SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #707 (74), Tuesday, September 25, 2001
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TITLE: Summit Maps Baltic's Future
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov and Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: More than 700 participants gathered at the Third Annual Baltic Development Forum Summit over the weekend to debate tactics and strategies for developing the Baltic Sea region. Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and Northwest District Governor General Viktor Cherkesov addressed the forum's opening session, and the prime ministers of Denmark, Finland, Estonia and Lithuania were among the many political and business luminaries in attendance.
 "Our goal is to build a coherent region with no country lagging behind," said Baltic Development Forum chairperson Uffe Ellmann-Jensen, formerly the Danish foreign affairs minister.
 Russian participants, however, stressed their dissatisfaction with the pace and scope of regional development and Russia's participation in it. 
 "The quality and the quantity of the exchange between Russia and the European Union does not satisfy Russia," said Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov. "We want to be an equal partner of the EU and not just a source of energy."
 "The scope of collaboration between Russia and the other Baltic Sea countries could be much bigger," said Cherkesov.
 However, more optimism sounded at a special session of the summit devoted to forms of economic association among Baltic region cities.
 "The cities represent the economic, trade and cultural centers [of the region]," said St. Petersburg Vice Governor Gennady Tkachev. "Contacts between cities, on the regional level, sometimes can be even more important than national policies. The square that is defined by St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn plays an outstanding role in the Baltic region's development."
 Other participants in this session included Stockholm Mayor Carl Cederschiöld, Kaliningrad Governor Vladimir Yegorov, Helsinki Deputy Mayor Martin Meinander, Tallinn Mayor Tönis Palts, Copenhagen Mayor Søren Pind and Riga Mayor Gundaris Bojaris.
 "The good thing is that meetings and dialogue among the mayors of St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Helsinki have become a tradition, which gives further cause for optimism," Tkachev said.
 Bojaris agreed with both the general emphasis on direct city-to-city contacts and on the healthy state of relations between Riga and St. Petersburg. "Our cooperation with St. Petersburg is long-standing," Bojaris said. "And in recent months we have opened up direct contacts with Moscow as well."
 Many speakers referred to the Hanseatic League, a medieval economic and trade association of Baltic and German cities. Pind stated that modern businesspeople and politicians needed to recreate the mindset of the Hanseatic League in order to realize the region's potential. He also stressed the need for reducing trade barriers and, ultimately, creating a regional free-trade zone.
 "Increased trade will increase employment, wealth and political stability," Pind said. "A good way to increase trade is to take away as many limitations for traders as possible and to create conditions for trade liberalization."
 The mayors placed particular emphasis on the development of regional tourism. Palts introduced figures showing that St. Petersburg led the region in terms of the number of cruise ships stopping with 233. Helsinki was second with 204. Stockholm was third with 180, followed by Tallinn and Riga with 173 and 43, respectively.
 Meinander emphasized that the entire region would benefit if St. Petersburg's tourism potential could be fully developed, as cruise ships would increase their stops at cities throughout the region on their way to St. Petersburg. However, he noted that Russia's bureaucracy and visa requirements were the primary obstacle to this development.
 "At present, St. Petersburg is complicated by too many bureaucratic difficulties with registration documents," Meinander said. "Simplifying customs procedures is one of the main conditions for developing tourism, and the European model of border crossing could be a good example. In Finland, we can get in a car, drive to Stockholm and get back by the end of the day. In contrast, we have huge traffic jams on the Russian side of our border."
 Finnish Prime Minister Lipponen echoed this thought. "We need a new mechanism for making the conditions for border-crossing easier," he said.
 Not all the talk at the summit, however, was about cooperation. Inese Vaidere, a member of the Riga City Council, noted that St. Petersburg and Riga are competitors in many respects.
 "We are cooperating with St. Petersburg in preparing the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg and in preparing for the 800th anniversary of Riga," she said. "But St. Petersburg is building an oil terminal. We also have an oil terminal and our port does not freeze in the winter."
 "However, from the economic standpoint, joint Russian-Latvian energy and oil projects could be very productive and everyone could benefit," Vaidere added.
 Energy and environmental policies will be the center of the summit's attention on Tuesday, with key government and industry players discussing ways of increasing investment in the Russian energy sector and of improving the environmentally safe exploitation of regional energy resources.
 "We need to create a Common Baltic Energy Market and provide nuclear safety in the region," Lipponen said.
 Speaking at the summit on Monday, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that the 20th century was the age of oil. "This century is the age of gas," he said, noting that gas is more environmentally friendly to use and transport.
 Therefore, Miller said, Gazprom will be focusing on increasing natural-gas deliveries to western Europe and particularly on the development of the North European Gas Pipeline.
 "The direct connection of the European and Russian gas pipelines will diminish the political risks run by the transit countries," Miller said. He added that Gazprom intends to boost natural-gas deliveries to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 2002.

TITLE: Snitching on Teachers Made Easy
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - This school year Russian children have a new tool with which to fight injustice at school: a telephone hot line and Internet forum that allow them to denounce rude and aggressive teachers, defend their privacy or complain about excessive homework.
 Although some of the appeals received so far have been a little tongue-in-cheek - "Pardon me for turning to you, but it is absolutely impossible to have a school day that lasts from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.," reads an appeal on the Web site from 11th-grader Dasha from Moscow - many have raised more serious issues, such as bribery, psychological and physical abuse and improper searches of personal possessions by teachers across the country.
 The hot line ((095) 923-1246) and Web site (www.kids.alledu.ru) are being run by a new school complaints office, opened by the Education Ministry earlier this month to help protect children's rights and gather information about Russian schools' most acute problems. Although it consists of just four people, the office has ambitious plans.
 "We are trying to determine the most notorious problems [at Russian schools] and then serve as an intermediary between the average school kid and the Education Ministry's top officials," said Oleg Solovyov, the head of the office. "At the same time we also give legal advice to our callers regarding the steps they should take to defend their rights."
 There are already a number of burning issues that are regularly brought to his office's attention, Solovyov said. The most frequent complaints come from parents concerned about their children being excluded from certain schools - legally a school must accept any child that lives within its local catchment area - and about extra charges made by schools.
 One recent complaint forwarded via the Internet came from a parent in Mos cow who reported that in city School No. 1232 parents of first-graders were being milked for money, supposedly needed to improve classroom equipment. First pupils were charged 500 rubles ($17) each in the spring, when they signed up for school. Then, as soon as the new school year began, another collection of 500 rubles per head was made, and a further 1,000-ruble compulsory donation is pending.
 "All of it is, of course, charged in cash, without any accounts kept," the parent wrote. "And what's curious is that there were no repair works done in the school during the summer," he continued, adding that facilities at the school were in bad shape and the toilets broken and dirty. The parent also wrote in the complaint about the school renting out space to commercial organizations and inquired about regulations on school schedules.
 Legally, schools are allowed to ask for money - for example, to fund security or extracurricular activities - but parents are not obliged to pay. There are also regulations, which vary according to the local education authority, governing the amount of money schools are allowed to ask for and how the money is processed. The problem is that schools often seek extra funding from parents without obeying local education authorities' regulations, Solovyov said.
 In the case of School No. 1232, the parent was advised - also via the Internet - to seek a financial report from the school showing where the money was spent. If he failed to obtain such a report and received no answer to his other complaints, the parent was advised to file legal complaints to the higher-education authorities, with the option eventually to appeal to the ministry.
 "Our main task is not only to give legal advice, but also to provide information to the top education authorities and influence public opinion on school education," Solovyov said.
 The director of School No. 1232, Gia Dzhelia, told The St. Petersburg Times that the upcoming 1,000-ruble collections are not compulsory and will go into a fund used to help pay for private guards and technical staff and for repairs.
 "The collection will be handled by the parents themselves and there will be a thorough report on what the money is spent on," Dzhelia said. He added that he plans to inquire about the previous collections of 500 rubles, which he said he was not aware of until last week.
 According to Solovyov, the level of public awareness of what is and isn't allowed in Russian schools is still low. Many parents, he said, still believe that the teacher - or at best the school director - is the ultimate authority, with the right to make the final decision, when in reality there are legal ways for children and parents to protect their interests.
 For example, he said, many people do not know that it is illegal to search children's bags unless there is a well-grounded suspicion that dangerous items are being carried into the school. Many Russians can recall their bags being searched at school for cigarettes or audio tapes, or for no obvious reason.
 Reading pupils' personal notes without permission - even if they are not read to the whole class - is also prohibited by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Certainly abusing children physically or even verbally is not allowed.
 "Of course it is hard to come up with remedies to all these problems," Solovyov said. "Often the problems are very complex and also include emotional issues such as teacher-pupil relations that are not regulated by any law."
 "We suggest to our callers that the problems be tackled on different fronts, including just a straightforward talk with the teacher and the administration to try to achieve better mutual understanding," he said.
 At times, however, legal advice and appeals to other official bodies can be the only solution.
 Earlier this year - when the hot line was still working on a trial basis - a parent called from the town of Ivanovo, some 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow, reporting that his child had been beaten up by a janitor at school, Solovyov said. The father was advised to file a legal complaint with the police.
 "I know that an official investigation has been launched and the case was going to go before the court. We will be really interested to know how it ends," Solovyov said.
 However, the office's work is just starting. "We are aiming to get information from all across the country," Solovyov said, adding that it may take some time before the system is efficient.

TITLE: State Duma Adopts Land Code
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The long-awaited Land Code has sailed through the State Duma in a third and final reading, but not without some of the controversy that has swirled around the legislation for years.
 Shortly after the vote last Wednesday, Communists and their supporters cried foul, saying at least 25 deputies had not known that they were approving the Land Code, which allows Russians and foreigners alike to buy and sell commercial and residential land in cities and villages.
 The vote was 257-130 with one abstention. Pro-Kremlin lawmakers refused to call for a new vote.
 "This is a very important event for the development of civilized land relations in the country," Trade and Economic Development Minister German Gref told reporters after the vote. "Approval of the Land Code creates conditions for development of land relations."
 Deputies said that the Land Code puts an end to the confusion and inevitable corruption created by the hundreds of existing local and federal decrees and regulations governing property.
 "The bill will allow us to put an end to gray land sales," Vladimir Pekhtin, head of the Unity party, said ahead of the vote.
 The Land Code, which will affect about 2 percent of Russian territory, does not include agricultural land - which is to be addressed in separate legislation - and bans foreigners and foreign organizations from owning property in areas considered to be of strategic importance, such as near borders.
 The code also legalizes ownership of about 40 million dacha plots, land under enterprises in St. Petersburg, farm lands in the Saratov Region and hundreds of other properties that have been sold over the past decade under legislation authorized by former president Boris Yeltsin and regional legislative assemblies.
 St. Petersburg alone already has 9,600 hectares of municipal land registered as belonging to Russian and foreign companies, according to the Baker & McKenzie law firm.
 About 5,000 hectares of farmland have been sold in Saratov.
 "[The Land Code] is probably one of the most important legislative acts that the Duma has handled, and it is a very important issue for foreign investors in particular," said Chris King, director of business development at the Colliers HIB real estate firm. "This market has many risks to it, and every time you take one risk away from a potential investor, it's the best thing."
 Despite praise from foreign observers and liberal lawmakers, Communists and their supporters lashed out at the legislation Thursday. Several dozen protesters rallied outside the Duma against land sales.
 Alexander Kotenkov, the Kremlin's representative to the Duma, reassured opponents that the code would not affect farmland.
 "When you talk about millions of peasants who will suffer if the code is adopted, you are not right. The code does not apply to them," he said.
 Despite the controversy raised by the issue, many rural dwellers have expressed support of such sales and even the sale of agricultural land, the legislation for which is expected to be sent to the Duma later this year.
 "So much land is wasted now. I would rather someone worked on it," Yevgeny Atmashkin, general director of the Moscow region-based Lotoshino dairy farm, said Wednesday in an interview. "Of course, land must be sold only to those who will till it. And I would not mind if foreigners buy it. If they pay workers good money, why not?"

TITLE: Russia Seeks To Mitigate Looming Crisis
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin spent his weekend in meetings linked to the United States' impending retaliation for this month's terrorist attacks, including an all-day session with security officials and an hour-long telephone conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush.
 Putin held telephone consultations Sunday with the leaders of central Asia to discuss coordinating their actions following the attacks, the Kremlin press service said. Putin spoke to the leaders of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. 
 The president, who was staying in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, also met with Anatoly Kvashnin, the chief of the military general staff, and Viktor Komogorov, the deputy chief of the Federal Security Service in charge of foreign relations, the presidential service said. 
 Kvashnin returned Sunday from Tajikistan, where he met Saturday with representatives of the Afghan opposition force fighting the ruling Taliban, including its leader General Mohammed Fahim. Fahim and Kvashnin "discussed the situation in Afghanistan in relation to possible U.S. strikes on the Taliban and terrorist training camps and exchanged data on the camps," an Afghan opposition spokesperson told a news conference Sunday in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe. 
 On Saturday, Putin spoke for an hour with Bush and huddled with his defense and security chiefs in a marathon meeting in Sochi, but he did not announce any policy decisions after the weekend's flurry of consultations. 
 In Washington, the White House depicted the Putin-Bush conversation as one in a series to discuss a united front against terrorism. The Kremlin press service said only that the two discussed "the situation developing in the world" and their meeting in Shanghai next month. 
 "We have always been initiators of the effort to unite the forces of the international community in the battle with terror. If we want to win there is no other way," Putin said in comments shown on Russian television. "We must unite forces of all civilized society."
 Saturday's all-day meeting in Sochi included Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, as well as Russia's interior minister, Security Council chief, heads of key intelligence and security agencies and other officials. Ivanov said after the meeting that the officials had reported to Putin on measures taken to boost security and to prepare for U.S. retaliatory measures. 
 Putin has indicated Russia would not offer troops for any U.S. military action and would not welcome any unilateral decisions by the United States. 
 The Kremlin has pledged to cooperate with the United States in fighting terrorism, but military officials have objected to U.S. forces staging strikes on terrorist bases in Afghanistan from former Soviet republics Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which border Afghanistan and could serve as a platform for strikes. 
 Putin has insisted that any response have a legal basis with the involvement of the United Nations and has also discounted suggestions of an impending international conflagration. 
 "I don't believe anything of this sort will happen. The leaders of the world's most prominent countries will not allow it," he told German television this week.
 During his three-day state visit, which begins Tuesday, long-scheduled talks on many matters will take a backseat to debating responses to the attacks on the United States, and Putin will be under the spotlight after adopting a cautious approach to Washington's plans. 
 Aside from meeting Chanceller Gerhard Schröder and the German head of state, President Johannes Rau, Putin will address parliament in Berlin's Reichstag. His program also features a meeting with business people in the northwestern industrial city of Essen and a stop in nearby Düsseldorf before a nostalgic journey to Dresden, his base during his days as a KGB agent from 1984 to 1990. 
 Analysts suggest Putin could push for Russia to be seen as a full partner in a worldwide response and seek more understanding in the West for Moscow's campaign against Chechen separatists.
 <i>- AP, Reuters, SPT </i>

TITLE: Moscow Offers a Chance For Talks
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two years to the week after the war in Chechnya started, President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly opened the door Monday for the possible peace talks with Chechen rebels by giving them 72 hours to sever all contacts with international terrorists and approach his representatives in the region.
 The offer was the first time Putin has showed a willingness to talk with the rebels, albeit only on the technicalities of their surrender. The remarks appeared to be mainly directed toward rebel President Aslan Maskhadov.
 &quot;I suggest members of all illegal armed formations and those who call themselves political actors immediately sever contacts with international terrorists and their organizations,&quot; Putin said in a late-night address to the country on RTR television. 
 &quot;In the next 72 hours [they should] approach official representatives of federal bodies to discuss the following questions: a method of disarming illegal formations and groups and a way to include them in civilian life in Chechnya.&quot; 
 He did not say what would happen after the deadline expired.
 Putin asked rebels to contact his representative in the Southern Federal District, Viktor Ka zant sev, a general who until recently fought in Chechnya.
 The ongoing military campaign in Chechnya began in late September 1999 after the Kremlin blamed Chechens of masterminding the bombings of several apartment blocks in Moscow and in other cities. 
 The Kremlin has repeatedly called the campaign a fight against terrorism.
 Putin said Monday in his address that the Chechen conflict &quot;cannot be viewed outside the context of international terrorism.&quot; But he acknowledged that the conflict has its own, unique history.
 &quot;I'm ready to accept that there are still people in Chechnya who took up arms under the influence of false values,&quot; Putin said.
 &quot;Today, when the civilized world has chosen its attitude toward terrorism, everybody should be given a chance to make his choice,&quot; he said. &quot;This chance should be also given to those who have not laid down their weapons yet in Chechnya.&quot;
 Until Monday, Putin had steadfastly refused to talk with Che chen rebels. About two weeks ago, he scorned Boris Nemt sov, the leader of the liberal Union of the Right Forces faction, for suggesting that such talks were necessary.
 Meanwhile, Maskhadov earlier Monday severed ties with the Council of Europe, accusing it of failing to investigate alleged war crimes by federal troops or bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table, according to a statement posted on the rebel kavkaz.org Web site. It was unclear how close his contact with council members had been or what impact his decision would have.

TITLE: Islamic Extremist Movement Growing in the Shadows
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With his clean-shaven chin and classic blue jeans, 40-year-old Akhmed Magomedov hardly fits the stereotypical image of a Muslim radical: bearded, brandishing a machine gun and calling for the blood of infidels.
 But Magomedov, a Dagestan native who lives in Moscow preaching a fundamentalist brand of Islam called Wahhabism, is part of the growing radical wing among Russia's Muslims.
 &quot;Like the Bolsheviks in Switzerland a century ago, Wahhabis find haven in Moscow today,&quot; Magomedov joked bitterly in a recent interview.
 The chances that the Russian establishment will co-opt Muslim extremists and bring them into a political dialogue are next to none, especially after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Instead, experts said, the movement is likely to become ever more marginalized, and its potential as a violent threat will continue to grow, especially in overwhelmingly Muslim regions such as Dagestan and Chechnya.
 &quot;In coming years, Russia will struggle with them fiercely,&quot; Alexander Is kan daryan, head of the Center for Caucasian Studies, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. &quot;But even if the state totally eliminates [existing] Islamic extremists, the problem will not be solved because the conditions for their proliferation will remain.&quot;
 Fundamentalist communities are a heterogeneous bunch, but experts agree about their origins. Fundamentalism surfaced in Russia in the early 1990s, when the doors to Muslim communities - whose religion had been suppressed during Soviet times - were thrown open to proselytizers from all walks of Islam. The most radical of them met with the greatest success in the south, where poverty and clan conflicts were the norm.
 &quot;When communism ends, when people are ignorant of democracy and are oppressed by local corrupt elites, they turn to the Islamic alternative,&quot; said Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to the model of a Muslim state based on principles set forward by the Prophet Mohammed and his early followers.
 &quot;Many young proselytes turned into headstrong purists then,&quot; recalled Ma go medov, who himself became disillusioned with moderate Islam in the mid-1990s.
 The extremist groups have different names: Wahhabis, Salafis, fundamentalists and even Islamic modernists. They live in the Northern Caucasus, in Tatarstan and in major cities with Muslim diasporas.
 About 20 million of the world's 1 billion Muslims live in Russia and, according to experts and insiders, the number of radical groups is rising steadily.
 &quot;When I talk to young congregation members at Moscow mosques, I see that most of them are fundamentalists,&quot; Ma go medov said. &quot;They want to live in a new state based on Islamic principles.&quot;
 Experts usually cite two reasons behind the increasing radicalization of Islam in Russia: foreign financial aid and Russian officialdom's inept handling of Muslim communities.
 &quot;Both traditionalists and fundamentalists have received millions of dollars from international Muslim organizations over the past decade,&quot; Makarov said. &quot;Of course, they influence communities in Russia and make them more radical.&quot;
 Malashenko said that aid from abroad only aggravates Islamic extremism in Russia while a greater impact, he believes, was made by the two military campaigns in Chechnya.
 &quot;All [Chechnya's first separatist President Dzhokhar] Dudayev wanted was to create an independent secular state,&quot; Malashenko said at a recent press conference. &quot;But, by using force, Russia has pushed Chechnya into Islamic extremism.&quot;
 After Chechnya emerged from the conflict with de facto independence in 1996, hundreds of enthusiastic young men from the country's Muslim communities went there to learn more about Islam and jihad in militarized camps set up by warlords of Arab origin.
 Magomedov visited some of these camps, where newcomers spent two months studying Islam and another two on martial arts and military disciplines.
 &quot;The students were real mujahedin, the warriors of Islam,&quot; he said. &quot;In the camps they got what they missed in secular life: a common goal, a sense of community and the spirit of masculine camaraderie.&quot;
 In September 1999, frightened by the rising tide of radicalism, legislators in neighboring Dagestan banned Wahhabism and religious extremism in the republic. Those who refused to acknowledge the authority of the state-backed Dagestani Spiritual Board were either prosecuted or left the republic, but became hardened in their beliefs.
 &quot;The bill made us face a choice,&quot; Ma go medov said. &quot;And many moderate fundamentalists turned into radicals.&quot;
 There is no unanimity about the future of Islam in Russia.
 Mainstream Muslim leaders downplayed tensions between Islam and the larger society.
 &quot;For Muslims brought up in the Russian cultural and informational environment, Russians are not infidels,&quot; said Farid Asadullin, head of the Science and Public Relations Department at the Council of Muftis. 
 Carnegie's Malashenko said that so-called Islamists - leaders who espouse Islam not only as a religion but as a political platform - could gradually edge out the former Soviet elites that hold power in areas with large Muslim populations.
 &quot;In a decade, they will replace most post-Soviet regimes in the southern republics and Russia will be surrounded by states that assess current events from the viewpoint of Islam,&quot; he said. &quot;I cannot say Russia is ready to meet the new challenge.&quot;

TITLE: Aviation Leaders Ask Duma for Funding
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - As the State Duma prepares to debate the 2002 budget, civil aviation players on Monday appealed to lawmakers to double the 2.3 billion rubles ($73 million) earmarked for the sector to help pull it out of a long tailspin.
 &quot;The 2.3 billion rubles allocated in the 2002 budget for the support of the civil-aviation industry is enough to get us just 1 1/2 airplanes,&quot; Yury Koptev, head of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, told Duma deputies.
 &quot;One needs a big microscope to see that sum,&quot; he said.
 Other aviation officials said airlines need at least 1,000 new planes over the next 10 to 15 years as they phase out the existing 6,000 aircraft, which were mostly built from the 1960s to 1980s.
 The new aircraft will include 500 passenger jets, 80 cargo planes and 340 helicopters, Koptev said, adding that only four new aircraft were delivered last year.
 Also, funds are needed to help airlines buy new engines and other equipment for workhorses such as Il-86, Tu-134 and Il-76 planes, which must comply with international noise and pollution standards that will come into force in April 2002. Koptev said domestic airlines operate only 11 Il-96-300s, 14 Tu-204s and one Tu-214 that comply with international standards. 
 With the profits of all of Russia's 284 airlines amounting to a meager 5.1 billion rubles ($174 million) in the first six months of this year, they cannot afford to purchase new aircraft, Deputy Transport Minister Karl Ruppel said. &quot;It's not fair to put it on the shoulders of the airlines,&quot; he said. &quot;The state, too, should help with financing.&quot;
 Viktor Livanov, director of the Ilyushin aviation complex, said two aircraft leasing programs approved by the government at the end of the summer were already requiring an extra disbursement of 3 billion rubles from this year's budget. Another 1 billion rubles would have to come from the 2002 budget for those programs, he said.
 One leasing project is spearheaded by Ilyushin Finance Co. and is for 10 Il-96-300 jets. The other is for 10 Tu-214s through Finance Leasing Co.
 Koptev said the two projects are not enough to rescue the industry because they concern aircraft that were already half-built.
 &quot;A full production cycle has to be reanimated,&quot; Koptev said, adding that the three major civil-aviation plants in Ulyanovsk, Kazan and Voronezh need millions of dollars to get the process started.
 &quot;Aviastar will need $100 million in the next two years,&quot; Koptev said, referring to the plant in Ulyanovsk that produces Tu-204s.
 Voronezh will need at least $40 million, he added.

TITLE: U.S. Gives Go-Ahead on Caspian Pipeline
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - U.S. officials are reiterating their commitment to building a controversial Caspian pipeline, emphasizing the importance of &quot;diversification&quot; as political volatility increases after terrorist attacks on the United States.
 &quot;The U.S. will not be deterred from its business by these events,&quot; said U.S. ambassador Steven Mann, senior adviser for Caspian-basin energy diplomacy. &quot;We will continue to build stability and cooperation.&quot;
 What Mann was addressing was the imminent construction of a long-debated pipeline running from Baku, Azerbaijan, through the Georgian capital Tblisi to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Originally conceived as an oil route that would bypass Russia, government and industry experts now see it as a pipeline that can become commercially viable if enough crude is found off the coast of Azerbaijan.
 An engineering study commissioned last year is progressing according to schedule and actual construction will start next summer, Mann said. Cost estimates range from $3 billion to $3.7 billion.
 &quot;The policy of pipeline diversification is inevitable,&quot; he said, speaking at a Moscow oil conference last week. &quot;I must stress that this is not an anti-Russian policy. It's a policy of antimonopoly.&quot;
 The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was for a long time seen as competing with the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, or CPC, which has already completed its 1,580-kilometer stretch from Kazakhstan's Tengiz field to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. Although the release valves were cranked open earlier this year, the first tankers won't be loaded for another three weeks, said CPC general director Sergei Gnatchenko.
 This kind of half-victory for CPC has led Russian industry leaders to be more skeptical about the need and cost of the U.S.-led campaign for Baku-Ceyhan.
 &quot;We welcome this project,&quot; Transneft president Semyon Vainshtok told a U.S. delegate. &quot;If you want to spend $3 billion and then look on as the oil companies choose a more economical route, then go ahead.&quot;
 Transneft itself is fighting for the opportunity to transport Caspian crude through Russia to other ports. The first stage of the Baltic Pipeline System, stretching from the Timan-Pechora region to the Baltic port of Primorsk, will add 240,000 barrels a day to Russia's export capacity and is set to go on line by year end.

TITLE: Weapons Sales: The Peace Dividend's Evil Twin
TEXT: The defense industry is trumpeting a jump in arms exports and predicting a banner year, with sales reaching up to $4 billion, a level not seen in 10 years. But with a brewing U.S.-led war against terrorism, the rebounding sector could find itself caught between a rock and a hard place. Staff Writer </i><strong>Lyuba Pronina </strong><i>reports.
 </i>India signed deals worth $10.8 billion. China placed an order worth $2 billion. Malaysia, Iran and Syria may come up with their own multimillion-dollar contracts shortly.
 And these are agreements for Russian-built weapons and other military hardware that are scheduled for delivery some time down the road.
 Deliveries made this year on previous orders are expected to net Russia up to $4 billion, more money than the sector has earned since 1991, government officials say. As the more-recently signed contracts are filled over the next decade, annual revenues could jump to $6 billion.
 The government predicts that this year Russia will grab second place after the United States on the world arms market.
 But there is a wild card. The terrorist attacks in the United States led U.S. President George W. Bush to issue an ultimatum late last week that countries can either be for the United States or be considered to be for terrorism.
 The United States has frowned on some of Russia's choices in arms customers. As such, deals with countries such as Iran, Syria and Libya could be placing Russia at a crossroads where it must choose whether billions of dollars worth of contracts are worth the price of isolation.
 
 <strong>THE $6 BILLION QUESTION
 </strong>Usually tight-lipped about their arms sales abroad, Russian officials have of late shown no qualms about throwing around big figures. Annual delivery estimates range from $3.5 billion to $5 billion.
 Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who since 1999 has overseen the defense sector, said last year that &quot;the annual potential of this [arms sales] market for Russia is no less than $5 billion.&quot;
 In August and early September this year, arms-sales officials discussed their deals to date with glee.
 Rosoboronexport - the state-controlled arms-sales agency that accounts for more than 80 percent of Russia's weapons-export deals - declared at the Moscow Air Show in mid-August that it was well ahead of its earnings plan.
 Rosoboronexport's first deputy general director, Sergei Chemezov, said that in the first seven months of this year the agency brought in $2.8 billion in revenues, or 87 percent of the year's $3.2 billion target. In 2000, Russia received $2.84 billion in arms-export revenues, with deliveries amounting to $3.68 billion. Of this, Rosoboronexport's share was $3.1 billion.
 Chemezov added that Rosoboron export has had orders worth $13 billion on its books since November, when it was formed as the successor of three other agencies, Rosvooruzheniye, Promexport and Rossiiskiye Tekhnologii.
 Of the $13 billion, some $6.5 billion worth is being filled, while another $2 billion worth has been suspended due to a lack of intergovernmental agreements, Chemezov said.
 Rosoboronexport chief Andrei Be lya ninov said that Russia may well reap $4 billion by the end of this year, a figure many arms experts here agree is plausible.
 Klebanov, however, is now voicing even brighter forecasts.
 While touring Novosibirsk defense enterprises in early September, Klebanov said Russia will for the first time take second place after the United States in arms exports in 2001, surpassing both France and Germany. He also said that Russia will be selling $6 billion of arms annually in the near future.
 Currently, 70 percent of all exports are aircraft, but in two to three years warships will also be among the top products, he said.
 Some local defense analysts derided the estimates, saying it was premature to stick the No. 2 tag on Russia and promise such revenues.
 &quot;Russia has never been and never will be in second place in arms exports. That's absolutely unrealistic,&quot; said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, or CAST.
 Moscow-based independent defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer agreed, saying there is little chance of reaching the $6 billion target unless China and India boost their orders significantly.
 According to the Arms Markets magazine published by the World Weapons Market Analysis Center, also in Moscow, Russia would need deliveries of at least $7 billion to $9 billion a year to move into second place.
 &quot;The most Russia can hope for is $4 billion to $4.5 billion annually for the next three to four years,&quot; said Igor Korotchenko of the Independent Military Observer weekly.
 This figure would beat those of the two peak years of the past decade - 1996 and 2000 - when Russian deliveries stood at $3.6 billion and $3.68 billion, respectively. But it's still well under the Soviet-era figures of about $20 billion, although most of the sales back then were to satellite states that either did not pay in cash or didn't pay at all.
 In 1989, Russia exported $21.8 billion worth of arms but received a meagre $1.7 billion in cash, according to the World Weapons Market Analysis Center.
 
 <strong>ALREADY IN SECOND PLACE?
 </strong>Despite Klebanov's declaration that Russia may become the world's No. 2 arms exporter for the first time this year, one U.S. government organization already gives Moscow that ranking.
 The Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress, announced that finding in a 90-page report titled &quot;Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1993-2000,&quot; which was published in mid-August. The report, which is prepared for the U.S. Congress, is updated annually.
 According to the author of the report, national-defense specialist Ri chard Grimmett, the United States ranked first last year in worldwide arms transfers, with $18.6 billion out of a world total of $36.9 billion. Russia, he wrote, had arms transfers worth $7.7 billion, nearly double its previous year's amount.
 In third place was France with $4.1 billion.
 The top three accounted for about 82 percent of the world's conventional -arms sales.
 Germany was in fourth place with exports of $1.1 billion, followed by Britain with $600 million, China with $400 million and Italy with $100 million. Overall, worldwide sales jumped 8 percent from the year before, the report said.
 Sales to developing countries comprised 69 percent of all worldwide sales and continued to be the primary focus of weapons suppliers. Last year, those countries accounted for $25.4 billion, the highest since 1994.
 In 2000, U.S. sales to developing countries stood at $12.6 billion, while Russia sold $7.4 billion and France $2.1 billion.
 According to Grimmett's report, Russia increased its market share from 13.6 percent in 1999 to 29.1 percent in 2000 in arms transfer agreements with developing countries.
 Among Russia's 2000 sales, Grimmett mentions a $500 million deal with the United Arab Emirates for a Pantsir-1 air-defense missile system and a $3 billion agreement to produce 140 Su-30MKI fighters under license in India.
 Moscow-based analysts said some of the findings appeared flawed. Maki yen ko said that the report seriously &quot;disagrees with the official data, which looks more credible.&quot;
 Felgenhauer said that calculating arms exports by contracts rather than deliveries could be misleading.
 &quot;The contracts vary in their maturation,&quot; Felgenhauer said, adding that a $3 billion Su-30MKI contract with India that was cited in the report would not be completed for 15 to 20 years.
 He suggested that throwing around impressive figures for Russia could be America's way of whitewashing its own sales figures to developing countries. &quot;Selling weapons to poor Third World countries does not look politically correct. So in order not to look bad itself, America is inflating figures for Russia,&quot; he said.
 
 <strong>THIS YEAR'S HIGHLIGHTS
 </strong>With arms deliveries and payments continuing from previous years' contracts, Russia signed off on a number of significant long-term deals this year and has a few more up its sleeve.
 In February, Russia concluded a contract with India to deliver 124 T-90C battle tanks and to sell the country a license to produce 186 more. The deal is thought to be worth $800 million.
 In June, the two countries signed a nonbinding protocol for the delivery of $10 billion of military hardware through 2010. That deal included submarines, ships and aircraft defense systems.
 Reports surfaced in July that Russia had struck a $2 billion deal with China for the delivery of 38 Su-30 MKK ground-attack jets in 2002 and 2003.
 Other big deals expected this year include a contract with Malaysia, whose Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was to visit Moscow on Sept. 12. The visit was postponed following the terrorist attacks in the United States, but is expected to take place before year's end.
 Military cooperation with Malaysia began in 1993, and in 1995 Russia delivered the Asian country 18 MiG-29 jets worth $600 million, paid for in part with palm oil. Malaysia was expected to buy a second batch of jets, but curbed its plans during the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
 In 1999, Malaysia received two Mi-17-1B helicopters from the Kazan Helicopter Plant, and officials are looking to buy 10 more. Last year, Malaysia voiced interest in Tor-M1 air-defense systems, patrol boats, armored personnel carriers and Be-200 planes. In June, a contract was signed for Metis-M anti-tank missile complexes, the Russian media reported. Klebanov, speaking after a July meeting with Malaysian Foreign Minister Sayed Hamid Jafar Albar, said Russia may sign a contract for the delivery of Su-30s. Industry sources say discussions are being conducted for 18 planes.

TITLE: Firms Re-Evaluating International Markets
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With the terrorist attacks in the United States sending global markets into chaos, a half-dozen or so Russian companies are taking stock of their options to raise hundreds of millions of dollars abroad.
 Some, like No. 6 oil major Sibneft, appear determined to push ahead this fall, while others such as food giant Wimm-Bill-Dann, technology leader Information Business Systems and Tyumen Oil Co. are either hastily re-evaluating their proposals to tap international capital markets or staying mum.
 No company that previously announced plans to tap international markets over the next six months would say that it was delaying its issue. In addition to issues from Sibneft, Wimm-Bill-Dann, IBS and TNK, the government has said it planned to convert a state-owned 6.45 percent in oil giant LUKoil into American Depositary Receipts (ADRs).
 Analysts gave mixed assessments of the chances of any issue going ahead. Some said a decision from a Russian company to float paper could not only help build investor confidence in Russia but also prove profitable because Russia's emerging market is seen as a relatively safe bet.
 Others said cash-heavy companies like Sibneft, TNK and LUKoil, which are raking in the cash due to high oil prices, would do better holding off since they do not need desperately to borrow money, especially under unfavorable conditions.
 Sibneft, however, said it intends to plow ahead with a $250 million Eurobond issue planned for international markets by the end of the fall.
 &quot;We expect the rating process to be completed by mid-October,&quot; a Sibneft spokesperson said, adding that after that point the company will be ready to float the Eurobonds.
 &quot;But we will be watching the markets very closely to see how the climate is affected by recent events,&quot; he added.
 IBS, which offers IT solutions to companies, is wondering about its next step. The firm, which is estimated to have cornered about $300 million of the country's $1.4 billion IT market, had planned an initial public offering of 20 percent to 30 percent of its stock on the U.S. NASDAQ this fall.
 A representative from Wimm-Bill-Dann, whose dairy and juice products dominate the Russian market, refused to say if the market turmoil was affecting the company's plans. Wimm-Bill-Dann has discussed an IPO of 10 to 15 percent of its shares in American Depositary Shares (ADSs).
 Also, government officials would not comment on whether their LUKoil ADR plans would be put on hold. And TNK, which was seeking an as-yet-unspecified amount through ADRs and Eurobonds, was equally tight-lipped.
 Whether world markets are ready to consume hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Russian securities - in equity or in debt - is unclear.
 &quot;Given the strong relative performance of the Russian stock market as compared to the rest of the world during 2001, investor appetite for Russian securities could well see a rebound,&quot; said Steve Berger, partner at Global Capital Markets Group, a unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers Russia.
 PwC's Global Capital Markets Group has advised a number of leading Russian companies on IPOs and floating other international debt instruments.
 &quot;Investors are always looking for better returns, and if those are potentially available with Russian companies, investors will at least take a second look at the risk-return equation,&quot; Berger said.
 The favorites will be Russian companies with strong growth prospects, experienced management teams and a commitment to corporate governance, he added.

TITLE: Bush Signs $15 Bln Airline Bailout Package
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush signed a $15 billion aid package Saturday for the country's airline industry, which has suffered mounting economic losses since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
 The legislation &quot;will provide urgently needed tools to assure the safety and immediate stability of our nation's commercial-airline system,&quot; Bush said in a statement.
 &quot;The terrorists who attacked our country on Sept. 11 will not shut down our vital businesses or thwart our way of life,&quot; Bush said. 
 The signing came less than 24 hours after the House of Representatives voted, 356-54, Friday night to complete congressional approval of the legislation. It had cleared the Senate, 96-1, earlier Friday. Most House opponents were Democrats unhappy that the measure did not also provide aid for the 100,000 airline workers being laid off because of the industry's financial troubles.
 Legislative leaders have promised those who consider the measure inadequate that Congress will consider bills to boost spending on aviation security and aid displaced airline workers.
 &quot;We are here to put back on its feet an industry that represents 10 percent of our $7 trillion gross domestic product ... one without which all the rest of our economy fails,&quot; said Representative James Oberstar of Minnesota, senior Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, Friday.
 The legislation contains $5 billion in immediate grants to compensate airlines for losses suffered from the government-ordered grounding of flights and the subsequent drop in passengers following the hijacking of jets that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
 The measure also authorizes $10 billion in loan guarantees to airlines near bankruptcy because of the steep decline in passenger demand, soaring insurance premiums and increased security costs linked to the terrorist attacks. Major carriers have announced cutbacks of 20 percent or more in service.
 Other provisions include steps to ensure that smaller markets won't lose their air service, and to limit airlines' liability for the attacks to the maximum of their insurance coverage. The attorney general is also authorized to appoint a &quot;special master&quot; to decide on claims for those who opt not to file suit in federal court.
 It provides domestic airlines with war-risk insurance for 180 days and allows the transportation secretary to reimburse air carriers for premium increases.
 The legislation also bars pay raises for two years for executives of airlines getting loan guarantees if they already are paid more than $300,000 a year.
 Several measures were inserted by lawmakers concerned that airlines would exaggerate their losses or use the government aid to make up for business losses incurred before Sept. 11.
 The transportation secretary was authorized to audit loss estimates made by airlines and senators Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois and Jon Corzine of New Jersey included language requiring companies receiving loan guarantees to give the government warrants, or options to buy, the company's common stock.
 Fitzgerald was the only senator to vote against the bill. He argued that Congress was &quot;panicking with the taxpayer's money&quot; and giving the industry more than it was actually losing.
 The legislation was opposed by labor groups and Democrats who said it ignored the airline and Boeing workers who have been laid off since the country's worst experience with terrorism.

TITLE: Finding a Compromise
AUTHOR: By Lamin Sanneh
TEXT: IN the days since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the United States has been numb from grief and anger, unable to comprehend the motives for the attacks, and unsure what to do next. President George W. Bush has declared war on terrorism, and he has said that the prime suspects are radical Islamic groups connected to the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization.
 There are many questions to be investigated, but one in particular demands immediate attention: Why America?
 Bin Laden himself has gone some way toward answering this question, most recently in a 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller: He delivered a diatribe against the American military presence in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war. Bin Laden called the United States an illegitimate, infidel presence, trespassing on the holy soil of Sau di Arabia. But it's hard to see why support for a Mus lim Saudi Arabia - and the defense of a Muslim Kuwait - should affront bin Laden's Islamic sensibilities.
 Around the world, U.S. foreign policy belies the claim that America is an enemy of Islam. In Kosovo, the United States led an intervention to aid ethnic Albanians, who are predominantly Muslim. While Russia waged a brutal military campaign in Muslim Chechnya with surprisingly little reaction from bin Laden's foot soldiers, President Bill Clinton publicly confronted President Boris Yeltsin about Russia's human-rights violations. America has been the leading humanitarian donor to Afghanistan.
 It's true that the United States has supported the Israelis, but it has also supported Muslim regimes in Egypt and Turkey and in Pakistan, a neighbor and close ally of Afghanistan's Taliban government. Surely all this is evidence that America has not been on an anti-Islamic crusade. On the contrary, America has proved hospitable to an estimated 5.8 million Muslims who claim this country as their own.
 The Muslim fundamentalist movement began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution that brought down Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and installed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iranian Islamists took American hostages, calling America the Great Satan or Jahiliyah - the New Barbarity. Fundamentalists moved quickly to make good on the ayatollah's call for jihad against Israel and the West, and a series of attacks followed. In 1981, President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt was assassinated by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group. Attacks on American and French troops and the United States Embassy in Beirut followed in 1983, killing more than 300 people. Then came the ayatollah's fatwa pronouncing a sentence of death on Salman Rushdie, author of &quot;The Satanic Verses,&quot; which set off violent outbreaks throughout the Muslim world and in the West. In 1993, a blind Egyptian cleric, Omar Abdel Rahman, was implicated in a World Trade Center attack that now seems small-scale. He was arrested, but his continued imprisonment in the United States only fueled fundamentalist fury abroad.
 All of this was enough to inspire The Eco no mist to publish in August, 1994, an investigative story entitled &quot;The Fundamental Fear: Islam and the West.&quot; It argued that there was a distinct possibility of &quot;a general war between Islam and the West.&quot;
 If that prediction has not yet been borne out, there has nevertheless been an alarming string of terrorist acts against the United States. Osama bin Laden is believed to have masterminded the 1998 terrorist attacks on the embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and he is accused of having been involved in the aborted millennium plot that targeted Los Angeles airport and in last year's seaborne attack on the American destroyer Cole, anchored in Yemeni waters. 
 It is becoming clear that support for these attacks goes beyond a handful of fundamentalists: Muslim leaders from Mombasa to Malaysia, from Cape Town to Olympia, Washington, praise bin Laden as a hero. Officials in Pakistan are currently struggling to appease the United States without inflaming their own citizens. All these incidents, combined with the horrific events of Sept. 11, demand explanation.
 Oddly enough, what most inflames anti-American passion among fundamentalist Muslims may be the American government's lack of religious zeal. By separating church and state, the West - and America in particular - has effectively privatized belief, making religion a matter of individual faith. This is an affront to the certainty of fundamentalist Muslims, who are confident that they possess the infallible truth. For them, this truth is not a private revelation but a public imperative, and states, like people, are either Muslim or infidel. America's government is not anti-Muslim, but it is among the most secular. For fundamentalists like bin Laden, that amounts to more or less the same thing.
 This religious certainty is at odds with the very idea of the nation-state, as has been apparent from the earliest days of the modern Muslim fundamentalist movement. When he met with students from Sau di Arabia in November 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini explained that the demands of Islam went beyond - and often against - the demands of nationalism. He declared that Islam appealed to all mankind, not only to Muslims. And he argued that secular states drained Islam of its vitality. 
 In seeking to reunite Islam with politics, Muslim fundamentalists have embraced globalization as zealously as their capitalist counterparts have, ignoring state boundaries to create a multinational movement. The U.S. government is discovering this anew as it tracks bin Laden's network.
 Many Muslims, especially those living in the West, have sought to distance themselves from fundamentalist ideology. By insisting that fundamentalists have misinterpreted the Koran, they seek to downplay the widespread support for fundamentalism in the Muslim world. But the challenge facing Muslim leaders goes beyond Koranic interpretation. In the aftermath of this month's attack, and in the face of increasing antagonism, both the West and the Muslim world need to make compromises.
 Muslim leaders need to embark on programs of democratic renewal. The West needs to overcome its insistence that the nation-state must be secular to be legitimate. The West should recognize that cultural values and political policy may intersect without threatening civil liberties, and that religion can play an important role in public life. That would enable Muslims to engage with the West without endorsing secularism. Such a compromise would move us away from the current perception of Western imposition and restore balance in the relationship between Western and Muslim states.
 
 <i>Lamin Sanneh is a professor of history and religion at Yale University. He contributed this comment to The New York Times. </i>

TITLE: How To Build Mass Transit On the Cheap
TEXT: WHAT is the fastest way to get from the north side of town to the south at, say, 4 p.m. on a weekday afternoon? The answer is obvious, assuming you don't have access to a helicopter: the metro. Otherwise, you will inevitably be stuck downtown for hours thanks to the endless traffic jams.
 Nonetheless, City Hall seems unable to come up with funding to keep the metro system going properly, to say nothing of developing it. They can barely keep the system safe. And so, each year they must beg the federal government for money to develop the system and to carry out major repairs such as restoring the broken Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya tunnel, which is a source of daily inconvenience for hundreds of thousands of local residents.
 But Moscow is practically silent. &quot;We can only give you 500 million rubles [$1.7 million],&quot; they say.
 Given that this tap dancing has been going on for years now, you'd expect that the city would have come up with some ideas of supplementing the metro with other cheaper means of public transportation.
 And, in fact, the Transport Committee is always coming up with new ideas, although to look at them you'd think that the committee's members had read too many science-fiction books or spent too much time watching Red Hot Chili Peppers' videos.
 Take, for instance, the idea of building a high-speed monorail to connect the southern reaches with downtown. When economists pointed out that this idea would never recoup its investment, City Hall came up with the idea of launching the so-called &quot;Metro Bus.&quot; According to officials, the first stage of this project would involve creating a 20-kilometer route from the Prospect Bolshevikov metro station to an undetermined location in the southwest suburbs of St. Petersburg.
 Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against developing the municipal bus system. What makes me laugh about this plan is the intention of building special platforms at the Metro Bus stops all over the city. You'd think that City Hall wants to create the illusion that they have indeed built a rail system, instead of just a new bus line.
 I think it would make a lot more sense to, for instance, use the money to be spent building these platforms to improve the safety of the city's <i>marshrutki. </i>At least in this way, the city could avoid embarrassing incidents like the one that happened to a German friend of mine once. On the advice of her friends, she jumped into a marshrutka<i>. </i>When some other passengers got off at the next stop and slammed the door shut, it promptly fell off in to the street.
 The driver turned around and announced sadly, &quot;Looks like I'm not going any further today.&quot; Now my friend has a good story to tell all her German friends about St. Petersburg.
 But it looks like Passagiravtotrans, the municipal company in charge of public transportation, is not going to give up the Metro Bus idea. Various media reports say that they have already attracted some Swedish partners into the project and started working.
 According to one report, the project envisions the creation of special high-speed bus lanes in the city for the Metro Bus. I wonder how easy this idea will be, given that now even ambulances can't get through the city with dying patients. 
 Or maybe the Metro Buses will be accompanied with police escorts like President Vladimir Putin's motorcade is when he comes to town?

TITLE: Is Moscow Part of the Baltic Area?
TEXT: JUST a few days ago, speaking in Riga, the World Bank's country director for the Baltic states and Poland, Michael Carter said, &quot;Of all the regions in the world, [the Baltic Sea area] must be the region with the highest potential for growth and economic transformation in the coming decade.&quot; The Baltic Development Forum Summit, now being held in St. Petersburg, is confronting the challenge of developing that tremendous potential before this brilliant opportunity slips away.
 The talk at the summit so far has been encouraging. Leaders in the region have gone on record as supporting Russia's integration into the global economy through membership in the World Trade Organization and closer integration with the European Union. They have also spoken convincingly of the general desirability of creating a regional free-trade zone, even if they have been short on specifics of exactly how this could be done.
 However, the summit has also brought a harsh spotlight to bear on one crucial fact that may ultimately dash all our high hopes. You see, all the countries in the Baltic Sea region are just that: countries that exist almost entirely in the Baltic Sea region and whose fortunes are completely tied to regional development. All the countries of the region, that is, except Russia.
 Russia is a huge country, for which the Baltic region is just a tiny corner. Issues that are desperately important for Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast are often met with indifference in Moscow. The fact that the region is ripe with opportunities for growth and development pales as the federal government copes with the growing instability in central Asia, the war in Chechnya and the intricacies of global geopolitics. 
 Russia - the host country - is practically the only country in the region not represented at the summit by its prime minister. Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref did not attend.
 At the same time, participants note that regional development is stymied by federal Russian policies. Tourism is stagnating because Moscow refuses to implement a simplified visa regime that is clearly in its own interests. Trade is hampered by senselessly bureaucratic customs procedures while Russia's regional neighbors are pleading to simplify them. St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad are missing out on many of the benefits of direct city-to-city ties in the region because of the heavy hand of Moscow.
 In short, what Russia is missing is the kind of whole-hearted commitment to developing the Baltic Sea region that all the other countries in the region have. And this means that there is a great danger that they will get tired of waiting for Russia to really come to the table.

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global eye
TEXT: &quot;The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.&quot;
 </i> - Joint Resolution, U.S. Congress, <br> Sept. 15, 2001 
 
 An extraordinary document, unprecedented in U.S. history. Although modeled on the Tonkin Gulf resolution that opened the spigots for the Vietnam War, and on the narrowly passed measure that belatedly gave George Bush I constitutional cover for the vast army he had already marshaled in the Persian Gulf, the emergency powers awarded last week to George Bush II surpass anything yet seen in the American republic.
 Never has a president been given such sweeping authority. It's true that some have taken it: most notably Abraham Lincoln, who used what he called his &quot;inherent powers&quot; to quash civil liberties, jail dissidents, even suspend the writ of habeas corpus, the cornerstone of 800 years of Anglo-American jurisprudence. But these draconian measures - imposed, after all, when the Union was under sustained assault by a million homegrown rebels, not 19 God-maddened criminals on a suicide run - were met with violent protests, Congressional investigations, bitter partisan invective and court challenges
 Yet there was nary a peep out of the modern guardians of the republic in the Senate as they voted Caesar this dictatorial power. For note carefully that it is Bush alone who decides who is a terrorist; it is Bush alone who decides what constitutes the &quot;aiding&quot; of terrorism.
 The Congressional lambkins of course believe that Bush will not abuse these powers. And no doubt he and his Praetorians will show the same tender concern for liberty, legality and constitutional authority they displayed last year when they sent hired thugs to break up the vote recount in Miami, then successfully urged the Supreme Court to strip Congress of its clearly defined constitutional responsibility to resolve disputed elections, thereby shutting down the vote and transforming callow Octavian into the manly Augustus who rules today.
 Poor lambkins, so trusting. But what else can they do? What can any of us do? We must all now trust that this man who can't hold his liquor will be able to hold near-absolute power without getting drunk on it. We must trust that he will somehow ignore the counsels of the conservative faithful who have heretofore molded his thinking and guided all his actions.
 For these wise guides have been busy defining just who is a terrorist - and a terrorist sympathizer. In U.S. newspapers, on radio and television, in weighty journals, they're naming and shaming the guilty. The list is long: anyone who criticizes the president in this time of crisis; anyone who has ever criticized him before; anyone who gives information to the American people about what has happened to them and what is being done in their name - including a conservative senator like Orrin Hatch, who was publicly slapped down by the White House for speaking without permission; anyone who suggests that there may be a complicated historical context to the tragedy, one in which America is not entirely without a tincture of culpability for helping create the scenario that belched forth this hell.
 All of these constitute a &quot;fifth column,&quot; an &quot;internal enemy,&quot; a &quot;corps of traitors,&quot; we are told by Bush's patrons and mentors. Every day, they pour this poison into Caesar's ear - but we must trust that he's not listening. We must trust that although he has always believed and embraced their Talibanic precepts before, he will now, miraculously, discard them.
 We must trust that Caesar will only sip at the cup of power that's been given him, just enough to rouse his spirits without disordering his senses. For it's entirely up to him now; Congress has abandoned its ancient duty to represent the people. If he decides you're a terrorist - you are. If he decides you helped them - you did. Vengeance is his; he will repay.
 Don't you feel safer already?
 
 <strong>Fog Bound</strong>
 In the aftermath of terror, a fog of deceit is rising from the Potomac, as deadly as the asbestos haze hanging over Manhattan. Congress is being shut out of intelligence briefings; it is to act as a rubber stamp, nothing more. Dick Cheney has taken charge as &quot;War Minister,&quot; as the press approvingly calls him. The new war will be run by the same people who ran the last one: the one against the &quot;terrorist evildoer&quot; who is still in power 10 years later; the evildoer with whom Dick Cheney did $70 million worth of business - after the war - as head of Halliburton.
 The same people who hired a PR firm - Hill and Knowlton - to control public perception of the Gulf War; who imposed press censorship far beyond that seen even in World War II. To this day, most Americans don't know what was done in their name during the last war; don't know that Bush I was an enthusiastic backer of Saddam Hussein, supplying him with arms and materials for weapons of mass destruction almost to the day he crossed into Kuwait; don't know that American soldiers were ordered to massacre surrendering Iraqi conscripts; or that Bush I, with an army on the scene, allowed Saddam to slaughter Iraqi rebels trying to overthrow him just after the war.
 You can't even speak of such things; you sound like a madman, a crank raving on the street. There's no context where this history can resonate, no way for it to inform the debate on how America should respond without repeating past mistakes. It's all hidden in the fog, decades of murk; and the fog is rising again.
 It's a cold, brutal fact, hard to face, hard to stomach: We are all living in a world of lies - lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and the grandchildren of lies.

TITLE: Reader Asks: Why Is Afghanistan in Turmoil?
TEXT: <i><strong>Editor,
 </strong></i>The news of last week's tragic events have shocked, horrified, saddened and angered me. Both New York and Washington were home to me throughout my childhood and teenage years. I understand the pain of the people in Washington and New York. I was forced out of Afghanistan 22 years ago. I understand the pain of 4 million Afghan outcasts and, I also lost family members in the Afghan-Soviet war.
 However, I would like to ask, and then answer, some questions regarding the current world crisis.
 Why is Afghanistan in turmoil? One out of three Afghans has either lost his life or left the country during the 22 years of devastation caused by war and drought. The Afghan resistance, labeled &quot;freedom fighters&quot; by the West, in the 1980s was part of the largest CIA covert operation that helped bring down the Soviet empire. Soon after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the Soviet Union and its empire started to collapse. The sacrifice of the Afghans inevitably helped preserve Western ideology against the threat of communism.
 What was the reaction of the West after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan? Western supporters of the &quot;holy warriors&quot; packed their bags and seemed to turn away every time they heard news of fundamentalist development, the treatment of women, the largest refugee crisis in the world, poverty, starvation, destruction of historical sights, mines maiming children and continued civil war in Afghanistan.
 Who came to the rescue of the Afghans? Extremist groups from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan invaded the country with thick wallets and an agenda to establish a base. What better place than Afghanistan, where an army of 15,000 may be employed for a mere $35,000 a month? 
 This price includes enlisting the fiercest guerrilla fighters on the face of the Earth on a terrain that the Greeks, Mongols, Arabs, Persians, British and finally the Soviets were unable to control. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. How much could it possibly cost to help establish stability?
 Would launching a full-scale military operation to punish Afghans for harboring terrorists avenge the Americans? It may quench the anger temporarily, but it will not solve the problem. It may succeed in fueling a larger war, perhaps, to the liking of the terrorists who committed the horrific crimes in the United States. To win this war, Americans must show that they are stronger than their emotions .
 What is the solution? First, recognition that combatting terrorism is a global conflict requiring the cooperation of every world leader, including, most importantly, the Arabs. Second, the building of economic, political and social infrastructures must encompass other deprived parts of the world besides Europe. 
 Considering the recent past, further destruction of Afghanistan and its people will be a humanitarian catastrophe equivalent to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings.
 Afghanistan has not seen a stable democratic government since 1978. A large-scale world effort that includes sincere efforts to stabilize the region is required immediately.
 Afghanistan needs the help of the world community now more than ever to help bring an end to the suffering and an end to terrorism. I know that the majority of Afghans are willing to help the United States again if they would only be remembered. Ask any Afghan.
 <i>Jan Mehrzai 
 Houston, Texas</i>
 
 <strong>Dubious Theory
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Bin Laden? Better Be Sure,&quot; a column by Boris Kagarlitsky on Sept. 21.</i>
 <i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>It is doubtful, as Boris Kagarlitsky suggests, that the perpetrators of the dastardly attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and at the Pentagon were carried out by anyone other than those who have been identified by the investigators.
 There were, after all, eyewitnesses who managed to make calls from their cell phones aboard the aircraft before their planes were so cruelly and inhumanely crashed into buildings.
 What is less clear so far is the relationship any of them may or may not have had with Osama bin Laden, already labeled as the prime suspect by President George W. Bush, even before the many hundreds of thousands of tons of debris have been carefully sifted through at the scene of the tragedy.
 That American intelligence can be so smugly confident in fingering the perpetrators of this act - but apparently incapable of preventing it from occurring in the first place - suggests either a capacity for monumental mistaken identity or sheer ineptitude on the part of government investigators.
 <i>Scott Nixon
 Rogers, Arkansas
 </i><strong>Stop the Madness
 </strong><i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>I am an expat from Costa Rica who has been living in Moscow for nearly 15 years. I want to make an appeal for American leaders to stop the madness of a new world war. Revenge attacks against targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and perhaps other Arab countries will never achieve what they are intended to achieve. Terrorism cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets.
 I don't think Osama bin Laden is behind the terrorist attacks we witnessed in America. There is no proof of his personal involvement so far. He himself has repeatedly denied the allegations. The attacks were so brilliantly, so perfectly planned and accomplished that no Muslim extremists could have masterminded it. The solution to the jigsaw is to be found within the United States.
 A professional and highly sophisticated organization (like the CIA) with free access to all sorts of places and information throughout the country, always above suspicion, could have planned and carried out the attacks. Of course, the suicide hijackers of the planes were Arab extremists, no doubt about it. But they were trained, paid and used by this secret organization we don't know yet, comprised by the most ruthless and dangerous people in the world, perhaps well-known politicians and army officers. A bloody war in the Middle East will be a great mistake, another crime against humanity committed in the name of freedom and democracy. That's exactly what the terrorist attacks were designed to do.
 I agree with Boris Kagarlitsky's thoughts. I wonder why people around the world keep repeating the same rubbish in papers and on television. It's time for everyone to wake up before it's too late. The fate of innocent people is under threat. The future of humanity is at risk.
 <i>Jose Astua
 Moscow
 
 </i><strong>We Don't Want War</strong>
 <i>In response to &quot;This Is Not War - This Is Terrorism,&quot; a comment by Nicholas Berry, Sept. 14.
 </i>
 <i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>I very much enjoyed this comment and would like Russia to know that not everyone here in the United States agrees that a violent reaction to the Sept. 11 events is appropriate. We do not want a return to violence against innocent people, including the innocent civilians of Afghanistan or any other country.
 <i>Joe Brandt
 Green Bank, West Virginia
 </i>
 <strong>The Straight Story
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Muslims Face Violence in U.S.&quot; Sept. 18.
 </i>
 <i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>May I offer another view of America to expand on that offered by The Associated Press that you printed?
 I live near the scene of one of the &quot;attacks&quot; on Muslims in the United States and not far from another noted in this article. The dateline of the article was &quot;Bridgeview, Illinois.&quot; Bridgeview is a suburb of 14,000 people in Cook County (population 5 million) on the southwest edge of Chicago. It is an unremarkable community of no real distinction other than being home to one of the few mosques in the area. Bridgeview then is home to 0.003 percent of the population of metropolitan Chicago, hardly representative of the area as a whole.
 The &quot;300 marchers - some waving American flags and shouting 'USA! USA!' - as they tried to march on a mosque&quot; were not what The Associated Press would have us believe. Chicago television stations, looking for an easy story, sped to the scene and had their cameras running in time for the 10 p.m. news. 
 What they showed was a group of about 300 (AP got that right) youths, mostly teenagers, who had gathered in a shopping center parking lot for a &quot;patriotic rally.&quot; The Bridgeview police chief asked for and received help from surrounding police departments. What the police on the scene did was watch for about three hours while the young hotheads shouted themselves hoarse, became tired and went home. 
 Yes they did &quot;march&quot; in the direction of the mosque. After they arrived near the mosque, they were stopped in the street and allowed to finish making fools of themselves. They did make a lot of noise (especially when the cameras were on), and they were as rude as 300 young people will be. Calling this an &quot;attack&quot; strains the definition at best. Finding an ill-bred, ill-mannered and ill-tempered 19-year-old to say, &quot;I'm proud to be an American and I hate Arabs and I always have&quot; was not difficult. 
 The Daily Southtown, a local newspaper, included the following in its coverage of the event: &quot;'We heard about this on television 20 minutes ago, and we decided to come over,' said Matt Collins, 20 of Bridgeview, who was with Lindsey Hitzer, 18. Police reported 15 arrests in this incident.&quot;
 AP also wrote that; &quot;in Chicago, a Molotov cocktail was tossed Wednesday at an Arab-American community center at 3:30 in the morning. No one was injured.&quot; The &quot;Molotov cocktail&quot; (how ironic is that to read in The St. Petersburg Times?) was indeed &quot;tossed&quot; in Chicago. It burned a small hole in a plastic window and sooted up the sidewalk before burning itself out. 
 Make no mistake, these acts were wrong. Every rational person knows these were not reasoned responses. That two such ugly incidents would happen in a metropolitan area with a population of more than 5 million is hardly news. Considering the unimaginable scope of the disaster in New York, the actions of these night-loving criminals seems pretty much inconsequential at best.
 I am not apologizing for the actions of these cowardly thugs. Bullies are the same everywhere. The thugs arrested in these cases will suffer a loss for their actions, as they should.
 The reason I wrote this letter is to dispel the notion that there are waves of attacks rolling across the United States. There are hurt feelings and people who are angry. Some among us are very, very angry. 
 There are, fortunately, many more among us who are thankful for the expression of sympathy from the Russian people and their government. Your offering flowers at the U.S. Embassy and lighting candles for the lost souls is very kind. Your national depth of character shines as a beacon in the darkness. Thank you for your support in our time of loss. We appreciate it.
 <i>Randal Tietz
 Tinley Park, Illinois
 </i>
 <strong>Dog's Best Friend
 </strong><i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>Despite all the ridiculous visa hassles, I agree St. Petersburg is a beautiful city, but there is one sight on this &quot;new&quot; city's streets that I am unfortunately seeing more and more of: terrible neglect of animals.
 It seems that everyone has gotten so accustomed to it - from Nevsky Prospect to the city's outskirts - that they have become totally oblivious to all the sick, wounded and starving stray dogs and cats there are here.
 I've seen callous neglect that I certainly never expected to see in Russia's PR-savvy, aesthetically focused &quot;Window to the West.&quot;
 I believe that most St. Petersburg citizens are caring individuals and that everyday survival is a problem for many, but such animal neglect is appalling and should never become acceptable.
 Does the governor have any programs for animal care and control? If not, why not? Can't anyone in the business community make an effort to resolve this problem?
 There is more to beautifying and modernizing St. Petersburg than just rebuilding streets and making buildings sparkle. It will also take a visible display of humanity and caring, of concern for the countless voiceless citizens suffering in your city.
 <i>Michael Kameron
 San Francisco, California
 </i>
 <strong>Don't Fall for It
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Ad Blitz Lifting Beer Cans' Popularity,&quot; Aug. 31.
 </i>
 <i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>Do not let this propaganda from aluminum-can manufacturers change your minds. Reusable bottles have always been best, but we in the United States stopped using them because of intense pressure from the greedy aluminum-can companies.
 Now they are trying to export America's mistakes to other countries for their profit. I saw this same thing when I last visited Poland. So cans are recyclable? Ask these companies how many actually get recycled? Will they pay to do this?
 <i>Perry Wise
 Columbus, Ohio
 </i>
 <strong>No Document Checks
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Are Passports Really the Best Solution?&quot; an editorial, Aug. 21.
 </i>
 <i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>I could not resist the temptation of sending this note simply because you might be unaware of the plain fact that police in Russia have no right to conduct random searches or even to check people's documents. The law says &quot;police have the right to check documents when there are sufficient grounds to suspect that the person has committed a crime or administrative misdemeanor.&quot; 
 This is a very strong legal limitation. Now if the police violate this part of the law so flagrantly, it is naive to expect them to obey the rest of the laws. That is what we should be crying out loud about!
 <i>Nikolai Sannikov
 St. Petersburg
 </i>
 <i><strong>Editor,</strong>
 </i>It is really charming that you are trying to find a solution to simplify identification procedures for foreigners living in and visiting St. Petersburg. However, it looks like you have been really misled by the Interior Ministry's talking heads. Before you start thinking about how to arrange a better system, one had better think about the basic issue: Are random checks justified? That is really a more basic and more alarming question.
 I'd suggest that you simply consult a lawyer and verify information that you receive from the Interior Ministry. It may be news to you and to the police, but Russian law does not allow random document checks.
 Federal law insists on relatively strict conditions with which the police must comply to perform document checks. This law is valid throughout the Russian Federation and protects foreigners as well as Russian citizens. No local law can legally supercede its provisions.
 I would not try now to argue whether or not it really mandatory for foreigners to carry particular forms of identification in St. Petersburg or other Russian cities. But I doubt that it is. I know that Russian citizens are not required to, and I doubt whether conditions are different for non-citizens.
 I am surprised to see that a newspaper such as The St. Petersburg Times accepts legal information from the police at face value. 
 <i>Viktor Ionov
 Moscow </i>

TITLE: Middle East Truce Talks Undermined
AUTHOR: By Karin Laub
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM - Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli woman in a West Bank ambush Monday, undercutting prospects for Mideast truce talks urgently sought by the United States as it tries to bring Arab countries into its anti-terror coalition.
 President Bush has been pushing for cease-fire talks to be held as soon as possible between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
 But the meeting, which Peres and Arafat have been trying to arrange for a month, continues to be postponed. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vetoed talks tentatively set for later in the day. 
 Sharon, who is under pressure from ultranationalists in his cabinet to cut off all contacts with Arafat, said he could not allow a Peres-Arafat meeting unless it was preceded by 48 hours of complete calm in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 
 Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin said Monday's fatal shooting has reset the clock again, suggesting that a Peres-Arafat meeting would not take place before Wednesday. Gissin said Israel held Arafat responsible for Monday's shooting. 
 However, Sharon's junior coalition partner, the moderate Labor Party, said it would push for the truce talks to take place quickly, despite the shooting. 
 &quot;Our position is that this meeting has to bring about a cease-fire. It does not have to be the result of a cease-fire,&quot; Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh of Labor told Israel radio. &quot;We cannot give every Palestinian with a Kalashnikov [assault rifle] a veto over what will happen.&quot; 
 The shooting occurred early Monday in the West Bank's Jordan Valley, close to the invisible boundary with Israel. 
 An Israeli couple in a car had just passed an Israeli military checkpoint and entered the West Bank when shots were fired. A 25-year-old woman was killed, while her husband was unharmed. 
 It was the second fatal Palestinian shooting attack since Arafat announced last week that he had ordered his forces to prevent violence against Israelis.

TITLE: Taliban: U.S. Must Give Support to Palestine
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia said Monday the United States must withdraw forces from the Persian Gulf and support the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel if it wants to remove the threat of terrorism. 
 In a statement faxed to news agencies, Mullah Mohammed Omar said the death of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden would do little to remove the threat against the United States. 
 &quot;If Americans want to eliminate terrorism, then they should withdraw their forces from the Gulf and they should put an end to the partial attitude on the issue of Palestine,&quot; Omar said. 
 Mullah Omar, who lives in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, claimed the United States had &quot;made Islam their hostage&quot; and that it should avoid interfering in Muslim affairs. 
 &quot;America wants to eliminate Islam and they are spreading lawlessness to install a pro-American government in Afghanistan,&quot; Mullah Omar said. &quot;This effort will not solve the problem, and the Americans will burn themselves if they indulge in this kind of activity.&quot; 
 The brief statement appeared aimed not only at warning the United States against military action but also at encouraging other Muslim countries to distance themselves from Washington's efforts to build an international coalition to combat terrorism. 
 The United States has identified bin Laden, who has lived in Afghanistan since 1996, as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, which are believed to have killed more than 6,000 people. 
 The Taliban has rejected U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden and his lieutenants, claiming the Americans have provided no conclusive proof of his involvement in the attacks.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Opposition Takes Town
 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Afghan opposition forces have captured the town of Zari Bazar, some 105 kilometers south of the strategic city of Mazar-i-sharif, the Afghan Islamic Press quoted Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen as saying on Monday.
 A day earlier, the opposition Northern Alliance and the forces of independent General Rashid Dostum said they had made advances toward the strategic town of Mazar-i-sharif and said they hoped to take it in the next few days.
 The opposition forces seized Zari in Balkh province Saturday night, AIP said.
 Afghanistan's opposition forces have launched new attacks in three northern provinces and taken at least one district from the ruling Taliban movement, the Pakistan-based AIP said on Sunday.
 
 
Isaac Stern Dies
 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Isaac Stern, often described as "the supreme violin virtuoso of the 20th century" and by himself as "just a fiddle player," died Saturday at age 81 at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.
 A small, modest and witty man, Stern performed with the New York Philharmonic more than any other violinist in history. He not only played more than 170 times at Carnegie Hall, he also led the campaign that saved the hall from being demolished to make way for a skyscraper, thus earning the gratitude of classical music lovers around the world.
 Stern was also one of the most recorded violinists of all time, including his performance as soloist on the Oscar-winning soundtrack of "Fiddler on the Roof" and as the ghost violinist for John Garfield in the 1946 film "Humoresque."
 His virtuosity was universally acclaimed. A New York Times critic wrote of Stern in 1949: "It was not the violinist one seemed to be hearing. It was, in turn, Haydn, Bach, Bartok and Mozart." A close friend called him a "natural force not to be explained" and he liked to call himself a "fiddle player."
 
 
U.S. Reworks Debt
 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - The United States rescheduled $379 million in debt that Pakistan owes to the United States in an agreement that was signed on Monday. The agreement includes additional interest that raised the figure from an initial $375 million.
 A Pakistan government statement said the loan would be payable over 20 years, including a 10-year grace period starting from Nov. 1, 2011.
 The agreement follows Sunday's lifting of American economic sanctions that had been imposed on Pakistan and India in 1998 after the two arch-rivals carried out tit-for-tat nuclear tests.
 The move was seen as a reward for the two countries for their assurance of support to what Washington calls a new war against terrorism after the devastating Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. 
 
 
Bin Laden Speaks Out
 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terror attacks on the United States, called on Pakistan's Muslims to fight "the American crusade," according to a statement that was broadcast by an Arab television station. 
 The statement, which was signed by bin Laden and dated Sunday, did not address allegations that he masterminded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington, but he has already denied involvement on two earlier occasions. 
 "I announce to you, our beloved brothers, that we are steadfast on the path of jihad [holy war] with the heroic, faithful Afghan people, under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar," said the statement, which Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel said it received Monday. 



TITLE: Volunteering Can Open Doors
AUTHOR: By Terry Battles
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Greg Luloff's obvious enthusiasm for his work suffuses all of his conversation. Luloff is a former U.S Peace Corps volunteer currently working in public relations and fund-raising for St. Petersburg's Hesed Avraham Jewish Welfare Center, located at 45 Bolshoi Sampsonievsky Pe reu lok. Luloff first came to Russia as an exchange student in 1997, studying Russian in the southern city of Krasnodar.
 After graduating from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a degree in Russian language and history, Luloff joined the Peace Corps. &quot;I'd invested three years in college studying the language and the literature, and I wanted to do something that would be different,&quot; he said. His work with the Peace Corps took him to Moscow in August 1999.
 Luloff then spent two years as a volunteer English teacher in Novosibirsk. Although accustomed to Minnesota winters, he recalls his arrival in Siberia, &quot;It was early November, and it was minus 30 degrees outside. That was cold!&quot; What stands out more, though, are his warm memories of the hospitality of the people living in the region. &quot;The people in Novosibirsk were unbelievable in how overwhelmingly friendly they were.&quot;
 This May, Luloff became involved in the Jewish welfare organization Hesed Avraham through a friend who had spent time at the St. Petersburg center as a Peace Corps representative. 
 While doing Meals on Wheels with Hesed, Luloff found himself walking through communal apartments and handing out meals to people who couldn't leave their homes. &quot;You realize you might be the only outside person that this person will talk to this week,&quot; he says. Such a radically different picture of St. Petersburg bolstered Luloff's commitment to community volunteerism.
 The St. Petersburg's Hesed Avraham Jewish Welfare Center was established in 1993. Hesed's goal is &quot;to provide comprehensive help in the spirit of national traditions and to assist in the revival of the Jewish community.&quot; With roughly 150 centers in the former Soviet Union, it is one of the largest welfare organizations in Europe. 
 The St. Petersburg Hesed has more than 950 volunteers of all ages and provides aid to roughly 50,000 recipiencts about 10 percent of whom are non-Jews. This aid including medical care and a Meals on Wheels program. Luloff explains that Hesed is based on three principles: voluntarism, Yiddishkeit (Jewish identity) and community involvement. The organization's aim is first to provide for people's material needs and then to create a sense of community, he says.
 The center has a large number of elderly volunteers. &quot;They like being a part of the organization. They become part of a community, and they know that they're doing something [that is] actually helpful.&quot; Luloff also works with a lot of non-Jewish volunteers, people who over the years had Jewish neighbors and felt that working at the center was their way of giving something back. 
 Luloff says the organization operates similarly to Jewish community centers in the United States where, although the focus is on helping Jewish people, they also cater for the wider community. &quot;If people need help, we want them to come in,&quot; says Luloff.
 The center also has a factory called <i>Nadezhda</i>,<i> </i>or &quot;Hope,&quot; which produces medical-rehabilitation equipment. Run by Lev Petrov, a former engineer, roughly half of the equipment is distributed to Hesed organizations throughout Russia, with the remainder going to municipal hospitals in St. Petersburg and in Moscow. Two doctors and a pediatrician work at the center, and there is a subsidized pharmacy.
 &quot;One of our goals is to reach somebody who doesn't get much help or social interaction at home. We provide a place where they can get the things they need physically and those things they're unable to get emotionally,&quot; Luloff said.
 Hesed also operates a day-care center and distributes baby strollers. 
 Luloff's ancestors originally came from Russia and fled the empire because they were Jewish. His grandfather left Ukraine when he was 2. But because two of his brothers died on that trip, Luloff's grandfather has a strange emotional bond to Russia. &quot;He thinks that it is funny [that I am here],&quot; Luloff said. &quot;He supports me a lot, and he thinks that there is great irony in life and in the fact that a grandfather can be in exile while a grandson can come back of his own accord.&quot;
 
 <i>You can contact the Hesed Avraham Jewish Welfare Center at 325-0525. </i>

TITLE: The Tower Where They Invented the Silver Age
AUTHOR: By Simon Patterson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: &quot;In this house was the 'tower' of Vya che slav Ivanov from 1905 to 1912. Rus sian cultural figures, poets, philo sop hers and artists gathered here.&quot;
 If the Golden Age in Russian literature revolves around Alexander Pushkin, the Silver Age - the name given to the period extending from the last decade of the 19th century to the 1917 Revolution - is rather a panoply of dozens of literary figures. 
 Few countries can have seen so many first-rate writers active at the same time. From Alexander Blok to Nikolai Gumilyov to Anna Akhmatova to Fyodor Sologub and others, these are writers who belonged to different literary schools, but who all made an indelible contribution to the development of Russian literature and culture.
 Unsurpisingly, Silver Age writers were a tightly knit group, gathering particularly in the Stray Dog cafe on Ploshchad Isskustv and at the &quot;Tower,&quot; as the the apartment of the Symbolist poet, philosopher and literary critic Vyacheslav Ivanov at 35 Tavricheskaya Ulitsa was called.
 Although Ivanov is now best remembered for his famous literary Wednesdays, he was also a remarkable and influential poet in his own right. A classical scholar by training, his work may be impenetrible to those who lack his erudition, but hardly deserving of the neglect into which it has fallen.
 While established poets would often read their work at Ivanov's residence, there were also some reputations made there, most notably the 20-year-old Anna Akhmatova, who first visited the Tower with her future husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, in 1909. After hearing a poem by her, Ivanov pronounced it &quot;an event in Russian poetry.&quot; This was high praise indeed coming from a man who was never afraid to speak his mind in judging poetry, often delivering withering comments on work he deemed inferior.
 This approach was obviously not to everyone's taste, and literary St. Petersburg was divided over Ivanov as a poetic authority, with his critics calling him the &quot;Petersburg Cassandra.&quot;
 As revolution approached, the Silver Age came to an end and many of its brighest names left the county. Ivanov left the Soviet Union for good in 1924, appropriately making his home in Italy, where he died in 1949. Unlike many of his fellow exiles, Ivanov continued to write work of high quality, with his Roman Diary, published in 1944, marking one of the peaks of his poetic career.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Wang To Play
 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China baseball authorities will not try to stop pitcher Chao Wang from playing in the United States despite calling his contract invalid, an official said on Monday.
 Wang, 16, is the first mainland player signed by a Major League Baseball club.
 "We will not block him from playing, but his contract still must gain the necessary approval required by the Chinese Baseball Association," CBA Secretary General Shen Wei said.
 The CBA had complained to Major League Baseball after the Seattle Mariners signed Wang - a powerful right-hander who is 1.93 meters tall and weighs 75 kilograms - in August.
 The CBA was not consulted before the Mariners signed Wang, who had been pitching for a junior squad in Beijing, and thus the contract was not "legalized," Shen said.
 But Shen said he was confident the CBA and MLB could iron out their differences in the next couple months.
 Wang has reported to the Mariner organization's practice facility in Arizona, where he is playing in an instructional league this fall, Shen said.
 
 
Super Bowl Delay?
 

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) - The Super Bowl probably will be delayed a week and will be moved if a schedule change in New Orleans can't be arranged, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Sunday. 
 "I think it's very likely that it will be Feb. 3 instead of Jan. 27, in one way or another," Tagliabue said during halftime of the Giants-Chiefs game he attended in Kansas City. "I believe we'll be able to pick up the week that we've lost and play the entire postseason schedule." 
 Tagliabue said New Orleans remained the NFL's top choice but the league was prepared to move if need be. 
 "We're hopeful of doing that in New Orleans, but we have some other alternatives that would enable us to play the Super Bowl - if it became necessary - in Los Angeles or Miami, or Tampa," he said. "We'll be working very hard to get those issues resolved this week, if it's possible - no promises." 



TITLE: Bonds, Sosa Continue Home Run Barrage
AUTHOR: By Ben Walker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Home runs ruled the NL chases and races. Barry Bonds connected twice, boosting his total to 66. Sammy Sosa became the first major leaguer with a trio of three-homer games in a season. 
 Brian Jordan hit a tying shot in the ninth inning and a winning one in the 11th, lifting NL East-leading Atlanta. Philadelphia also got two late drives and stayed close to the Braves. 
 &quot;It was a home run or nothing,&quot; Jordan said after the Braves beat the New York Mets 5-4 Sunday. &quot;I wanted to do something to wake this team up.&quot; 
 Jordan's two-out, two-run homer started a three-run rally in the ninth. His homer in the 11th stopped the Mets' five-game winning streak and helped Atlanta maintain its half-game lead over the Phillies. 
 On Sunday morning, Jordan and a few other Braves were given a tour by police of the site of the World Trade Center collapse. Jordan wore a Port Authority cap for the first two innings. 
 &quot;It was an emotional day for me,&quot; he said. &quot;I was glad I got the chance to go down there and meet the cops and firemen. That's reality. Baseball's not reality in the same way. And I was really impressed by what these people are doing.&quot; 
 Bonds moved closer to Mark McGwire's record of 70 homers in 1998, leading San Francisco over San Diego 11-2. 
 Bonds' 66 homers tied Sosa's 1998 total for the second-most in a season. The Giants have 12 games for Bonds to aim at McGwire. 
 Before the game in San Diego, Padres star Tony Gwynn gave Bonds some hitting tips. 
 &quot;He kind of corrected my swing a little bit today,&quot; Bonds said. 
 Said Gwynn: &quot;You could tell the last couple of days, he's pressing, trying to lift.&quot; 
 In other NL games, Houston beat Chicago 7-6, Philadelphia downed Florida 5-4 in 10 innings, Pittsburgh stopped St. Louis 2-1, Arizona beat Los Angeles 6-1, Colorado topped Montreal 5-3 and Milwaukee beat Cincinnati 6-3. 
 Sosa boosted his total to 58 home runs, connecting three times in the first six innings at Enron Field. But the Chicago Cubs lost when Moises Alou hit a two-run homer in the seventh inning that gave NL Central-leading Houston a victory. 
 Sosa hit a two-run homer in the first inning, a 136-meter shot in the fourth and another solo drive in the sixth. 
 Given a chance to tie the record of four homers in a game, Sosa hit a routine fly ball in the eighth inning on a 3-0 pitch from Mike Jackson. 
 &quot;I understand I had a great day,&quot; Sosa said. &quot;We played good today. We battled like a man. He made a good pitch right there at 3-0 and I just missed it.&quot; 
 At Philadelphia, Travis Lee hit his second homer of the game, a two-out drive in the ninth inning that tied it. Johnny Estrada homered in the 10th as the Phillies beat Florida. 
 Earlier this season, the Phillies gave up five game-ending home runs in a 15-day span. 
 &quot;We have had a lot of nail-biters before. We know what it's like to walk off the field with your head down. This was our turn,&quot; said manager Larry Bowa, who was ejected in the ninth. 
 St. Louis' nine-game winning streak came to an end as Rob Mackowiak's home run in the seventh inning lifted Pittsburgh at PNC Park. 
 The Pirates stopped their seven-game losing string. St. Louis leads the wild-card race by three games over San Francisco. 
 The Cardinals lost for the first time since baseball resumed play following a six-day break. St. Louis was trying to become the first team since the 1954 Milwaukee Braves with three winning streaks of 10 or more games in a year. 
 Curt Schilling earned his major-league-leading 21st victory, striking out 13 as Arizona beat Los Angeles. 
 The NL West leaders salvaged a split of the four-game series at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles is four games behind the Diamondbacks. 
 Schilling (21-6) improved to 13-1 in 17 starts following an Arizona loss. 
 Danny Bautista's tiebreaking single keyed a five-run seventh inning. 
 After the game, the Dodgers said ace Kevin Brown would miss the rest of the season. He's made his last five starts with a torn muscle in his right elbow. 
 Milwaukee stopped its seven-game losing streak as Jamey Wright beat Cincinnati at Miller Park. 
 Jose Ortiz and Larry Walker hit consecutive home runs in the ninth inning and Colorado rallied at Montreal. 
 Ortiz hit a two-run homer off Scott Stewart with no outs for a 4-3 lead. Walker connected on the next pitch for his 34th home run. 
 <i>(For more results see Scorecard.) </i>

TITLE: Report: Jordan To Return to the Wizards
AUTHOR: By Joseph White
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - For weeks, the question hasn't been whether Michael Jordan will return, but rather what it will be like when he does.
 The official, anticlimactic &quot;I'm back&quot; was due via fax this week, possibly as early as Monday. Jordan all but confirmed two weeks ago that he will play for the Washington Wizards this season, and Monday's Washington Post, citing a league source with knowledge of the situation, reported that he has erased any final twinge of uncertainty about ending his three-year retirement. 
 But answering that question only begs a few more. 
 Can Jordan keep his job as the Wizards' president of basketball operations? The Post story, citing its source, said he must give up that position. Even so, who will be in charge when he's on the court: Jordan or his hand-picked coach, Doug Collins? How will Jordan's teammates handle sharing the court with him? Will any of them dare not pass the ball to someone who has the influence to trade or cut them? 
 How much will Jordan play? He's 38 and last played an NBA game in June 1998. Over the last few months, he's had two cracked ribs, back spasms, knee tendinitis and hamstring problems - and that's just from pickup games against invited players. 
 Will his body hold up for an 82-game schedule, or will he follow the lead of the NHL's comeback kid, Mario Lemieux, and sit out selected games? 
 How will Jordan handle losing? He couldn't stand it as a front-office executive, having thrown tirades in front of the television while watching his woeful Wizards go 19-63 last season. Conventional wisdom says a healthy Jordan on the court just might get the Wizards to .500. He never missed the playoffs in 13 seasons as a player with the Chicago Bulls, while the Wizards haven't won a playoff game in 13 years. 
 Jordan has been very cagey about his comeback plans but the general outline of his return is clear. 
 A year or so ago, Jordan started working out because he found himself with a middle-age belly. His initial basketball workouts were a last-resort weight-loss plan after he found the treadmill boring. 
 As the months passed, the workouts intensified. Jordan's focus changed and, despite his denials, he began thinking he could indeed play again. He hired Collins, who coached Jordan in Chicago in the 1980s. Inspired in part by Lemieux, Jordan started holding intense pickup camps at a Chicago gym with NBA-caliber talent. The injuries slowed him down but didn't deter him. 
 Last spring, Jordan said, &quot;If I had to answer today, I'm 99.9 percent sure I won't play again.&quot; At another point, he said he would have to grade himself a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 in order to play again, then teasingly raised himself from 6 to 7 to 8 as the weeks went by. 
 There's no doubt he'll pronounce himself at 9 or 10 when the Wizards open training camp in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Oct. 2. 
 Preparations elsewhere have been under way for Jordan's return for weeks. The paperwork to sell his stake in the Wizards, as required by the NBA if he plays, is prepared and awaiting his signature. The Wizards' staff is ready to put him on the cover of the media guide. The NBA got overeager and briefly listed Jordan as a player on the Wizards' Web site last week. 
 Finally, there's a question only Jordan can answer: 
 Why? 
 Why come back and risk his legacy? Why not find another means to vent his extremely competitive nature? 
 &quot;It's definitely the challenge,&quot; Jordan said in April. &quot;I'm not coming back for money, I'm not coming back for the glory. I think I left the game with that, but the challenge is what I truly love.&quot; 
 On Sept. 10, Jordan was more eloquent as he spoke following a pickup game in Chicago. 
 &quot;I'm doing it for the love of the game,&quot; he said. &quot;Nothing else. For the love of the game.&quot;

TITLE: Smith Moves Into Second Spot on All-Time Rushing List
AUTHOR: By Stephen Hawkins
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: IRVING, Texas - Emmitt Smith is starting to realize just how close he is to becoming the NFL's career rushing leader.
 Smith took over the No. 2 spot from Barry Sanders after rushing for 85 yards Sunday in Dallas' 32-21 loss to San Diego.
 &quot;It's like 'Wow, it won't be long now.' One more to go, one more to go,&quot; Smith said. 
 Smith increased his career total to 15,291 yards, 22 yards more than Sanders. Smith is 1,435 yards from Walter Payton's record 16,726. 
 But it was another bittersweet day for Smith, who along with Darren Woodson are the only players left from the Cowboys' three Super Bowl-winning teams in the first half of the 1990s. 
 &quot;Very mixed feelings. You want to be standing up here talking about a record in a good situation where the team has just come off a big win,&quot; Smith said. &quot;I feel good about moving forward. At the same time, I feel rejected because we didn't win the game. 
 &quot;I'm probably downplaying it more than I should, but I have no reason to be enthusiastic,&quot; he said. 
 Smith passed Sanders with a 14-yard run on his 10th carry of the game, and his last of the first half. He finished with 17 attempts. 
 On the game's first play, Smith took a handoff straight up the middle for 16 yards. He overtook Sanders with 1:18 left in the first half, taking a handoff, bouncing outside and toward the sideline, where he was tackled by former teammate Ryan McNeil. 
 &quot;He wanted the record and we didn't want to give him the record. That shows you how great a player he is,&quot; said McNeil, who played for the Cowboys last season. &quot;We've got a pretty good defense. He deserved it. He's a great runner.&quot; 
 San Diego allowed just 44 yards rushing in its season-opening 30-3 victory over Washington. 
 &quot;If there was anything positive, it was Emmitt moving up to the upper echelon of running backs,&quot; Cowboys coach Dave Campo said. &quot;He ran very effective. He ran well enough to win, but we didn't get anything else done.&quot; 
 The Cowboys, 5-11 a year ago, have lost their first two games. 
 The 32-year-old Smith began this season - his 12th - 1,560 yards behind Payton. He hasn't had that many in a season since running for 1,773 yards in 1995, when the Cowboys won the last of their three Super Bowls in four years. 
 Payton played 13 seasons in the NFL, while Sanders suddenly retired after the 1999 season - his 10th. 
 &quot;This record should have been gone two years ago. He should have had it,&quot; Smith said of Sanders. &quot;Just to be compared in the same breath of Barry Sanders, Walter Payton or any other guy on that list, it's an honor.&quot; 
 Smith took over No. 2 on the NFL career rushing list on a day when the Cowboys inducted another No. 22, &quot;Bullet&quot; Bob Hayes, into their Ring of Honor. 
 &quot;It brought a chill to me,&quot; said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. &quot;It's fitting on a day when a No. 22 is put in the Ring of Honor that this No. 22 would reach such a milestone.&quot;