SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #721 (88), Tuesday, November 13, 2001
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TITLE: Putin Departs For U.S. Summit
AUTHOR: By Megan Twohey and Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Despite expectations that this week's summit between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush could yield substantive trade-offs, the three-day meeting is more likely to further the two countries' new-found cooperation than to result in any breakthroughs in foreign or economic policy.
 While both leaders are likely to reiterate their commitment to the anti-terrorism operation in Afghanistan, to a more moderate approach to missile defense and to nuclear-arms cuts, the resolution of more controversial issues - such as Russia's economic status and its relations with NATO - lies further afield.
 Putin, who left Moscow late Monday despite news of the plane crash in New York, will spend Tuesday in Washington and Wednesday and Thursday at Bush's ranch in Texas, where the men and their wives are expected to feast on tenderloin, pecan pie and lemonade while listening to Texas swing.
 The meeting will be the two presidents' second since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that helped fundamentally reshape the relationship between their countries.
 Russia has provided air corridors and intelligence to support the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, as well as help in gaining access to air bases on the territory of its central-Asian neighbors.
 Both leaders are likely to look to cement that teamwork and explore ways to expand it without destabilizing the region.
 "I expect Bush will want to brief Putin on plans of U.S. military expansion in central Asia," said Andrew Weiss, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, in a telephone interview Friday. "It will also be important for Bush to reassure Putin that he has no plans to launch military action against Iraq," a country to which Moscow has lent political support.
 Bush and Putin will also discuss possible compromises on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. When Bush entered office, he declared the treaty a relic of the Cold War, while Putin insisted that it was a cornerstone of world peace. But since Sept. 11, both have indicated they may be able to find a middle ground.
 The Bush administration recently postponed a missile-defense test that might have violated the treaty and has also lately signaled a willingness to modify the agreement instead of scrapping it.
 Putin, too, has softened his position, saying the treaty is "important, essential, effective and useful" but still leaves room for negotiations. Russia also has not rejected suggestions that Washington might be able to conduct limited missile-defense tests with the treaty still in place.
 This summer the two leaders agreed to link the issue of missile defense with reductions in their nuclear arsenals, also to be discussed at this week's summit.
 But in addition to the predictable agenda items, Putin will be traveling to the United States with a list of thornier issues on which finding compromises will prove more elusive - among them, Russia's trade status and its close relationship with nations such as Iran and Iraq. And while Russia's assistance in the fight against the Taliban and Osa ma bin Laden has been important, it is unclear whether Mos cow now has enough bargaining power to make such serious demands on Washington.
 Perhaps the most important of Russia's goals, experts say, is a redefinition of its relationship with NATO and the establishment of a new international system of collective security in which Russia has decision-making rights rather than a watered-down advisory role.
 While Putin has said that Russia expects no compensation in return for its support of the U.S.-led anti-terrorism operation, he hinted to foreign correspondents Saturday that there is a link between that support and Moscow's relationship with NATO.
 "We could even consider intensifying our joint efforts [in Afghanistan]. But that will depend on qualitative changes in Russia's relationship with leading Western countries ... and such an organization as NATO, of course," Putin said, according to the official transcript.
 The president has also made it clear that he wants to persuade Washington to recognize Russia as a country with a market economy.
 In Saturday's interview, Putin said that "economic cooperation ... on nondiscriminatory terms" was one of the most significant issues he would be discussing with Bush. However, American steel interests and overall concern about the Russian economy have kept Washington reluctant to grant the market-economy status Moscow has requested - a prerequisite for membership in the World Trade Organization.
 "The U.S. can't lower the bar for Russian membership to WTO," Weiss said. "Putin has to structure an overall economic-reform plan. So far Russia hasn't done that. Until it does, its accession to WTO remains dubious."
 The only economic concession Bush has been pushing for in Congress is an end to the annual review of Russia's emigration policies under the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment - also necessary for WTO entry.
 Moscow will certainly need Washington's help to persuade other Western countries to be more lenient about terms for Russia's accession to the WTO.
 Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst, pointed out that the criteria for such decisions have been custom-tailored for political reasons in the past - for example, in the case of the Baltics.
 Another sore point unlikely to receive more than a superficial dressing this week is that of U.S. policy in the former Soviet Union. 
 "Until now, an American policy of deterrence has been dominant in the region," with certain groups in Washington supporting anti-Russian political movements in places such as Belarus and Ukraine, Markov said in an interview Friday.
 Aside from lobbying for NATO expansion into the Baltics, a particularly contentious point of U.S. policy has been Washington's support for Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, whom Moscow has accused of harboring Chechen rebels.
 But Washington sees itself as a defender of stability in the former Soviet Union, particularly in the Caucasus. "The U.S. ... will continue to draw a bright red line around Georgia and tell Russia not to step over it," said Weiss.
 While Putin's popularity ratings at home have remained unwaveringly high, his level of success in winning concessions from Bush could eventually prove important for overcoming the discontent that has been bubbling up among Russia's political and military elite.
 Local analysts have called the overall mood among the country's political establishment "isolationist."
 "In order to overcome this, there must be results, there must be tangible advances" in bilateral relations, Mar kov said. "Western diplomacy has developed a way of responding to concrete actions with promises. ... There needs to be a move toward genuine compromise."
 Nationalist-leaning groups, such as the Communists and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party, have criticized the Kremlin for being too soft in defending Russia's security interests.
 Some of the grumbling in Moscow has been coming from within the the military-industrial complex, anxious that closer ties with Washington will eventually close off lucrative markets such as Iran, Iraq and Syria.
 Washington has long expressed serious concerns over Russia's relationship with Iran, saying that the nuclear technologies Russia supplies could be used to make nuclear weapons - an accusation that Moscow denies.
 This issue, as well as that of U.S. involvement in the former Soviet bloc, resurfaced at a roundtable last month, when Zhirinovsky said that true bilateral cooperation will be possible only if the United States allows Russia to maintain its trade relations with India, Iran and Iraq and significantly reduces its own political involvement in the former Soviet republics.
 If Putin and Bush can clinch a private agreement on these issues, "like Ribbentrop and Molotov," said the radical Zhirinovsky, "then we'll be able to work together. ... Otherwise, Russia will remain on its own."
 But political analyst Anatoly Utkin of the U.S.A. and Canada Institute was skeptical that Russia would be able to walk away from the meeting with any "tangible advances" from Washington.
 "The U.S. political culture has no concept of gratitude," Utkin said, "only a business-like approach [to negotiations]."

TITLE: Customs Stacks Trucks at Border
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: VALIMAA, Finland - A set of instructions issued by the Northwest Customs Administration in late October has created huge headaches for truck drivers and other motorists alike.
 The new regulations have led to huge lines of trucks - sometimes as long as 15 kilometers - stuck waiting in the Finnish-border village of Valimaa while Russian customs officials perform 100-percent cargo examinations on many trucks crossing into Russia.
 "I've been sitting here waiting since Friday," truck driver Alexei Pilkin said on Sunday. "I've heard that there are not enough staff working for the Russian customs here and, as we all know, they work very slowly as it is."
 Northwest customs officials said Monday that the difficulties are linked to a new regulation issued by State Customs Committee on Oct. 24 ordering them to perform item-by-item searches of vehicles carrying certain specified goods including household appliances, furniture and coffee.
 The instructions mandating the crackdown on certain categories of goods were issued as a result of an inspection carried out at Northwest Region border points in early October by federal customs officials.
 "Due to the large number of violations discovered during the inspection, a decision was issued Oct. 24 to search all transport trucks carrying goods from what were identified as risk groups," Yevgeny Vensko, spokesperson for Northwest Customs Administration.
 As many as 400 trucks have been stuck waiting at the border crossing at some points.
 "This is not such a big surprise for me," said Sergei Ivanov, a truck driver stuck in an overloaded parking lot on the Finnish side who says he's been moving about five kilometers per day since Friday. "I've seen how they work. You pull up to the checkpoint, and there's nobody there. One has just left, another is having tea and a third is off just walking around somewhere."
 According to customs officials, the investigation found that a range of goods were being imported to Russia under false manifests in order to avoid paying higher customs duties.
 "We discovered that Northwest Customs had been losing about $200 million annually," Irina Skibinskaya, spokesperson for the State Customs Committee, said in a telephone interview on Monday. "Since the more stringent inspections started, tax collection has increased significantly."
 "I can't give you any numbers yet, but it's clear now that collections will be much higher than Northwest Customs initially planned," she added.
 The inspection seems to have triggered important changes in the leadership of regional customs authorities. Vla di mir Shamakhov, head of the Northwest Region Customs District and his deputy, Mikhail Prokofiev, both quit their jobs last month, ostensibly for health reasons. Alexander Puchkov, head of the Baltic Customs District at the St. Petersburg Port was suspended by the State Customs Committee at the same time. All three left after the investigation by federal authorities began, and their duties have been taken over by the officials carrying out the investigation.
 Northwest customs officials said about 30 percent of those goods contained on the 100-percent-check list were being declared as different goods by importers.
 "Coffee, for instance, was being listed as toilet paper because the customs duty is about half as much as on coffee," said Vensko. "One company, for instance, had imported 17,000 tons of coffee and called it toilet paper."
 State customs officials said the complete figures for losses will be released after the inspection is completed on Nov. 15. When the changes were announced in October, Mikhail Vanin, head of the State Customs Service, was asked how much money was lost and commented, "I hate to think about it," according to the Interfax news agency.
 "I will name the exact figure only to the president," Vanin was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 Transport companies and truck drivers aren't arguing with the clampdown on cargo listings. Their complaint is that, if officials want to implement a stricter examination process, they should properly staff the checkpoints.
 Valter Velsman, head of the International Association of Cargo Importers, said truck owners incur significant losses when their trucks sit idle. He said that losses per vehicle have been about $200 per day, while the total cost to the transport industry has been about $500,000 since the new rules were put in place.
 "This is just a nightmare," Velsman said in an interview on Friday. "They search 50 percent of all trucks coming to the border, which means they have to be fully unloaded and then reloaded. That's what forms the huge lines outside."
 "The best cargo checkpoint in Europe is located in Torfyanovka, but instead of having all eight lanes open, only one, two or sometimes three work. They can inspect 1,300 trucks a day, but handle only 250," he said.
 The Northwest Customs Administration's Vensko agrees that manpower is the problem. "We have only 75 percent of the staff we need. Now that it is fall, we have people getting ill very often," he said.
 The delays are raising concerns among Finnish officials as well. Finnish customs representatives said the only thing left for them to do in this situation is to wait for the Russian side to do something to resolve the crisis.
 Lasse Koskela, duty chief for Valimaa checkpoint, said that the Finnish border guards direct all the vehicles finally reaching the border area to nearby parking lots. But this does little to help. The line of trucks stretches away for kilometers from the checkpoint, through a number of settlements lying on the E-18 highway between St. Petersburg and Helsinki.
 "Last year we had the same situation when the Russians introduced some new rules," said Koskela. "It only takes a couple of minutes to check all the documents from our side because we're dealing with exports: Russians are dealing with imports, which is a different thing and means a lot of papers to examine."
 While Koskela is sympathetic, he knows that not everyone on the Finnish side feels the same.
 "It's obvious the locals aren't happy about it. You can hear about it by asking anybody who lives here," he said.
 Lidia Benetska, who works in a local perfume shop, said that it's dangerous to drive around all the trucks.
 "The main thing is the road. It's just not safe when there's a 15-kilometer-long line on one half of the road," Benetska said. "I've already damaged one of the mirrors on my car trying to drive beside all of the trucks."
 Truck drivers have also raised safety concerns.
 "The drivers are very tired, and the Finnish police have good reason to be worried about accidents," said driver Slava Kuznetsov, while waiting for a green light on a road leading to the parking lot. "The road is narrow, so it's not safe for cars coming the opposite way."
 Nadezhda Helge, who owns the shop where Benetska works, said that the mood of tourists had also changed since the line of trucks appeared.
 "The other day I met some tourists from Germany who had just arrived from Russia. They were tired and outraged, saying that they don't ever want to go back to Russia after spending six hours waiting to be checked on the Russian side," Helge said. "I haven't been to Russia in five years and have no interest in going there, thanks to the Russian border officials. They always want to look into my wallet, looking for money, like it's their money."

TITLE: New York Rocked by Another Jetliner Crash
AUTHOR: By Diego Ibarguen
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - An American Airlines jetliner en route to the Dominican Republic with 255 people aboard broke apart and crashed moments after takeoff Monday from Kennedy Airport, setting homes ablaze. There was no immediate word of any survivors aboard the plane.
 Officials in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush said the FBI believed an explosion occurred aboard the jet, and witnesses reported hearing one. But a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "It's looking like it's not a terrorist attack, but we can't reach a firm conclusion yet."
 Still, the city - on edge after the Sept. 11 attack in which hijacked airliners brought down the World Trade Center - was put on high alert.
 Fighter jets flew over the scene in the Rockaway section of Queens. All metropolitan-area airports - Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, N.J. - were closed, and international flights were diverted to other cities. Bridges and tunnels were closed to incoming traffic. The United Nations was partially locked down, and the Empire State Building was evacuated.
 Flight 587, an Airbus A300 with 246 passengers and nine crew members aboard, went down at 9:17 a.m. in clear, sunny weather in the waterfront neighborhood 25 kilometers from Manhattan. The densely populated section is home to many firefighters who were among the dead and the rescuers at the Trade Center.
 Witnesses reported hearing an explosion and seeing an engine and other debris falling off the flaming jet as it came down. A plume of thick, black smoke could be seen many kilometers away; flames billowed high above the treetops. At least 15 people were reported injured on the ground.
 "I heard the explosion and I looked out the window and saw the flames and the smoke," said Milena Owens, who lives two blocks from the crash site and was putting Thanksgiving decorations on her window. "And I just thought, 'Oh no, not again.'"
 In Washington, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said there were no "unusual communications" from the cockpit. And a senior administration official said that no threats against airplanes had been received.
 The National Transportation Safety Board was designated to lead the investigation, signaling that authorities have no information other than that a mechanical malfunction - and not a terrorist attack - brought down the plane.
 A law enforcement source at the scene said that the likelihood of a mechanical problem stemmed from the fact that flames were seen shooting out of the left engine and that witnesses reported the plane had difficulty climbing and was banking to the left.
 In Washington, Bush met with advisers, seeking details of the crash. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said intelligence agencies, the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration were reviewing recent intelligence for any signs that terrorism was involved.
 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani canceled his morning events and went to the scene, where he said: "People should remain calm. We're being tested one more time, and we're going to pass this test, too."
 "Now we should focus all our efforts on finding survivors," Giuliani said.
 "The first thing that went through my mind is, 'Oh, my God.' I just passed the church in which I've been to, I think, 10 funerals here. Rockaway was particularly hard hit. The disproportionate number of the people we lost - not just the police and fire [fighters], but even the workers at the World Trade Center - were from Rockaway and Staten Island."
 Triage centers were set up at a high school and an elementary school, both of which were closed for the Veterans Day holiday. A hospital near the crash site said it treated about 15 people for smoke inhalation and several others for abrasions. All of the injured had been on the ground, not on the plane, and none appeared to be critically injured.
 The plane was lying on top of about 12 homes, said Ed Williams, community liaison for Representative Gregory Meeks. "It's pandemonium here," Williams said. "We don't know if there are any survivors, but it looks really bad."
 "This community was hit so hard by the Trade Center," said Fern Liberman, who lives a few blocks away. "A lot of firefighters, policemen and we had a lot of people at Cantor Fitzgerald. We were hit very hard. ... Just on the heels of one horror, another."
 An engine fell intact on a parking lot at a Texaco station, missing the gas tanks by no more than two meters.
 Witness Phyllis Paul said she heard the plane's engine. "It was very, very loud. Because of what happened Sept. 11, it gave me a chill," she told CNN. "It was getting louder and louder, and I looked out the window. I saw a piece of metal falling from the sky."
 In the Dominican Republic, relatives of passengers crowded Santo Domingo's airport, sobbing and grasping each other after hearing about the crash.
 "Oh my God!" said Miriam Fajardo, crying after being told that her sister and three nephews were aboard. "I hadn't seen them in eight years. Now they're gone."
 The World Trade Center was destroyed by two Boeing 767s hijacked out of Boston's Logan Airport. One of the planes was operated by American, the other by United Airlines.

TITLE: Country Enthralled by 'Behind the Glass'
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The most famous shower in the country is located in the hotel Rossia, just off Red Square.
 It is inside an apartment attached to the first floor of the hotel, where three young men and three young women have been living for the last two weeks.
 They are not alone, though. In fact, they couldn't be further from being alone, as the entire country has been watching them three times a day on "Za Steklom," or "Behind the Glass," a reality program on channel TV6 that has gripped the nation and been called everything from pornography to a philosophical and sociological experiment.
 "Za Steklom" bears some similarities to the "Big Brother" show that has been a hit all over Europe and the United States. A group of people are watched and videotaped 24 hours a day in a small apartment, and edited excerpts are broadcast on television. Viewers vote out contestants one by one over the course of a month until the last man and woman left win a prize - here, a one-room Moscow apartment each.
 But "Za Steklom" has had more sexual intrigue and raunchy incidents since starting Oct. 27 than the British show had in two seasons.
 The makers of the show said that they found the foreign "Big Brother" versions "boring" and, with the help of psychologists, chose people from all over the country who they thought would spice up the show. In contrast to the British show, the cameras are allowed everywhere, including the shower and the toilet, although the action in the latter has yet to hit the screens.
 Within the first week, the show saw participants Margo and Sasha wash each other while naked in an explicit shower scene that took up most of the 20-minute time slot of the late-night show - the kind of "Did-you-see-that?" moment that television channels pray for.
 Since then, the flat has seen enough flirting and sexual games to fill a couple of series of most soap operas. Since the shower scene, Olga has kissed Max but refused, after much cajoling, to sleep with him; Margo has kissed Olga; and Denis and Olga have kissed, although Denis later went into a jealous funk.
 A few days after the shower scene, Sasha's girlfriend on the outside made her feelings clear about the shower scene on a talk show, and an emergency meeting was arranged between the two. Despite Sasha's excuses - "I didn't have an erection" were his words, according to show sponsor Komsomolskaya Pravda - he quit the show in an attempt to patch up his relationship.
 The show was slammed as "porn" in a front-page article in the newspaper Izvestia last week, and "with no limits" by Moskovskiye Novosti - although this didn't stop MN from printing a photo of a topless Olga on its front page. Others have simply claimed that all the contestants are actors, which the makers deny.
 Whether it's good or bad, the show is definitely being watched. Ratings are soaring - the show's makers say they have had up to a 45-percent audience share - and advertisers are clamoring for the slot. The show's Web site has drawn hundreds of messages discussing the day's actions with titles such as "Why didn't Olya give it up to Max?" 
 As with "Big Brother," fans have their loyalties, and fierce arguments are raging on the Web as to why Zhanna is a prig, or Dennis a freak, or why Max needs to be dumped first.
 Hundreds go along every day to the hotel apartment, and line up to look through the mirror windows and into the house - a surreal experience of watching the people being watched. On last week's Nov. 7 holiday, the line to have a quick glimpse of the action stretched out of the hotel car park, past St. Basil's Cathedral and into Red Square.
 The makers of the show insist it is not just cheap, voyeuristic entertainment with lashings of smut, but something deeper. The director, whose name the program refuses to reveal until the end of the show, says the idea came to him 12 years ago after reading Yevgeny Zamyatin's futuristic novel "We," the book that inspired George Orwell to write "1984."
 In the book, people lived in glass houses where everything could be seen by everyone else. The show, he said, was intended to show people what young people - the new generation that knows little of Soviet times - are really like.
 "It reflects what is happening with our children," the director said in an interview. "Our function is a mirror. It's our children. The sooner we understand them, the better for us."
 What he has seen hasn't impressed him, however. The contestants, he said, have a choice about how to behave. Books, a gym and films are all on offer in the apartment, but for the six participants the choice is simple.
 "They choose beer," he said. "But people shouldn't be surprised, when beer adverts are on television all day."
 For the director, the show is a philosophical experiment, and what people are seeing is the state of today's youth.
 "I'd like them to be happier," said the director. "What I see is really lonely people who aren't very literate and don't know much about the riches of the world."
 All the contestants have become instant celebrities in less than two weeks and will likely have their lives totally changed by the experience. Contestants in Britain have gone on to host television shows, while a contestant in the Netherlands killed himself after being rejected by viewers.
 The makers insist that the contestants are fully aware of the fame or infamy that awaits them when they leave, and that they all joined the show because they want to be stars. But it was an overwhelmed Sasha who left the apartment last week, disappearing for days and then saying he had to get used to being recognized on the street and having people come up to him to give him advice on his relationship with Masha.
 Most annoying for him, Sasha said at a news conference, was reading the catty comments about his girlfriend on the Internet.
 The director admits that the return to the real world will be tough for the participants and that he is unsure what will happen. His worries may be genuine but, some may say, a little late.
 "I'm worried about their fate," he said, adding that he was trying to get TV6 to realize its responsibility toward the contestants when they leave.
 "We have to help them in future life. It's a very difficult experience. ... Some people say it's very easy to sit in a flat ... but it's an intense emotional experience," he said.
 "All of them have their lives ahead of them. It all depends on us and them."
 Internet coverage can be seen on zasteklom.tv6.ru.

TITLE: Authorities Fear Army Officer May Be Executed
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Fears were mounting Monday over the fate of a Russian Army officer being held hostage by Chechen rebels.
 Sergei Boryayev, the deputy military commandant of Chechnya's Vedeno district, was reported captured by the rebel Abdul-Valid, a lieutenant of the warlord Khattab, in a rebel attack on a military convoy in the district on Sept. 29.
 Rebels had subsequently threatened to execute Boryayev, 32, if federal authorities failed to hand over 25 Chechen civilians by midnight Sunday. However, no exchange has been reported.
 Khattab issued the ultimatum to federal troops on Oct. 15 through the rebels' Web site, Kavkaz.org. In the ultimatum, he demanded the release of the civilians, including nine women who had been seized by the Russian military during mopping-up operations in Chechen settlements.
 If his demands were not met, the rebels would execute Boryayev, Khattab reiterated Saturday in his latest interview on Kavkaz.org. He added that "the infidels will find his [severed] head on the grave of Elza Kungayeva," a young Chechen woman allegedly killed by Colonel Yury Budanov - currently on trial in a military court in Rostov-na-Donu.
 Khattab has carried out a similar threat before. In March 2000, Khattab's rebels attacked a column of Perm OMON troops in the Vedeno district, killing 32 military personnel and taking 11 prisoners. They approached the Russian authorities with an offer to exchange the captured men for Budanov, but the offer was declined. On May 1, the bodies of the 11 prisoners were found near the village of Dargo in the Vedeno district.
 Special units attached to the ministry were deployed in search operations in Chechnya, parallel to negotiations to free Boryayev, the defense ministry's press service reported.
 However, nongovernmental organizations involved in attempts to secure Boryayev's release cast doubts on the ministry's claims.
 "Russian officials did nothing to help the officer, nor did the vast majority of the Russian media," said Vladimir Oivin of the Moscow-based Glasnost Foundation human-rights group.
 According to Oivin, Glasnost contacted the presidential commission on war prisoners and internees about the case, but commission officials said they lacked the funds to send a representative to Chechnya to conduct negotiations.
 Glasnost then approached influential State Duma deputies Alexei Arbatov and Sergei Yushenkov, asking them to provide assistance to a Chechen negotiator found by Novaya Gazeta reporter Vyacheslav Izmailov, who often participates in negotiations to release military personnel held in Chechnya.
 "This negotiator could have at least postponed the execution, but as far as I know, the deputies did nothing to save the officer," said Glasnost's Valentina Alexe yeva. No one in either the presidential commission or the offices of Arbatov and Yushenkov was available for comment Sunday.
 If the military didn't come up with the 25 Chechens on Sunday, then rebels would offer to swap Boryayev's body for five live Chechens arrested during mopping-up operations, Khattab told Kavkaz.org in the interview Saturday.
 Boryayev, who was posted to Chechnya earlier this year, has a pregnant wife, Inga, and a 9-year-old daughter in Nizhny Novgorod.

TITLE: Chechnya Radiation Detected
AUTHOR: By Yuri Bagrov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Officials said Friday that a site for the burial of radioactive waste in the separatist region of Chechnya emits radiation strong enough to kill a person within days.
 Radiation at the site near Chiri-Yurt is about 3,000 micro roentgens per hour - more than 100 times safe levels, NTV reported. The report didn't give the size of the contaminated area.
 Radioactive waste had been delivered to the site from across the former Caucasus republics of the Soviet Union from 1965 to 1992, the year when Chechnya started to claim more independence from Russia, NTV said.
 The site, home to a radioactive waste treatment plant and waste storage facilities, has apparently suffered damage in the ensuing war between 1994 and 1996 and the current war that started in 1999.
 The facilities hadn't been guarded until recently, allowing theft of radioactive items, Abdul Khamadov, director of Chechnya's radioactive-safety center, told NTV. An elderly Chechen was installed to watch the site a month ago.
 The Chechen minister for emergencies, Ruslan Aytayev, said the site would be decontaminated "as soon as adequate funds are received," and that a contract for the work has already been signed, Itar-Tass reported.
 Earlier, NTV reported that the commander of Russian troops in Chechnya, Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi, requested that Chechnya's Emergency Situations Ministry clean up the site, but the ministry said the plant itself should tackle it.

TITLE: Putin 'Very Optimistic' as He Heads to the U.S.
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that he was "very optimistic" that a compromise could be found with the United States on missile defense and that he was bringing new proposals to his meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush this week.
 "We see the capability to negotiate on the U.S. side and we have the same capability, but we want to know what we'll be negotiating about, in military and technological terms," Putin told a group of American journalists gathered around a round, leather-topped table in the wood-panelled Kremlin Library.
 Putin declined to elaborate on the initiatives he planned to raise at the meetings in Washington and Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, saying he wanted to present them to Bush directly, not through the newspapers. And he praised Bush for agreeing to tie negotiations on missile defense to nuclear-weapons reductions.
 "We know the president's view that strategic offensive weapons can and must be reduced. This is a compromise in the right direction," Putin said.
 Russia has proposed new limits on U.S. and Russian stockpiles of no more than 2,000 long-range warheads for each country, down from a current total of about 6,000 each. The Bush administration was said to be considering 1,750 to 2,250 warheads apiece.
 Putin said that while Russia was ready to discuss a compromise on U.S. missile-defense plans, it must know specifically what in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Mis sile Treaty stands in the way of Washington's proposed missile shield.
 "We are also ready for a compromise. We should see what specific compromise proposals our American partners have," Putin said. He said that it would be up to experts to set specific parameters for both offensive and defensive weapons.
 The evening interview stretched until midnight, and Putin paused only to sip tea from a white china cup with the Kremlin seal, nibble pastries and step in once to correct his translator.
 He raised many of his favorite themes - the ties between Chechen rebels and their "teacher," Osama bin Laden, Russia's desire for a more substantive relationship with NATO - and occasionally broke his poker-faced delivery to crack a joke.
 "You don't remember which ... leader it was who said 'he might be a scoundrel, but he's our scoundrel?'" Putin asked, parrying a question about Russia's relations with Western foes such as Iraq.
 On the eve of his first trip to the United States, Putin expressed confidence that U.S.-Russian relations had taken an irreversible turn for the better. He said that Cold War rivalries and the fears they generated were partly to blame for allowing the growth of extremism - including in Afghanistan, where international terrorist-training bases were established.
 The United States "did nothing to prevent the creation of the Taliban," and the Soviet Union responded by supporting U.S. foes. "I think we should end this vicious circle, and I feel that together with President Bush, we are in a position to do that," Putin said, indicating that Russia would accept a U.S. role in central Asia, a region it considers its own sphere of influence.
 Asked about bin Laden's claim to have nuclear and chemical weapons, Putin said the threat could be a bluff but nevertheless should be taken seriously. "I wouldn't overestimate the danger, but it would also be wrong to downplay it," he said. "We know about bin Laden's links with radical circles in Pakistan, and Pakistan is a nuclear power."
 "In that respect, we must support General Musharraf in his efforts to consolidate his country," Putin said.
 He flatly denied that any Russian or former-Soviet weapons of mass destruction could get into the hands of terrorists. "It's unlikely that the terrorists in Afghanistan have weapons of mass destruction, but we can't discount the chance that they may have them," he added. "In any case, they can't be of Soviet or Russian origin. I'm absolutely sure of that."
 Putin said he wasn't looking for any particular payback from the United States in exchange for Russia's support of the U.S.-led action against terror. "In the first place, we would like our joint struggle against terrorism to lead to positive results, that terrorism not only in Afghanistan but the entire world be destroyed, uprooted, liquidated," he said.
 Russia would also "like to have a new quality in our relations and have in the United States a reliable and predictable partner," he added. "This top task is more important than getting any momentary material advantages."
 However, he indicated that Russia was also looking for an end to what it considers discriminatory economic treatment by the United States and for a more substantive, decision-making role in its partnership with NATO, with which it cooperates in peacekeeping.
 Putin said that in addition to improving ties with the West, he would continue to cultivate relations with countries such as North Korea and Iraq - countries that the West considers possible proliferators of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
 "There are no scoundrels among our partners," Putin said. "The biggest mistake would be to isolate any country from the international community."
 Speaking about Russian assistance to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Putin said that along with air corridors and "very valuable intelligence information," Russia also had supplied "tens of millions dollars worth of military-technical assistance" to Afghan opposition forces fighting the Taliban.
 Putin also claimed that Russia was providing assistance to the U.S.-led action against terror by fighting radical Arab mercenaries in Chechnya, who would otherwise go to fight against Americans.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: No Clues in Kursk Log
 

MOSCOW (AP) - A logbook found in the wreckage of the Kursk submarine gives no clues about what caused the explosion that sank the submarine, a spokesperson for the navy's Northern Fleet, Igor Babenko, said Sunday.
 He disputed media speculation that the logbook was key to the investigation. "This is simply impossible because the logbook contains information about the functioning of mechanisms and nothing more," he was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying.
 
 
Slovak President Visits
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Slovakian President Rudolf Schuster arrived in Mos cow on Sunday on his first official visit to Russia to discuss the developing international situation with Pre si dent Vla dimir Putin.
 Schuster met with Putin in the Krem lin on Monday before Putin flew to the United States.
 Sergei Prikhodko, the deputy presidential chief of staff, said they planned to discuss the new international situation following the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the beginning of the anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan, Interfax reported.
 
 
Nuclear Protest
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Dressed in chemical-protection suits and gas masks, Greenpeace activists gathered Friday in front of the Nuclear Power Ministry building demanding a halt to nuclear-waste imports to Russia.
 The protesters installed a symbolic gravestone and put up a 10-meter-long banner reading "Stop Nuclear Slavery in Russia." They also gave ministry officials a fake nuclear-waste container.
 In July, President Vladimir Putin gave the green light to a hotly debated law on imports of spent nuclear fuel to Russia.
 Advocates of the law argue that Russia could earn $20 billion over the next decade by importing some 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel for storage and reprocessing.
 However, Greenpeace and other political and ecological organizations have continued to fight the law, arguing that turning Russia into the world's leading nuclear-recycling facility would cause far greater damage than the billions earned could repair.
 Maxim Shingarkin, the head of Russian Greenpeace's project against spent nuclear-fuel imports, believes the fight may not be in vain.
 "Public opinion is strongly against these plans, so there is hope," he said. Pressure from average people and international organizations could prove successful in stopping the imports, he added.
 
 
Rebel Leader Killed
 

VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia (AP) - Russian troops claimed Friday to have gunned down a leader of a rebel gang in Chechnya. Ruslan Zakriyev was killed in a special operation in Urus-Martan, Itar-Tass reported, citing the pro-Moscow Chechen government. It did not give a date.
 
 
Russian Aid Arrives
 

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) - A Russian plane loaded with humanitarian supplies for the relief effort in Afghanistan landed Friday in the southern Kyrgyz town of Osh.
 The plane, organized by the Emergencies Ministry, carried five cars, spare tires and other automotive equipment to be used to support convoys of humanitarian assistance heading into Afghanistan. A second plane also arrived later Friday.
 
Flower Girl Charged
 

RIGA, Latvia (AP) - A 16-year-old-girl who struck Prince Charles in the face with a red carnation last week was formally charged Friday with endangering the life of a high official.
 Conviction carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, but that was unlikely to be imposed because of the girl's age and the fact that the heir to the British throne was uninjured.
 "Since she's only 16, the court would likely give her probation if she is found guilty," police spokesperson Kristina Apse said.
 She declined to say how the incident had threatened the prince's life.
 
 
Explosion Kills 5
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Five people died and some 60 were injured in an explosion in a busy outdoor market in the southern city of Vladikavkaz on Saturday.
 Police initially said the explosion was caused by a faulty natural-gas container being used to cook meat on an outdoor grill, but the power of the blast led investigators to conclude it was a bomb placed near the grill.
 Local officials said the bomb blast was likely an act of terrorism, possibly aimed at destabilizing the situation in North Ossetia.
 The republic, which borders Chech nya, is to elect a new president in two months.
 "It was an explosive device that was placed near a gas container with about a kilogram of dynamite," said Lev Dzugayev, an assistant to North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov.
 A North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokesperson said the device was "filled with additional destructive elements" and may have been detonated by remote control.
 Dzasokhov said a criminal case has been opened and that four people have been detained in the investigation. 



TITLE: UES Set To Form Grid Carrier
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Unified Energy Systems said Friday it would form a state grid company in January as part of moves to reshape the power sector.
 The formation of the Federal Grid Company is part of plans to restructure UES, the world's biggest power firm by capacity, and eventually introduce a competitive electricity market.
 "The creation of the FSK [grid company] will strengthen UES' integrating role and guarantee cooperation between producers and consumers of electricity on a competitive wholesale market," the company said in a statement.
 The company added in a separate statement that its pilot restructuring scheme at a tiny regional utility unit, Belgorodenergo, had been approved by the company's board of directors. This is the first step in a restructuring plan that envisages the monopoly spinning off its generating plants and keeping the national grid under government control.
 UES' grid assets, worth more than 42 billion rubles ($1.41 billion), will be transferred to the new unit, which will be wholly owned by UES.
 The grid company would be formed in stages and be completed by 2004, when the firm would become independent from UES but remain under state control.
 The majority of seats on the board of the new company would be taken by representatives of the government, although minority shareholders would also be represented.
 The board also approved a code of corporate conduct for UES, making it one of a few Russian blue-chip companies to lay out governance standards in writing. The move is aimed at pleasing minority shareholders and increasing transparency at the firm.
 Also Friday, the board appointed former Central Bank Chairperson and Gaz prom deputy chairperson Sergei Dubinin as deputy chairperson, Interfax reported.
 The company said the move was part of its "instructions to carry out large-scale investment projects by upgrading and developing generating enterprises and network facilities and attracting strategic investors," Interfax reported.
 Last week, UES CEO Anatoly Chubais said he saw more potential interest in urgent power-plant projects from domestic investors than from foreign investors.
 "In my understanding, the proportion of foreign to Russian investors might tip in favor of Russians," Chubais told a news conference.
 Chubais was just back from an international roadshow at which he met with potential strategic investors to hawk 10 power-plant construction and completion projects together costing more than $1 billion, as well as an underwater cable to export electricity to Japan estimated at $9.6 billion.
 Of the power-plant projects, the cheapest is the completion and re-equipment of the Upper Volga Hydro Plant cascade, put at about $31 million.
 The most capital intensive will be a station in Kaliningrad, estimated at $437 million because it requires the construction of a gas pipeline and reservoir.
 
 <i>(Reuters, SPT) </i>

TITLE: Audit Chamber Focusing On Property Department
AUTHOR: By Kirill Koriukin
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - As the newly emboldened Audit Chamber continues its &quot;very serious&quot; scrutiny of the Kremlin property department, the scandal-tainted former fiefdom of notorious Krem lin insider Pavel Borodin is scrambling to disassociate itself from the excesses of its past.
 Although the chamber describes the two-week-old inspection as a routine checkup, it is the first time since 1998 that a probe has been launched into the department, which controls a staggering array of assets worldwide worth billions of dollars.
 The inspection is expected to be a stiff test of the department's resolve to break with what is seen as a corruption-ridden history, and the department, known as Upravdelami, is eager to demonstrate that a new era has begun. It has announced that it is streamlining its multi-billion-dollar empire and spinning off the parasite companies it has bred.
 &quot;We are getting rid of all that has stuck,&quot; said Upravdelami head Vla dimir Kozhin, who took over from Borodin last year.
 The department's streamlining is widely seen as a cleanup after Borodin, who was property manager at the Kremlin during Boris Yeltsin's presidency and who has been at the center of a corruption investigation in Switzerland. Swiss authorities have charged Borodin with laundering $30 million in kickbacks in exchange for lucrative construction contracts.
 However, property department spokesperson Viktor Khrekov described the streamlining as a routine exercise to bring hundreds of the department's companies in line with its main objective - providing for state institutions.
 &quot;This is not a reform, rather it's a restructuring,&quot; Khrekov said in an interview. &quot;Our task is to get rid of the companies that don't fit our functions or are inefficient.&quot;
 As part of its campaign, the department has sent several government agencies a blacklist of 20 companies that it liquidated yet which continued to take advantage of the &quot;Upravdelami&quot; name. The list includes such names as the Integrated Microelectronic Systems Scientific Research Company, the Information and Analytical Agency, Mezhregionneft and Dalnefteprodukt.
 &quot;Some companies have used our brand to trade in commodities such as construction materials or oil, which we didn't authorize,&quot; Khrekov said. &quot;They used our name to impress local authorities. Taking advantage of our 'patronage,' for example, they kept putting the department's name on business cards, stationery and official letters.&quot;
 Khrekov said Upravdelami published the blacklist to warn government officials, including those at federal ministries and the Central Bank, that they may be approached by impostors. He added that many of the companies on the blacklist had grown their own subsidiaries. Indeed, in some cases several companies are registered at the same address and headed by the same people as the blacklisted companies.
 Khrekov said Upravdelami is looking to liquidate 10 more of its companies at this stage. This would leave the department with 180 subsidiary companies. Kozhin refused to provide a list of the companies that Upravdelami is to retain, and Khrekov intimated that the list will remain secret.
 &quot;You wouldn't ask the Federal Counterintelligence Service for a list of its subsidiaries,&quot; he said. &quot;Our list is known to those who are supposed to know.&quot;
 It is difficult to put a cap on the range of goods and services required by Upravdelami's clients, who include the Kremlin, parliament, the Supreme Court and the Audit Chamber itself.
 Upravdelami intends to restructure some of the inefficient companies that it wants to keep, and sell stakes in some companies while retaining the controlling interest.
 &quot;We will put some companies on the market to attract investment while retaining control,&quot; Khrekov said.
 Some analysts were skeptical about the ease of restructuring Upravdelami, although they said they consider Kozhin an honest bureaucrat.
 Yury Korgunyuk of the Indem research group said Kozhin will need to establish control over smaller bosses within the agency who are holdovers from the Borodin era, and this won't be easy.
 &quot;The Upravdelami empire has grown way out of proportion and cannot be controlled from the center,&quot; Korgunyuk said. &quot;The only way to restructure it is to dramatically cut its size.&quot;
 Korgunyuk added, however, that the Audit Chamber will attempt to do its best in investigating Upravdelami, especially given the ambitions of the chamber's chief, former Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service head Sergei Stepashin.
 Andrei Ryabov of Moscow's Carnegie Center for International Peace was more optimistic, saying Upravdelami was clearly parting with subsidiaries affiliated with Borodin, whose ouster, along with other Yeltsin-era Kremlin insiders, was crucial for reforming the agency.
 &quot;The most important is to take away financial flows from those who controlled them and change the system of political balances,&quot; he said.
 The Audit Chamber is to release its findings publicly in February.
 A list of items that Upravdelami was allegedly planning to order for a sanatorium was leaked to the press in May. Some of the items on the list, which featured $200,000 jacuzzis, were priced at up to 16 times their market value. Upravdelami has said the list was a fake and got past its top officials by accident.

TITLE: RTS Follows World Trend After New York Air Crash
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The tumble by World markets on Monday after a passenger jet crashed in New York, sending airline and insurance stocks down by as much as 12 percent, also backed Russia's benchmark index off its highest level of the year.
 The key RTS index hit at a 2001 high of 233.3 in intra-day trading before falling nearly 4 percent on the news of the crash, just one hour before the markets closed in Moscow. The RTS closed at 223.97, a half a percent off Friday's close.
 Traders doubted, however, that fresh fears of terrorist attacks gripping Western markets would lead to massive sell-offs of Russian corporate paper, as market fundamentals remained strong.
 &quot;I didn't see any panics and huge sells-off after Sept. 11, and I don't exclude the possibility that the market may open on higher levels tomorrow&quot;, said Alexei Dolgih, trader with Troika Dialog.
 &quot;Assuming that you don't have any more disasterous events like this, then Russia will continue racing,&quot; said Roland Nash, chief economist with Renaissance Capital.
 The RTS has gained 59.5 percent since Jan. 1, making it the second-best-performing stock index in the world this year, trailing only China's Shanghai B, which has risen by 61.48 percent in dollar terms. 
 However, it is still less than half of its historic high of 570, reached Oct. 3, 1997. In terms of capitalization, the value of all Russian stocks traded over the counter is now about $73 billion - $11 billion of which is accounted for by Gazprom - but is still far below the $110 billion figure before the 1998 financial crisis. 
 &quot;What we've seen in the last month is the new set of investors coming to Russia who haven't looked at Russia in the last three years. It changes the market perception and the way people think about Russia, which will drive the market higher,&quot; said Nash.
 &quot;The Russian market is currently undervalued compared with better-than-ever macroeconomic performance,&quot; said an analyst with a large Western investment fund.
 Some analysts said that the full value of the RTS now is about 350 points, if the risk-premium associated with Russian eurobonds is taken into account.
 &quot;Obviously, we won't hit 350 any time soon, but what is also important to remember, if we compare the markets, is the profitability of the companies,&quot; said Nash. &quot;[Profitability] is much higher now than it was in 1997, so there are more fundamental reasons for Russian market to grow and companies are different too.&quot; 
 The investment bank United Financial Group recently upgraded its RTS forecast for the last quarter of the year from 170-215 to 200-240. And Renaissance Capital predicts the RTS will 250 by year's end.

TITLE: Deputies Pan Ministry's Approach to WTO
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A new wave of opposition to quick entry into the World Trade Organization swept through the State Duma on Monday, with several deputies accusing the government of basing negotiations on the interests of a few lobbies.
 Deputies said WTO membership would serve Russia's long-term interests; however, some warned that fast-track accession could leave Russia an exporter of raw materials and resources and hurt domestic producers of finished goods. 
 Konstantin Remchukov of the Union of Right Forces faction, chairperson of the SibAl auto holding's advisory board, called for further discussion before entering the WTO. 
 &quot;The process is based on the lobbying of various structures and forces and not on a governmental program,&quot; Interfax reported Remchukov as saying.
 Independent Deputy Nikolai Ryzh kov, head of the Russian Union of Goods Manufacturers, urged public debate and said a presidential advisory group should be formed to discuss WTO entry.
 The Economic Development and Trade Ministry is currently drawing up a report detailing the pros and cons of WTO membership.
 The ministry has consulted with entrepreneurs and representatives of various industries, said ministry spokes man Konstantin Bogdanov. 
 &quot;Anyone who wants to talk to us has the chance. Of course, every sector tries to represent its interests,&quot; he said. &quot;For some reason, there is an opinion floating around that we are opening markets for both services and goods.&quot;

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Hush-Kit Delay?
 

LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union should delay the deadline for installing hush kits on noisy freighters - especially the Russian Il-76 - The International Air Cargo Association said Monday.
 "TIACA has welcomed the European Union's decision to withdraw noise legislation that would have banned some aircraft in Europe from April next year but is calling on regulators to offer a lifeline to freighter aircraft that still face being grounded," TIACA said in a statement.
 "There is currently no hush-kit available for the IL-76. ... We want the EU to recognize this fact and provide the additional time needed to protect the long-term future of the aircraft," said TIACA President Larry Coyne.
 
 
Diamond Agreemnent
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Diamond monopoly Alrosa will decide Nov. 30 whether to sign a trade agreement with the De Beers diamond corporation, Interfax reported Monday.
 The draft agreement, prepared last month, does not oblige the Russian government and its subjects to sell diamonds through De Beers, as earlier. 
 Alrosa's maximum sales to De Beers would fall slightly to 26 percent of De Beers's total yearly sales, while minimum sales would drop $50 million to $500 million. 
 If the board approves the agreement, it is to be signed at the beginning of December, Alrosa officials said. 
 
 
Oil Production Up
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Oil production in January to October increased 7.6 percent year on year to 287.933 million tons, Interfax reported Monday. 
 According to the Fuel and Energy Complex Central Dispatch Department, Russian vertically integrated oil companies produced 250.01 million tons of oil in the first 10 months of the year, including 26.3 million tons in October. 
 The main producers were LUKoil (52.475 million tons), Yukos (47.854 million tons), Surgutneftegaz (36.336 million tons), Tyumen Oil Co. (27.286 million tons) and Tatneft (20.5 million tons).
 Companies with Russian capital produced more than 10.578 million tons of crude in the first 10 months of the year, including 1.19 million tons last month, and joint ventures with foreign investment produced 16.228 million and 1.732 million tons, respectively. 
 Gazprom produced 8.448 million tons of oil in January to October, including 878,300 tons in October. 
 
 
Sibneft Pays Dividends
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Oil major Sibneft announced Monday that it will pay a dividend of 2.32 rubles per share - 60 percent of net income - for the first half of 2001.
 The dividend payout will total 11 billion rubles ($370.8 million) and will apply to those shareholders on the register at the close of business Nov. 2. Payments are scheduled to begin Dec. 13.
 Sibneft reported a $613 million net profit on revenues of $1.66 billion for the first half of this year under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
 In August, Sibneft's board approved a record dividend of 3.79 rubles per share for 2000, making it the highest dividend payout in Russia's history. The board also adopted a policy of paying out dividends that average 15 percent of net income over the long term.
 
 
Smirnov Suit Stall
 

MOSCOW (Vedomosti) - The Supreme Court has upheld an appeal by the Prosecutor General's Office canceling all decisions in the court battle between Smirnov vodka manufacturer Trading House of the Descendants of P.A. Smirnov and Guinness-UDV, which owns the rights to produce Smir noff vodka.
 The Trading House of the Descendants of P.A. Smirnov is prepared to dispute the decision, citing in its appeal errors in court proceedings, said Sergei Yuzefov, general director of the company. 
 "To be honest, this case doesn't interest us much any more," said Robert Sekston, a partner with the SHH law firm, which represents Guinness-UDV, adding that Guinness-UDV was prepared to continue the court battle. 
 
 
Eire O'Flot
 

DUBLIN (Reuters) - A U.S.-Irish company plans to set up a new passenger airline flying to Europe from Ireland in close cooperation with Russian state carrier Aeroflot , the Irish Times reported Friday. 
 SkyNet, which has backing from U.S. and Irish investors, will be based at Shannon Airport near Limerick in southwest Ireland and will fly from both Shannon and Dublin, it said. 
 The company had secured loans to lease two Boeing 737s by April and expected to have a fleet of 20 737s by 2005, the report said. 
 It quoted SkyNet Chief Executive Dick Healy, a former aviation consultant for Irish state airport operator Aer Rianta, as saying Aeroflot would have no material interest in the company but there would be "a close commercial relationship." 
 "We can write tickets on their routes and we can both put flight numbers on a particular route," he said. The report said Healy declined to name the routes SkyNet would operate but said current European destinations include Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Milan, and Amsterdam. 



TITLE: WTO Greets New Members, Old Squabbles
AUTHOR: By Naomi Koppel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DOHA, Qatar - The United States and Switzerland edged closer Monday to an agreement with developing countries demanding more leeway to override drug patents for health emergencies, one of the thorniest issues threatening to block new global trade talks.
 On the fourth day of the five-day meeting, pressure also is building to reach a compromise on other hot-button issues, such as antidumping rules and agricultural subsidies.
 Progress on the drug-patents issue &quot;seems to be going well,&quot; said Luis Felipe de Feixas Correa, deputy minister of foreign relations from Brazil.
 A senior U.S. trade official said there was more focus on the language of a proposed declaration on drugs to be adopted by the World Trade Organization's 142 member countries.
 Rich countries hope to come away from the WTO ministerial meeting Tuesday with an agreement on launching new trade talks, which they argue would give the faltering world economy a much-needed confidence boost.
 Developing countries are demanding more market access for their textiles and agricultural products and recognition that some past pledges of help have yet to be fulfilled.
 Brazil and India, which have large generic drug industries, are leading the push for a declaration that patent rights won't block poor countries from responding to AIDS and other health crises.
 The United States and Switzerland, worried about undermining their own pharmaceutical industries, are loathe to alter the WTO's intellectual-property agreement.
 The current accord does make allowances for special circumstances, but the terms are ambiguous.
 For example, poor countries that don't have manufacturing capability can override patents and import lifesaving drugs, but the exporting country could face trade sanctions.
 The biggest event of the meeting so far came when China achieved what it had worked 15 years for and the WTO formally approved its membership Saturday. The world's most populous country immediately threw its massive weight behind efforts to start new talks on liberalizing global trade.
 On day two of their five-day meeting, trade ministers from almost all the WTO's 142 members unanimously approved China's application for membership Saturday, bringing the once-isolated communist country - and its 1.2 billion consumers - firmly into the global marketplace.
 Taiwan was then accepted on Sunday.

TITLE: Dow Jones Falls After Jet Crashes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Stocks dropped sharply Monday after an American Airlines jet crashed in New York, reawakening fears about more terrorist attacks.
 &quot;Fears are running high,&quot; said Alan Ackerman, executive vice president of Fahnestock & Co. &quot;We're dealing with a bruised U.S. psyche, whether it is at the consumer level or the investor level.&quot;
 In late-morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 149.47, or 1.6 percent, after dropping as much as 198 points in very early dealings.
 The cause of the crash, which occurred Monday morning near Kennedy Airport, was not immediately known, but some investors, worried that it might have been the result of a terrorist attack, began selling immediately to preserve profits made recently.
 Investors had been bidding the market higher on increasing confidence for an economic turnaround in 2002. On Friday, the Dow posted its best close since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, joining the rest of the market's major indicators in closing above its pre-attack level.
 But analysts said the market's comeback was vulnerable to investors' persistent fears about the possibility of more terror attacks and the spread of anthrax, which began soon after the Sept. 11 assaults.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: OPEC Gearing Up
 

LONDON (AP) - Fears of a global recession and dwindling demand for oil will dominate the debate when delegates of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meet Wednesday in Vienna, Austria.
 Venezuelan Pre sident Hugo Cha vez told a news conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's annual meeting Saturday that the oil cartel's 11 member countries, including Venezuela, have reached a "definite'' consensus to cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day and perhaps as much as 1.5 million barrels per day.
 OPEC, which supplies about a third of the world's oil, has already cut production three times this year. Although demand has continued to weaken, concern that higher prices might intensify the global economic malaise has made OPEC reluctant to cut output again in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
 In the past few days, however, OPEC has become more assertive, with Saudi Arabia, the group's largest and most influential producer, expressing support for a cut of up to 1.5 million barrels a day - or 6 percent of their official target.
 
 
Brazil VW Strike
 

SAO BERNARDO DO CAMPO, Brazil (Reuters) - Some 16,000 workers at German automaker Volkswagen AG's biggest factory in Brazil voted to go on strike early Monday after weekend talks to reverse 3,000 job cuts ended without an agreement.
 With a unanimous show of hands, the workers voted to strike for an indefinite period at a meeting in the Anchieta factory complex in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the Brazilian car capital 20 kilometers from Sao Paulo.
 They also gave the ABC Metalworkers Union the green light to negotiate directly with VW headquarters in Germany.
 The collective dismissal of 11 percent of VW's work force in Brazil tookeffect on Monday after workers received job termination letters last week. VW management said it was the "only solution" after the ABC Union refused to accept a 15-percent cut in wages and working hours last Tuesday.
 VW is Brazil's largest automaker and the job cuts come as high interest rates and a slowing economy have undermined demand for cars.
 
 
IMF in Turkey
 

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's coalition leaders said on Monday they would announce this week how they plan to cut state spending, steps keenly awaited by markets and a visiting International Monetary Fund delegation.
 "The measures will be announced in detail to the public this week," said a statement issued by Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's office after lengthy talks with his two coalition partners.
 It said the three leaders of the often fractious coalition had reached "full agreement" on the measures but gave no details, except to say the steps would be both cuts in public spending and measures to increase the efficiency of Turkey's lumbering bureaucracy.
 Analysts say a visiting IMF delegation is looking for cuts in state spending before moving on to discussion of the fresh lending Turkey says it needs to plug a 2002 gap officials have put at $13 billion.
 Investors believe the delegation, into the second week of an inspection of Turkey's crisis-weary economy, was watching the top level meeting closely. 



TITLE: Will Pension-Reform Package Change How Russians Retire?
TEXT: <i> For each 1,000 rubles a company pays its employees, it has to pay another 356 rubles to the government in the form of social tax, 280 rubles of which goes to the State Pension Fund to dole out as retirement benefits. The fund will receive nearly $14 billion this way this year, and that figure is expected to grow dramatically over the next decade. Yet the government has never chosen a mechanism to allow it to make money on that money. But, as Kirill Koriukin reports, that is about to change — and private pension funds can’t wait.</i> PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin's government has sent the final and most crucial bill in its pension-reform package - the long-awaited legislation on investing pension funds - to the State Duma, which looks likely to approve it by the end of the year. The reform, which Putin pledged to undertake shortly after he was elected, is designed to transform Russia's pension system by creating Western-style retirement-savings accounts to receive a portion of each worker's salary, and then later pay it back in the form of a pension.
 The government has rushed to implement the plan because the current distribution system, in which the working population directly funds present pension payments, has been endangered by rapid demographic changes: The number of working-age adults is declining, and the number of elderly is increasing. At the same time, life expectancy is expected to grow, adding further to the burden on the fund.
 The investment bill has been the only part of the government's reform package that has been subject to serious debate. Other draft laws in the package cleared the Duma relatively easily in mid-July despite protests from leftists backed by demonstrators outside the Duma.
 One such bill concerned state-pension provision, which does not change legislation apart from raising the base pension to 450 rubles ($15) from 180 rubles ($6), introducing a long-service pension and reducing the length-of-employment requirement. Another bill, which was amended this month, split retirement- and disability-pension funds into three parts. 
 
 <strong>Slicing Up the Pie
</strong> Opening the door for the investment bill's approval, last month the Duma passed a major amendment to the Tax Code that gives the Pension Fund the authority to collect directly a part of the 35.6-percent unified social tax levied on payrolls, which had previously been collected by the Tax Ministry.
 The Pension Fund can now directly collect half of the roughly 79 percent of the total social tax that is earmarked for pensions, with the Tax Ministry collecting the other half. Thus, the 35.6 percent breaks down into 14 percent collected by the Pension Fund, 14 percent collected by the Tax Ministry for the Pension Fund and 7.6 percent collected by the Tax Ministry for other social services.
 The 14 percent collected directly by the Pension Fund, more than 200 billion rubles ($6.9 billion) this year, is divided between the mandatory state-pension insurance and the &quot;accumulation&quot; parts of the pension funds. Individuals will be able to invest the funds in these accounts in a few years using their own judgment. The percentage of workers' contributions put into individual accounts is calculated in inverse proportion to the worker's age. This part will reach 2 percent of the total social tax earmarked for pensions only by 2010, as older workers retire, according to investment bank Troika Dialog,
 Thus, under the government plan, an individual's pension would be divided into three parts that will be guaranteed, respectively, by the state, the Pension Fund and by the individual's investment decisions.
 The government expects the accumulation part of the pension funds to amount to 30 billion rubles ($1 billion) in 2002, 43 billion rubles in 2003 and 60 billion rubles in 2004. Troika research predicts that combined accumulation units may grow to $30 billion - probably more, assuming returns on investments - by 2010, half of which is expected to go to the private sector.
 While it is trying to push through a law that would allow investment of some pension funds to generate more money, the government is battling both the private sector, which is pushing for a more radical reform, and the left-wingers, who are stalling.
 
 <strong>Fund Monopoly
</strong> The business community, including insurers, nongovernmental pension funds and asset-management companies, is struggling for a piece of the lucrative business, saying that under the government's proposal, the Pension Fund will receive excessive control over investments.
 The fund will oversee all investments in the medium term and heavily advocates channeling funds into state securities. The government is expected to appoint a single investment manager in 2002. In 2003, individuals will have a choice between several companies selected by the government through a tender. The field might then open to include any private-sector company in 2004.
 The initial draft prepared by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry was considerably more innovative in terms of private companies' involvement in pension schemes and in diversifying investments, businesspeople have said.
 According to Troika data, the draft also provided for an investment component of up to 6 percent of the 28 percent levied on payrolls, as opposed to a maximum of 2 percent under the current draft.
 The Pension Fund, however, has stubbornly defended its monopoly on investments, sending back the draft to the ministry several times for amendment.
 The influential Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, which includes the heads of nearly every large business in the country, continues to lobby for a larger role for private companies.
 &quot;Under different forecasts, by 2010, the accumulated portion of pension contributions will reach $50 billion; therefore, it is very important to have insurance companies represented in this sector of the pension system,&quot; said Igor Yurgens, president of the All-Russian Insurance Association and vice president of the RSPP.
 Insurance companies see their place in the government pension system first of all in paying out annuities on labor and professional pensions and also in forming, together with nongovernmental pension funds, a system of nongovernmental or professional pensions, said Nikolai Nikolenko, vice president of Industrial-Insurance Co., or PSK.
 Entrepreneurs warned last month that they were going to propose an alternative bill on investment to the Duma if the government sticks to its conservative line. Yurgens, however, said later the alternative plan is likely to be shelved.
 Under the government draft, insurers will participate in Pension-Fund investment schemes in the initial stage, but only by insuring professional risks of asset-management companies and depositories selected by the Pension Fund.
 
 <strong>The Private-Fund Slice
</strong> Another interested party, nongovernmental pension funds, or NGPFs, will have to wait to invest pension money along with the rest of the market until 2004.
 However, NGPFs are the only members of the investment community that will play a distinct role in investing pension funds under the current plan, albeit farther down the road. Private funds now control a tiny fraction of the market, some $1 billion, but could easily double their strength when the professional-pension system, a part of the pension package, is introduced.
 And more money may pour into NGPFs as companies' employees decide to invest in them rather than the Pension Fund.
 The fund has endorsed the scheme and is especially keen to hand over to the NGPFs the special-benefits component on pensions - money paid on top of the regular pension, usually to compensate for dangerous or harsh working conditions. Currently, these benefits are a huge burden on the Pension Fund. Workers in 1,861 professions - about 20 percent of the country's work force - are currently entitled to such benefits, which suck up 30 billion rubles ($1 billion) a year and are paid out at the expense of regular pensioners.
 Under the proposed new system, companies will pay for each individual's benefits separately from the rest of the pension contributions and will have a choice between the Pension Fund and an NGPF.
 The government also has said it is planning tax breaks for NGPFs, which would attract more investors and further irritate insurers. Taxation of insurance fees would remain unchanged.
 
 <strong>Changes Unlikely
</strong> Despite disagreements over the investment bill, there is a fairly broad consensus that it will pass through parliament relatively unchanged.
 &quot;I don't think the draft approved by the government, whether the Duma passes it this year or not, will be axed or changed dramatically. It was discussed widely, and the opinions of all the sides, including the deputies, are incorporated into it,&quot; said Yevgeny Gontmakher, head of the government social-development department, which is in charge of preparing the reform plan.
 &quot;Of course, some amendments will be made by the Duma. Insurers would like to make some clauses of the law 'stronger,' just as the left-wingers would like to see them 'weaker,' but we think we have come to a reasonable compromise,&quot; he said. &quot;But if insurers want to have even more than they are getting now, they may end up with nothing at all. You have to be realistic.&quot;
 The &quot;right-wingers&quot; will try to speed implementation without trying to change the essence of the bill, said Gontmakher.
 &quot;They will push for earlier inclusion of nongovernmental pension funds in the system and giving individuals a broader choice for investing the pension money. This is all already in the bill. The argument is only about the time frame,&quot; said Gontmakher.
 However, Andrei Jvirblis, a spokesperson for the All-Russian Insurers' Union, said the RSPP's alternative bill will remain the entrepreneurs' &quot;hidden weapon.&quot;
 &quot;Businessmen are ready to discuss the government's bill if the same version we have already seen is submitted to parliament,&quot; he said. &quot;However, there are suspicions that it may come to the Duma sterilized, that essential innovations may be lost along the way.&quot;
 If this is the case, the entrepreneurs may draw their swords again, said Jvirblis. They don't expect the alternative bill to be adopted instead of the government version, but its introduction would provide them with more leverage as the debate moves to a conciliatory commission or another such collective body.
 One of the bones of contention is the structure of investment. Under the current government draft, up to 20 percent of the funds may be invested in foreign assets. However, Pension Fund chief Mikhail Zurabov said that, at least in the short term, the pension money will be invested only in state securities, a provision businesspeople will not accept, said Jvirblis.
 Government paper is a risky asset that, by definition, cannot constitute a large part of a pension-fund portfolio. Entrepreneurs have urged the Pension Fund instead to invest more money in corporate bonds to boost companies' capital.
 The government bill will also face opposition from left-wingers defending the current distribution system. They are likely to simply vote against the investment bill rather than propose amendments, said Gontmakher.
 However, even the opponents of the government pension-reform plan don't expect any obstacles to its passage. Duma Deputy Martin Shakkum of the Russia's Regions faction, for example, said that the bill will probably make it through the Duma as is, even though disagreement over the investment component remains.
 &quot;I am not an advocate of the accumulation system. In principle, this may be a good idea, but in present conditions, its introduction would be premature,&quot; he said.
 At the moment, pension money is being immediately reinvested in the economy because pensioners spend it on staples straight away, so the system is beneficial for the economy, said Shakkum.
 &quot;The main thing is that no one can guarantee that the money that is accumulated will retain its value over time, it's even less probable that the value of the savings will grow. Especially, given the fact that we might be on the brink of major financial turmoil&quot; with the price of oil and world markets plummeting&quot;, he said.
 The accumulation system would only work if people are able to make their own choices and invest in NGPFs, but not if the Pension Fund is put in charge of managing individuals' money, he said.
 Even so, &quot;the passage of the law is very likely because the presidential administration and the president have been convinced that this is advisable, although the arguments were not always clear and accurate,&quot; he said.
 &quot;This will be extremely profitable for those who will manage and distribute this money. There are so many rich people who are waiting for this law to be passed so they can have another party. Pension money is a gold mine - that's why so much lobbying is going on - but not for the owners of the money. There's no guarantee that they won't end up getting just a tiny portion of their money in the end,&quot; said Shakkum.
 Delegating the authority to distribute the money to the Pension Fund means putting it in the hands of an institution that is rather opaque, relative to non-state funds, which are closely watched by regulatory authorities. At the moment, the fund is only subject to annual routine checks by the Audit Chamber, the Duma's budget watchdog, but is often slow in providing the data. The government bill provides for the creation of a special government body that would supervise the Pension Fund's actions, but so far its structure has not been clarified.
 Some analysts are skeptical that the new accumulation system will take off very soon after the restrictions on investment are lifted. Troika Dialog predicts that, for the first few years, most Russians will leave their savings with the state fund, much like the 68 percent of households that still keep their savings parked at the state savings bank Sberbank, but not for lack of options.
 It probably won't be before 2005 that the private sector will be able to attract significant funds from the state sector and not until 2007 will they take a market share from the state fund, said Troika.
 There are more issues to be addressed. To make up for the funds that would be diverted to the accumulation funds, the Pension Fund is going to draw on its reserves, which Zurabov put at $3 billion.
 Speaking at a seminar on pension reform recently, Zurabov said the reserves will be used through 2003 to compensate for an estimated annual shortfall under the new system of 35 billion to 37 billion rubles ($1.17 bilion to $1.24 billion), or a 2.2 percent drop from the current level. Thus, the Pension Fund will simply be using its own reserves, some critics say.
 The fund has been building up reserves by paying out less than the estimated 37 billion rubles to 42 billion rubles ($1.24 billion to $1.41 billion) it has been collecting over the past few months.
 As of 2004, the fund expects to receive about 50 billion rubles ($1.68 billion) a year from the state to bridge the gap, said Zurabov.
 
 <i>Staff Writer Torrey Clark contributed to this report. </i>

TITLE: Readers in the U.S. Are Warming Up to Putin
TEXT: In response to &quot;Putin Gives Ground on Missile Shield, Nov. 9.
 
 Editor,
 </i>I am an American, and I saw the interview that President Putin gave to Barbara Walters. I think that Russia's president is a nice, but serious person. He is a man whom a person would like to meet and talk to. 
 Thank you, President Putin, for giving that interview so that Americans could get to know you better.
 <i>Ginger Morris 
 Panama City, Florida
 </i>
 <i>Editor,
 </i>Last night, I watched the interview of President Putin by Barbara Walters and was incredibly impressed. I am a 25-year-old American. Upon seeing the interview, I felt compelled to write a letter to your newspaper. Shortly after the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, President Putin reached out to us to offer the full support of the people of Russia. As an American, I will never forget the effort that President Putin made and is making to forge a new relationship with America.
 I believe that Americans and Russians share much more in common then ever before, and without question there is a great deal more that unites us than divides us. In that light, it is my hope that President Bush and President Putin make significant efforts to bring our two countries closer together in all areas during their upcoming summit.
 <i>Jonathan Poling
 Arlington, Virginia
 </i>
 <strong>Thanks, Russia
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;India's Vajpee Arrives in Russia for Talks, Nov. 6.
 </i>
 <i>Editor,
 </i>I am 18 years old and a great fan of Russia. I have read a lot about Russia, and it has long been my wish to visit this great country. I've read about Russia's role in World War II, and it appears to me that Russians are the nicest people in the world. 
 The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to give up all its colonies, even while countries like Britain and the United States and others continued to exploit their colonies. 
 Russia has not only helped India in defense-related fields, but also in establishing light and heavy industries. Many steel-manufacturing plants and power plants in the country have been set up with great help from the Russian government and Russian technicians. 
 The collapse of the Soviet Union has not only been a great loss to Russia and the former Soviet republics (as they are now discovering), but also to many other countries, including India. The United States and Britain have out of selfishness done great damage to the world. They were the ones who created the Taliban, with support from Pakistan. 
 The Taliban were created, armed, funded and trained in order to defeat the So viet Army. Now, unfortunately, the Ame ricans are on the receiving end. So many innocent people in the World Trade Center have had to pay the price for the barbarism of America's own creation.
 India and Russia have also not been spared and have faced the same religious terrorism for a long time now. Terrorism of this nature did not come into being on Sept. 11. It was there already. 
 I hope that our prime minister's visit to Russia not only helps our two countries to forge a deeper friendship, but also helps the world in fighting the menace of terrorism. Among my family and friends, no one trusts America or Britain, but we all have great respect and trust for Russia and its good works.
 <i> Pulkit Nigam
 Jaipur, India
 </i><strong>Transparent Alfa?
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Behemoth Holdings Represent Russian Oligopoly's New Face,&quot; an article by Valeria Korchagina, Kirill Koriukin and Alla Startseva, Nov. 6.
 </i>
 <i>Editor,
 </i>I enjoyed this article. Your writers presented a balanced and informative review of the three main financial-industrial groups in Russia. However I'd like to point out a section that appears at the end of this article that is factually incorrect as it pertains to the Alfa Group.
 I quote from your article: &quot;No one doubts the size of Alfa's operation. But like Interros and Millhouse, no one really knows exactly how much they own, either. 'It is hard to say who controls what and how,' said Alexander Asta po vich, deputy head of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. 'The lack of transparency is the same in all big holdings.'&quot;
 I will be the first to admit that we are not perfect and that the road to being a perfect corporate citizen is long and arduous. But we are more progressive and transparent than you might think. While I am unable to speak for Interros or for Millhouse, I can tell you without hesitation that Alfa Group is actually quite transparent, especially in terms of showing the world what it owns. As evidence of this, I offer the following facts:
 We have provided audited (by PricewaterhouseCoopers), consolidated accounts prepared under international accounting standards to all interested external parties for the past six years. Necessarily, this includes information about each of the group's sub-holdings.
 Recently, we launched our Alfa Group corporate Web site, which contains detailed information on each of the sub-holding companies in our group, biographies of senior persons in the group, investment philosophy and strategy of the group, current and past annual reports and even a &quot;Press Center.&quot; You can access our Web site in Russian at alfagroup.ru and in English at alfagroup.org.
 Earlier this year, we purchased stakes in two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission registrants - Golden Telecom and VimpelCom. As you are probably aware, at the time of purchase, and periodically thereafter, we are required under SEC regulations to disclose our ownership structures through SEC filings. These filings are available to the general public through the SEC's EDGAR system.
 In the past, we have met with your editors and writers, shared information with them and answered their questions. For this piece, we were disappointed that no one from your office contacted us. I would like to use this opportunity to remind you that we stand ready to cooperate with you and assist you in your efforts to provide your readers with fair and accurate information - something that you normally do.
 <i>David Gould 
 Deputy Director, Alfa Group Corporate Center
 Moscow
 </i><strong>What Growth?
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Putin Tells Cabinet to Readjust Budget,&quot; Nov. 6.
 </i>
 <i>Editor,
 </i>It is a real measure of the depths to which Russia has fallen that people are so excited about last year's alleged 5-percent growth in GDP.
 The average Russian produces only about $1,000 in value each year, so this &quot;growth&quot; amounts to the addition of only $50 per year - pennies per day. And of that puny sum, very little actually passed through to the pockets of ordinary consumers due to Russia's Byzantine tax code, untold corruption and vast oligarchic elite. Moreover, a huge part of this tiny &quot;growth&quot; amount (if it is correct) would be attributable to nothing more than the accidental rise in the price of the oil that Russia is lucky enough to export.
 However, I for one don't believe the Russian government's claims of economic growth for a minute. Since the government has abolished the free press and any semblance of opposition politics, there is simply no way that President Putin's claims can be verified. And, since there would be a clear danger of destabilizing his regime if economic downturns were acknowledged and since Putin is an unrepentant KGB spy, I see little reason to trust his word alone.
 I seriously doubt that the ordinary person on the street in Moscow has seen his or her income or prospects rise markedly over the past two years, to say nothing of the impoverished regions far from the capital.
 Finally, gauging Russia's economy over time is exceedingly tricky because of the clandestine way in which the government manipulates the ruble. If the value of that currency is artificially altered, then the &quot;growth&quot; picture becomes impenetrably hazy.
 As for me, I can't imagine how Russians can even fairly dream of, much less hope for, real economic prosperity when they have turned so readily to the failed past by allowing an autocratic, KGB-dominated regime to take power and when they are continuing to give so much support to communists.
 <i>George Dupree
 Gary, Indiana
 </i>
 <strong>Old Mistakes
 </strong><i>Editor,
 </i>Afghanistan, November 2001, is not Iraq, March l991. But the command structure of the U.S. Army is in most ways the same. In 1991, a certain lack of planning, if not bone-headed thinking, became evident after the shooting stopped. If repeated in the near future, it could jeopardize or negate the result of well-carried-out combat action.
 For example, from Feb. 28 to Mar. 24, 1991, dozens of underutilized doctors and nurses in just two of the 25 EVAC (evacuation) hospitals activated for duty in Saudi Arabia were told by the office of Medical Command (MEDCOM) in Riyadh to &quot;cool it&quot; when they volunteered to help rejuvenate hospitals in Kuwait City and to help refugees in Iraq. Representing this group, I was told bluntly to &quot;get off the phone. If we send military assistance to the civilian population, then the UN, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and other civilian agencies will stop trying to help them, and we will be stuck with them.&quot;
 Abruptly, after March 24, three MASH (mobile army surgical hospital) units were sent north in response to a CNN report on the problems of civilian refugees. There were tens of thousands of people fleeing both the war and Saddam Hussein's subsequent onslaught. Many had listened to American encouragement and revolted against Saddam. 
 The 912th MASH from Kingsport, Tennessee, to which I was attached, did a magnificent job in support of 18,000 refugees in Safwan, Iraq, providing care to starving children, pregnant women and adults with diabetes and heart failure. The 432nd Civil Affairs (CA) company from Green Bay, Wisconsin, did heroic work in helping to save 650,000 Kurds from starving in the mountains of eastern Turkey. One unsung hero was a CA lieutenant colonel/pediatrician from Arkansas, who in an unmilitary fashion reopened the civilian clinic in Safwan. He was called derisively a &quot;loose cannon&quot; by high-ranking personnel at MEDCOM.
 At that time the commander of MEDCOM was referred to out in the field hospitals as &quot;Colonel Screwloose.&quot; However, he had done one hell of a job in supervising the mobilization and equipping of over 25 civilian reserve EVAC hospitals with the capacity to handle tens of thousands of casualties. That this capacity was not needed because of the brevity of the war was not his fault, nor was the rush to decommission and disband these &quot;superfluous&quot; reserve and national guard units in the two years following Desert Storm. The civilian doctors and nurses in these hospitals were accustomed to providing a different level of patient care - like it or not - than is expected from military hospital and dispensary personnel. The commander's nickname reflected the frustrations of underutilized professionals and their readiness to attribute all personal inconvenience to some failure by MEDCOM.
 But MEDCOM and its higher headquarters were not forthcoming in a timely fashion with their resources to help the Kuwaitis or the overrun southern Iraqis, who reminded one more of &quot;Oakies&quot; than Saudis, incidentally. Only the isolated CA officer and CNN were there to prod headquarters about the plight of the civilians and the Geneva Convention.
 In a few weeks we may see tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of malnourished, ill-fed Afghans try to walk hundreds of miles of mountain roads from refugee camps in northern Afghanistan to their homes in the south. Serious hunger and mass starvation among old people and children are not improbable. There are more refugees still in the Pakistani and Iranian border areas.
 Hopefully, CNN and EuroNews will have a MASH or two (or 10) to show the world in addition to hurt children, unlike the situation today and in Iraq in 1991. Or is the U.S. Army to be led to the Geneva Convention by CNN again?
 <i>Albert Bryan, MD 
 Moscow
 </i>
 <strong>We Don't Need Proof
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Still Waiting To Be Convinced,&quot; a column by Boris Kagarlitsky, Nov. 2.
 </i>
 <i>Editor, 
 </i>I felt that Kagarlitsky was grossly unfair in his depiction of the United States' response to the terrorist attack on Sept. 11. He first complains about the &quot;growing number of victims&quot; in Afghanistan. I know that a few innocent have been killed, and it is indeed sad. However, such is the case in any war. 
 The biggest argument Kagarlitsky makes is that the United States and Britain do not have enough evidence even for a &quot;British or U.S. court.&quot; First of all, (as with any war) there is no need for a judge and jury, and just because there is not enough public information available certainly does not mean that the government does not have much more evidence. Second, it is quite possible that evidence is being withheld from the public because there is a &quot;full scale and thorough investigation&quot; currently taking place.
 Kagarlitsky then quotes so-called &quot;experts&quot; saying that there were doubts as to whether &quot;terrorists with minimal flying skills could have steered the planes to their targets.&quot; To this I ask Kagarlitsky: Do you think it is a mere coincidence that several men traced back to the attacks had been enrolled in flight school in Florida? 
 Also, his so-called Afghanistan specialist, who doesn't believe that bin Laden could have &quot;executed such a large-scale act of terrorism,&quot; should recall the U.S. embassies that were bombed a few years ago. Both were bombed in different places in a very short amount of time. Sounds to me that this is the method bin Laden prefers.
 Kagarlitsky's analogy of a doctor undertaking a surgical operation before having a diagnosis, therefore acting amorally, is inherently flawed. A better analogy of this situation would be to understand that although the doctor hasn't completely finished his diagnosis, he is in fact acting morally by amputating an infected limb that will start to infect other areas as well.
 However, the most laughable argument Kagarlitsky presented was that the terrorist attacks will stop, not because the war in Afghanistan has deterred them, but because the terrorist group &quot;achieved&quot; its goal by demolishing two towers. If Kagarlitsky really understood anything about terrorists, he would realize that their goal is not to demolish a couple of buildings. It is to destroy the United States, and this is precisely what the newly declared war on terrorism will stop.
 <i>Kamie Bowcut 
 Moscow
 </i>
 <strong>Double Standards
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;It's Too Early To Forgive Vlasov,&quot; Nov. 6.
 
 Editor,
 </i>These days the Russian authorities like to condemn double standards in politics and history. The Vlasov case is a good example.
 General Vlasov was a tragic hero if one considers the difficulty of his position. During World War I, Lenin received money from Germany to finance his terrorist activities and was allowed to cross Germany with his companions to re-enter Russia. 
 If Vlasov is considered a traitor, then Lenin should also be condemned for the same reasons.
 <i>A. Popovsky
 St. Petersburg </i>

TITLE: The United States Faces the New World Order
AUTHOR: By Alan Dershowitz
TEXT: THE FBI's frustration over its inability to get material witnesses to talk has raised a disturbing question rarely debated in this country: When, if ever, is it justified to resort to unconventional techniques such as truth serum, moderate physical pressure and outright torture?
 The constitutional answer to this question may surprise people who are not familiar with the current U.S. Supreme Court interpretation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination: Any interrogation technique, including the use of truth serum or even torture, is not prohibited. All that is prohibited is the introduction into evidence of the fruits of such techniques in a criminal trial against the person on whom the techniques were used. But the evidence could be used against that suspect in a non-criminal case - such as a deportation hearing - or against someone else.
 If a suspect is given &quot;use immunity&quot; - a judicial decree announcing in advance that nothing the defendant says (or its fruits) can be used against him in a criminal case - he can be compelled to answer all proper questions. The issue then becomes what sorts of pressures can constitutionally be used to implement that compulsion.
 We know that he can be imprisoned until he talks. But what if imprisonment is insufficient to compel him to do what he has a legal obligation to do? Can other techniques of compulsion be attempted?
 Let's start with truth serum. What right would be violated if an immunized suspect who refused to comply with his legal obligation to answer questions truthfully were compelled to submit to an injection that made him do so?
 Not his privilege against self-incrimination, since he has no such privilege now that he has been given immunity.
 What about his right of bodily integrity? The involuntariness of the injection itself does not pose a constitutional barrier. No less a civil libertarian than Justice William Brennan rendered a decision that permitted an allegedly drunk driver to be involuntarily injected to remove blood for alcohol testing. Certainly there can be no constitutional distinction between an injection that removes a liquid and one that injects a liquid.
 What about the nature of the substance injected? If it is relatively benign and creates no significant health risk, the only issue would be that it compels the recipient to do something he doesn't want to do. But he has a legal obligation to do precisely what the serum compels him to do: answer all questions truthfully.
 What if the truth serum doesn't work? Could the judge issue a &quot;torture warrant,&quot; authorizing the FBI to employ specified forms of nonlethal physical pressure to compel the immunized suspect to talk?
 Here we run into another provision of the Constitution - the due-process clause, which may include a general &quot;shock the conscience&quot; test. And torture in general certainly shocks the conscience of most civilized countries.
 But what if it were limited to the rare &quot;ticking bomb&quot; case - the situation in which a captured terrorist who knows of an imminent large-scale threat refuses to disclose it?
 Would torturing one guilty terrorist to prevent the deaths of 1,000 innocent civilians shock the conscience of all decent people?
 We know from experience that law enforcement personnel who are given limited authority to torture will expand its use. I have no doubt that, if an actual ticking-bomb situation were to arise, our law enforcement authorities would torture. The real debate is whether such torture should take place outside of our legal system or within it. The answer to this seems clear: If we are to have torture, it should be authorized by the law. Judges should have to issue a &quot;torture warrant&quot; in each case. 
 Democracy requires accountability and transparency, especially when extraordinary steps are taken. Most important, it requires compliance with the rule of law. And such compliance is impossible when an extraordinary technique, such as torture, operates outside of the law.
 
 <i>Alan Dershowitz is a Harvard law professor. He contributed this comment to the Los Angeles Times.</i>
 ***************************** By Michael Kinsley
 CONSERVATIVE press critics are in another tizzy about objectivity and balance in American journalism. Only this time their complaint isn't the lack of these fine qualities. Their complaint is that there's way too much of the darned stuff. When complaining about it, they don't call it objectivity or balance: They call it neutrality. But it amounts to the same thing. It means an effort to report the facts without developing - or at least without revealing - an opinion about them.
 On most days of the week and about most subjects, the critics believe that this task is easy to do, highly desirable and deplorably bungled by the mainstream press. On the subject of Osama bin Laden (and the current festivities in general), however, the critics are against neutrality and in favor of bias, which on this occasion they call patriotism. They jump on any suggestion that a journalistic outlet or individual journalist might be reluctant to express or act on an opinion: The opinion is that bin Laden is evil and that at least the broad outlines of the U.S. campaign against him are wise beyond dispute.
 Virtually everyone in mainstream journalism does in fact share this opinion, which adds a further irony to the press critics' new gripe. Journalists are accused of upholding the very standard - neutrality, balance, objectivity, lack of bias, whatever - that they usually are accused of betraying. It's a bum rap, of course. 
 No one who watches, reads or listens could have any doubt that the American media are flagrantly biased. They are pro-America and anti-bin Laden. On a few occasions when media outlets have allowed neutral, objective standards of newsworthiness to trump overt support for the cause - for example, on the issue of broadcasting bin Laden's propaganda tapes - the journalists have backed down quickly when criticized.
 ABC News President David Westin will be licking his wounds and Rush Limbaugh's boots for months after saying that objectivity requires him to have no opinion about whether the Pentagon was a legitimate target.
 At CNN, meanwhile, they're officially encouraged to remind viewers of how many people died Sept. 11 whenever they report on civilian casualties caused by U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. This is not objectivity or balance. It is pure pro-American bias. No one watching CNN needs to be informed of what happened Sept. 11. 
 But there's nothing wrong with the media being biased in favor of the United States, against Osama bin Laden; in favor of freedom, against terrorism; in favor of the Pentagon (as a building, not as a set of policies) and against crashing a plane full of people into it.
 During Vietnam, media skepticism served the country better than unquestioning support would have. But the current situation is an easier case. The basic justice of America's cause is beyond serious dispute. That it's wrong to hijack a plane and crash it into the Pentagon is closer to being a fact than an opinion. 
 Most of us would agree that &quot;terrorism is bad&quot; and &quot;the United States is good&quot; are permissible, indeed admirable biases. It would be nice if the conservative press critics would agree that even justifiable biases don't justify abandoning all skepticism. It would be even nicer if they would agree that their own position is complex and that those who think differently may not be morons or traitors.
 
 <i>Michael Kinsley, editor of Slate (www.slate.com), writes a weekly column for The Washington Post, to which he contributed this comment. </i>

TITLE: Compromising With Our History
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: WHAT'S in a name? I found myself asking myself this question last week as I was enjoying a day off from work because of the Day of Accord and Reconciliation. (Or, by another name, the Anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Take your pick.)
 Thinking about this got me to wondering whether it might not really be possible that the communists could return to power here.
 According to a recent national survey, 39 percent of respondents think that this holiday is a major holiday celebrating the revolution. That is 17 percent more than answered that way in 1993. In the latest survey, just 14 percent think that Nov. 7 is a tragic date in Russian history. Most, of course, are just glad to take the day off and don't think about why. 
 But the growth in the &quot;celebrating the revolution&quot; crowd has me worried.
 In 1995, when the Communists took the most seats in the State Duma, garnering 22 percent of the vote, politicians to the right assured us that there was nothing to worry about.
 &quot;Those voting for the Communists are mainly older people, so they will die out soon and everything will be fine,&quot; one such politician crassly said at the time.
 Four years later, in 1999, the Communists received slightly more than 24 percent of the vote. Admittedly, it is a small increase, but if what we've been told is true, the figures should be moving in the other direction. Obviously, someone has more than replaced all those old communist sympathizers who, unfortunately, died since 1995.
 Maybe their ranks have been filled by people who have since reached the age of 60 and are now learning about the joys of getting by on a 600-ruble ($20) pension. Or maybe we are talking about people who have lost faith in the new system because of all the scandals and corruption. I don't know.
 But whenever I watch the red banners wave down Nevsky, I think about Finland, just 200 kilometers away. Before 1917, it was a province - and not the most developed! - of the Russian empire. After 1917, the Bolsheviks gave Finland its independence.
 It lost a chunk of its territory after the Winter War with the Soviet Union in 1939-40, but other than that it did not allow the people with red stars on their hats to mess up their country, which is now prosperous, clean and well-developed.
 Whenever I take a bus across the border, I think about how the two different systems worked. I wish those demonstrators would ride up to the border and have a look through the fence.
 Last week brought another good example of the name game. City Hall announced that it wants to restore the historical name of Ploshchad Truda (Labor Square) and re-christen it Blagoveshchenskaya Square (Annunciation Square).
 The announcement brought a quick response from the St. Petersburg Federation of Trade Unions. &quot;Renaming Ploshchad Truda would demean the significance of labor in the minds of the people,&quot; wrote federation head Garri Lysyuk in an open letter to Governor Vladimir Yakovlev.
 Lysyuk said that he was sorry about what happened to the Blagoveshchenskaya Church, which formerly stood on the square and which was closed in 1928 before being razed to the ground by the workers and peasants.
 I imagine that Yakovlev will give in to the federation's plea, taking a lesson from President Vladimir Putin who avoids &quot;splitting the community&quot; over issues like the Soviet national anthem and burying Vladimir Lenin.
 Perhaps leaving the name Ploshchad Truda will help people remember what their labor under the Communists achieved in the past. But I doubt it. I'm afraid that these compromises may explain why the crowd marching under the red banners seems to be growing from year to year.

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
AUTHOR: By Chris Floyd
TEXT: <strong>Weather Report
</strong> It won't come with jackboots and book-burnings, with mass rallies and fevered harangues. It won't come with &quot;black helicopters&quot; or tanks on the street. It won't come like a storm, but like a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality has taken its place.
 As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns - plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the &quot;consent of the governed&quot; will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.
 To be sure, there will be factional conflicts among this elite, and a degree of free debate will be permitted, within limits; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to govern or influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized - usually by &quot;the people&quot; themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by an impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, not thoughtful citizens, and left ignorant of current events by a media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control.
 The rulers will often act in secret. For reasons of &quot;national security,&quot; the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, the murder of &quot;enemies&quot; selected by the leader, undeclared war, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new &quot;security structures&quot; targeted at the populace. In time, all this will come to seem &quot;normal,&quot; as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone.
 <strong>It Will All Seem Normal</strong>
 President George W. Bush signed an executive order about ten days ago overturning a law requiring the release of presidential papers 12 years after the end of an administration, The Associated Press reports. Bush officials say the president has &quot;reinterpreted&quot; the law - ordinarily the job of the Supreme Court under the old Republic - to mean that no papers can be released unless both the current president and the former president in question agree to it.
 Historians, journalists or ordinary citizens seeking information about the actions of past administrations will have to file suit to show a &quot;demonstrated, specific&quot; need for access to the blocked material. The mere assertion of a &quot;right to know&quot; about governmental affairs will not be sufficient. Such a right no longer exists.
 A Bush spokesperson acknowledged that anyone requesting to see such documents would be tied up in expensive court battles for years. However, the use of executive fiat to abrogate the function of the Supreme Court and overturn a law passed by the people's representatives was necessary in order to protect &quot;national security,&quot; the spokesperson said.
 Of course, a sitting president already has the authority to withhold any past documents that might endanger national security. But Bush's new edict will allow the quashing of presidential papers that might be politically embarrassing or reveal criminal behavior by past administrations.
 
 <strong>Seem Normal</strong>
 Former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr predicts that the curtailment of civil liberties, including admitting the use of torture, will be approved by &quot;at least five Supreme Court Justices,&quot; the Washington Post reports. (No points for guessing which five.) The Quiescent Quintet will gladly give &quot;heightened deference to the judgments of the political branches with respect to matters of national security,&quot; says Starr.
 Indeed, the Bush administration is now openly considering the use of torture to compel testimony from suspected terrorists - or anyone designated as a suspected terrorist, Slate.com reports. True, a few girlie-men are still fretting about &quot;constitutional rights,&quot; but the clever dicks in the Oval Office have that one sussed: recalcitrant prisoners can always be exported to friendly regimes, like Egypt or Kenya, where they don't bother with such prissy concerns. Information &quot;extracted&quot; there can then be used in U.S. trials.
 Wouldn't evidence acquired by such heinous and unconstitutional methods be thrown out by the courts? Ordinarily, yes - under the old Republic. But in America's new weather, the judiciary will no doubt &quot;give heightened deference to the judgments of the political branches,&quot; etc. And if all else fails, a handy executive order can always &quot;reinterpret&quot; the Constitution to accommodate the needs of &quot;national security.&quot;
 
 <strong>Normal</strong>
 Armed with the sweeping new powers of the &quot;USA Patriot Act&quot; passed late last month, the Bush administration is acting to &quot;shift the primary mission of the FBI from solving crimes to gathering domestic intelligence,&quot; the Washington Post reports.
 In other words, the feds will move from protecting the people to spying on them. The CIA has also been given authority to take part in domestic surveillance and investigation for the first time. These domestic &quot;black ops&quot; will be overseen by a secret court appointed by the Chief Justice - William &quot;Top Quint&quot; Rehnquist.
 
 <strong>Like the Chill of Autumn</strong>
 Last week, President Bush demanded that Congress pass his &quot;economic stimulus&quot; bill by the end of the month, the New York Times reports. The bill would give $25 billion in federal money directly to the nation's wealthiest corporations, including IBM, Genereal Mototrs and General Electric, refunding taxes they paid over the last 15 years. In all, the bill will give $112 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals and corporations over the next two years.
 It won't come like a storm. It will all seem normal. Like a break in the weather, a shift in the wind.

TITLE: The Last Word in Hospitality
AUTHOR: By Terry Battles
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In the early 1990s, the stereotype developed among foreigners living here that Russians never smile. And so, many Russian regulars of the Mezzanine Cafe at the Grand Hotel Europe were quite surprised by the new, slightly extravagant looking English man walking around and greeting guests in a boisterously friendly manner. 
 Restaurant manager Tony Gear's enthusiastic &quot;Good morning, madam&quot; and &quot;How are you, sir?&quot; were met with a great deal of bemusement. Out of the many successes that Gear has had since coming to Russia, he is particularly proud of his efforts to get people to smile as they responded to his lively, charming personality.
 For the past five years, Gear has been restaurant-development manager with the Russian catering and banqueting company, Concord, and general manager of the acclaimed haute-cuisine Old Customs House restaurant. 
 Gear takes pains to point out that Concord is a Russian company. &quot;I'm very proud of the fact that Russian people are investing in their own city,&quot; he says.
 A hotel man originally, Gear relished the challenges when he joined Concord of setting up something completely new. By now, Gear is the well-known face of Concord, and their working relationship has proven to be one of the rare successful ventures between Russian investors and foreign expertise.
 Born and raised in London, Gear has worked in some of the best restaurants in Europe. In his 13 years at London's Savoy, he worked his way up from station headwaiter in the Grill Room and River Restaurant to assistant to the restaurant manager. Next he managed the Michelin-starred Oak Room at Le Meridian Piccadilly. He has also worked in the three-Michelin-star establishment La Cote St. Jacques in Joigny, Burgundy. 
 Gear's success as a restaurant manager can largely be attributed to his ability to make people feel comfortable and to the welcome he extends to all of his guests at the Old Customs House. &quot;I'm one of those fortunate enough that I enjoy people. I still get a great sense of satisfaction when someone pats me on the back and says 'Tony, thank you very much, that was wonderful, I enjoyed it.'&quot; 
 Particularly passionate about wines, Gear has been a member of the Guild of Sommeliers for many years and could spend hours discussing various food-and-wine combinations. He actually refers to the process as &quot;marrying.&quot; His personal wine collection ranges from basic bottles to such collector's items as a 1990 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Francis Bacon commemorative bottle. 
 The Old Customs House was the first venture for Concord and Gear. Although he is not a part of the ownership, Gear stresses, &quot;I'm very fortunate because they have given me carte blanche and said, 'Well, this is Tony's baby.'&quot; 
 The trust that Gear receives from his director's is mirrored by Gear's close working relationship with his own staff. &quot;I enjoy my training sessions. I prefer staff that doesn't know anything about this business, so they don't come to me with preconceived ideas,&quot; he said.
 Regulars at the Old Customs House look forward to the end of a busy night when Gear may join them for a moment and share stories of his experiences with celebrities and the English aristocracy. 
 However, Gear it is not all about a glorious past, but also the exciting present. He and the Old Customs House have welcomed VIPs such as President Vla dimir Putin, French President Ja cques Chirac, filmmaker Nikita Mikhal kov, conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch, and pop stars such as The Pet Shop Boys and Susi Quatro. 
 An open kitchen, comfortable armchairs and mellow jazz complete the already warm and cozy atmosphere at Gear's restaurant. Salmon, smoked on the premises, and homemade ice cream that is certainly the best in town, demonstrate Gear's astonishing attention to detail, which transforms an evening out into a genuine dining experience.
 Gear pays particular attention to his fellow expats. Two years ago, he set up the Foreigner's Club, which offers a brilliant monthly cocktail party where local expats working in consulates and for foreign companies have a perfect opportunity to socialize. These occasions also give Gear's chef the chance to try out new dishes in a challenging setting. &quot;Foreigners are very critical when it comes to food,&quot; Gear smiles. 
 Seven years after arriving in Russia, Gear is as much a part of St. Petersburg as the Hermitage or Nevsky Prospect. Declaring the city his kind of place, Gear is planning to buy an apartment here next year. &quot;As I say, they can't get rid of me even if they wanted.&quot;
 Certainly Gear's many clients and friends in the city can attest that they would never want to.

TITLE: A Plaque That Glorifies A Legacy of Terrorism
AUTHOR: By Robert Coalson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Terrorism, of course, has been much in the news in recent months, as has the eternally thorny question of trying to separate your terrorists from your freedom fighters. Take Afg ha ni stan's Taliban, for instance, who are now universally reviled but who just a few years ago were staunch resisters of Soviet aggression.
 Terrorism has a long pedigree in Russia and in St. Petersburg. One of our most beautiful churches is the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was killed by a terrorist bomb. 
 Therefore, it may be surprising to learn about the plaque pictured below, which marks the building where the People's Will terrorist group produced many of its bombs. 
 People's Will was the largest and most active revolutionary group in tsarist Russia and was formed in St. Petersburg in 1879. It was dedicated to the destruction of the autocratic regime by any means necessary. It also claimed to be fighting for democratic freedoms and land reform.
 According to the founding charter, People's Will advocated terror in order to demonstrate &quot;the possibility of struggling against the government, in this manner lifting the revolutionary spirit of the people ... and organizing those capable of fighting.&quot;
 As Leon Trotsky later wrote about the group and its tactics, &quot;this kind of terror, adjusting itself to absolutism's bureaucratic hierarchy and creating its own revolutionary bureaucracy, is the product of the unique creative powers of the Russian intelligentsia.&quot;
 Until recently, Bolshaya Konyu shen naya Ulitsa was named for Andrei Zhelyabov and Malaya Konyu shennaya was named for Sophia Perovskaya, both active leaders of the movement. It eventually grew to have about 500 members.
 Among other things, the group attempted to murder Alexander II eight times, before finally succeeding on March 1, 1881. 
 During Soviet times, of course, the People's Will was hailed as a patriotic organization and plaques such as this one at 24 11th Liniya on Va si li evsky Island celebrating the making and detonating of bombs were erected. On the other hand, the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood was converted into a warehouse and allowed to fall into disrepair.

TITLE: Opposition Makes Major Gains in North
AUTHOR: By Kathy Gannon
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan - Anti-Taliban fighters seized the most important city in western Afghanistan on Monday and were closing in on the last Taliban stronghold in the north, opposition representatives said. Taliban fighters were fleeing positions along the front north of the capital. In Kabul, residents could hear the steady roar of jets heading toward the front north of the capital Monday afternoon. Ambulances could be seen racing from the center of the city toward the front lines.
 Opposition spokesperson Mohammed Abil, speaking by satellite telephone, said anti-Taliban fighters entered the western city of Herat on Monday morning. An Iranian radio correspondent, broadcasting from Herat, said Taliban troops were fleeing the city and others appeared to be surrendering.
 An official in the Taliban's Information Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said &quot;possibly Herat has collapsed.&quot; Herat sits along the main road to Kandahar - more than 450 kilomters to the southeast - which is the birthplace of the Taliban and home of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
 Abil also reported that alliance forces captured northern Baghlan province and were preparing to move against the last Taliban bastion in the north - Kunduz. Both areas are populated mostly by ethnic Pashtuns - the same ethnic group as the Taliban - while the rest of the north is largely Tajik, Uzbek and Shiite Muslim.
 Truckloads of opposition fighters shouting &quot;God is great&quot; could be seen heading down the road to shore up the newly won opposition positions against any counterattack. Asked where the trucks were going, one opposition soldier shouted &quot;to Kabul, to Kabul.&quot;
 Jubilant opposition fighters near Jabal Saraj, about 45 kilometers north of Kabul, said Taliban soldiers in several strongholds on the western side of the Shomali plain were surrendering.
 Opposition soldiers in rear-echelon posts north of Kabul, listening to radio communications among their colleagues farther forward, could hear them shouting &quot;shoot them, shoot them&quot; and issuing orders to capture four Taliban tanks. Abil said opposition forces at some points along the Kabul front advanced 15 kilometers in less than an hour, stopping only after meeting heavy resistance.
 The speed of the Taliban collapse, which began Friday with the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif, suggests that many local commanders and Taliban fighters are switching sides rather than offering resistance. In Mazar-e-Sharif, men could be seen lining up at barber shops to have their Taliban-mandated beards shaved off, women were discarding the all-encompassing burqas and music-banned by the Taliban could be heard coming from cassette players in shops, according to the Afghan Islamic Press.
 Abil said the Northern Alliance has sent radio messages to Taliban commanders and village elders urging them to hand over Pakistani, Arab and Che chen volunteers fighting with the Islamic militia.
 &quot;We want to take these foreigners alive to show who is fighting against us,&quot; he said. He claimed the greatest resistance was coming from the foreign fighters.
 Within three days, the opposition has expanded its control from about 10 percent of the country to nearly half. It remained unclear whether the opposition could maintain that momentum as they approach Taliban strongholds in the southern Pashtun heartland.
 In Islamabad, the Taliban's ambassador in Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, acknowledged that the Islamic militia had withdrawn from seven northern provinces.
 &quot;The Islamic army of the Taliban withdrew from these provinces in an organized way to avoid civilian casualties,&quot; he said in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. 
 The sudden shift of battlefield fortunes began Friday with the fall of the Taliban-controlled city of Mazar-e-Sharif, near the border with Uzbekistan.
 U.S. President George W. Bush has urged the opposition not to take Kabul before a new, broad-based government could be formed, and some senior opposition figures have said they would stop short of entering the capital.
 Abil said the opposition had no plans to enter Kabul. Other commanders, however, are eager to advance and regain the city they lost to the Taliban in 1996. 
 &quot;We will have to enter Kabul,&quot; said an alliance commander, sitting on an armored personnel carrier five kilometers from the front. &quot;The Taliban will take people inside the city as hostages. It will be our job to defend the people.&quot;
 Washington wants the opposition to hold off on assaulting Kabul to avoid a repeat of factional fighting that destroyed the capital and killed an estimated 50,000 people from 1992 to 1996.

TITLE: UN Session Discusses Post-Taliban Regime
AUTHOR: By Edith Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - Foreign ministers from eight key countries who have gathered at the United Nations are turning their attention to determining who should rule Afghanistan if the Taliban are toppled.
 With opposition forces driving the Taliban from northern strongholds, the ministers from Afghanistan's six neighbors as well as the United States and Russia met Monday with the top UN envoy to Afghanistan on the sidelines of a General Assembly meeting.
 They are under pressure to bring the country's ethnic groups together - and hopefully get them to agree on a transitional government. Talk of the war on terrorism and the shape of a future Afghan government has dominated the UN session.
 &quot;There must be no more 'great games' with Afghan people the pawns: no more regional rivalries, with Afghan people the victims,&quot; British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the assembly on Sunday.
 The UN secretary general's envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, was expected to brief U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the seven other ministers Monday morning. The six Afghan neighbors are Iran, China, Pakistan, Taji ki stan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
 Brahimi was to submit a paper with ideas on the country's future to the UN Security Council.
 France and Britain are drafting a new security-council resolution to hasten the process of setting up a government to replace the harsh Taliban regime. It is expected to be adopted later this week.
 French President Jacques Chirac said it would be &quot;very close&quot; to a French proposal calling for a UN-backed transitional administration with the involvement of the former king of Afghanistan.
 The 87-year-old former monarch, Mohammad Zaher Shah, who has lived in exile for 28 years, is viewed as the most likely rallying figure for a new government. Brahimi stopped in Rome to see him on his way back to New York.
 Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, has also submitted &quot;a concept paper presenting a plan of action aimed at bolstering stability in the country,&quot; a UN statement said. Details were not disclosed.
 Sunday's General Assembly session was dominated by a speech by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who accused Israel of &quot;state-sponsored terrorism&quot; during more than a year of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
 Arafat was greeted warmly, and many delegates - although not the Israelis - broke out in applause even before he began his speech. Even U.S. President George W. Bush was not met with the same enthusiasm when he addressed the 189-country assembly.
 Despite being unable to secure a meeting with Bush during his visit to the United States, Arafat praised the president for his recognition Saturday of a future Palestinian state next to Israel.
 &quot;We will exert every possible effort to achieve these objectives and will continue to exert our efforts to provide the best conditions for this endeavor,&quot; Arafat said, calling for the resumption of peace negotiations as soon as possible.

TITLE: Bin Laden Claims To Have Nuclear and Chemical Weapons
AUTHOR: By Christopher Torchia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Terror suspect Osama bin Laden claims he has nuclear and chemical weapons and will unleash them if the United States uses similar weapons against him, according to an interview published Saturday in one of Pakistan's largest newspapers.
 &quot;I wish to declare that if America used chemical and nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as a deterrent,&quot; the Dawn newspaper quoted bin Laden as saying in an interview near the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday night.
 The United States, which is bombing positions of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, says it has no evidence that bin Laden possesses nuclear weapons. Intelligence experts, however, believe his fighters have experimented with crude chemical weapons at a training camp in Afghanistan.
 &quot;They're seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons,&quot; U.S. President George W. Bush said in Washington on Friday. &quot;Given the means, our enemies would be a threat to every nation and, eventually, to civilization itself.&quot;
 U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the United States had &quot;no credible evidence at this point of a specific threat of that kind.&quot;
 In London, a spokesperson for the Bri tish Foreign Office said &quot;we know that he was looking for that capability&quot; but added &quot;we believe he does not have it.&quot; The spokes person made his comments on condition of anonymity.
 &quot;Of course, we take these reports very seriously,&quot; the British spokes person added.
 Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist sympathetic to the Taliban, and bin Laden's biographer, conducted the Dawn interview. He said he asked bin La den where he allegedly got the weapons. &quot;Go to the next question,&quot; bin Laden replied.
 Mir said the interview was conducted at an &quot;undisclosed location&quot; near Kabul.
 Mir said he was blindfolded and driven in a jeep from Kabul on Wed nes day night to a very cold place where he could hear the sound of anti-aircraft fire.
 Bin Laden eventually arrived, accompanied by a dozen bodyguards and his deputy Ayman el-Zawahri.
 The Dawn published a photograph of Mir sitting indoors with bin Laden on cushions on the floor against a brown backdrop. Bin Laden wore a white turban and scarf with a camouflage jacket. A Kalashnikov rifle lay at his side.
 The story was also published Saturday in Ausaf, a Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper that Mir edits. The Urdu version did not include the claim about having nuclear weapons but the newspaper said another portion of the interview would be published Sunday.
 In the interview, Bin Laden did not admit responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
 But he said they were justified because Washington had been arming Israel, and was conducting &quot;atrocities&quot; against Muslims in Iraq, the disputed region of Kashmir and elsewhere.
 &quot;The Sept. 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children,&quot; bin La den said. &quot;The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power.&quot;
 Bin Laden denied reports that he was suffering from a kidney illness and praised Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader.
 &quot;He is not under any personal relationship or obligation to me,&quot; he said. &quot;He is only discharging his religious duty. I, too, have not chosen this life out of any personal consideration.&quot;

TITLE: Last-Minute Deal Saves Kyoto Accord
AUTHOR: By Arthur Max
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MARRAKECH, Morocco - From insulation hidden behind walls at home to highly visible power plants outdoors, the first international treaty to fight global warming is poised to change landscapes, and lives, around the world - except in the United States.
 In the final moments of a two-week conference in Morocco, negotiators from 165 countries agreed on hard-fought rules for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls on about 40 industrialized countries to limit carbon emissions or cut them to below 1990 levels.
 As a result, mountain ridges and coastlines are likely to sprout plantations of steel windmills. With countries under pressure to cut pollution, new cars, household appliances, even the simple light bulb will have to be designed to save energy.
 And carbon dioxide - a substance we exhale with every breath - will be a controlled gas and a marketable commodity with a price.
 Scientists believe the carbon that humans let loose in the atmosphere, mostly from factories and vehicles, has upset the natural balance, sending temperatures up and changing the climate. 
 The agreement on the Marrakech rules - scores of pages of complex legal text - cleared the way for the landmark treaty to be ratified, probably some time next year, and become binding law for its signatories.
 The United States, however, has rejected the accord, calling it harmful to the U.S. economy and unfair because it excused heavily polluting developing countries like India and China from any obligation. In Washington, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush took note of the rules agreed upon in Morocco.
 &quot;He agrees with the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. His cabinet review is under way, to determine a way that can be done without forcing America into a deep recession,&quot; Fleischer said.
 The Kyoto Protocol sets tough targets for slashing carbon emissions. Japan, for example, agreed to cut them by 6 percent from the 1990 level. But its emissions have grown by 17 percent since 1990, making that task far more formidable.
 To ease the burden, the protocol establishes mechanisms to let countries partly offset their targets. They can earn credits for proper management of forests and farmlands that absorb carbon dioxide and for helping developing countries avoid emissions. The accord also allows for emissions trading, letting countries that cannot meet their targets buy the right to pollute from those that come in under their quota.
 The rules could lead to more public transportation and changes in city planning to scale back the use of cars. At the same time, hybrid autos using fuel cells are already on the roads, and car companies are researching engines that use less fuel and emit less carbon.
 Many countries will set up domestic carbon-trading markets where companies can buy and sell carbon credits. A similar U.S. market for sulfur dioxide was credited with helping reduce acid rain in the 1990s.
 Environmentalists say mechanisms like emissions trading are loopholes that have diluted the goal of Kyoto: to clean up polluting industries and reduce actual emissions. But they welcomed the Marrakech agreement.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Floods Kill 575
 

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The death toll from Algeria's worst flash floods in at least 20 years rose to 575 Monday, of which 538 were in the capital Algiers, state media reported.
 Interior Ministry figures, provided by Algerian state radio and the official APS news agency, said at least 316 people were injured in the floods.
 Most of the victims Saturday were in Algiers' working-class district of Bab el Oued, where residents were swept away by raging muddy waters cascading down a main road, buried under the rubble or their homes or trapped in their cars.
 
 
Rubble Removal
 

NEW YORK (AP) - After two months of digging, the landscape of America's worst terrorist attack has changed. 
 More than a third of the 1.2 million tons of World Trade Center rubble has been removed from the site known as ground zero. Streets covered with ash and debris after the Sept. 11 attack have been cleaned and are filled with people, many back at their homes and offices and others coming to see the destruction with their own eyes.
 The area, considered a crime scene, is still heavily guarded. The police and National Guard presence has decreased in recent weeks, but several checkpoints remain.
 The cleared rubble has been hauled to a landfill on Staten Island, leaving the trade center site - once a mountain of debris - nearly flat. Pieces of the remaining facade of the south tower have been gently removed and saved for a planned memorial.
 
 
Israelis Kill Militant
 

NABLUS, Palestinian Authority (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant in a raid on a West Bank village on Monday that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said would hamper international efforts to ease tensions.
 The latest Israeli incursion into Palestinian-ruled territory followed an attack inside Israel Sunday night in which a Palestinian gunman shot dead a security guard near the border with the West Bank.
 Dozens of Israeli troops backed by armor moved into the Palestinian village of Tell, west of Nablus, before dawn, targeting what the army called a "wide infrastructure of terror." The force withdrew several hours later.
 The army said a member of the radical Islamic group Hamas on its wanted list was killed during a gun battle. Palestinian officials identified the man as Mohammed Hassan Reihan, whose house was bulldozed by the raiding force.
 Palestinian officials said Israeli forces arrested at least 30 other militants in the village.
 
 
Nazis Lose Benefits
 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has stopped 72 World War II veterans from receiving government pensions more than five decades after their involvement in "crimes against humanity," Nazi hunters said Monday.
 A further 11 pensions could be canceled in coming weeks and around 250 other investigations were going on that could lead to prosecutions for war crimes, said Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office.
 "Our information showed that these people violated the laws of humanity. Many were investigated but were never prosecuted. We are correcting an historic injustice," Zuroff said after talks with the German Labor Ministry in Bonn.
 The investigations took place after the German government moved to close a loophole in the law in 1998 under which war criminals abroad were able to draw pensions.
 Many of those who lost their pensions belonged to the notorious police battalions, whose death squads murdered Jews in central and eastern Europe during World II, rather than paramilitary SS units, Zuroff said.
 
 
3 Police Officers Killed
 

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Police in armored personnel carriers poured into a tense ethnically mixed area on Monday after three officers were killed and about 100 people abducted or held hostage in a sudden escalation of violence.
 All the captives were released, officials said. 
 Three members of a special police unit were killed and two seriously wounded when ethnic Albanian rebels ambushed a patrol in northwestern Macedonia.
 Macedonian government officials earlier said about 40 people had been abducted in the area Sunday and another 60 taken hostage in Semsovo, blaming ethnic Albanians. 



TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Fetisov Inducted
 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - On Monday, Vyacheslav Fetisov received an honour that never crept into his boyhood dreams, when he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
 "What I dream ed of as a kid in my country, I have achieved. I got in the same category with all the great players who ever played for the Soviet national team," said, the defenseman, now an assistant coach with the NHL's New Jersey Devils, during a teleconference last week.
 Fetisov won seven world championships, two Olympic golds and one Canada Cup as captain of the Soviet big red machine of the late 1970s and 1980s.
 Fetisov, who went on to win two Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings, said landing in the Hall of Fame was never on his radar screen when he was playing for his country.
 "I am so proud to be elected, Russian-born, Russian-developed, a Russian guy who was proud to play for his national team, was captain of the national team for eight years."
 
 
Going, Going, Gone
 

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Having smashed Roger Maris' 37-year-old single-season home run record, Mark McGwire ended up 172 home runs short of Hank Aaron's career record when he announced his retirement Sunday night.
 The 38-year-old McGwire batted .187 with 29 homers in his final season as he struggled to recover from a knee injury that also cost him half of 2000. He walks away from a $30-million, two-year contract extension that he agreed to in spring training but never signed.
 With 583 career home runs, McGwire is fifth on the career list and only three behind Frank Robinson, but also only 16 ahead of Barry Bonds. He's the most prolific home run hitter in major league history, connecting every 10.6 at-bats.
 McGwire, who began his career with Oakland in 1986, won the World Series with the A's in 1989 and reached the postseason six times. He was a 12-time All-Star and won a Gold Glove in 1990. 
 
 
Kiwis, Auzzies Draw
 

BRISBANE, Australia (Reuters) - The first cricket test between Australia and New Zealand ended in a draw on Monday after two sporting declarations set up a thrilling finish.
 When play ended with the Gabba floodlights turned on after an absorbing final day's cricket, New Zealand was 274 for six in their second innings, just 10 runs away from victory and four wickets from defeat.
 Fleming initiated the prospects of a result when he aborted New Zealand's first innings at lunch as soon as they reached 287 for eight to avoid the follow-on when the safer approach would have been to bat on.
 The Australians, leading by 199 after amassing 486 for nine in their first innings, then responded by smashing 84 for two off 14 overs before Steve Waugh made his declaration less than an hour after lunch, leaving 57 overs remaining.