SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #717 (84), Tuesday, October 30, 2001
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TITLE: Putin Signs Breakthrough Land Code
AUTHOR: By Robin Munro
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin signed long-awaited legislation allowing the sale of land across the country, putting an additional feather in his cap as he addressed the World Economic Forum about the country's investment climate on Monday.
 The Land Code permits the sale of about 2 percent of the country's 1.7 billion hectares of land. In what is expected to provide a boost to both foreign and Russian investment, the code allows the sale of commercial land and land in cities. It also legalizes the ownership of about 40 million dacha plots.
 Foreigners are treated the same as Russians in the Land Code, the only exceptions being that they will not be able to buy plots in areas close to federal borders and those important to national security. Putin, who signed the code Friday, is to produce a list of such areas.
 Sales of agricultural land are to be covered in separate legislation.
 The code is to come into force after it is published in the official government Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, although a number of aspects, including those affecting the price of land, have yet to be clarified.
 As it stands now, land prices are relatively low. The new law sets the price of land at five to 30 times the land-tax rate for Moscow and St. Petersburg, five to 17 times for cities with populations of 500,000 to 3 million, and three to 10 times for towns with a population of less than 500,000.
 The average land tax in Moscow this year is 97,200 rubles ($3,284) a hectare, or 9.72 rubles ($0.328) a square meter, according to Andersen. The highest rate, for land inside Moscow's Garden Ring, is 720,664 rubles a hectare, or $2.43 a square meter.
 Such potentially low prices for prime Moscow property are not sitting well with City Hall.
 "Moscow will do everything possible not to give up its land at ridiculous prices," Sergei Melnichenko, deputy head of the city's architecture and planning department, said late last week.
 The government is currently hammering out rules for implementing the Land Code. Details about the regulations have not been released.
 Adrian Moore, real-estate and construction partner at the Baker & McKenzie law firm, said how the land will be sold will in large part determine the success of the Land Code.
 "The 2 percent of land is the area of land in urban areas, areas of settlements and that have so far undergone development and the areas that are most likely to be used for industrial development," Moore said. "Such land is the kind of development that comes with foreign investment."
 Moore and Konstantine Kouzine, a real-estate lawyer with Linklaters & Alliance, submitted comments on the draft Land Code to the government on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce, the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce and the European Business Club.
 "This [legislation] is not merely of academic interest," Moore said. "It's of interest to anyone who has property in Russia, any land held in perpetual use, the owners of a building development and those who wish to construct something."
 Putin clearly agrees. He has for months been pushing for legislation allowing the sale of land.
 "The strategic goal of the government's policy ... is to secure the effective use of land and other real estate in the interests of the satisfaction of society's needs and the stable economic growth of the nation," said Yelena Bondarenko, head of the land reform department at the Property Ministry.
 "The many years of stagnation of law relating to land are over and its development will lead to a proper legal basis for the advancement of the real estate market and the attraction of investment in the Russian economy," Bondarenko said last week at a conference on the Land Code organized by the Association of German Industry and Commerce.
 Putin will have a chance to tout the Land Code to more than 300 of the world's leading business figures at a two-day round table sponsored by the World Economic Forum that kicked off Monday. The talks "are aimed at delivering tangible results" for Russia's business climate, said Thierry Malleret, the forum's director for Europe and central Asia.
 Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Alexander Maslov, who is the government's key driver of the new code, has identified the Mos cow city government as being among the main opponents of the land reforms.
 On Oct. 10, when the Federation Council passed the code, however, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov spoke in favor of the legislation. He said he disapproved of a law that implements the code, saying, "It gives power to regulate land sales not to the market but to state regulations," Rosbusinessconsulting reported.
 Developers are sure quickly to set their sights on land in the capital. To date, the closest companies could come to owning property was through 49-year leases. Such leases range from $700,000 to $6 million per hectare with lease payments from $5,000 to $50,000 per hectare, according to Sergei Riabokobylko, partner in Stiles & Riabokobylko, the Moscow-based associate office of Healey & Baker.
 "[Under the Land Code] the authorities can no longer simply refuse to sell their land," Riabokobylko said. "They have to have a reason to do so."
 He added that there are likely to be disputes over which land in the city is owned by City Hall or the federal government.
 Even though the Land Code has just been signed by Putin, several regions such as Saratov already allow the sale of land, a right granted them by former President Boris Yeltsin. Still, Riabokobylko said, Russia has had a real-estate market for the last decade that saw 6.2 percent of all land go to individuals and 1.4 percent go into corporate hands. This is a significant portion of the land that is neither forest (62 percent) nor agricultural land (25.7 percent).

TITLE: Town To Honor Forgotten Letter
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The town of Ulyanovsk may have plenty of monuments and museums to its famous son, Vladimir Lenin, but a group of locals wants the town to erect a statue to another birth in its history - the seventh letter of the Russian alphabet.
 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov - Lenin was a pseudonym - had his own lexical influence on the Volga town, which was renamed Ulyanovsk on the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1970. But the letter "ë ," pronounced yo, is on a completely higher semantic level, Ulyanovsk residents say. The letter has since its birth in 1797 become the langurage's most expressive or, when needed, most indecent letter.
 And Ulyanovsk is banking on this one small letter to bring in the tourists who no longer visit to see where Lenin was born.
 Local writer Nikolai Karamzin invented the letter in 1797 to fill a gap for the sound he found lacking in the Russian alphabet. Now Ulyanovsk natives say it is the country's favorite letter, used to start expressions of surprise, anger and frustration and some of the strongest obscenities.
 "Everyone loves this letter, the sound and the letter, respectively. We all express the most joyful, overwhelming emotions with the help of this letter," Tatyana Klink, a local architect who is helping run the campaign to erect the monument, said in recent televised remarks.
 For such a favorite letter, yo is used very sparsely in the Russian language, and for a non-native speaker it is remarkably difficult to find.
 Most Russian books and newspapers do not print the umlaut over the letter as its presence, for the most part, is obvious to the Russian speaker.
 This absence can cause confusions abroad. The "e" in former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's name is actually a yo and pronounced as such.
 In Russian dictionaries, yo doesn't even merit a section of its own, with all entries slipped into the "ye" section. In the Oxford Russian-English dictionary, only 10 words beginning with yo are actually listed. 
 Two of those are swear words that would make a sailor blush, while another is <i>yorsh</i>, a ruff fish or a slang term for a drink mixing beer and vodka.
 Ulyanovsk residents once ran a competition to see who could name the most clean words beginning with the letter. Eight was the most the winner could come up with.
 The most frequently used words beginning with yo are <i>yozh</i>, or hedgehog; <i>yolka</i>, or fir tree; and a host of euphemisms for profanities such as <i>yo</i> <i>moyo</i>, <i>yolki-palki</i>, <i>yoshkin kot</i> and <i>yoprst</i>.
 Ulyanovsk philosophy teacher Sergei Petrov, who like Klink is enamored with the letter's expressive uses, said that often the letter is simply added to the end of a word to express discontent. Red Army soldiers, Petrov said, would refer to the White Army as eto ofitseryo, the added yo being a distinctive mark of disdain.
 Four years ago, on the 200th anniversary of Karamzin's invention, Petrov came up with the idea for a monument to the letter.
 At that time, Ulyanovsk, like many regional towns, had teachers, factory workers and doctors who had not been paid for months. Petrov suggested that the letter could be placed above the exit to the schools, factories and hospitals so that employees, leaving after another day of working for nothing, could see the letter and choose the right expletive to express themselves.
 The suggestion was never taken up.
 But this summer, town officials met to discuss ways to pull more tourists into town, and Klink came up with the idea for a yo monument.
 The town then announced a design competition for the tribute to yo.
 Fifty designs have already been submitted, with a favorite being a fountain that sprays water in the shape of the letter whenever an attractive girl walks past. Another favorite envisions a monument that lights up whenever somebody keels over nearby.
 Inadvertently, the yo competition has also sparked a division in the press. Local paper Simbirsk Courier, which is one of the few papers in the country to print the letter yo with umlauts, was supportive, but Ulyanovsk Pravda attacked the idea.
 &quot;They say teachers and doctors are not being paid. They say we are taking money from the poor,&quot; Petrov said.
 He said the monument would be funded through private sponsors.
 A temporary monument to yo was set up last week beside a monument to Karamzin in the center of town. But with so many entries coming in, the deadline for the design competition has been extended to April 1.
 The statue is to be erected next year.
 &quot;When we have a beautiful monument, more people will come than those who came to see Lenin,&quot; Petrov said optimistically.

TITLE: Jordan, Dybal To Organize NTV Sell-Off
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - NTV general director Boris Jordan and Gazprom information supremo Alexander Dybal have been picked to lead a divided Gazprom-Media team that will see the company sell off the media outlets it seized from Media-MOST, officials said last week.
 Jordan, who retained his NTV post, replaces his longtime friend Alfred Kokh as general director of Gazprom-Media, and St. Petersburg native Dybal takes over as board chairperson.
 A shareholders meeting last Wednesday picked the new board. Unlike the previous board, which was chaired by Kokh's privatization-era colleague Alexander Kazakov and included people close to Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, the new board is made up entirely of Gazprom officials, some of whom were brought over by new Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller. Jordan is not on the board.
 Dybal and Jordan confirmed at a news conference that NTV and its sister companies will be evaluated, restructured and prepared for sale by Jan. 15.
 Gazprom has pledged funding for the transitional period, which is crucial for the 23 companies, some of which are on the verge of bankruptcy after months of not getting funding from their old and new owners, the officials said. Gazprom-Media assets include NTV, the NTV Plus satellite-television station and second-tier TNT television.
 The main question remains whether NTV and its sister companies will be sold separately or together and whether a consortium of investors that Kokh and Jordan reportedly have all but formed will be allowed to bid.
 Dybal said that to avoid conflict of interest he will be in charge of a pre-sale makeover of the media outlets, their valuation and negotiations with potential buyers. The decision on the structure of sale will also be his.
 Jordan, a U.S.-born businessperson, will be in charge of completing the transfer of ownership of the 23 companies from Media-MOST to Gazprom - something the two sides have dragged their feet on - and will restructure and manage the companies in the interim.
 &quot;I have worked in independent media for more than 10 years and can thus lead the creation of a new media company that will be based on business, not politics,&quot; Dybal said.
 Jordan made it clear that he favors a sell-off in which NTV and some of its sister companies would keep their ties. He stressed that NTV uses the same transmission center as NTV Plus and would have difficulty functioning without the NTV Kino and NTV Profit film libraries.
 &quot;All Gazprom-Media assets are closely entwined,&quot; Jordan said. &quot;If I don't help restructure all Gazprom-Media assets, NTV, which is not only the main asset of Gazprom-Media but also has a major public responsibility, will be strongly affected.
 &quot;It is not by coincidence that [Media-MOST founder Vladimir] Gusinsky built the holding in such a way,&quot; he said.
 Jordan said that a decision on whether he would bid for Gazprom-Media assets depends on Gazprom's asking price and the manner they are sold. &quot;I will not hide the fact that we have different opinions on what the company should look like at the end of the process,&quot; Jordan said. &quot;My interest in these assets will strongly depend on the structure and price at the end of the process.&quot;
 Both Dybal and Jordan said that they are seeing interest from investors but no concrete negotiations have taken place.
 Asked about the consortium that he, Kokh and unnamed foreign investors had reportedly set up to buy NTV, Jordan said, &quot;It's impossible to speak about any consortium before Gazprom makes up its mind [on the sale structure and price].&quot;
 In a possible sign that Jordan has little trust in Gazprom's approach to the sale, he said it was most important for him to force Gazprom management to make the sale. He said he had bet his reputation on making sure that NTV is eventually sold. Jordan made such a promise when he took the reins at NTV in April. Jordan also said that Kokh had asked him to accept the Gazprom-Media post.
 Kokh resigned earlier this month amid differences with Miller over the future of NTV and its subsidiaries.
 Dybal, a former commercial director at St. Petersburg's Baltika Radio, was brought to Gazprom by Miller and is believed to be close to President Vla di mir Putin's inner circle.

TITLE: 45 Bodies Pulled From Kursk
AUTHOR: By Sergei Shargorodsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Investigators examining the Kursk nuclear submarine have removed the bodies of 45 crew members since the vessel was brought to dry dock in Russia's Arctic north, the Prosecutor General's office said Monday. Eighteen of the bodies have been identified, Interfax reported on Monday.
 The number of bodies retrieved was higher than the Russian Navy's initial forecast, according to which officials hoped to find the remains of only 30 to 40 crew members. The prosecutor's office would not say whether any more bodies were expected to be found. 
 Russian news reports said the first two of the Kursk's 22 Granit cruise missiles were also removed on Monday.
 The submarine, one of the navy's most advanced vessels, was destroyed by two powerful explosions during military exercises in August 2000. The cause of the disaster, which killed the Kursk's entire crew of 118, is not known, but officials are focusing on versions including a collision with an old mine or a foreign vessel, or a faulty torpedo launch.
 Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said on state-run RTR television that ballistics experts were examining the Kursk to see whether it could have come in contact with an outside object.
 &quot;There's a certain rubbed-off portion&quot; on the Kursk's hull, Ustinov said, apparently referring to the theory the Kursk was hit by a foreign submarine.
 Most foreign experts believe a malfunction in one of the Kursk's torpedoes caused the explosions. Ustinov reiterated that Russian military experts insist the Kursk's torpedoes were flawless.
 On Sunday, seven bodies of dead Kursk sailors in identical coffins were flown to the cities of Kursk and Lipetsk in western Russia, Ufa in the Urals and Tomsk in Siberia, RTR reported. Ustinov said some of the bodies shown signs of burns and were wearing gas masks because of the fire the explosions ignited.
 In documentary footage by investigators shown on Russian television this weekend, the inside of the Kursk is visible as a mass of charred and rusting cavities littered with pieces of twisted and torn metal.
 &quot;What happened inside these compartments was hell,&quot; said Ustinov as he presented a seven-minute videotape of the inside of the Kursk. &quot;The explosion ... wiped out everything here,&quot; Ustinov said in the film, shown on Russian television channels. The film went on to show the place where the Kursk's periscope once stood and which now resembles a surreal twisted column of metal.
 &quot;The strong alloys from which these compartments were built were simply ripped apart,&quot; Ustinov said.
 The Kursk's commanders and most of its crew died in the front compartments as two blasts 135 seconds apart sent the mighty submarine to the sea bottom, Ustinov said. A fire that spread rapidly after the explosions raised temperature inside the Kursk to 8,000 degrees Celsius, he said at a separate news conference in Murmansk.
 Ustinov, who leads the team of investigators, said experts believe the submarine was completely flooded within six to seven, &quot;maximum eight hours.&quot;
 The sailors who did not die in the explosions began feeling the effects of carbon-monoxide poisoning within 90 minutes, judging by their notes. The first note by one sailor &quot;is written in a steady, beautiful hand, and in a second note written 1 1/2 hours later you can see it's difficult for him to write. This confirms that water and carbon monoxide began filling the ninth [stern] compartment,&quot; said Ustinov. &quot;Those who think it was possibile to save our sailors should know that there was no such possibility.&quot;
 Despite the force of the explosions, the reactor compartment withstood the blasts and was only flooded by water coming from ventilation and other openings, he said.
 The bulk of the Kursk was raised from the Barents Sea floor on Oct. 8 in a $65-million salvage operation performed by the Dutch consortium Mammoet-Smit International. The mangled forward compartment, where the Kursk's torpedoes were located, was left on the bottom of the sea out of concern that it could break off and destabilize the lifting operation. The Giant-4 barge that towed the Kursk to shore as part of the international salvage operation left Roslyakovo on Sunday for Norway.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Kolyak Hit Again
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A prominent local businessperson was seriously wounded in what appeared to be a contract hit on Sunday evening, Interfax reported Monday.
 Ruslan Kolyak, 42, was shot several times by unknown gunmen at about 8 p.m. in the city's Vyborg District. Doctors said that his condition was very serious and was complicated by injuries Kolyak had sustained in previous attempts on his life, according to Interfax.
 Kolyak is the director of several local security firms, including Kuguar and Krechet, as well as of a number of nightclubs and discotheques. He was also the producer of several popular television programs, including "Sutki" and "600 Sekund." Law enforcement authorities have stated that he is connected to the Tambovsky criminal group, Interfax reported.
 
 
Komi Cleanup
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Republic of Komi intends to clean up more than 700 hectares of land that has been polluted by oil spills before the end of 2005, Interfax reported Monday.
 According to Gennady Yertsev, general director of Komimelivodkhoz pro ekt, the cleanup will be carried out by Komi neft as part of its program to restore polluted land and to liquidate the consequences of oil spills. The program has been approved by LUKoil and the government of Komi, according to Interfax.
 Yertsev stated that more than 260 hectares of land had already been cleaned up in the Usinsk Region and more than 60 tons of oil by-products had been recovered and reprocessed, Interfax reported.
 
 
Museums Unite
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A new Union of Russian Museums was created on Friday at a congress attended by more than 500 museum workers and directors, Interfax reported Saturday.
 Russia's museums have demonstrated that "they are capable of surviving in today's complicated economic conditions," Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi told the congress. He stated that 707 new museums have opened in Russia in the last 10 years, according to Interfax.
 The congress elected State Hermitage Museum Director Mikhail Piotrovsky, who was one of the initiators of the union idea, as the organization's chairperson.
 
 
Russia Under Review
 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has started consulting Congress on removing Russia and six other former Soviet republics from the list of countries for which the United States links normal trade with emigration policies, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said on Friday.
 Under the Jackson-Vanik amendment, passed in 1974 during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and other communist countries could not have normal trading relations with the United States unless they could show that they did not restrict emigration.
 The requirement to pass the annual test has been a regular irritant in trade relations with Russia, and abolishing the requirement would be a gesture of good will toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, a U.S. official said.
 Boucher said the six other countries that the Bush administration wants off the list are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Ukraine.
 Georgia and the three Baltic countries have already been exempted.
 In practice, the United States has certified in recent years that the countries do have open emigration policies.
 
 
Space Pioneer Dies
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian space designer Vasily Mishin, who spearheaded the botched Soviet effort to reach the moon before the United States, has died in Moscow at the age of 84.
 Mishin's death on Oct. 10 was reported by the Russian media, which hailed him as one of the founders of once-glorious Soviet space program.
 Mishin worked alongside Sergei Korolyov, a legendary space designer whose team put the world's first satellite in orbit in 1957 and sent the first human into space in 1961. After Korolyov's death in 1966, Mishin took over the Soviet space program and led the massive effort to outpace the Americans in the moon race.
 American Astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969, while the Soviet program collapsed amid a series of cosmonaut deaths and rocket explosions, leading to Mishin's ouster in 1974. 
 Mishin was transferred to an obscure teaching job, leading Western observers to believe he was dead. He again became visible during former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's campaign for greater political openness in the late 1980s, when he started giving interviews about the Soviet space program.
 Speaking to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Mishin said his moon project was doomed because it lacked the necessary funds, and added that the Soviet Union shouldn't have entered the moon race.
 "The Soviet Union, which won primacy in space in many fields, didn't have to compete with the Americans for putting the first human on the moon," Mishin said. "But the official decision was made, albeit it happened too late and wasn't backed by the necessary funds."
 Mishin said Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev rejected a U.S. proposal to include a Soviet cosmonaut in the Apollo crew flying to the moon.
 "Nikita Sergeyevich apparently decided that the proposal was humiliating for the U.S.S.R., even though it took him a long time to give the orders to launch our own moon mission," Mishin said.
 
 
 
Abkhazia Pullout
 

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Russia on Friday pulled out military equipment from its base in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, triggering protests by local authorities who fear the move will leave them vulnerable to possible Georgian attacks.
 "We were against the base's liquidation. From the psychological point of view, the populace saw it as a security factor," Abkhazia's Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba said.
 Separatists have controlled Abkhazia since 1993, and Russian peacekeepers have been stationed in the Black Sea province since 1994. Some 300,000 ethnic Georgians fled Abkhazia during the 1992-93 war and many have been urging the government to take military action that would allow them to return.
 Russia agreed to withdraw from the old Soviet base in Gudauta in 1999 but missed the July 1 deadline because of Abkhazian protests in which residents have blocked roads and demanded the Russians' weapons.
 Georgia has insisted on the Russian withdrawal, fearing that Moscow only wants to keep a foothold in the region and has helped the Abkhazian separatists. 



TITLE: 40 Years Ago, U.S. Faced Down Soviets in Berlin
AUTHOR: By W. R. Smyser
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On Sunday evening, Oct. 22, 1961, Allan Lightner, the chief of the U.S. Mission in Berlin, wanted to pass through Checkpoint Charlie to attend the opera in East Berlin.
 Just before that evening 40 years ago, Walter Ulbricht, the chief of the Sozialistische Einheits-Partei, or SED, had returned in a rage from the 22nd Communist Party Congress in Moscow. During that congress, Nikita Khru shchev had not repeated his demand for a German peace treaty by Dec. 31, 1961, and had stressed &quot;peaceful coexistence.&quot; Ulbricht had contradicted Khrushchev, telling the congress that the peace treaty was &quot;a task of the utmost urgency,&quot; but Khrushchev had not listened.
 For Ulbricht, the Wall had saved his regime but not given him what he really wanted, which was to neutralize West Berlin and destroy its freedom. He had informed Khrushchev that SED cadres were ready to invade West Berlin - provided the Soviets supported them - but Khrushchev had not agreed.
 Ulbricht and other Communist SED leaders wanted all of Berlin, not talk of peaceful coexistence. They wanted to destroy the confidence of the Berliners. The SED knew that this could best be done by humiliating the Americans.
 Thus the Vopos, the East German police, stopped Lightner and demanded his identification documents. Lightner, following long-standing practice, said that he was with the U.S. occupation authority, as shown by his license plate. He refused to show identification.
 General Lucius Clay, who had just arrived in Berlin as U.S. President John F. Kennedy's personal representative, went to the American operations center in West Berlin to deal with the crisis. He sent a squad of American soldiers to the checkpoint.
 As the Soviet political adviser had not even returned from Moscow, his deputy hurried to the scene. Not sure what to do, he told an American political adviser that Lightner should follow the police's instructions.
 Clay then ordered the U.S. soldiers to escort Lightner's car through the checkpoint. The Vopos drew back and the car proceeded. It went in and out several times to make the point. The Soviet official told the American that the incident had been a &quot;mistake.&quot;
 Some Washington advisers to President Kennedy criticized Clay's action. But Clay cabled Kennedy that he intended to meet the East German action firmly to show the Berliners that the Americans would face all challenges.
 Ulbricht and the SED still wanted to show that they could dictate to the Americans. The next day, they published a decree stating that henceforth all civilian foreigners would have to show identification to the Vopos.
 Clay then launched a probe. He sent a car to Checkpoint Charlie with two soldiers dressed in civilian clothes. They were, as Clay expected, stopped by Vopos when they tried to enter East Berlin.
 But Ulbricht was playing into Clay's hands. Clay believed firmly that Khru shchev did not want war and would let Ulbricht carry out his provocations only as long as the Americans would not react with more than a protest. If Khrushchev thought he could control the temperature of the Berlin crisis, he would let Ulbricht keep it bubbling. Once he feared it would boil over, he would turn off the heat. That was what Clay wanted.
 Clay, therefore, wanted to become unpredictable. To save West Berlin, Clay had to make the situation potentially dangerous enough for Khru shchev and for Marshal Ivan Ko nev, whom Khrushchev had sent to Be rlin as commander of Soviet forces, to tell Ulbricht to stop his provocations.
 Therefore, Clay mounted a bigger show of force, bringing 10 tanks to a short distance from the checkpoint. Once again, a squad of U.S. soldiers escorted an American car in and out.
 The American tanks, some equipped with bulldozer blades, alarmed Konev. He feared that the tanks might advance right through the Mitte district and cut off all major East German ministry buildings as well as the Soviet Embassy from the main body of East Berlin. The Soviets either had to block the tanks themselves or let Ulbricht do so. And they did not trust Ulbricht.
 Konev brought 10 Soviet tanks near the checkpoint, to a grassy lot near Friedrichstrasse, where a luxury shopping mall now stands. The Soviets covered their insignia with mud to suggest that the tanks were East German, but U. S. soldiers monitoring their radios knew that they were Russian.
 Clay wanted to bring the Soviet tanks into the open. On the next afternoon, he repeated that test and, when the Vopos blocked the American car, he moved the American tanks right up to the checkpoint and the American sector border line.
 As Clay expected, the Soviet tanks rambled off their lot and came up to the checkpoint to face the American tanks. And, throughout the evening, the tank face-off continued, providing some of the most dramatic photographs of the Cold War.
 Clay felt relieved that Konev had sent Russian tanks. They eliminated any chance that Ulbricht might provoke a real crisis.
 But press stories conveyed a sense of imminent conflict. Kennedy's advisers urged the president to tell Clay to pull back the tanks.
 Kennedy called Clay at the operations center. When Clay said, &quot;Hello, Mr. President,&quot; the center fell silent. Kennedy asked Clay about the situation. Clay told him that the Soviets had matched the American tank force, tank for tank, and thus shown that Moscow wanted no trouble.
 Clay added that he saw the Soviet tank deployment as a sign they did not want to run any real risks over Berlin. Kennedy urged Clay and his colleagues not to lose their nerves. Clay replied that he and others in Berlin were not worried about losing their own nerves but about those in Washington losing theirs. Kennedy replied, &quot;I've got a lot of people here that have, but I haven't.&quot;
 Kennedy's reaction showed that the president understood Clay and supported him. He did not order Clay to withdraw the American tanks. Instead, by 10:30 the following morning, the Soviet tanks began withdrawing. Clay instructed the U.S. tanks to withdraw as well. In an elaborate minuet, the Soviet and American tanks pulled back sequentially until, within half an hour, all tanks had left the checkpoint.
 Clay felt that the U.S. tanks had done what he had wanted. The confrontation had proven his point. It had forced the Soviets to assume their responsibilities. In the process, they had also inflicted a deep humiliation on Ulbricht and the SED.
 The Checkpoint Charlie confrontation proved to be one of the decisive moments in the history of divided Germany. Instead of humiliating the Americans and demoralizing the Berliners as Ulbricht and the SED had wanted, it had done the opposite. It destroyed the image of a sovereign East Germany. Soviet tanks had to save Ulbricht only a few blocks from his office.
 Khrushchev and Konev did not want to risk war. They agreed with Clay to keep the confrontation from escalating. Having seen what Ulbricht would do on his own, Khrushchev called him to Moscow and subsequently kept him under stricter control.
 By the winter and over the following spring, investment again flowed into West Berlin and people stopped leaving. This put an end to Ulbricht's hope that West Berlin could be neutralized and brought under SED control. Ulbricht could keep the East Berliners and East Germans in prison behind the Wall, but he could not win West Berlin.
 
 <i>W.R. Smyser was special assistant to General Clay in Berlin during the Check point Charlie confrontation. He is now a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. This article comes from his book &quot;From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle Over Germany.&quot; </i>

TITLE: U.S. Attack Fallout Hits Aeroflot
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - National flagship carrier Aeroflot said on Monday that the worldwide slump in air travel that has resulted from the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States will translate into $15 million in lost revenues for the airline this year.
 In order to reduce its costs, the airline announced that it had made cuts to its schedule as of Sunday and would reshuffle its fleet of planes beginning Thursday.
 Aeroflot said that October passenger traffic to destinations in the United States was off earlier forecasts by 25 to 27 percent and that traffic on European routes was down by 15 to 17 percent. Interfax quoted a company spokesperson as saying that domestic volumes had not suffered.
 As of Nov. 1, the company will phase out the use on regularly scheduled flights of 28 Ilyushin craft - 13 Il-62s and 15 Il-86s - and replace them with its fleet of 11 Airbus A-310s, which are more cost-efficient, company spokes person Irina Dannenberg said in a telephone interview.
 Citing low fuel efficiency, Dannenberg said the 28 Ilyushin craft would be used for charter flights only. She also said Aeroflot is considering setting up a fully owned subsidiary to operate its 11 Il-76 cargo planes.
 Aeroflot operates more than 100 aircraft but more than 60 percent of its revenues come from its 28 foreign jets and six Il-96-300s, according to the company.
 The A-310 will replace the Il-62 on such Far East destinations as Khabarovsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and will fly popular tourist routes to Antalya, Barcelona and Varna instead of the Il-68. The fleet changes will stay in effect through the winter and be re-evaluated when the summer season kicks off in March, the company said. 
 The airline also further modified its schedule by slashing loss-making routes and increasing the frequency of flights to profitable destinations.
 Aeroflot has suspended its winter flights to 19 cities, including Montreal, Chicago, Mexico City, Lyon, Skopje, Tripoli, Ankara, Bratislava, Calcutta, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur and Lima. 
 But it has added flights to Toronto and Washington, as well as to several European destinations, including London, Frankfurt, Rome and Oslo. The company has also increased the frequency of flights to some of its destinations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
 Yelena Sakhnova, an analyst at the brokerage Aton, applauded the new attention the company appears to be paying to its cargo business.
 &quot;Aeroflot has until now been treating its cargo operations as a secondary business. In the past decade, the global cargo market has been out ahead of passenger-market growth by about 2 percent, and we believe that this tendency will continue to develop&quot; and it would be in the airline's interest to maintain a cargo business as a back-up, she said.
 She questioned, however, the move to replace the Il-86 with the A-310 on medium-range routes.
 &quot;Given that the Il-86 carries almost twice as many passengers as the A-310, Aeroflot will have to use two aircraft, which will double expenses on fuel, crew and servicing,&quot; Sakhnova said.

TITLE: Yukos Stepping In To Bolster Troubled Engineering Group
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW -Yukos on Monday announced its proposed rescue plan for the troubled Anglo-Norwegian engineering group Kvaerner, and reiterated its intent to purchase two subsidiaries key to the oil company's Siberian oil production.
 &quot;Yukos believes that a credible rescue plan must be of a magnitude sufficient to re-establish trust and confidence in Kvaerner for the long term,&quot; Yukos said in a statement.
 The oil company has attracted a group of investors ready to put up $150 million as part of a consortium that will guarantee a rights offering to shareholders. Yukos revealed earlier this month that it had acquired 10 percent of Kvaerner on the secondary market. After saying that ownership would be limited to that 10 percent, Yukos upped its stake to 22 percent, making it Kvaerner's largest shareholder.
 Kvaerner faces bankruptcy this week if it does not find the cash to bridge a funding gap it faces before next month's rights offering. Yukos offered the guarantees, as well as working capital for the next week, on the condition that financial institutions and bondholders reach an agreement to restructure Kvaerner's $500-million debt.
 Kvaerner chief, Kjell Almskog, told reporters in Oslo on Monday a rescue was still being worked on, but declined to comment on Yukos' announcement, Reuters reported. &quot;We don't have a solution yet, and it will take a few more hours,&quot; he was quoted as saying outside a meeting to stave off Kvaerner's collapse. 
 Underlining the company's woes, Kvaerner also reported a huge loss of 4.29 billion crowns ($484 million) for the third quarter, and said it would issue a statement late Monday on its liquidity position.
 In 2000, Kvaerner saw profits of $42 million on sales of more than $6 billion. It has 35,000 employees in 35 countries.
 The Financial Times reported that rescue attempts have been dealt a severe blow by the refusal of Yukos to accelerate the purchase of the London-based Kvaerner Hydrocarbons and the Process Technology business of Kvaerner Engineering and Construction. Yukos acquired the two wholly owned subsidiaries for $100 million and planned to complete the purchase in December.
 Kvaerner had hoped to free that $100 million in cash by bringing that date forward.
 Yukos' announcement of a rescue plan is more of an overture to Kvaerner's foreign investors than a strategic move, said Vladislav Metnev, an analyst at the Renaissance Capital brokerage. It could also just be a public-relations stunt.
 &quot;Yukos' interests lie strictly in gaining control of the subsidiaries, in getting access to that technology,&quot; Metnev said. &quot;It really doesn't matter to them what happens with the holding.&quot;
 If Kvaerner does indeed go bankrupt, there is a risk that some third-party creditor may gain control of the subsidiaries and change the terms of their contracts with Yukos. However, Metnev said that Yukos' stake gives it enough weight to keep this from happening.
 In its release, Yukos offered to hire employees of Kvaerner Hydrocarbons on a contract basis in the event that the acquisition &quot;should not prove feasible.&quot; 
 Contracting work on Yukos' Priobskoye oil field accounts for about a third of the subsidiary's orders. Yukos officials estimate that Priobskoye will provide 22 percent of their oil in 2005.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: OPEC Seeks Help
 

VIENNA (Reuters) - OPEC producers struggling to persuade other exporters to help stem an oil-price slump on Monday said they had presented their case to a meeting of experts from non-OPEC producers.
 But the meeting in Vienna finished without making any further headway in enlisting cooperation from the likes of Russia, Norway and Mexico for supply curbs.
 Represented at the talks along with OPEC's 11 members were Mexico and Russia, Norway, Kazakhstan, Angola and Egypt.
 OPEC is hoping a cut of about 1 million barrels per day in its own output will remove excess supply from world markets and force its export prices back to a targeted $25 a barrel, from below $19 last week.
 But it wants to ensure that non-OPEC does not undermine its measures with more exports and has asked those countries at least to freeze supply.
 
 
Italy Air Strike
 

FIUMICINO, Italy (Reuters) - A strike by Italian airline workers demanding aid for the crisis-hit industry brought airports to a standstill Monday and forced hundreds of flight cancellations, officials said.
 About 7,000 workers blocked the highway to Rome's Fiumicino Airport and held a protest inside the semi-deserted terminals, waving banners as they marched through the major hub.
 Similar demonstrations were held in Milan, home to Italy's other major airport Malpensa and at the smaller Linate.
 The four-hour stoppage, which involved workers ranging from pilots to ground staff and catering workers, started at 1 p.m. and ended at 5 p.m., with flights not expected to return to normal before 6 p.m.
 
 
EU Issues Call
 

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - The European Union called on Monday for flexibility in crucial world-trade talks in Qatar next month and stressed the need to help developing countries play a full part in global commerce.
 In a statement at their final preparatory meeting before talks start on Nov. 9 in Doha, EU foreign ministers stressed "the positive political and economic impact of launching a new round of negotiations ... ."
 The 142 members of the World Trade Organization will attempt to reach agreement in Doha to launch a new round of global trade-liberalisation talks, but draft negotiating texts issued this weekend showed deep differences remain to be bridged.
 
 
Nokia Chief To Stay
 

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia said on Monday that Chairperson and Chief Executive Jorma Ollila will stay on for another five years at the company he helped turn into the world's largest and most profitable mobilephone manufacturer.
 Monday's announcement comes as the industry enters uncharted terrority, with few able to predict when the hard-hit telecoms market will bounce back after what is expected to be the first-ever year to see mobile-phone sales fall.
 The world's largest consumer-electronics segment has been hit by falling global demand for phones due to a U.S.-led economic downturn. Delays in the introduction of high-speed mobile Internet services, particularly in Europe, have made it tough to persuade consumers to buy new, expensive phones. 



TITLE: Crisis Teaches Lessons in U.S. Patriotism
AUTHOR: By Roger Wilkins
TEXT: ON the second weekend after the mass murders at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, my wife and I headed east from Washington to spend a couple of days by the ocean. As we drove through a flat green countryside accented by coastal waters, we saw rural Maryland and Delaware answering the terrorists. Flags were everywhere: new flags, huge flags, old flags, tattered flags, faded flags and little bumper-sticker flags pasted on mailboxes. The most moving flags were those flown on or around the houses where the workers and the farmers of the Delmarva Peninsula make their homes. These houses reflect the work-hardened hands that built and maintain them. They are small houses, for the most part, and many of them are white and show age and hard wear. 
 Near the shore, in the town of Ocean View, Delaware, I had my first real belly laugh since Sept. 11. A sign outside a conspicuously flagless store read: &quot;Shame on you. Be patriotic. Return my flag. God Bless America.&quot;
 The warmth of that moment - mirth suffused with a rich and textured feeling of connectedness with these elemental Americans - was absolutely new to me. I felt an unalloyed patriotism for the very first time in my 69 years of life as a black American. 
 That full, rich, unsustainable patriotic high made me begin to contemplate what we citizens of America will need to do over the long years and complex struggles of this crisis: What should follow the flag-waving, blood donations and charity? How can we use these wonderful patriotic highs to serve our country? To answer that, I had to go back over the path that had enabled me to come to this unrestrained feeling of patriotism in the first place. 
 My ardor has erupted with the crisis, but the patriotism itself grew out of long years of wrestling with the notion of blacks and patriotism, of wrestling, as a historian, with my parallel interests in the founding of America and in the roles blacks filled in the new country. I felt a profound ambivalence about our country and its historic abuses, about its continuing refusal to accept fully responsibility for the consequences of that history. And like all blacks in America, I bore the weight of personal racial wounds on my soul. 
 When I was taught history, the American story was a white story with the humanity and contributions of blacks scarcely, if ever, recognized. The simple message was that America was a white country, and blacks were an unfortunate historical accident whose impact on the nation had to be minimized. Slavery was presented in a way to make whites feel magnanimous and blacks feel ashamed. 
 I was a boy in the 1940s, and watched as America went to war with a segregated army. In the telling of the stories of that war, all the heroes were white, as were all the beauties they loved. Pictures of Ku Klux Klan marches beneath massed American flags and celluloid images of blacks as fat, dumb mammies were also seared into my mind at an early age. And I've been told plenty of times by white Americans to &quot;go back to where you belong.&quot; There was no alternative but to resist, to reject the flag-waving patriotism the Klan claimed to embrace. 
 In due course that struggle led me to the offices of Thurgood Marshall, who became a mentor and lifelong friend. In contemplating his life and lessons, I realized that he was a patriot, and I came to understand that he was struggling as an American to save the very soul of this country. 
 Over the years, as I worked and read, I developed a profound respect for the deep and lasting marks black people had made on America from its earliest moments and for the profound humanity they had displayed over the centuries in the face of cruelty and the theft of hope and labor. I also understood that from the time before there was an America, there were white people who had dissented from the common consensus and who had fought for black people. The heroic lives of the blacks and whites who worked to change the country - largely ignored in conventional histories up to 1970 - constitute one of the most honorable streams of American history. The people who engaged in those struggles, particularly my slave ancestors, had surely made America mine. They had also created an obligation for me to carry forward the work of enlarging justice in the country. 
 Finally, I came to understand that my best weapons in honoring that obligation were the basic laws of the country and the idealistic spirit with which they were infused - produced in substantial measure by founders of the country who owned and were supported by slaves all their lives. I now understand that I needed both my Mississippi slave ancestors and slave owners like Washington and Jefferson to become who I am today. 
 All that suggests to me what we must do as citizens in facing the challenges posed by people who hate us enough to commit mass murder and to kill themselves in the process. They don't take our democracy as an immutable fact, and neither should we. They think they can make our country implode just as they made the twin towers implode. But our strength is not in buildings or in armies. It is in a citizenry that believes our democracy is worth saving. 
 The people who founded this country believed in active citizenship. In the period between the Stamp Act crisis of 1765, when they learned that the British Parliament didn't always have their best interests at heart, and 1775, when the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, the founders engaged in an orgy of active politics. In that period, which John Adams called &quot;the real American Revolution,&quot; these people transformed themselves from British subjects into rising Americans by becoming involved, joining groups, engaging in public discourse, writing manifestoes, arguing with each other, creating institutions and forming a national government. 
 From those labors they developed a faith that Americans had the capacities and the will to face their problems and manage their democracy. During the last few decades of the Cold War, the &quot;imperial presidency&quot; and the unremitting self-absorption of the 1990s, the internal sinews of our republic have become flabby. We agree that democracy is precious - all our flag-waving tells us that. We should also know (as our enemies surely do, and as history instructs) that democracy is perishable. If we don't take care of the politics of our country and our civic institutions, we help those who hate us. 
 A story is told that a woman approached Benjamin Franklin on a Philadelphia sidewalk in 1787 just after the secret Federal Constitutional Convention had concluded. She asked him, &quot;What did you make for us in there, Dr. Franklin?&quot; &quot;A republic, madam, if you can keep it,&quot; the wise old man replied. 
 If you can keep it: Thurgood Marshall took Franklin's admonition to heart. So now should we all.
 
 <i>Roger Wilkins is a professor of history and American culture at George Mason University and author of &quot;Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism.&quot; He contributed this comment to the Los Angeles Times. </i>

TITLE: Why Not Fine Absentee Legislators?
TEXT: THE deputies of the Legislative Assembly made an attempt at constructive self-criticism this week when they discussed a draft law that would levy fines against deputies who miss assembly sessions without a valid excuse. &quot;It's about time,&quot; I thought to myself when I heard this.
 When I was at the Mariinsky Palace on Thursday, I was greeted by an all-too-common sight: About an hour before the end of the day's session, fewer than a dozen deputies were at work. In fact, I counted nine, including the acting speaker. And all of them were running around frantically, voting for themselves and their absent friends.
 Luckily, I spotted Igor Mikhailov, a lawmaker to whom I particularly wanted to speak for a story I was working on. But he couldn't answer my question because at the time he was juggling a handful of voting keys, trying awkwardly not to spill them all over the table. 
 I felt like suggesting that he follow fellow Deputy Igor Rimmer's example. He has connected all the voting keys in his charge with a wire, and when he gives it a tug, all his little toys appear magically in front of him. But before I could say anything, Mikhailov had scurried off to the other side of the hall.
 So it is obvious why the pro-Kremlin Unity faction put forward a bill that would deprive absent deputies of their financial bonuses, which are routinely passed out to lawmakers for &quot;intense and effective&quot; work. These bonuses generally amount to 2,000 rubles ($67), or about 50 percent of their normal month's salary.
 That means that on this day, if the assembly had fined the 37 lawmakers who were absent (assuming none of them had a valid excuse), it would have saved the budget $2,700. Not a lot of money, of course, but as the saying goes, look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.
 And the problem is not just limited to assembly sessions. The work of Legislative Assembly committees is also often stymied by absent lawmakers.
 &quot;Deputies often sign up for several commissions at once, and then don't participate in any of them. As a result, the commissions can't gather a quorum and can't make any decisions,&quot; said Vadim Tyulpanov, head of the local Unity faction and author of the bill to fine deputies.
 I was actually surprised when Tyulpanov's initiative failed. Only 23 of the necessary 25 deputies voted for it.
 This result surprised me because, to be honest, 2,000 rubles doesn't mean very much to a lot of our deputies. Deputies like Rimmer, Sergei Shevchenko and Vladimir Golman are serious businesspeople who might easily drop that much money in a few minutes at a downtown restaurant without even thinking about it.
 The few deputies who might actually suffer from such a law, people like Alexander Shchelkanov, are pretty good about showing up for every session and really work very hard.
 So why didn't the bill pass? I think it isn't because of the money, but rather because the deputies don't want anyone keeping track of how often they are not to be found. They'd rather that voters not know who comes regularly to do the job for which they were elected and who just shows up now and again to lobby some special interest.
 You'd think that voters would have a right to know these things. Lawmakers might agree, but that doesn't mean that they are going to run out and tell them.

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: <strong>Lights Out
</strong> Let us thank YHWH (and YHWH Jr. too), praise Allah and raise hecatombs of oxen unto Zeus, that his nostrils might be filled with the savor of burning fat, all in gratitude for the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, 35 years old this year.
 But we'd better scoot those oxen along double-quick, because the act - one of the most remarkable instruments of liberty ever wrung from a government - is being cast into outer darkness by none other than that divinely appointed defender of &quot;enduring freedom,&quot; George W. Bush.
 For almost four decades, the FOIA has allowed U.S. citizens to piece together a partial record of some of the monkeyshines their government has gotten up to in their name. To be sure, material released under the act is usually censored for &quot;security reasons,&quot; and thus often resembles a work of abstract art - massive blocks of impenetrable black ink randomly interposed between snippets of meaningless typescript.
 But the American bureaucracy is vast, and in its nooks and crannies there are many dedicated public servants who, unlike their betters at the top, believe in executing - no, not mentally retarded prisoners - but the laws of the land. These patriots have acted in the true FOIA spirit, guarding legitimate secrets but declining to cloak crimes, fraud and moral idiocy with fake &quot;security&quot; concerns. Over the years, a mountain of malfeasance has been unearthed by the act, to the greater glory of American freedom - and the teeth-grinding chagrin of the country's leaders.
 But now the Divine Defender has decided enough is enough. Last week, he took time out from bombing the bejesus out of his fellow fundamentalists in Afghanistan and ordered his fellow fundamentalist in the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft, to gut the FOIA.
 Ashcroft - yes, the same man who anointed himself with cooking oil when he was elected to the Senate, to signify that the Lord had given him &quot;dominion&quot; over the masses; the same man who proclaimed that Jesus was the King of America - says that he alone must now pass judgment on any &quot;significant&quot; FOIA requests, i.e. anything that might prove embarrassing to the Divine Defender or his patrons.
 The act must be curtailed, says the Oily One, to protect &quot;threats to the national security, the effectiveness of law enforcement&quot; and - here's the money shot - &quot;commercial interests.&quot; Given the fact that national security and criminal investigations were already well-protected under the FOIA, it's not too hard to see which particular lily is being gilded with this authoritarian gloss.
 Or as the Defender himself once said, just days after the Supreme Court mullahs anointed his head with Oval Oil: &quot;If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier - just as long as I'm the dictator.&quot;
 And they say wishes never come true.
 
 <strong>Heartbreak Hotel
</strong> <i>&quot;You must learn to leave the table when love's no longer being served.&quot;
 - </i>Charles Aznavour<i>
 </i>
 And it looks like amour is off the menu in the affair between the Bushes and the bin Ladens, the London Times reports. The Saudi Binladin Group - owned by the family of a certain rogue financier currently being sought for questioning (or quartering, as the case may be) in Afghanistan - is withdrawing its multimillion-dollar investments from the Carlyle Group, the shadowy firm of wheeler-dealers run by former Reagan-Bush operatives, including that smoothest of operators, George Herbert Daddy Warbucks Bush.
 Carlyle, a many-headed corporate hydra, is one of America's largest defense contractors. Thus, every bomb that goes ka-boom in Kabul means more ka-ching in Bush family coffers. In the old days, this kind of thing was frowned upon as unseemly war profiteering. But of course, as Sonny Boy never ceases to remind us, this is &quot;a different kind of war.&quot;
 The kind of war, for example, where a putative president nobly demands &quot;great sacrifices&quot; from the American people - such as the lives of their sons and daughters - while he goes pimping for yet another massive tax cut skewed overwhelmingly in favor of his fellow aristos in the country's wealthiest 1 percent. That's the real &quot;Bush Doctrine&quot; in action: &quot;Let someone else go fight and die; we'll stay home and slice the pie&quot; - as he and his fellow chicken hawk, Dick &quot;Deferment&quot; Cheney, did during the Vietnam War.
 But we digress. Naturally, big-time international players like the bin Ladens found Carlyle an attractive prospect - especially after Daddy Warbucks himself came a-courting to the family's Saudi digs. There followed much corporate canoodling, and the ritual crossing of palms with silver: a marriage made in heaven, it seemed.
 But Carlyle is apparently beginning to feel a bit of heat from the connection, which is now being dissolved by the usual face-saving &quot;mutual consent.&quot; Perhaps Charlotte Beers, the PR honcho that Sonny recently appointed assistant secretary of state for media manipulation - sorry, for &quot;public diplomacy&quot; - told them it wasn't such a hot idea to have the names &quot;Bush&quot; and &quot;bin Laden&quot; bouncing around together on the company's bottom line.
 That doesn't play well out in the &quot;Heartland.&quot; It reminds people of Sonny's prissy elitist roots and his family's intimate connection with foreign financiers, rogue or otherwise. This in turn interferes with the elegant simplicity of the administration's propaganda line: &quot;The Noble American Cowboy vs. the Alien Evildoers.&quot; Or as Beers herself describes the White House psy-ops campaign: &quot;It's the battle for the 11-year-old mind.&quot;
 At any rate, the bin Ladens are out. But perhaps they can console themselves by turning to another well-connected corporate hydra that's not only making a killing out of this war, but is even now spreading its tentacles throughout the central Asian oil fields, where &quot;the fire next time&quot; is sure to come. That would be Dick Cheney's old popsicle stand: the Halliburton Corporation.
 Or as the White House bagmen used to sing back in Warren Harding's day, &quot;My God, how the money rolls in!&quot;

TITLE: Halloween Brings Out the City's Party Spirits
AUTHOR: By Chantal Rumble
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Halloween will poke out its candy-coated tongue in St. Petersburg on Wednesday with a host of parties, prizes and pranks around town.
 The ghost of this ancient pagan festival now manifests itself annually as a giant commercial enterprise, one that capitalizes not so much on any spirits of darkness as on the lighthearted spirit of fun.
 And now that the holiday's focus has moved from paganism to profit, St Petersburg is ready to don a mask and join the party.
 The All-Star Cafe, City Bar, Fish Fabrique, the James Cook Pub and Cafe, Mollie's Irish Pub and Red Club are just some of the local spots buying into the ghoulish game with programs of music, costumes, competitions and promotions.
 Having just returned from New York City, All-Star Cafe owner and manager Alex Sultanov says he has all sorts of &quot;horrible things&quot; fresh from the United States to recreate the Halloween atmosphere. He has also been buying pumpkins this week in preparation.
 But how did this ancient pagan ritual find its way to St. Petersburg?
 The origins of Halloween can be traced back more than 2,000 years to the seasonal rituals of the Celtic people of England, Ireland, Scotland and Northern France.
 The festival began as a mixed bag. It celebrated at once the end of the harvest and the beginning of the New Year, whilst marking the onset of winter which, for a sun-worshipping people, was a grave time.
 It was also a time to honor Samhain, the god of the dead, in order to stave off evil influences during the coming darkness.
 The Celts believed that on the night of Oct. 31, the final night of the year, the barrier between life and death was at its weakest, thus allowing the spirits to rejoin their ancestors for a brief time. 
 It was believed that on this night the spirits roamed the land in search of family and loved ones, in order to raise hell or find eternal peace.
 These spirits possessed the power to damn or bless future harvests. They also brought with them the power of divination. They could foretell marriages and births, illnesses and deaths. They could even name future lovers.
 Naturally, the Celts took it upon themselves to appease these spirits, to ameliorate old grudges with food and wine or to cajole them into giving positive forecasts. They also lit lanterns and bonfires to keep them at bay. 
 The festival first changed its face in the early centuries A.D. when the Romans conquered the lands and cast a whole new light on the occasion.
 Yet it wasn't until the eighth century that the Christian Church fully appropriated the festival in what was allegedly a new tactic to weaken the influence of paganism that ran strong among its subjects. 
 The church merged the ancient ritual with the newly declared All-Saints Day, a holy day created to acknowledge all those sainted (or hallowed) people who did not have their own name day. 
 The night before the festival hence became All-Hallows Eve, or Hallo we'en, and old Celtic traditions were incorporated into Christian rituals.
 The importance of the festival waxed and waned over the centuries, but it wasn't until the colonials carried it to North America that it gained its current popularity.
 Now, free from the religious, patriotic and idealist constraints that bind other annual holidays, Halloween has transformed itself into the capricious ghost of hedonism.
 In the United States, only Christmas surpasses Halloween in sales. Some $6 billion are spent on the holiday, with one-third of that going toward confectionary to be dropped into the sticky palms of trick-or-treating children.
 In St. Petersburg, the holiday will remain an adult affair. 
 Local Mexican restaurant, Se&ntilde;or Pepe's Cantina, which claims to be the founder of Halloween in St. Petersburg, was the first off the mark this year with its party on Saturday night. 
 Two hundred guests from local firms and foreign businesses, including Benetton, the Nevskij Palace and the Grand Hotel Europe attended the celebration. The restaurant's fifth annual Halloween party saw the incorporation of both American and Russian traditions. The venue was decorated with typical Halloween paraphernalia and included spiders that were designed to lower themselves down over the guests. Se&ntilde;or Pepe's manager Jafari Nassy said that this follows a Russian superstition that says a falling spider brings good news and prosperity.
 The night featured a dance competition and a costume competition, with the grand-prize-winner pocketing $1,200.
 Nassy was more than happy with the result. &quot;We really added to the fun that they were looking for,&quot; he said.
 Dmitry Ananiev, manager of Mollie's Irish Bar, is also promising a good time. 
 &quot;We will make the atmosphere, and the people will make all the fun for themselves,&quot; he said.
 Spooky decorations, the music of Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, and a showing of an Addams Family film will contribute to the atmosphere when the fun kicks off at Mollie's around 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
 Also, staff will be in costume, and there will be a costume competition for the public, with the winner taking away a bottle of Jameson whiskey.
 The celebrations at Mollie's will also include a Guinness promotion.
 Likewise, the James Cook Pub and Cafe will have a Guinness promotion and a themed party.
 Red Club is reaching out to a younger crowd with its mysterious Halloween party. 
 Costing 100 rubles for men and just 50 for women, Red Club staff promised a performance by one of the city's most famous bands, but exactly who remains top secret. The club will also hold a fancy-dress competition.
 The All-Star Cafe will also have prizes for best-dressed during their celebrations beginning around 7 p.m. and lasting until the last customer leaves.
 Fish Fabrique will also adopt a Halloween theme for the night. Local band Sport will be performing from around 9 p.m. The cover charge is 130 rubles.
 The City Bar is promising a live band, discounted beer and vodka all night long and prizes for best costumes.
 Costumes are available for sale or rental at a few locations around town. &quot;Everything for Holidays&quot; on Pereulok Grivtsova has a fairly large selection, as well as other party favors. The Lenfilm studio is renting costumes from its stocks once again this year as well.

TITLE: Afghan Opposition Readies Major Push
AUTHOR: By Kathy Gannon
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan - Frustrated at weeks of U.S. bombing that have failed to budge Taliban front lines, Afgha ni stan's opposition forces plotted what they said Monday would be a major push on a vital Taliban-held northern stronghold. 
 To bring it off, a spokesperson of the northern-based opposition alliance stressed, &quot;We will need American help.&quot; 
 The U.S.-led air campaign in Afg ha ni stan entered its fourth week Monday with American warplanes streaking back over front lines north of Kabul. U.S. jets could be heard over the Sho ma li Plain north of Kabul, but clouds of dust covered the area, obscuring visibility. Taliban forces fired antiaircraft guns, and there were sporadic exchanges of fire between the Islamic militia and the opposition Northern Alliance. 
 Skies over Kabul were quiet after a day of U.S. bombing that distraught residents said killed 13 civilians. 
 Afghan opposition forces are complaining that U.S. bombings are too light to drive out Taliban forces defending Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. U.S. strategy has focused on selective strikes on Taliban positions and those of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, rather than mass bombing. 
 Unhappy at the pace of efforts to capture Taliban-held territory, key opposition commanders assembled Sunday for a five-hour session to sketch out a major offensive on Mazar-e-Sharif, opposition spokesperson Ashraf Nadeem said. 
 Commanders also talked of joint offensives on the surrounding provinces of Balkh and Samangan, Nadeem said. 
 Present, he said, were longtime figures in the opposition's long-stalled struggle: Uzbek leader Rashid Dostum, Shiite Muslim leader Mohammed Mohaqik and Atta Mohammed, once a commander in the regime of deposed Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. 
 The Taliban routed Rabbani's government from the capital in 1996. Two years later, Taliban fighters ousted opposition forces who had regrouped at what had been their northern base, Mazar-e-Sharif. 
 Opposition forces have been fighting sporadically ever since to push back toward the two cities. Seesaw battles outside Mazar-e-Sharif since the U.S. air campaign began have failed to produce any opposition breakthroughs. 
 Capturing Mazar-e-Sharif would open crucial supply lines from Uzbekistan for Afghanistan's poorly armed opposition, allowing in fresh stocks of ammunition, troops and equipment before winter, weeks away, hampers fighting. 
 On Monday, Nadeem said he had reports the Taliban had reinforced defenses in Balkh and Samangan provinces with 2,000 more troops. 
 Moving forward would take heavy U.S. air support, he said. &quot;For the new operation, when it happens, we will need American help,&quot; the opposition spokesperson said. 
 Meanwhile, the supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, warned the United States that it will learn a &quot;tougher lesson&quot; in Afghanistan than the Soviet Union did. 
 Omar told the Algerian newspaper El Youm that Taliban forces had not yet begun the &quot;real war against the Americans because of their technological power.&quot;
 &quot;We will never welcome them with flowers&quot; he said of the Americans. &quot;They will receive a tougher lesson than that of their Russian predecessors.&quot; 
 At Afghanistan's other key front, 45 kilometers north of Kabul, at least two U.S. jets could be heard roaring overhead early Monday. U.S. jets launched sustained attacks at the Kabul front a week ago. 
 Late Sunday, strong explosions could be heard in the direction of the main road from Kabul to the opposition-held Bagram air base, at the front. U.S. forces are trying to drive Taliban fighters from the hills around the airport, to let the opposition use it for resupply. 
 Warplanes spared the capital itself early Monday after strikes on residential neighborhoods early Sunday killed 13 civilians, Kabul residents said.

TITLE: Japan Seeks Ways To Contribute To the War
AUTHOR: By Hans Greimel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO - Moving with unusual speed, Japanese lawmakers on Monday authorized the country's military to back U.S.-led forces in the war on terror as long as they do not go into actual combat.
 The speedy approval - just 25 days after it was introduced - reflects Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's desire to avoid the criticism that befell Japan during the 1991 Gulf War. Tokyo was slammed for its &quot;checkbook diplomacy&quot; of offering mostly money to the international coalition fighting Iraq. 
 Koizumi championed the legislation as a way for Japan to make a meaningful contribution to the campaign against Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, and stay within the confines of the country's pacifist constitution. 
 &quot;We now need to implement our response based on this law as soon as possible,&quot; Koizumi said in a statement after the law was passed. &quot;The government views the fight against terrorism as a challenge of its own.&quot; 
 Japanese officials are scheduled to meet with U.S. diplomats and defense officials on Thursday to assess how Japan can help. Koizumi's cabinet must then approve the plan. Officials also will go to Pakistan to assess the situation. 
 A Japanese press report suggested the Defense Ministry is considering sending four warships to the Indian Ocean as early as mid-November. While stressing that Japan is mustering support as fast as it can, Koizumi spokesperson Tsutomu Himeno declined to comment on equipment or timetables. 
 &quot;There is probably a bigger role for Japanese forces in eventual peacekeeping operations,&quot; said Shigenori Okazaki, a political analyst with UBS Warburg. 
 The new law allows Japan's military to transport supplies, conduct search-and-rescue missions and dispatch medical teams in support of U.S. forces and their allies. Japanese units are restricted to areas where they are not likely to face combat. 
 The upper house gave final approval Monday, passing one bill by a 140-100 vote, another by 197-39 and the third by 225-8. Koizumi's three-party governing coalition holds a majority in both houses. 
 Japan's tiny Socialist and Communist parties argue that providing even non-combat support violates the country's post-World War II constitution. 
 The constitution, written by U.S. occupation authorities after Japan's 1945 surrender, bans Japan from using military force as a means of settling international disputes. Koizumi has argued that does not preclude using it in a supporting role. 
 &quot;We should remember how Japan's wartime military went out of control,&quot; Toshio Fujii of the opposition Democratic Party said while urging lawmakers to adopt a watered-down alternative proposal, which was defeated. 
 The final version requires the government to seek parliament's approval for dispatching the military within 20 days of giving orders to move out. It also prohibits the Japanese military from transporting weapons and ammunition on foreign soil. 
 Still, recent opinion polls suggest that a narrow majority of voters approve. 
 Japanese media have reported that initial missions will probably involve naval vessels transporting fuel and gathering reconnaissance.

TITLE: Israel Offers To Pull Back Troops
AUTHOR: By Ibrahim Hazboun
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BETHLEHEM, Palestinian Authority - Israel will pull out of four more West Bank towns if the Palestinians pledge to stop attacks, Israel's defense minister said Monday, after his forces withdrew from Bethlehem and nearby Beit Jalla. 
 The pullback came despite two Palestinian shooting attacks Sunday in which five Israelis - four women and a soldier - were killed. 
 Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled out of Bethlehem and nearby Beit Jalla in an operation completed early Monday, the army said in a statement. 
 Palestinian security officials said they were patrolling positions that Israeli forces evacuated, keeping the peace as called for by a U.S.-brokered withdrawal agreement. 
 The Israelis said it was a test case for withdrawals from parts of four other towns into which Israel has sent troops since Oct. 18: Jenin, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Tulkarem. 
 Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel Army Radio the pullbacks could proceed &quot;the moment anyone gets up on the Palestinian side and says they take responsibility for security.&quot; 
 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that before further pullbacks, the Palestinians must arrest militants, outlaw rogue groups violating a cease-fire and turn over the assassins of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi, gunned down in Jerusalem on Oct. 17. 
 The differences reflect disagreements in Sharon's cabinet. Representatives of Ben-Eliezer's moderate Labor party are growing uncomfortable with Israel's largest-scale incursion into Palestinian territory in seven years, while Sharon's hardline allies are calling for even stiffer action. 
 Ben-Eliezer's spokesperson, Yarden Vatikay, doubted that the pullback would resume on Monday. He said security commanders from the two sides would meet later Monday, and &quot;Israel will raise its demands at the meeting.&quot; 
 The attacks might also delay the pullbacks, since they apparently originated from Jenin and Qalqilya, two of the towns entered by Israeli troops. 
 In Hadera, four Israeli women were shot dead Sunday by two militants from the Jenin refugee camp. They were members of the Palestinian security forces and also the militant Islamic Jihad, Palestinians said. 
 The attackers, who were killed by Israeli police, were identified by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad as Youssef Sweitat, 22, and Nidal al-Jabali, 23. A videotaped message claiming responsibility for the attack showed the men standing in front of a banner with Islamic Jihad written on it and a picture of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl killed last week. 
 Sweitat was a police detective in Jenin who joined Islamic Jihad after Israeli-Palestinian fighting erupted 13 months ago, and al-Jabali joined the Palestinian security forces in Jenin four months ago, said Mohammed Balas, 30, an acquaintance and resident of the camp where both men lived. 
 Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Rafowicz said it was worrisome that the two gunmen belonged to the Palestinian security forces. 
 It was the second shooting incident Sunday. Earlier, gunmen shot and killed an Israeli soldier in a drive-by shooting in Israel near the West Bank. An anonymous caller told The Associated Press that the Al Aqsa Brigade, affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, attacked an Israeli military vehicle, revenge for Saturday's killing of a Fatah activist in nearby Tulkarem. 
 The Palestinian leadership condemned the attack in Hadera. In a statement, it said it had ordered security commanders to pursue those who planned it and bring them to trial &quot;for violating the cease-fire and the Palestinian commitments and the Palestinian national interest.&quot; Despite the attacks, Israel decided to go ahead with the Bethlehem pullout because &quot;the Palestinians made some arrests and moved in to take over security operations late Sunday,&quot; said Raanan Gissin, an aide to Sharon. 
 &quot;The occupation has ended in Bethlehem and Beit Jalla and I hope it will be ended also in the rest of the Palestinian cities,&quot; Salim el-Alam, 32, said from outside his Bethlehem home as he watched an armored personnel carrier head out of town. &quot;I am very glad.&quot; 
 The United States and other countries strongly criticized the incursions and demanded a pullback, particularly from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. The Bush administration is concerned that the upsurge in violence could interfere with efforts to add moderate Arab countries to its anti-terrorism coalition.

TITLE: Pakistani Christians Mourn 16 Killed by Gunmen
AUTHOR: By Khalid Talveer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEHAWALPUR, Pakistan - Wailing, weeping and denouncing violence, Pakistani Christians mourned by the thousands Monday, crowding into the same church where unidentified gunmen killed 16 people a day earlier and trying to make sense of the bloodshed.
 &quot;Those who have killed our people, they do not belong to any religion,&quot; Malik Dad Masih, a mourner, said. &quot;No religion says that innocent people should be killed.&quot;
 The attack by masked gunmen, which came during Protestant services in St. Dominic's Roman Catholic Church in this south-central Pakistani city, was the most lethal in memory against the country's small Christian community. Fourteen worshippers, their minister and a Muslim police officer guarding the church were slain.
 It was unclear whether the violence was related to recent unrest over U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but intelligence officials said members of a banned Islamic group were under suspicion, and some in Behawalpur suspected Muslim militants enraged by Pakistan's support of American military action. 
 Reverend Andrew Francis, the Catholic bishop of Punjab, urged 5,000 mourners to remain peaceful and to adhere to the Christian principle of turning the other cheek. &quot;We are the follower of a man who loves, who sacrificed his life for a noble cause,&quot; Francis said, referring to Jesus Christ.
 The victims' bodies were being returned to their villages after the services. 
 Most shops in Behawalpur were closed Monday morning, as was its bazaar. St. Dominic's was under heavy police guard. Security was stepped up at Christian churches across Pakistan. In Islamabad, where police commandos with automatic weapons guarded church gates, President General Pervez Musharraf condemned the loss of &quot;16 innocent and precious lives.&quot; 
 &quot;The method used clearly indicates involvement of organizations bent on creating discord and disharmony in Pakistan,&quot; Musharraf said in a written statement. 
 Though St. Dominic's is a Catholic church, a Protestant congregation in Behawalpur that lacks its own building was worshipping there - as it has for 30 years - when the shootings took place. 
 Condemnations of the violence poured in from around the world. In the Vatican, Pope John Paul II called the killings an &quot;evil act&quot; and a &quot;tragic act of intolerance&quot; and offered prayers to the victims' families. 
 In Britain, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, spiritual leader of the Church of England, condemned the killings and said, &quot;Christian minorities in many parts of the world sometimes feel beleaguered and under pressure, but I call upon everyone to recognize that this is not a conflict between Christianity and Islam.&quot; 
 The Muslim Council of Britain, an assembly of mainstream Muslim groups, denounced the attacks on &quot;innocent worshippers in Pakistan.&quot; 
 &quot;The position of Islam is very clear: To attack any place of worship is simply not acceptable,&quot; said Yusuf Bhailok, head of the council.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Climate Talks Begin
 

MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) - Under heavy security, thousands of delegates opened a scheduled two-week conference Monday to finish the exhaustive effort of writing the rulebook limiting the human contribution to the gradual warming of the Earth.
 While Moroccan police sealed off the conference center outside, UN security officers screened the legal and climate experts entering the meeting, which will conclude with a three-day gathering of cabinet ministers or high-level policy makers. 
 Nearly 4,000 experts and advisers from 163 countries were working on the legal language governing the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty drafted in Japan that would oblige industrial countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. 
 Organizers hope the final document will clear the way for the treaty's ratification by the required 55 countries, including industrial countries that emit at least 55 percent of the controlled gases. So far, 40 low-emitting countries have ratified the treaty. 
 
 
New Charges
 

THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (AP) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic appeared Monday before the UN war-crimes tribunal for a third time to face new charges for murder and persecution in Croatia and for more deaths in Kosovo. 
 Already indicted for war crimes in Ko sovo in 1999, Milosevic was scheduled to plead to a long list of accusations in Croa tia dating to 1991, near the beginning of the Balkan wars that resulted from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. 
 The prosecution was to bring new charges resulting from the recent discovery of mass graves in Serbia of victims from Kosovo. The judges will then rule on whether to confirm the new charges. 
 A court clerk later was to read out the fresh indictment on Croatia that was confirmed just three weeks ago, and might also read new charges related to Kosovo, based on the discovery of mass graves of Kosovar victims. 
 
 
Talks Approved
 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea said Monday it does not oppose dialogue with the United States, reversing its earlier position that it was no longer interested in dialogue and improvement of relations.
 "It is good, not bad, to improve North Korea-U.S. relations," said Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the isolated communist country's ruling Workers' Party. 
 North Korea reaffirmed its opposition, however, to Washington's efforts to widen discussions to include North Korea's conventional arms in addition to its missile program. 
 
 
Gunman Kills 4
 

TOURS, France (AP) - At least one gunman opened fire on passers-by in the central French city of Tours on Monday, killing four people and injuring about 10 others, police said. 
 An assailant was captured in an underground parking lot across from the train station after he took refuge there, the region's police headquarters said. The suspect, who was injured in a scuffle with police, was taken to the hospital. 
 Three passers-by were killed near the city's main post office, police said. Another person was killed near the train station. 
 Two police officers were among the 10 others injured. 



TITLE: Fan Disputes Claims in Home Run Suit
AUTHOR: By Colleen Valles
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAN FRANCISCO - The fan who wound up with Barry Bonds' 73rd home-run ball said he didn't take the ball from another fan who temporarily caught it. 
 Patrick Hayashi, ended up with the ball Oct. 7, and is being sued by Alex Popov, who caught the ball but lost it when fans piled on top of him. 
 Hayashi, speaking Sunday on the subject for the first time, said that as the fans around him who jumped up to catch the ball began to fall, he saw the ball on the floor of Pacific Bell Park, not in anyone's possession. He said he grabbed the ball, stood up, then was taken by security to a room where the ball was authenticated. 
 Popov claims he rightfully caught the ball and that it's his. He sued on Oct. 24. 
 Hayashi's lawyer Don Tamaki disputed allegations that Hayashi and others assaulted Popov to get the ball. 
 &quot;Nobody's holding anybody up, nobody's swinging, no fistfights are breaking out,&quot; he said. &quot;It's not the assault and battery that's alleged in the complaint.&quot; 
 Hayashi said he hasn't had time to think about what he wants to do with the ball and hasn't made any decisions. 
 The estimated value of the ball is from $1 million to $2 million. Mark McGwire's 70th home-run ball sold for $3 million three years ago to Todd McFarlane, the creator of the comic book and animated HBO series &quot;Spawn.&quot;

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Surgery for Mario
 

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Mario Le mi eux, bothered since training camp by a sore hip, had surgery Monday that will sideline him for up to a month. 
 Lemieux had arthroscopic surgery that will remove long-term wear-and-tear damage to his hip, accumulated from many years of playing hockey, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced Sunday. 
 The star forward, who is also the owner of the Penguins, is expected to miss three or four weeks because of the injury that first flared up during an exhibition game on Sept. 22. 
 
 
Germany Replaces U.S.
 

LONDON (Reuters) - Germany has replaced the United States in next month's Fed Cup women's team finals, the International Tennis Federation said Monday.
 The defending champions pulled out of the competition, scheduled for Madrid from Nov. 7 to 11, last Thursday because of security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington and the subsequent U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan.
 Germany, as one of the four losing countries from the playoffs, was given first refusal as they have the highest combined ranking of their top two players.
 Spain, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Argentina, Russia and Australia are the other teams in the event
 
 
Bobsledder Killed
 

RIGA, Latvia (AP) - An alternate driver on Latvia's Olympic bobsled team was killed during a practice run when he plowed headfirst into an empty sled that had drifted into his path. 
 Girts Ostenieks, 33, was on a skeleton sled - a small, brakeless sled on which riders lie down with their heads at the front - traveling at about 58 kilometers per hour when a blade on the errant sled pierced his skull, officials said. He died instantly. 
 It was the first fatality at the Sigulda Bobsled Track, 45 kilometers northeast of the capital, Riga. The track, built when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union, is the scheduled site of the 2003 World Luge Championship. 
 Officials said the second vehicle belonged to the Russian women's national bobsled team, which was practicing nearby. It lost control of a four-seat sled, which slid onto the track and overturned seconds before Ostenieks sped into view. 
 
 
New Mom Stays Mum
 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Called "the baby of the year" by Bild newspaper, Germany's largest-selling daily said the entire country was talking about the birth of Jaden Gil Friday in Las Vegas, where the former tennis star Graf, 32, lives with her husband Andre Agassi, 31.
 Aside from a brief statement released by her company, Graf has not said a word about the birth of her first child, weighing 2.6 kilograms, and her office said nothing would be forthcoming.
 Graf has for years avoided almost all contact with the German media. Last week, in a two-sentence statement, she announced she and Agassi had married. 



TITLE: Baseball May Cut Two Teams by 2002
AUTHOR: By Ronald Blum
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHOENIX - Two major-league teams could be eliminated by next season, baseball commissioner Bud Selig said Sunday before Game 2 of the World Series.
 &quot;Can it be worked out for 2002? Time will tell. But I wouldn't rule it out,&quot; Selig said as he stood by the New York Yankees dugout at Bank One Ballpark.
 Some owners want to eliminate teams that are losing money and taking a large part of the $160 million in the revenue-sharing fund this year. If owners approve contraction, they would eliminate the Montreal Expos plus one other team, with the Florida Marlins and Minnesota Twins among the candidates mentioned most often. 
 All three teams have sought government assistance in constructing new ballparks. 
 &quot;As the [economic] problems have exacerbated,&quot; Selig said, &quot;it has become clearer to me that everything should be on the table, including contraction.&quot; 
 Owners plan to meet in Chicago the week following the World Series, and Selig said he wasn't sure if any decisions on contraction would be made then. 
 The players' association said its approval is needed to eliminate teams because of the impact on player contracts and work rules, so any decision likely is subject to collective bargaining. 
 In addition, baseball's labor contract expires at the end of the World Series, and talks have not yet begun on a new agreement. The union says it is ready to start bargaining and is waiting for management. 
 All 30 of the current teams are on next season's schedule, and some franchises already have released their schedules. Some owners, including proponents of contraction, say that with each passing day, it becomes harder to eliminate teams for 2002. 
 Selig responded with examples of past franchise moves, such as his purchase of the Seattle Pilots on April 1, 1970, and the team's immediate move to Milwaukee, where it became the Brewers. 
 However, the examples he cited came before players' association approval was necessary for many decisions. 
 &quot;We have worked on a lot of different types of schedules,&quot; Selig said. &quot;We have not spent the last four or five months standing by.&quot;

TITLE: Safin Repeat Champion in St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By John Varoli
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia's Marat Safin successfully defended his St. Petersburg Open title by defeating Germany's Rainer Schuettler on Sunday. Safin won in three sets, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in a hard-fought match that lasted almost two hours at St. Petersburg's Sports and Concert Complex.
 The 21-year-old Russian got off to a slow start, making a number of unforced errors that let Schuettler dominate early. The German, to his credit, played excellent tennis in the first set and needed only 34 minutes to win 6-3. 
 Schuettler was in charge in the first set, breaking Safin twice, capitalizing on the Russian's sluggishness. 
 &quot;I felt tired and wasn't feeling fresh in the first set,&quot; said Safin at a press conference after the match. &quot;On Saturday, I had two tough matches and spent all day on the court. I slept little that night, and so I felt dead on the court, found it difficult to run, and could hardly move in the first set. It felt terrible making all these blunders on my home court.&quot;
 Safin also complained about knee problems, and indeed he was wearing a knee brace for the whole match - something he hadn't done all week.
 These difficulties only frustrated the defending champion, who slammed down his racket several times after making unforced errors. This, however, only earned him the disapproval of his fans who hissed at such a display of temper.
 Safin, probably in large part thanks to his temper, came alive in the second set and started to take charge on the court. He broke Schuettler and quickly went up 3-0. From that point on, Safin never looked back and ran away with the title.
 &quot;In the second set, Schuettler didn't continue to push me, and my knee became better,&quot; said Safin. &quot;And I held my serve.&quot;
 Safin made it into the finals Saturday by defeating one of Russia's other favorites, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, in three sets before a packed house of almost 10,000 fans. In that match, Safin also came from behind after losing the first set, finally winning the semifinal match 6-7, 6-2, 6-4.
 Schuettler made his way to the finals by defeating France's unseeded Michael Llodra in straight sets 6-3, 6-4. In fact, prior to the Safin match, Schuettler hadn't lost a set at the open.

TITLE: Arizona Takes Two-Game Lead Over Yanks
AUTHOR: By Ben Walker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHOENIX - Randy Johnson shut down the New York Yankees with pitching that was close to perfect, and moved his Arizona Diamondbacks a game closer to their first World Series championship.
 Johnson picked up where Curt Schilling left off, overpowering the Yankees with a three-hitter for a 4-0 win Sunday night that gave Arizona a two-games-to-none lead.
 The three-time defending champion Yankees left Arizona reeling, held to just six hits in two games.
 Pitching for the first time in the World Series, Johnson put on perhaps his finest performance in fanning 11. And this from a three-time Cy Young winner, a strikeout ace with a no-hitter to his credit. 
 &quot;He was terrific. He lived up to what he's supposed to be,&quot; Yankees manager Joe Torre said. &quot;The axiom has never changed: Good pitching stops good hitting. And that's what we've seen.&quot; 
 The Diamondbacks had banked on their 1-2 punch of Schilling and Johnson putting them ahead at Bank One Ballpark. Probably no one, however, imagined they would make the Yankees look so overmatched. 
 Johnson pitched the first complete-game shutout in the Series since Schilling did it in 1993 for Philadelphia. Schilling combined with two relievers on a three-hitter Saturday night in a 9-1 romp. 
 While Game 1 was a rout, this one was tight until Matt Williams hit a game-breaking three-run homer in the seventh inning. 
 &quot;They got me a run early and I had to preserve it,&quot; Johnson said. 
 Now, New York must count on a return to Yankee Stadium to close the gap. The next matchup is in the Yankees' favor: Brian Anderson, shaky all season, starts for Arizona against 20-game winner Roger Clemens in Game 3 Tuesday night. 
 The Yankees rallied from an 0-2 deficit in the 1996 World Series against the Atlanta Braves and rallied to win in six games, the first of their four championships in the last five years. 
 &quot;It's no trip to the beach going into Yankee Stadium,&quot; Arizona manager Bob Brenly said. 
 Holding his glove high to shield all but his eyes, Johnson fanned seven of the first nine batters and did not give up a hit until Jorge Posada singled to start the fifth. 
 His only jam came in the eighth when Shane Spencer and Alfonso Soriano started with singles. But Johnson got a complaining Scott Brosius to look at a fastball for strike three and escaped when pinch-hitter Luis Sojo grounded into a double play. 
 Johnson pumped his fist when Sojo, a Yankees' good-luck charm, hit his grounder and Schilling jumped up and down in the dugout. 
 Brenly asked Johnson if he wanted to finish the ninth, and the answer clearly was yes. Johnson improved to 3-1 in this postseason, having beaten the Braves twice in the NL championship series. 
 Andy Pettitte, the MVP of the ALCS, nearly matched Johnson for most of the game. He even threw an incredible 18 straight strikes in the early going. 
 On this night, though, it was going to take a no-hitter to beat Johnson. 
 Danny Bautista hit an RBI single in the second inning for a 1-0 lead. Then in the seventh, one pitch after Bautista singled sharply off Pettitte's right leg, Williams launched a three-run homer. 
 Williams became the first player to hit Series homers for three teams, having done it for San Francisco and Cleveland. His wife, actress Michelle Johnson, was in the stands to cheer his latest shot. Earlier this month, Wil liams was booed at home during the playoffs. 
 &quot;It doesn't get easier from here, that's for sure,&quot; Williams said. 
 Torre tried to stack his lineup with right-handed hitters, benching Tino Martinez, David Justice and Paul O'Neill. 
 There was only one benefit, and it was merely a moral victory - Randy Velarde, playing because of his .452 career average against Johnson, was the only Yankees' starter who had not struck out by the fifth inning. 
 The Yankees tried all their tricks against Johnson, hoping to unhinge the 2.05-meter-tall lefty. They took their time getting into the batter's box, stepped out often and took a lot of pitches. 
 All it did was delay the inevitable. Because when they needed to hit him, they had absolutely no chance. 
 Bautista, who started in place of Steve Finley in the NL championship series clincher and came up with a big hit, delivered again. 
 Reggie Sanders opened the second with an infield single and Bautista hit an RBI double on the next pitch. 
 Bautista took third on the throw home and, with Torre expecting a low-scoring game, he gambled and moved his infield in with no outs. This move by Torre, unlike those he made in Game 1, worked out well. 
 Bautista held on Williams' weak tapper, then was easily thrown out at the plate trying to score on Mark Grace's grounder to second baseman Soriano.