspector, controller or those in maintenance or security. In these cases, the person must protect and defend what has already been created.
This negative phrasing of the question can help people in sales as much as those in management. Ask a customer to list undesirable features in a product, and you might just receive an excellent base for an unusual but effective statement of what your product does or does not offer.
This is often difficult to do for most salespeople, because sales is typically an occupation for people with their own strong motivations to achieve. But stepping outside their own understanding and asking that second question often generates positive results.
Peter Ponomarev is the manager of the St. Petersburg office of RHR International ECOPSY HR consulting firm.
TITLE: Why Should the Taxpayers Pay for Soviet-Era Thieves?
TEXT: THE draft federal budget for 2002 continues the glorious tradition of not repaying Western debts. While in the 2001 budget, Paris Club debt repayments were simply not provided for, in the 2002 draft budget they are clearly insufficient.
Such thriftiness is remarkable given that in September the Finance Ministry plans to regulate a large part of Russia's external debts that are not owed to London or Paris Club creditors.
The logic is somewhat peculiar. Ministry officials are just about the only people on the planet who seem unclear as to why Paris Club debts should be repaid. However, some of the newly recognized debts raise some serious doubts.
Here is a classic example. A large fishing company in Kamchatka called Akros, through its subsidiary, owns 12 large fishing boats that were built in the early '90s using credits from the German state-owned KFW bank. The boats worked out rather expensively, either because money that KFW was providing as loans to military cities was included tacitly in the credit, or because the official who signed the contract received a Parker pen or some other equally valuable - at that time - gift.
For a while, everything was fine, and then Akros and the German operator stopped making payments. The boats hardly entered port or territorial waters, and so couldn't be impounded. If they couldn't be impounded, then why bother repaying the debts?
Before anyone could figure out who had ripped off whom, a miracle occurred: The $150 million debt for the boats was included in Russia's external debt. The boats were gotten for free, the German bank was repaid its money and Russian taxpayers were left to pick up the bill.
Of course, I wouldn't want you to think that all the debts are of similar origins. A large portion of them are the debts of Soviet foreign-trade organizations (FTOs), which were run up in the post-Soviet period, when they were already free of state control, but had still not been privatized.
As a result, FTO employees (a large number of whom were career agents of Soviet security organs and were fully acquainted with methods of transferring money to offshore accounts for purposes of financing the world revolution, as well as their own modest needs) signed the most unbelievable contracts, following the principle that if we pay $100 for something that costs $10, then 2 cents will end up in our own pockets.
After 1991, these debts were rapidly categorized as unrecoverable, bought up and resold at dumping prices. There are those who believe a large portion of these debts is now concentrated in the hands of those who are able to influence whether these debts are validated or not.
Catherine the Great's Chancellor Alexander Bez borodko bought hopeless legal claims for a song and then recovered them through his connections. Unfortunately, it would seem that Russia still lives more by the rules of those times than by the rules of the free market.
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT.
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Michelin Job Cuts
GREENVILLE, South Carolina (AP) - Michelin North America Inc. is cutting 2,000 jobs, or about 7 percent of its work force, citing a downturn in tire markets and the need to increase its long-term competitiveness.
The company hopes to complete many of the cuts through normal attrition and voluntary severance programs, Michelin said in a statement.
All 23 of Michelin's plants in North America will be affected, spokesperson Nancy Banks said. The company has 26,500 employees, Banks said.
The tire maker - a subsidiary of France's Michelin, the world's No. 2 tire maker - has announced it needs to cut costs by an additional $75 million.
Gucci Takeover
PARIS (AP) - French retail group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute is set to take control of the Italian fashion house Gucci in a multibillion-dollar settlement that ends a bitter two-year dispute with rival LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
The deal follows months of speculation, denied until last week, that the two French groups were in talks to resolve the battle over ownership of Gucci that dates to early 1999.
Under the deal, PPR would take over shares of the fashion house that it does not currently own, a three-stage move that reportedly could cost up to $6 billion.
Morgan Stanley Suit
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal government agency said Monday it filed suit against Wall Street brokerage Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. on behalf of a top bond salesperson fired last October and up to 100 other female employees.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), responsible for preventing bias based on race, gender or age in the workplace, is suing Morgan Stanley on behalf of Allison Schieffelin and other Morgan Stanley female employees.
The nature and size of the lawsuit is the first of its kind against a brokerage, said Elizabeth Grossman, the general counsel for the EEOC.
The EEOC contends Schieffelin's gender prevented her from being promoted to managing director and caused her to be paid less than her male peers.
TITLE: Readers Frustrated by 3-Day Visa Hang-Ups
TEXT: In response to "Moscow Drags Heels on 3-Day Visas," Aug. 31.
Editor,
I am an American living in St. Petersburg. I live here not for business, but because I like this city and am enjoying the opportunity to enjoy and learn about a culture that was largely unknown to me growing up in middle America in the 1960s to 1980s. To quote Yakov Smirnov, "What a Country!"
I hear a lot of people here talking about the need for a better government, one that is more responsive to the needs of people. That being the case, I have a suggestion.
It was reported that in St. Petersburg, an official with the Foreign Ministry, speaking about the government's problems in implementing the new, easier visa requirements for tourists said: "I won't tell journalists what things we have to prepare. Why should we reveal our secrets?"
All too often I run into the same attitude of officialdom at all levels, i.e., not caring about what the general public thinks. If this official is elected, he should be beaten soundly in his next election, with the battle cry being, "Why should we reveal our secrets?" If he is not elected, his bosses should be flooded with promises to campaign against them in the next election unless this smug official is put out of our (collective) misery.
I would like to see this petty tyrant persecuted, pilloried, and abused beyond the rational limits his blunder would ordinarily call for. I want this guy dragged through the mud. I want his family to be shamed into leaving town. He should be persecuted. Chased through the streets at night like Frankenstein.
After that, the next time a bureaucrat is asked to inform the public through the media, maybe he would remember what happened to that poor guy in St. Petersburg back in 2001.
Probably not, but it sure would feel good to see at least one of those guys get his.
Dave Francis
St. Petersburg
Editor,
I read with interest of the new plan to issue visas at the airport for those staying in St. Petersburg for only 72 hours. This is well and good, but does not nearly go far enough.
The fact is that Russia shoots itself in the foot with its visa regime. Russia as a sovereign country has every right to do so of course, but tourism is big business and provides welcome employment to millions of people worldwide.
Many people are discouraged from coming to Russia due to the hassle involved in getting a visa. If changes could be made to streamline this system - eliminating the invitation, for example - this would no doubt greatly increase the number of tourists visiting Russia. Getting this past the various vested interests will take some work though I'm sure.
Joshua Sharkey
Wellington, New Zealand
Editor,
I am a travel agent and I was just in St. Petersburg for two days as part of a cruise. Two of us on the cruise processed Russian visas so that we could have a little time on our own after the tours. This cost us $70 for 5 hours of sightseeing.
It would be very nice if cruise-ship passengers could have the same three-day visa privilege as those arriving at the airport. We are fortunate that we have a Russian consulate in Seattle and can just walk in. The most difficult item to get is a letter from the tour company. We were lucky because our company was based in Seattle, but others aren't so fortunate. Even for us, getting the visa required making a special trip to the tour company and spending at least an hour there waiting for them to figure out what was needed.
This is pretty needless bureaucracy. After all, doesn't a ticket on a cruise seem like reasonable proof that someone is, indeed, taking a cruise?
As a travel agent, I have spent many hours going through this process. Now I've done it for myself. This system must be changed.
Charles Brown
Seattle, Washington
Editor,
The fact that the Russian government is even considering these three-day visas is a step in the right direction. Even as things now stand, a great deal has changed. I traveled to Moscow and Tula in May on a business visa. When I got back to the United States, I compared notes with people who had traveled to Russia prior to 1991 and found a dramatic difference between my experience and theirs.
John Barnhart
Roanoke, Virginia
Editor,
I come very often to your city, and I hate the crazy visa regulations. Why can't tourists - who are bringing money into your city - get visas right at passport control? This is the practice in many countries around the world.
The proposed plan for three-day visas is no help. What are three days? Nothing. Even Europeans would be hard-pressed to arrive on a Friday and get out of town before Monday.
Dieter Henningsen
Minden, Germany
In response to "Poll: Many See Baltics as 'Enemies,'" Sept. 4.
Editor,
I am an American with a wife and child from St. Petersburg. I cannot believe that 25 percent of the good people of St. Petersburg consider Americans an enemy.
On my visit to St. Petersburg, I was treated with a great deal of respect, and I found that I was very warmly accepted. It is very important that Americans and Russians remain the best of friends. The political talking heads from both countries can talk and talk, but we, the people of both countries, are wise enough to see that they are all just talking for unknown reasons.
I love St. Petersburg, and I will return there next summer for a long holiday with my Russian wife and child.
Larry Freeman
Birmingham, Alabama
Highlight Racism
In response to "Racism in Russia," a comment by Peter Rutland.
Editor,
Peter Rutland is right to argue that ethnic hatred, and not just racism, contributes to war, violence and oppression around the world. Xenophobia is certainly a problem in Russia, as Rutland notes. However, I disagree with the suggestion that racism does not exist as a separate form of xenophobia.
Racism is hatred based on skin color. We should not conclude that Russians are not racist simply because their social scientists have not developed a theory of racial differences, such as those that Western social scientists constructed to disastrous results. Russians commonly make distinctions on the basis of skin color: The more chyorny a person is, the less respect he or she deserves. This is the essence of racism.
The expatriate community in Mos cow certainly perceives a difference in how xenophobia and racism are expressed. Occasionally a xenophobe uses obscenities to tell a white American to go home. Black Africans receive much harsher treatment: Verbal assaults are more frequent, and physical attacks are distressingly common.
Last spring, the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy began gathering reports about attacks on Africans in the city, and our small community learns of a few such incidents every week. Last week, a man from Sierra Leone was beaten. This week, two Ethiopians were stabbed.
Russians do not attack Sierra Leoneans and Ethiopians because they believe them to have a common descent "primarily understood in cultural and historical terms," to use Rutland's phrase. I am quite certain that the thugs who attacked my friends did not bother to learn about their ethnicity. They attacked the Africans because they were "chyorny."
Questioning the existence of racism in Russia can unintentionally feed what is already a widespread complacency about the problem of racial violence. Instead, the UN conference on racism in Durban invites us to pay attention to this particular kind of hatred. I think Russia and the rest of the world are right to give racism this focus.
Noel Calhoun
Coordinator of Social Ministries
Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy
Family Values
In response to "One Expat That Even Stalin Couldn't Scare," Aug. 28.
Editor,
I really enjoyed your article on Joseph Glazer. Growing up in the West in the 1970s and 1980s, I was bombarded by the media about how evil communism was in the former Soviet Union. When I visited St. Petersburg in the 1990s, I found a rich culture and warmhearted people. This began to erode my impression that Russia is an evil empire, and I began to rethink what the Western media had been teaching me.
Since then I have read several books in which the authorities reflect upon their experiences in the gulag. I found it hard to reconcile that a people and its government could be so far out of sync during Stalin's reign.
Glazer's story personalizes all of this for me and distills it into one man's story. I now have in my mind an example of someone who lived through the time that I only read about and who found the ultimate meaning through it all: family.
Willy Phillips
Vancouver, Canada
Beautiful Impact
In response to "Bringing Some Style to St. Petersburg," Aug. 21.
Editor,
I am a former St. Pete expat and a friend of Caterina Innocente who now lives in Atlanta.
I think it is refreshing to see a piece written about an expat who embraces Russian culture and who has made such a beautiful impact on it. Particularly when that person is my good friend Caterina.
She is a unique and talented individual who embraces life with an open mind. Despite her upbringing and work in the glamorous fashion industry, Caterina is a very down-to-earth and non-judgmental person. I admire her zest for life, sense of style and her respect for and acceptance of the culture in which she lives.
When I moved from St. Petersburg to Atlanta two years ago, the reverse culture shock was difficult for me to handle after five years in Russia. It was hard starting a new life again, and I felt lost. Caterina suggested that I take up salsa dancing - which she introduced me to in St. Petersburg - believing it would help me readjust.
Today I am a member of a dance troupe in Atlanta, and I teach Los Angeles-style salsa dancing when time permits. The dancing has opened up a whole new world to me, thanks to Caterina.
I wish her all the best and never forget, "When you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."
Elena Siems
Atlanta, Georgia
Thanks for the Site
Editor,
I'm a project manager/superintendent for a construction company, and I lived and worked in Kirishi for about 11 months last year. I look forward to returning.
I really enjoy reading your newspaper on the Internet. When I lived in Kirishi, I would always try to get into St. Petersburg on the weekend to read your newspaper in order to keep in touch with what was happening around the world. Now I find myself reading your site in order to keep up with what is happening in St. Petersburg. Thanks for your articles.
Steven Richards
Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania
Crimean Tatars
In response to "Putin Celebrates With Ukraine," Aug. 28.
Editor,
On the 10th anniversary of Ukraine's independence on Aug. 24, 2001, the Crimean Tatars - living in their ancestral homeland - continue to experience sociopolitical and economic oppression. Briefly, despite the fact that they constitute 12 percent of Crimea's population, the Crimean Tatars have no representation in the Crimean parliament. They are excluded from the redistribution of land, and a large number of Crimean Tatars still lack proper housing. In addition, Crimean Tatar is still not recognized as an official language in the Crimea, and those who try to protest these problems continue to be prosecuted.
We recently witnessed in Cankoy (Dzhan koy) Crimean Tatar activists put on trial for blocking railroad traffic to protest the illegal distribution of land in that region. As Ukraine gets ready to celebrate the longest period of independence in history, the Crimean Tatars - who wholeheartedly voted for Ukraine's independence - are faced with the possibility of losing their most sacred institution, the Zincirli Medrese. This is an institution of higher learning built in 1500 during the reign of Mengli Giray Khan who himself physically participated in its construction. It is considered to be the "Harvard" of the Crimean Tatars.
According to "Resolution No. 131 of the Council of Ministers of the Auto no mous Republic of Crimea," dated April 25, 2001, as Alim Memetov reported, "almost everything on the grounds of the Zincirli Medrese complex is transferred to the Svyato-Uspenski Monastery." Yes, Zincirli Medrese in Bakhchesaray, where most of the Crimean Tatar intelligentsia was educated, where Ismail Gaspirali taught briefly, is practically being transferred to the aforementioned monastery. Even though this resolution has temporarily been put on hold after strong protests from the Crimean Tatars, which prompted President Leonid Kuchma to intervene, the problem remains unresolved. The Crimean Tatars, who have carried out their national struggle peacefully for the past 57 years, will not remain silent on this issue.
The Crimean Tatar leaders cannot guarantee that they will be able to control the emotions of their people. This has the potential of breaking the rules of a "peaceful struggle," to which they have long adhered.
We realize that the Ukrainian authorities do not initiate these problems. The local Russian politicians in the Crimea are responsible for encouraging the anti-Crimean Tatar sentiments in the Crimea. However, we also recognize that the ultimate responsibility belongs to Kiev to resolve the sociopolitical and economic problems of the Crimean Tatar people.
On the 10th anniversary of the independence of Ukraine we would like to reiterate the following legitimate demands of the Crimean Tatar people from the Kiev government: Recognize Cri me an Tatars as the indigenous people of the Cri mea; recognize the Crimean Tatar National Mejlis as the de jure representative of the Crimean Tatar people; include all Cri mean Tatars in the legitimate distribution of land in the Crimea; recognize Cri mean Tatar as one of the official languages in the Crimea. Recognize the right of the Crimean Tatars to be represented in all aspects of Crimean government, including the Crimean parliament; make the Crimean authorities stop persecuting those Crimean Tatars who peacefully protest the illegal actions of the Crimean government; withdraw all plans that threaten the integrity of Zincirli Medrese and assist Crimean Tatars to re-establish it as an institution of higher learning; help those Crimean Tatars who still remain in exile in central Asia and other former So viet republics to return and resettle in the their ancestral homeland, the Crimea.
We have been following the significant progress Ukraine has made toward building a democratic society in the past decade. We congratulate Ukraine for its strong effort to join the international community. We congratulate Ukraine on the 10th anniversary of independence and hope that this country succeeds in joining the community of countries that fully recognize and respect the rights of indigenous peoples.
Mubeyyin Batu Altan
President, International Committee for the Crimea, Washington, DC
TITLE: CEC Answers Back on Election-Fraud Report
AUTHOR: By Matt Bivens
TEXT: AYEAR ago this weekend, The Moscow Times published an eight-page report about election-fraud in the March 2000 presidential election. (It's at www.themoscowtimes.com/election_fraud.html.)
After months of digging, reporter Yevgenia Borisova and others turned up evidence that stolen votes were decisive in Vladimir Putin's 2.2-million-vote, 52.94-percent margin of victory.
We tried to be scrupulously fair in sharing our findings. We reported, for example, that we did not know whether the fraud was orchestrated by the Kremlin, or by governors acting independently.
We reported that our months of looking into the election left us certain Putin was still the man of the hour, and with or without fraud would have crushed Communist Gennady Zyuganov in a run-off.
After our report came out, it was attacked by Russian media and European election observers, ignored by the government, and enjoyed a day of sympathetic treatment by some international media.
And that was it - until a few months ago, when the Central Election Commission finally responded. Its critique (posted at www.fci.ru/express_info/opr. htm) is simply too ridiculous to let slide.
It opens like this: "A half-year after the elections, immediately after the tragic events involving the sinking of the Kursk submarine," reports emerged of electoral fraud.
THE KURSK?
Eight pages later it concludes: "It's obvious these publications [about electoral fraud], appearing immediately after the tragic events involving the sinking of the Kursk submarine, are part of a coordinated information action by Russia's ill-wishers aimed at discrediting the Russian state and its leadership."
So the evil Russia-haters saw in the sinking of the Kursk a moment of national weakness - the state on its knees - and they struck! With ... a really long newspaper article!
Doesn't quite work, does it? But as arguments go, it's certainly a masterful matryoshka of hypocrisy within cynicism. Imagine: The person(s) behind this critique are toying with the deaths of 118 sailors, by accusing their critics of toying with that same tragedy. So they know it's low and disgusting to trade upon such a tragedy - or at least they know it's supposed to be disgusting - but they still do it.
In between insinuating we sank the Kursk, the CEC offers a lot of absurdity and mumbo jumbo. The Central Election Commission makes a handful of arguments against our Sept. 9, 2000, elections-fraud exposé. I'll take them one by one. Quotes from the CEC are in italics.
"Back on June 28, 2000, and on July 10, 2000 -in other words, long before her September publication - Moscow Times journalist Y[evgenia] Borisova asked the CEC press service for information for an article about the presidential elections. Her request was met. However, a significant amount of the information provided was not brought to her readers. Moreover, some facts and statements were altered ..."
This is my favorite part. Because unless we were clairvoyant, the August sinking of the Kursk obviously had nothing to do with our decision to prepare an electoral-fraud article - the CEC itself confirms we were working on it as early as June 28.
In other words, we aren't using the deaths of the Kursk to our own ends - the CEC is.
I also indulge a chuckle at the indignation over our failure to print all the information the CEC ever gave us. As if the CEC in its entire history has ever met a journalist so dutifully loyal. Or did the elections officials think we'd just reprint their entire Web site?
Less amusing is the suggestion we changed some of the facts and quotes we got. But without concrete examples, this is just sour grapes.
"The Moscow Times reports: 'A State Duma commission ... under Communist Party Deputy Alexander Saly has extrapolated from documents to assert that about 700,000 votes in Dagestan must have been wrongly awarded to Putin.'"
The CEC then continues with a long passage taking apart Saly. The implication is that our report is somehow based on Saly's work. This is dishonest. Consider just the rest of the same quote from our report - which the CEC omits:
"But [Saly's] methodology, as laid out in an April 27 issue of Rossisskaya Gazeta, is highly questionable. And inexplicably, Saly's team has apparently only made intelligent use of about half of the hundreds of protocols it has collected. (A "protocol" is a certificate of a precinct's official vote tally.) Moreover, when Saly was asked to share copies of at least some of his findings with The Moscow Times, he agreed to show only some of the protocols and joked that Zyuganov kept the rest in a folder with him.
"A more conservative calculation by The Mos cow Times - one that assumes fraud in the precincts that would not give out protocols was no worse than it was in those that did - settled on a figure of about 551,000 votes that were crudely falsified in this way. In other words: After a visit to Da ge stan alone, it is possible to challenge almost a fourth of Putin's national margin of victory as highly questionable."
FINALLY!
The CEC accepts our original set of premises - that there were 1.3 million more people registered for the March presidential election than there were for the December Duma elections - and that this is significant because voters are automatically registered in Russia, so the appearance of 1.3 million new voters requires explanation.
To me, the CEC accepting these basic premises takes a huge burden of proof off the newspaper's shoulders.
The CEC then notes - as did we - that 500,000 of those 1.3 million voters represent Chechnya. That leaves about 800,000 additional votes to explain.
The Chechens were not allowed to vote in December - but were rushed into the rolls for March. Miracle of miracles, they voted for Putin! The CEC whistles and hurries past a minor point: The same OSCE observers it has just so approvingly cited above had actually refused to recognize the legitimacy of the voting in Chechnya. (Yet another example of the value the CEC places on an intellectually honest approach.)
"And now a more detailed look at these 800,000 voters, who supposedly appeared from nowhere. Analysis of the data about changes in the voting rolls shows that the reasons for the increase are basically two: "double counting" and demographic factors."
NOW IT BEGINS!
What follows is too tangled to quote, so I will paraphrase. (Remember, you can always go to www.fci.ru/express_info/opr.htm to read the entire mess yourself.)
The CEC says the presidential election was the first time in Russian electoral history that people were allowed to vote outside of their voting precinct without an absentee ballot, and that this led to some people, but not their votes, being registered twice.
This is news to us. Until the very last day before the election, the CEC was running television advertisements insisting that anyone who wanted to vote away from home must first arrange an absentee ballot.
Legally, it is possible for a would-be voter or group of voters who are far from home on election day to apply to the courts and receive a one-off ruling allowing them to vote without an absentee ballot. But keep in mind that the Russian judicial system - unlike, say, the American - is not based on precedent. A court ruling does not become part of the broader law and extend to similar cases - that requires an act of legislation.
The CEC could not or would not provide us with a relevant judicial ruling that involved the presidential race. (Even if you accept their argument that "double counting" occurred and was significant - which we don't - then by their logic, citing such a case of double counting for the Duma elections works against them: Their whole point hinges on the idea that double counting was first practiced in the presidential election.)
"The demographic factor involved the [im]migration of citizens of the Russian Federation from [abroad] ... the receiving of Russian Federation citizenship [by new immigrants] ... and Russian citizens who turned 18 [between December and March] ... As of Jan. 1, 2000, there were 2.239 million 18-year-olds in Russia. It follows that in the period from December 1999 to March 2000, no less than several hundred thousand people turned 18 and were included in the list of voters. Of course, one can't forget there is also a natural decline of the nation's older population ..."
Yeah, a catastrophic decline usually only seen in time of war, according to everyone from President Putin on down. And when the population is declining, of course, the pool of registered voters should be shrinking even more rapidly: Each year's deaths overwhelmingly represent lost voters, while not a single new birth represents a new voter.
We dealt with this demographic argument extensively in our original report. We talked to American and Russian demographers, to the State Statistics Committee, to everyone we could think of. All agreed that demographic factors - including birth/death ratios, migration, immigration and others - could not explain the appearance of anything like 800,000 new voters.
Here, again, I'll quote - with apologies for the length, though if you've read this far it hardly matters - from the original Moscow Times report:
"State Statistics Committee data for the first three months of 2000 - which covers most of the period between the two national elections - show the nation lost another 235,100 people to the discrepancy between the birth-death rate. At the same time, the statistics committee reports a mere 53,000 people immigrating from abroad. In other words, between the elections the country effectively lost 182,100 people, presumably most of them voters.
"It is still possible, of course, that even as the population shrank, the number of voters grew, provided that hundreds of thousands of people turned 18 between December 1999 and March 2000 - in other words, provided that there was a baby boom about 18 years ago.
"But there wasn't.
"Murray Feshbach, a professor at Georgetown University specializing in Russian demography, pronounced himself "very confused by these data" from the CEC ...
"Feshbach, who made his name in demographics debunking falsified Soviet census data in the Stalin era, said various data on the Soviet population showed no significant spike in births over all of 1981 and 1982 - which was 18 years ago.
"Statisticians with the State Statistics Committee were equally flummoxed.
"'[The Central Election Commission] is taking liberties with the truth when they explain such a figure with a boost in the population of 18-year-olds and immigration,' said Irina Rakhmaninova, head of the committee's department tracking the national population.
"Of 10 losing candidates for the post of president of Russia, only one, Gennady Zyuganov, complained to the CEC. ... Many candidates, on the contrary, expressed either orally or in written form their gratitude to the election organizers for their principled and professional work."
The CEC also notes, with satisfaction, how few legal challenges have been brought by citizens. We addressed that as well in the original report: Citizens who complained to the courts were sent to prosecutors, those who complained to prosecutors were sent to the courts. In some places, such as Dagestan and Tatarstan, citizens told us they would have liked to complain, but were afraid, or saw it as pointless and risky. Which it clearly would have been.
And so another academic exercise involving Russian democracy comes to a close. Next up: a totally fraud-free set of national elections in 2004! (Assuming they're held.) And remember: If you see cheating, and expose it - and then a plane crashes, or the Ostankino television tower catches fire again - then it all might be seen as part of a larger conspiracy.
Matt Bivens, a former editor of The Moscow Times and The St. Petersburg Times, is a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com]. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Global eye
AUTHOR: By Chris Floyd
TEXT: Child's Play
Republicans hate sexual misconduct. Can't abide it. Won't stand for it. They impeached Bill Clinton for it and very nearly nailed his perverted hide. Now they want congressman Gary Condit to resign, even though he's not been charged with a crime, because - well, just because he is a slimeball adulterous creep. (Of course, the application of this criterion to their own ranks would decimate the Republican leadership, but never mind.)
However, it seems there is at least one exception to the party's righteous hatred of hugger-mugger hanky panky: child molesting.
That was the case in Waterbury, Connecticut, last week, when the City Council's Republican majority voted to give Mayor Philip Giordano his full pay, benefits and all the honors of his office, despite the fact that he's now behind bars on federal charges of arranging sex sessions with two children, aged 9 and 10.
Giordano - who was defeated by Gore pal Joe Lieberman in a run for the U.S. Senate last year - was indicted by a grand jury in July on child-solicitation charges but has refused to resign from office, The New York Times reports. His Republican brethren, normally so zealous in the hounding of even unindicted sexual miscreants from office, closed ranks behind Fondlin' Phil in an 8-7 City Council vote, agreeing not to burden him with any official duties while he serves out the remainder of his term in the cooler - but paying him his full whack anyway.
Well, why not? So the guy loves kids - what's wrong with that? After all, they are the "family values" party, aren't they?
Slim Thread
Speaking of sexual misconduct and Bill Clinton (all you conservative readers out there, start slavering now), the Big Dog was spotted down in Rio last week with unlikely new pal Anthony Hopkins. Clinton was visiting the sunny Brazilian climes to give a speech at Sao Paulo University. The movie star was invited along for the three-day jaunt after meeting the ex-president for the first time the week before, when Clinton was working a policy-wonk room in Las Vegas.
The two graying roués instantly bonded, the Guardian reports, and spent a long weekend enjoying the topless beaches and saucy boutiques, including the Blue Man shop, purveyor of the finest (not to mention flimsiest) swimwear. Boutique owner Andreia Tancredo said Clinton splashed out $100 on a red-and-green bikini and three sarongs.
There's been no word on the likely recipient of this provocative largess, but observers have noted that the junior senator from New York is not known to sport sarongs in the hallowed halls of Congress nor to cavort bikini-clad when relaxing on Long Island.
Oh dear, oh dear. Looks like Larry King and Fox News may soon have a new subject for their politicosexual fixation. "Up next on Fox, a special five-hour in-depth report: Crisis in the Clinton Marriage! Join Britt Hume and his distinguished panel of impartial experts - Ken Starr, Bill Bennett, Barbara Bush, Pat Robertson and, via satellite, Mayor Phil Giordano - as they probe every single inch of this disgusting scandal!"
Seafront Exposure
Speaking of naked presidential flesh (stop slavering, Foxies - it's not that president), French magazines were caught on the horns, as it were, of a dilemma last week when nude snaps of Le Grand Fromage himself, Jacques Chirac, hit their desks.
The photographs, taken in the Riviera, show President Chirac standing on a balcony "in the most basic of all attires and displaying the principal organs of state," according to the weekly magazine, Le Canard. The embattled Conservative chieftain - facing a closet full of corruption allegations back in Paris - is pictured in total deshabille save for one jutting protuberance: a pair of binoculars, which the magazine said he was using to glom a throng of bikini-clad and sarong-wrapped maidens on a yacht anchored in the nearby Mediterranean.
So far, French magazines - including Paris Match, famed for its toe-sucking shots of Sarah Ferguson and topless zooms of Monaco's Princess Caroline - have held off on publishing the presidential photos. But whether this uncharacteristic reticence is due to respect for Chirac's exalted position as the head of the "organs of state" - or out of consideration for their reader's stomachs - has not yet been determined.
Family Tradition
Speaking of adulterous Arkansas politicians (Down, boys, down! It's not him!), congressional candidate Jim Hendren is following in the family footsteps - in more ways than one.
Hendren is seeking the House seat of his uncle, Asa Hutchison, the fire-breathing hard-righter best known for his impeachment assault on that "immoral adulterer" Bill Clinton. Asa - a proud graduate of Bob Jones University, where Catholics are "satanic," Jews are "hell-bound," gays are "murderers" and blacks are kept firmly in their place (Bob Jones III: "A Negro is best when he serves at the table") - has just been named head of the Drug Enforcement Agency by BJU bud George W. Bush.
Hendren hit a pothole on the road to glory, however, when it was revealed that the fervent family-values man had been guilty of - you guessed it - adultery not too long ago, the Arkansas Times reports. In this, he was of course emulating his other uncle, Asa's brother, U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson, a Baptist preacher who cheated on his wife with one of his female aides. Tim did the Christian thing, however: He got rid of the old bag and married the ripe young tomato. Needless to say, Brother Tim is still pounding the pulpit for sexual morality while helping direct the "organs of state" in Washington.
Back home, nephew Jim is hanging on to his old ball and chain - for the moment anyway. In fact, he and the missus held a joint press conference last week - in a motel room, no less! - to announce that Jim had confessed his past canoodling and she had been forgiven. They also very graciously identified his adulterous partner so the press could have a go at her and take the heat off the carousing candidate.
What was that serviceable phrase again? "Slimeball adulterous creep," wasn't it?
TITLE: From Mud to Markets, Turkey Really Has It All
AUTHOR: By Alexander Belenky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Turkey has a reputation in Russia as a place that is not only for the rich to go on vacation, but also for "average" people. One important consideration is the ease with which Russians can get visas, buying them right at the airport without a prior invitation. Expats in St. Petersburg, however, will also find Turkey an attractive and accessible destination - especially with winter coming on - since flights are frequent and affordable.
Turkey is a country with an ideal mix of Eastern hospitality and European service, making it possible for visitors to relax and at the same time get a sense of the exotic Orient. Of all of the 53 Islamic countries in the world, Turkey is the only one where the state is secular.
The first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, separated religion from the state in the 1920s. He abolished bigamy and introduced a European system of laws, made wearing national costume in public a punishable offense and gave everyone new surnames. Despite all of this - or maybe because of it - he is loved and respected by the entire country, and the portrait of this "Father of the Turks" - which is what Ataturk means in Turkish - can be seen in offices everywhere, on the bank notes and on stamps.
Although Turkey is generally friendly and affordable, some resorts are very posh and exclusive. There are three luxury hotels around the town of Fethiye, which is located on the southwest coast between the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas.
The Hotel Letoonia occupies an entire peninsula in the bay, with a private seaplane excursion jet bobbing in the harbor. The Hillside Hotel is generally booked six months in advance, and guests dine there in formal evening dress.
Finally, Lykia World has championship-class tennis courts and an adventure water park for children that seems to be straight out of a Hollywood film.
Our group was staying at Lykia World, and our bus delivered us from the airport just as it was getting dark. We were unable to get a sense of how enormous the hotel is, so we were simply stunned when we awoke in the morning. We were greeted by a view of mountains veiled in mist, tropical palms, the azure sea and a fresh-smelling pine forest.
A little exploring turned up no fewer than 17 swimming pools, offering a variety of water temperatures, while there was a total of nine restaurants waiting to feed us, featuring European, Turkish and various other national cuisines.
But you get used to good things quickly. After a few days, the warm blue sea no longer startled us. We started to think that the sun was a touch too bright and the fresh air a trifle too rich. And then there was the food.
You could easily get carried away at breakfast, to say nothing of lunch and dinner. Eastern cuisine is an adventure in itself, and every evening at Lykia World, you can dine at a different restaurant - there are nine of them - and still not try everything. Nevertheless, some of the tourists in our group, especially the kids, still preferred to eat at McDonalds.
After all this food, you generally feel the need to get out and look at the local sights, and we set off for the cliffs next to the Oludeniz Lagoon, with its yellow sands and azure water. We saw enormous loggerhead sea turtles, among the biggest in the world, crawling out onto the sand to lay their eggs. From the scenic town of Dalyan, we took a boat to the tombs of the Lykian emperors, which are carved into the cliffs overlooking the sea.
The natural world of Turkey lives its own unusual but beautiful life. The rain comes down in torrents, but a little duty-free vodka that we were smart enough to tuck away is enough to bring on a song. Soon the cliffs are echoing with the sounds of our singing.
After a short while, neither the rain nor the cool Turkish air bothers us anymore. We arrive at a special medicinal mud bath, a place where stars like Sting and Dustin Hoffman have come to have the cares of the world washed away.
We look at their photographs on the wall as we take off our clothes and lie down in the mud. It is a fabulous sensation, lying naked in the mud while the rain falls down all over and around you. All too soon, though, it is over. We jump into the sea to wash away the mud and are then off to our next excursion.
Hamam is the Turkish equivalent of the sauna, and it deserves an article to itself. First, visitors lie on the hot stones and wait for a massage. The Hamam masseur then comes up and virtually grinds you into the stone, until you feel like you are being born again.
The masseur's work is difficult, and he has to drink water constantly to stop being dehydrated by the heat. Meanwhile, you sweat away the dirt from your skin, emerging feeling 10 years younger.
You have to reserve a Hamam session. Our experienced tour guide warned the young women among us,:"Don't take off your clothes. If the masseur wants to give you a topless massage, don't let him. You have every right to keep your clothes on."
The first thing I see through the steam rising off the water is a completely naked young woman spread out on the stone, waiting for a massage. No one is paying any attention to her. Meanwhile, a naked German man, who it turns out is her husband, is swearing to himself outside: The bikini-clad women don't want to let him into the sauna. Presumably he didn't have an experienced tour guide.
No tourist goes to Turkey without buying something, and no one buys anything without bargaining for it. It's part of the ritual of buying. In general, as soon as the salespeople see that you like something, they will refuse to lower the price.
One businessman we encountered from the central Russian city of Yoshkar-Ola felt quite at home in the markets with a knowledge of just five foreign words: good, nicht, nein, yes, and O.K.
He waved his arms around, pressed the buttons on his calculator, yelling "nicht" or "nein." The salespeople got very excited, bringing him tea and showing him all their goods. As far as we could tell, they found it easier to understand him than they did us. Nonetheless, we still managed to buy all the souvenirs we wanted, after we had bargained down the price by half. The satisfied salesperson saw us off with a broad smile.
Our week at Lykia World ended all too quickly. I know that we will return to Turkey. We have yet to go paragliding in the Bada Dag Hills, and we can't get enough of thalassotherapy - the healing of the Turkish sauna. And we will never forget the feeling of jumping into the warm sea, a sea that has so little in common with the Baltic.
TITLE: Designing Form and Function
AUTHOR: By Terry Battles
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Meeting Australian architect-designer Ilmar Karuso is an fascinating experienc, artistically speaking. In his Moika apartment, itself a work in progress, Karuso gladly shows off and discusses his many creative projects.
Karuso originally came to St. Petersburg in 1998 from New York where he worked as a photographer. While in the United States, he wrote an opera "Prichal" - meaning, "wharf" - with Russian composer Alexander Kneifel. Describing himself as a visual artist, his concept was to write an opera like a film, beginning with the story and the visual elements and adding the music later.
Karuso met general and artistic director and conductor of the Mariinsky Theater, Valery Gergiev, in Paris and New York and showed him his design and models, as well as pieces of music from "Prichal." Gergiev invited Karuso to do the designs for Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" for the White Nights Festival in 1998. Karuso's avant-garde approach involved making the set a moving, integral part of the ballet, creating what Karuso calls a "kinetic set."
At the Mariinsky, Karuso worked on the operas "The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Sergei Prokofiev's "The Love for Three Oranges." Robert Wilson, whom Karuso describes as the greatest theater director of the 20th century and the reinventer of the modern opera, greatly influenced Karuso's minimalist scenography.
Having appreciated Karuso's theatrical work, the Botchkarov brewing company commissioned him to design the lobby of their business center on Dalnovostochnaya Ulitsa.
"They had no idea what to do with the entrance. It was so ugly. They wanted something innovative to rescue it." Karuso admits that he was fortunate to be given a free hand artistically, transforming a typical Soviet structure into a striking theatrical space. The success of the Bravo lobby spurred his first love, which has always been architecture.
As the foreign community realized that Karuso could also do architectural work, a chain of offers followed with commissions for architectural projects, interiors and boats. Several of Karuso's apartments are in prime locations in the city along the Moika River and Kryukov Canal and in the Admiralty District.
Karuso describes his approach as eclectic. His modern style reflects his avant-garde approach to theater. Nevertheless, he can successfully combine a Bauhaus style black-granite room divider with art-deco furniture. He does not think that interiors should be separated from the totality of where one lives.
"I don't think you should plan some completely modern environment that has nothing to do with the architecture of the building you're in," Karuso said.
He attests that architectural elements such as balconies, arched windows, plaster ceilings and fireplaces can be restored and utilized in a more contemporary setting. Ultimately, his aim is to create a "feeling of home and integrity."
One of Karuso's most rewarding and more unusual commissions was the complete reconstruction of a former German torpedo boat, taken by the Russians after World War II. Karuso was given a free hand in the boat's design, a task that he found fascinating. Dealing with a confined space, he had to solve many logistical problems, bearing in mind that the boat has to remain functional.
Karuso believes that the overall concept behind mixing art with design and the development of ideas lies in problem solving. "You're given a huge puzzle. The rules are physical and aesthetic, and you go about as a designer or artist to solve the puzzle and you do it the best way you can." The finished, modern, luxury canal cruiser was rebuilt entirely of handmade parts, down to the screws and bolts.
Karuso mentions the lack of access to skilled workers and nonpayment by clients as the two major problems he encounters as an architect working in Russia. Despite these difficulties, however, he insists that his work here is both challenging and interesting. As an individual without a company behind him, Karuso says: "I can shoot more from the hip. I can be much more fluid and I can take on jobs and design opportunities that are from outside my field more."
In the future, Karuso hopes to do more work for the Mariinsky. Continuing his endeavors in Russia, he is also working on a canning factory. His use of convection systems and lyrical exhaust towers that move in the wind like sails demonstrate that his artistic talent is firmly anchored in a technological base.
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TITLE: Bizarre Sculpture Marks Nobel's Former Factory
AUTHOR: By Simon Patterson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Deadly inventor responsible for the deaths of millions, or great benefactor of humanity? Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize foundation, which makes annual awards for excellence in the fields of chemistry, physics, medicine, literature, peace and economics, will always be a controversial figure.
The monument on Petrogradskaya Naberezhnaya attempts to portray the contradictory nature of the great Swede's contribution to world history. It is located across the river from the Russky Dizel machine factory, which belonged to the Nobel family before the October Revolution. This building now houses the Nobel Business Center, a telecommunications firm.
Nobel, who was born in 1833, essentially grew up in St. Petersburg. His father, Immanuel, moved to the city in 1837, where he worked producing naval mines for the Russian Army. They proved very useful in deterring the British Navy from moving into firing range of St. Petersburg during the Crimean War (1853 to 1856). The entire Nobel family moved to Petersburg in 1842, and Alfred received the bulk of his education here, with his primary interests being chemistry, physics, and literature. At one point he even considered becoming a professional writer and he wrote poetry throughout his life.
After the Crimean War ended, the family business went into decline, and Immanuel and Alfred left Petersburg for good. Two of Immanuel's sons, Robert and Ludvig, stayed behind and rebuilt the family fortune, in no small part thanks to their involvement in developing the oil industry in southern Russia.
But it was Alfred Nobel's successful harnessing of nitroglycerine that ensured the Nobel name its place in history. Many attribute his establishment of the Nobel Foundation to the guilt he felt at the repercussions of his invention, and it is surely significant that he should establish a special prize for peace-making, which, along with the prize for literature, is generally the one that has always received the most public attention.
Significantly, St. Petersburg has seen more than its fair share of Nobel laureates, including Zhores Alfyorov, last year's physics laureate; poet Joseph Brodsky, the 1987 literature laureate; fellow emigre Vassily Leontiev, the 1973 laureate for economics; and Ivan Pavlov, who received the prize for medicine back in 1904.
TITLE: Israel Retaliates for Suicide Bomb Attack
AUTHOR: By Mark Lavie
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM - Israeli troops fired missiles Monday at a Palestinian security post in the West Bank and killed a police officer - retaliation for attacks by Arab militants a day earlier, including the first suicide bombing carried out by an Israeli Arab. Five Israeli Jews and three Arab militants were killed and dozens wounded in those attacks.
The involvement of an Arab citizen in a suicide attack further raised the anxiety level in Israel. The country has been badly shaken by nearly a year of fighting with the Palestinians and has absorbed dozens of terror attacks.
Unlike the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli Arabs can move freely, making it much more difficult for the Israeli security forces to detect an assailant in their midst. Security officials have warned of growing ties between Israeli Arabs and Palestinian militant groups in recent months.
"For much of the public, a suicide bomber from among the Israeli Arabs is a nightmare that has come true," wrote commentator Hemi Shalev in the Maariv daily.
Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population of 6.5 million.
The assailant, 48-year-old Muham med Shaker Habashi, was a member of the Islamic Movement, a legal organization in Israel.
The movement, which is growing in popularity, runs a network of social services and is involved in municipal politics. It also collects money to help alleviate the growing poverty among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Some said the movement is becoming increasingly radical and demanded that it be outlawed. "The need to be 'politically correct,' the fear of insulting the Israeli Arab public, has paralyzed the authorities whose job it is to deal with seditious groups," wrote commentator Alex Fishman in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
However, Kamel Khatib, a senior figure in the Islamic movement, condemned the bombing and said Habashi did not represent the movement. "[The extremists] should understand that they are weeds and not part of the Islamic movement that includes tens of thousands of members," Khatib told Israel radio.
Habashi's son was arrested Monday on suspicion he drove his father from their home village of Abu Snan in the Galilee region of northern Israel to the nearby coastal town of Nahariya, security officials said.
Habashi blew himself up Sunday morning near a train station in Nahariya, killing himself and three people and wounding dozens. As the train pulled into the station, soldiers and civilians stepped onto the platform, and the bomber moved toward them and detonated his explosives in the crowd.
"I was standing nearby and I heard a great explosion. It took me a minute to come to my senses and then I saw glass everywhere and I saw people running like crazy," witness Avi Levy told Israeli television. "People were crying and hysterical."
Habashi's blue Israeli identity card was found at the scene. However, police spokesperson Gil Kleiman said Monday the final identification would only be made once lab tests had been completed.
The second bomb went off at an intersection outside the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, a frequent target of Palestinian attackers. The bomb obliterated a car, killing the driver, and set fire to several vehicles.
Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during an attempt to plant a bomb near a fence in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army said.
Sunday began with a Palestinian drive-by shooting attack in the West Bank's Jordan Valley in which an Israeli teacher and a taxi driver were killed. In response, the army barred Palestinian cars from using the Jordan Valley road.
Israel responded to the attacks with helicopter missile strikes at Palestinian security installations in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Jericho, Jenin and Qabatiyeh, damaging buildings but causing no injuries.
On Monday, the army fired anti-tank shells at a Palestinian police post in the West Bank village of Tamoun, killing a Palestinian police officers and wounding four. The army said the shelling came in retaliation for Sunday's attacks.
Despite the new wave of violence, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday turned down the army's request to create a new buffer zone between Israel and the West Bank to stop future assailants. Under the army plan, a strip of West Bank land alongside the so-called Green Line, the invisible line between Israel and the West Bank, would have been declared off-limits to Palestinians.
The plan was seen as a first step toward a unilateral separation between Israel and the Palestinians. Sharon opposes separation, in part because it would leave tens of thousands of Jewish settlers on the other side of the buffer zone.
TITLE: Few Results at Racism Conference
AUTHOR: By Ravi Nessman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DURBAN, South Africa - After more than a week of trying to end the acrimony that seeped throughout the world racism conference, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, visibly weary, sat down with a reporter and sighed.
"It is the most difficult conference that any of the professional delegates have been to," Robinson said Friday, the day the conference had been scheduled to end, but didn't.
Despite condemnations by the United States and Israel - both delegations left halfway through the conference - that the gathering was undemocratic and flawed, human-rights workers and diplomats from other countries saw a meeting that left many disappointed but also achieved some limited goals.
"To have a global discussion on the problems of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances is itself a breakthrough," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the U.S.-based Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "This was a modest and important step in a global journey toward human rights for all."
Others felt the meeting wasn't worth the trouble.
"It hasn't been a good experience for the world community. It has not been a good experience for the United Nations, and I hope we don't have to see this happen again," Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley said in London on Tuesday, midway through the conference.
Human-rights groups complained that few governments were willing to champion the causes of poor minorities or allow themselves to be criticized.
"The majority of countries were reluctant to focus attention on their own practices and many took a very cynical posture to the conference," Henderson said. "They had a willingness to accuse others of transgression without a willingness to admit to transgression within their own borders."
Conflict over the document led to seemingly tortured compromises in the conference's final documents.
A group of diplomats trying to come up with a list of victims gave up in the end and simply defined a victim as someone who had been victimized.
The stalemate on whether the conference would offer an apology for slavery ended with a strangely phrased compromise that included the word apology, but did not directly give one.
The Middle East debate, with Arab states demanding Israel be criticized for its "racist practices" and the European Union refusing to single out any country, ended with a more generic recognition of the "plight" of the Palestinian people.
The way the UN conference treated other issues angered many rights activists.
Indigenous rights groups, angry about sections of the final declaration they considered "a racist assault upon indigenous peoples," called for a mass walkout.
Dalits, know as India's "untouchable" caste, were furious that a section condemning discrimination against them had been successfully blocked by India.
"The government people are deaf," said Anand Kumar Bolimera, a Dalit holding a hunger strike outside the conference center.
In the end, the conference produced a declaration and program of action that did not really criticize any one country, but urged governments to take concrete steps to fight discrimination.
The meeting marked the first time private human-rights groups were allowed to participate in a UN conference. But their forum immediately preceding the UN conference was marred by almost constant anti-Israel demonstrations and occasional outbursts of anti-Semitism.
In a chaotic and confused meeting that ran late into the night, the human- rights forum adopted a document accusing Israel of engaging in "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinians. Jewish delegates trying to speak were shouted down with chants of "Jew, Jew."
In the following days, more than 70 of the 166 nongovernmental organizations at that meeting distanced themselves from the document, and Robinson said she would not recommend the UN conference use it as a blueprint.
With the UN conference documents now adopted, Robinson said "follow-up will be key." The human rights groups must now return home with the UN documents in hand to demand change, she said, adding that countries would report twice a year to the UN on progress made on their commitments to battle racism.
"We will not let government off the hook," Robinson said. "We will pin governments to what they signed onto today."
Human-rights groups disappointed with the documents saw success in other places, in forging important links between disparate victims' groups and getting lesser-known causes heard.
"Now we have international recognition ... this has been a big boost for us," said Bolimera, the protesting Dalit. "We have made our point."
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Taiwan Reunification?
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's top Taiwan policy official, Vice Premier Qian Qichen, detailed Monday freedoms the island would enjoy if it reunified with the mainland under a formula applied in former European colonies Hong Kong and Macau.
But a Taiwan official again rejected the "one country, two systems" proposal on the grounds Beijing still regarded the wealthy democratic island as a renegade province, not a de facto sovereign state.
Under "one country, two systems," Taiwan would keep its own currency, military, customs status and government structure, and Beijing would neither levy taxes nor appoint mainland officials on the island, Qian told a forum on China in the 21st century.
Mass Grave Found
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Serbian authorities have dug up a mass grave they believe contained the bodies of ethnic Albanians killed during a 1999 crackdown in the Kosovo province.
Police said Sunday 26 unidentified bodies and body parts were exhumed a day earlier at the site near Lake Perucac, about 200 kilometers southwest of Belgrade.
In a statement, the police said they would disclose the identities of the victims and say how and when they died after conducting autopsies.
The bodies are believed to have been brought to the area in a freezer truck and dumped in the lake two years ago, around the time of the NATO bombing campaign that prompted former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo.
Trial Continues
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Supreme Court of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban completed the fifth day of the trial of eight foreign aid workers accused of promoting Christianity on Sunday, saying it awaited word on how they wanted to defend themselves.
Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil was quoted Sunday as saying his hardline movement might consider swapping the eight aid workers for an Islamic militant jailed in the United States, but only after completion of the trial.
Chief Justice Noor Mohammad Saqib said judges had resumed sifting evidence, but the accused had not been recalled because it was not clear how they wanted to handle their defense.
The eight foreigners and 16 Afg hans, all from German-based Christian relief agency Shelter Now International (SNI), were arrested five weeks ago on charges that could carry the death penalty in Islamic Afghanistan.
Mugabe Accepts Deal
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Sunday endorsed a Nigerian-brokered deal to end his controversial land-seizure drive in exchange for funds to implement a fair and just land-reform program. Mugabe, whose personal seal is crucial to the deal, said he accepted the agreement in principle, but needed to pass it through his ruling ZANU-PF party politburo and the cabinet.
"We accept it ... but we need to go through processes. They are legal and political," Mugabe told a news conference in his first public reaction to the pact under which Britain pledged to help finance Zimbabwe's land-reform program.
"I don't see these two authorities [the politiburo and cabinet] rejecting it really because it confirms what we have been doing and affirms our position and enables Britain to act as a partner," he said.
Bomber Gets Death
BEIJING (AP) - A mine worker who bombed a supermarket and phoned bomb threats to two restaurants has been sentenced to death by a court in northern China, an official newspaper said Monday.
Feng Jun, 25, placed two homemade bombs in the Zhongbai supermarket in Datong, Shanxi province, on Aug. 1 "because he was dissatisfied with his job," the Legal Daily said. It said 27 people were hurt in the blast, one seriously.
Two days later, Feng phoned bomb threats to two restaurants in an attempt to blackmail them, the newspaper said.
Police caught Feng on Aug. 4 as he was making another blackmail attempt by telephone.
TITLE: Yugoslavia Takes European Basketball Championship
AUTHOR: By Jeff Israely
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISTANBUL, Turkey - Yugoslavia overcame poor shooting by Peja Stojakovic of the Sacramento Kings to beat Turkey 78-69 Sunday and win the European championships.
The Yugoslavs won all six of their games and captured the title for the eighth time. This was the best finish by Turkey in its basketball history.
Turkey, playing before a raucous home crowd, led 40-38 at halftime but could not hold off a Yugoslav team that placed five players in double figures. Dejan Bodiroga had 18 points for the winners.
Stojakovic shot 43 percent from the field and was 1-of-7 from 3-point range. But Vlado Scepanovic scored 13 second-half points for Yugoslavia, which trailed by seven points early in the game.
"Throughout the tournament Peja showed that he is a great player," Bodiroga said. "But we play as a team."
Earlier, Spain beat Germany 99-90 for the bronze medal, with NBA prospect Pau Gasol scoring 31 points. Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki had 43 points for Germany.
Russia downed Olympic silver medalist France 78-73 for fifth place to earn a berth in next year's world championships.
In the title game, both teams started the second half cold, with neither scoring for more than two minutes. Stojakovic ended the drought with his only 3-pointer to put Yugoslavia up by a point.
Yugoslavia stretched its lead to eight early in the fourth quarter behind nine straight points from Scepanovic.
"It wasn't easy to control this game, but thanks to our defense we stayed in it," Yugoslav coach Svetislav Pesic said.
Turkey's Hidayet Turkoglu, who plays with Stojakovic in Sacramento, fouled out in the final minute with 13 points, shooting 27 percent. Ibrahim Kutluay paced Turkey with 16 points.
"Overall, I'm very happy with our performance in this championship," Turkey coach Aydin Ors said. "We stayed with a very strong Yugoslavia team for more than three quarters."
TITLE: Canada Win Justifies Ryder Spot for Verplank
AUTHOR: By Doug Ferguson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MONTREAL - Scott Verplank never thought he owed critics an explanation for being the first rookie selected to the Ryder Cup team. Just in case, he can always show them his trophy from the Canadian Open.
Three weeks after U.S. captain Curtis Strange made him a controversial pick, Verplank came up with two big putts to offset a few scary moments and won golf's third-oldest national championship Sunday for his first victory of the year.
It couldn't have come at a better time.
"Obviously, I'm playing O.K.," said Verplank, who closed with a 3-under 67 and won by three strokes over Bob Estes and Joey Sindelar. "Not that it really matters to me, but maybe to everybody else it makes Curtis look a little smarter than he was.
Verplank holed a 30-foot putt for birdie on No. 15 to build a three-stroke lead, then made another difficult birdie putt from 20 feet on the 17th to restore the margin.
That offset a sloppy double bogey on 16 that gave Estes fleeting hope, and a drive on the 18th hole at Royal Montreal that stopped rolling some 60 yards right of the fairway. None of it mattered, especially when Verplank saved his closing par with a 25-foot putt.
Verplank finished at 266, matching the winning score Tiger Woods posted last year at Glen Abbey outside Toronto. Woods never had a chance to become the first repeat winner of the Canadian Open in 50 years, closing with a 69 to finish 10 strokes behind.
John Daly had a chance, especially after nearly driving four par-4s on the front nine. He was tied for the lead after going out in 30, but wound up four strokes behind.
"Sometimes, you're meant to win," Verplank said.
It was the fourth victory of a career that held so much promise when Verplank won the 1984 U.S. Amateur, won the Western Open a year later while still in college, then won the NCAA title in 1986 in his final year at Oklahoma State.
His first professional win followed in 1988, but he went 12 years and three elbow surgeries before he won again last year at the Reno-Tahoe Open.
"There have been all kinds of ups and mainly downs," he said. "That was a thrill to win last year. This year is more of a relief."
Strange might be just as relieved, especially after he picked Verplank over three others who finished higher in the standings, including Tom Lehman.
Verplank earned $648,000 and moved to No. 7 on the PGA Tour money list, more evidence that his selection wasn't so farfetched. He started the final round with a one-stroke lead and was caught twice, but never trailed.
No one charged up the gallery quite like Daly. He simply overpowered the course with his driver, keeping it in play and only making bogey when he hit iron off the tee.
His drive landed just short of the green on the 377-yard second and rolled into the bunker. He had a 341-yard drive on No. 8 - into a stiff breeze - and his pitch rolled over the cup, leaving him a 12-foot birdie.
A winner for the first time in six years at the BMW International Open last week in Germany, Daly looked like he might win again. He joined the leaders by chipping in for birdie from 20 feet on No. 9, walking after the ball as soon as it left his club and thrusting his fist at the hole as it dropped.
He was slowed by two bogeys and finished at 66.