SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #724 (91), Friday, November 23, 2001
**************************************************************************


TITLE: City Zoo Favorites Head South
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two of St. Petersburg's best-loved residents set off on the 49-hour trip to Australia on Tuesday. Packed up into crates, Lyutik and Lia, the polar bear cubs born last December at the Leningrad Zoo, flew off to their new home at Sea World in the town of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
 When the cubs first appeared publicly at the zoo in April, they instantly won the love of local children, quickly becoming one of the zoo's most popular attractions.
 The $30,000 deal under which the cubs are being sent to Australia brings not only much-needed cash to the local zoo, but also ensures a comfortable life for the bears. Sea World will place them in a new and specially built polar-bear center, capable of generating artificial rain, fog, wind and cold. So far, the center has two other polar bears, acquired from China and the United States.
 Yelena Gulyayeva, head of the Leningrad Zoo research department, said that although the cubs' mother, Uslada, may feel sad when her babies are taken away, it will nonetheless bring her relief, as the 11-month-old cubs continue to try to suckle from her even though they are already quite large.
 Trevor Log, director of Sea World, came to St. Petersburg himself to pick up the cubs.
 However, the process of transferring the cubs from their familiar enclosure at the zoo to the specially prepared transport cages turned out to be a bit tricky. Lia growled and refused for more than six hours to be tempted by the food that zookeepers proffered. Her brother, by contrast, easily went for the bribe.
 Lia could only be persuaded after zookeepers brought Lyutik's cage nearby and she could see him safely inside. 
 All through the procedure, Uslada paced through her compound, roaring plaintively for her cubs.
 Zookeepers said that, if necessary, the cubs would be give sedatives to help them cope with the long trip to their new home. The specially designed transport cages have glass sides so that the siblings will be able to see one another throughout the journey. Sea World sent a special plane to collect this precious cargo.
 In addition, the cubs will be accompanied by a familiar face. Irina Skiba, head of the zoo's predator's department, will make the trip and spend two weeks at Sea World helping the bears adjust and teaching their new keepers just how the cubs like things done.
 "The bears know my face, and my presence may help them a little bit to adapt," Skiba said.
 The Leningrad Zoo is widely known for the success of its polar-bear-breeding program. Since 1933, more than 100 polar bear cubs have been born there. Uslada's cubs already live in Tallinn, Moscow and Slovakia.
 In a month, after she has had time to get used to the idea that Lyutik and Lia are gone, Uslada will once again be reunited with their father, who has been kept in a separate enclosure for more than a year to prevent him from injuring the cubs.
 "We hope that by next December, we'll have some new cubs," Gulya ye va said.
 The Gold Coast Sea World is the largest marine-animal center in the southern hemisphere and is similar to other Sea World parks in Florida and California. Opened in 1971, it has a vast exhibit of dolphins, sharks, seals and other sea creatures, as well as water slides, rides and other amusements.

TITLE: Judical Reform Gets Big Boost
AUTHOR: By Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Less than two years in office, President Vladimir Putin has managed to finish the job started by his predecessor a decade ago: to push through a major revamp of the country's Soviet-era judicial system, long plagued by procedural violations, political intrigues and corruption. 
 On Thursday, with very little squabbling, the State Duma passed a new Criminal Procedural Code and fundamental amendments to a three-bill package that sets new limits on judges' terms in office and establishes complicated procedures for lifting their immunity from prosecution. 
 The presidential administration spent months negotiating with judges and prosecutors - the powerful interest groups most affected by the reform - in an effort to iron out a compromise deal. 
 Critics of the reform, however, say its primary purpose is to give the Kremlin greater control over the courts, while it does little to "debureaucratize" them or to root out corruption among judges. 
 Even supporters of the new legislation - who range from Communist hardliners to pro-market liberals - admit that it is far from perfect, saying they view the Criminal Procedural Code as a necessary "legal cornerstone" that will have to be amended and built upon for many years to come. 
 "We believe that we must first pass the compromise version of the law and then, as early as the next day, submit new amendments," said Igor Artemyev, a member of the liberal Yabloko faction. "We can't stand still on this because the current code has been in effect for nearly 40 years." 
 If passed by the Federation Council and signed into law by the president, as expected, the new code will introduce several significant changes in the way criminal cases are processed, some of them as early as next July. 
 One of the amendments hailed as especially progressive by the legislation's proponents is the introduction of jury trials, which would be mandatory as of Jan. 1, 2003, in all regional courts for cases involving "dangerous" crimes, such as murder and rape. Other cases would be heard by either one or three judges, depending on the gravity of the crime. Defendants accused of crimes like theft - one of the most common charges among the country's nearly 1 million prisoners - would not be eligible for jury trials. 
 The code also expands the powers of defense lawyers and attempts to separate the court's functions from those of the prosecution. 
 Some of the prosecutors' powers seem to be curtailed by the code. For example, as of Jan. 1, 2004, warrants for searches and arrests will have to be issued by the court rather than the prosecutor's office. Also, prosecutors would be required to attend all court proceedings and would not be allowed to submit evidence obtained through violations of the code. 
 However, one deputy from the pro-Kremlin Unity faction called the idea that prosecutors' powers would be diminished a misconception. 
 "On the contrary, the supervisory functions of prosecutors would grow," Oleg Utkin, a member of the legislative committee that worked on the code, said in an interview Wednesday. 
 Opponents of the new law have criticized various provisions, including one allowing a single judge - with no checks or balances - to hand down sentences as long as 10 years. 
 But the only fundamental change that sparked some debate at Thursday's plenary session was a Kremlin-backed amendment introduced at the behest of the Prosecutor General's Office, which would require any agency wishing to open a criminal investigation - including the Federal Security Service and the tax police - to receive the green light from prosecutors. 
 Deputy Yelena Mizulina, who presented the code - bound in four stuffed ring-binders - to the Duma, said prosecutors had complained that many of the three million investigations launched each year are ungrounded. Presidential representative Alexander Kotenkov persuaded the deputies that the amendment, which was passed by a vote of 247-1, was a necessary safeguard against criminal proceedings instigated "on orders" from people or groups with vested interests. 
 In addition to the Criminal Procedural Code, the deputies easily passed bills on the status of judges, the judicial system and the Constitutional Court. These three pieces of legislation will be put up for a third, largely formal reading next month. 
 The three-bill package sets an age limit of 65 years for all judges, except for those in the Constitutional Court, who will be allowed to serve until the age of 70. This norm, intended to gradually inject some fresh blood into the aging judges' corps, will take effect only in 2005. 
 The new legislation also establishes a maximum of two consecutive six-year terms for court chairpeople and deputy chairpeople and introduces a multi-tiered system for stripping judges of immunity from prosecution. 
 The latter measure was one of the most contentious points in the haggling between the Kremlin and the judiciary branch. Under existing practices, judges can be punished only with the consent of tight-knit corporate bodies, such as the council of judges or the so-called Qualification Collegia. The Kremlin, however, wanted to make them accountable to a trio of judges from a higher court. The compromise version passed Thursday requires the sanction of both groups. 
 One vocal critic of the new legislation is Sergei Pashin, a law professor and retired judge, who says that the reform does not address the main problems in the country's courts - judges' dependence on the executive branch and the huge powers of court chairpeople. 
 "The well-being of judges must be separated from the benefits handed out by executive authorities," Pashin said in an interview this week. "Judges must be dependent only on their high salaries." 
 Today, Pashin said, judges depend on local governments for their apartments, trips to resorts and other perks. And while the new laws foresee a significant pay hike for judges, they do not slash apart this Gordian knot of dependence and mutual favors.
 Pashin said he believed the Kremlin would like to have a tighter grip on the courts, considering their important role in political and economic conflicts - including everything from real-estate disputes and company takeovers to scandalous elections and the delineation of powers between Moscow and the regions. 
 "This reform strikes me as an attempt to place the chairpeople of regional courts, and perhaps the Qualification Collegia, under the control of the presidential administration," he said. 
 Pashin also warned that the reform did nothing to minimize the broad powers of court chairpeople - and, on this point, some supporters of the reform plan agree with him. 
 Despite the many compromises that were necessary to push through the new legislation, pro-Kremlin deputies insisted that the judicial reform was "not political" and won broad support from all the factions. 
 "Everyone wants to live in a law-based state, political views notwithstanding," said Vladislav Reznik, a Unity deputy with the committee on legislation, which handled the reform package. "Deputies understand that they won't always be deputies, ministers understand that they won't always be ministers. ... All of them have children and are striving to build a civil society."

TITLE: Kremlin Says State Is Ready for Dialogue
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW -A two-day Kremlin-sponsored Civic Forum wrapped up Thursday with high expectations from the thousands of civic activists present that steps were being made to open up a dialogue with the government. 
 Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, speaking at the closing session in the Kremlin, said the government was ready to welcome "any ideas, maybe even the most astonishing ones," Interfax reported. 
 "Without the participation of public organizations, reform of the government's social policy is doomed to fail," Kasyanov said. 
 He added that the development of "horizontal" connections in society and the economy - and particularly the nurturing of small and medium-sized businesses - would be a top priority next year. 
 Lyudmila Alexe yeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said the forum's organizing committee would publish reports about the event over the next six months. 
 "We will work so that the impulse of the forum will wind up the mechanisms of interaction between authorities and society," she said. 
 Civic activists spent most of Thursday in round-table discussions and meetings with top government officials. 
 On Thursday, discussion groups, which first met Wednesday, broke into smaller groups that delegated representatives for talks with government officials. One organizer said that Kasyanov had ordered that the cabinet shutdown Thursday afternoon to allow ministers and their deputies to meet with civil activists.
 Among the officials who met for discussions with activists were the presidential chief of staff Alexander Voloshin, Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Press Minister Mikhail Lesin. 
 Some activists complained that officials scheduled to meet with them failed to show up. 
 But many were pleased with the opportunity to discuss civil society with their peers in a group setting. 
 "We have met with lower level government officials before," said Sergei Shimovolos, director of the Committee Against Torture in Nizhny Novgorod. "But the novelty of this forum is the level of discussions." 
 Representatives from his group, which discussed police torture Thursday, went on to meet with Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov. 
 The Kremlin quickly got its first taste of civic society at the congress opening on Wednesday when a crowd of self-made social workers, environmentalists, human rights advocates, stamp collectors, scouts, noblemen, ethnic culture protectionists and others started grumbling and shoving when they found themselves in hour-long waits in chilly weather outside the Kremlin gates. Pushing their way past metal detectors and bag checks, many of the 5,000 attendees seemed to have forgotten the warning on their invitations to show up two hours early.
 "Kremlin employees are telling me that they have never seen such a mess in 20 years here," said one of the organizers, sociologist Alexander Oslon. "But excuse me. These are the people who have come. That's what society is. This is not a congress but a forum."
 Alexeyeva said in her opening remarks at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses that there would be no presidium, no voting and no resolutions. She pointed out that the attendees represented more than 350,000 nongovernment organizations employing about 1 million people. They assist some 20 million people.
 "These figures are a major proof that civil society already exists in Russia," Alexeyeva said.
 Alexeyeva then gave the floor to President Vladimir Putin, who did not disappoint the audience.
 "I think everyone understands - including, I assure you, government officials - that civic society cannot be formed at the initiative of government officials," Putin said. "Yes, our civic society cannot be called completely formed, but I doubt there is any country where you can say civic society is completely formed. ... For Russia, we must admit the process is only beginning."
 Putin then listened to presentations made by a number of speakers. As he sat there, a pile of personal petitions began to grow on his desk.
 By the time Putin excused himself more than an hour later, he had a heap of petitions in front of him so big that his protocol chief Oleg Rachmanin had to return three times to carry them away.
 The forum cost $1.5 million to organize, Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matvienko said. She said the entire cost was covered by Alfa-Bank, Interros, Sberbank, the Novolipetsky Metallurgical Plant and the Media Union.

TITLE: Government Pushes for Professional Army by 2010
AUTHOR: By Megan Twohey and Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In 1996, as young conscripts were dying in Chechnya, then-President Boris Yeltsin ordered an end to the country's system of compulsary military service. 
 But it never happened. 
 This week, a year after Yeltsin's proposal was supposed to take effect, President Vladimir Putin also backed a move to abolish conscription and build a professional army. 
 Unlike his predecessor, however, Putin and his administration are thinking long-term. 
 "It's impossible to be radical, especially in such a matter like the security of the state," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said earlier this week. "To bring the army and navy up to strength in a professional form, you need a large amount of money, which we don't have." 
 Under Putin's proposal, Russia will start forming a professional army in 2004, after broader military reforms have been put in place, Ivanov said Wednesday. 
 A professional army composed entirely of paid volunteers will be defending the country by 2010, Kommersant quoted Defense Ministry officials as saying Thursday. 
 The latest proposal to scrap compulsory service is getting support from liberal parties such as Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, which have long pushed for the move. But it has also drawn fire from the military establishment and those who say the plan will come too late. 
 "The army will be filled by people who will see it as a source of income," General Leonid Ivashov, former head of the Defense Ministry's international-affairs department, told ORT television. "This is a very light-hearted, temporary approach that seems to follow some political wind shifts, and it does not work." 
 "The promise of change is nothing," said Valeria Pantyukhina, press secretary of the Mother's Right Foundation, an organization that helps the families of soldiers and sailors killed on duty. 
 In the meantime, "up to a million will be required to serve and many of those will die," she said, pointing out that today's schoolchildren will grow up and be conscripted before a professional army becomes a reality. 
 The current conscription system is in tatters. Those who do turn up for duty are often physically unfit and uneducated. Those with money or influence escape the poor pay, brutal hazing and the threat of being sent to fight in conflict zones. 
 Indeed, the war in Chechnya seems to have turned service-avoidance into a semi-legitimate national pastime. Just 12 percent of those eligible for the army or navy last spring would likely end up serving, down from 24 percent in 2000 and 13 percent in 1999, according to Vladislav Putilin, deputy chief of the General Staff. 
 Yeltsin's proposal to end conscription came during his 1996 election campaign in response to growing public dissatisfaction with compulsory service. His proposal ended up being postponed indefinitely due to lack of funding and fierce opposition from the military. 
 Putin, however, has made modernization of the armed forces a long-term goal - and the abolition of conscription is not his first priority. His government has approved a 15-year weapons program to upgrade or replace Soviet-designed military hardware. He says he also wants to increase pay and living standards for military personnel and has pushed plans to trim the armed forces by nearly one-third in the next three years. 
 "The present condition of the army doesn't suit anyone and least of all the Defense Ministry," Ivanov said. "There are a lot of problems, but it is useless to attempt to solve them all. Therefore, we have defined our priorities - equipping the army with modern arms and providing social guarantees for military personnel." 
 Once the reforms have been completed, the military will be ready for professional soldiers, he said. 
 However, phasing in the soldiers will cost billions of rubles and take "several years," Ivanov said. Many in the military think it's not worth it. 
 Generals fear that such an investment will be too costly, said Alexander Pikayev, a military expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center. "They think that a transition to all-volunteer forces would require a radical improvement in military living conditions," he said. 
 Some senior army officers also say outright that they have been disappointed in the professional soldiers who currently serve in the army. Those officers and servicemen account for 150,000 of the total 1.2 million people in the armed forces. Eighty percent of those recruited were fired before their contracts ended, said Lieutenant General Nikolai Staskov, because "their professional training and moral qualities were sharply unsatisfactory," Interfax reported. 
 Still, military analysts say the time is ripe to build a new kind of army because the number of service-age recruits is shrinking. 
 "You can't have successful military reform with conscription," Pikayev said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Power to the People
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Voters should be allowed to decide whether regional governors should be elected to third terms, Governor Vladimir Yakov lev said, according to an Interfax report.
 The governor made the statement during his weekly "Governor's Time" television show on Tuesday, the news agency reported.
 Yakovlev stated that voters themselves should make the "main appraisal" of the performance of their leaders. "If things are going well, they should support them. If not, they should remove them," Yakovlev was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 "If we see that things are going well in Tartarstan, for instance, then the people re-elect [President Mintimer] Shaimiyev. The same is true for Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov," Yakov lev said.
 "I think it would be best if the residents of a given region decide for themselves whom to elect and for how long," the governor said, according to Interfax.
 Yakovlev's second term as governor ends in 2004.
 
 
Safely at Home
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A local Northwest Interior Ministry transport unit has returned safely from a 90-day tour in Chechnya, Interfax reported Thursday.
 The 30-member unit was assigned to guard the important railroad junction of Chervlenaya. According to a spokes person for the unit, the officers also provided humanitarian assistance to civilians in the area to which they were assigned, Interfax reported.
 Another 30 members of the unit continue to be posted at Chervlenaya. This was the unit's tenth tour of duty in Chechnya since 1999, Interfax reported.
 
 
Visiting Kizhi
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Authorities reported that 122,000 tourists visited the open-air architectural museum on the Karelian island of Kizhi in 2001, Interfax reported Thursday.
 Elvira Averyanova, director of the museum complex, reported that the number of tourists visiting the landmark had increased by 62 percent since last year and that half of all visitors were foreign tourists, according to Interfax.
 Averyanova said that 22 percent of the museum's budget came from federal sources, 6 percent from the regional budget and 72 percent from its own revenue sources, including fees collected from tourists. Federal funding is used to secure and restore the museum's treasures.
 Averyanova also stated that in June the complex had been transferred to the oversight of the Ministry of Culture and that, beginning next year, it would be fully funded from the federal budget. Averyanova expects to receive 43 million rubles ($1.43 million) next year to restore the Preobrazhensky Church.
 The Kizhi complex is located on an island in Lake Onega about 65 kilometers from Petrozavodsk. It is made up of 70 monuments of wooden architecture from the 15th through the 20th centuries. The 1714 Preobrazhensky Church, with 22 wooden cupolas, is the complex's best-known monument.
 
The Rest of the Kursk
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Engineers at the Rubin design bureau will complete plans to raise the remaining section of the Kursk nuclear submarine by the end of the year, Interfax reported Wednesday.
 The plan is being carried out under a contract issued by the Russian Navy. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who heads the task force investigating the causes of the Kursk disaster, has said that only those parts of the vessel "having informational value in determining the cause and character of the catastrophe" would be brought to the surface.
 Other sources told Interfax that five automatic recorders that were located in the fifth section of the submarine had been sent to the Prometei Research Center in St. Petersburg for analysis. Two of the recorders were reported to be blank, Interfax reported.
 
 
Northern Crown Help?
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city administration might extend a $50-million loan guarantee to finance completion of the Northern Crown hotel, Interfax reported Thursday.
 Vice Governor Viktor Krotov, head of the city Finance Committee, said that the necessary funding had been included in the 2002 city budget that was approved by the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, according to Interfax.
 "But this does not mean that the guarantee will be given," Krotov is quoted by Interfax as saying. "We will carefully analyze the effectiveness of the investment and the potential for return."
 Construction of the hotel began in 1988 and has been plagued by delays. 
 
Parties Unite
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - The leaders of the Unity, Fatherland and All Russia parties will unite their efforts and create a new party called the All-Russian Party of Unity and the Fatherland, Interfax reported Wednesday.
 "[Sergei] Shoigu, [Mintimer] Shai mi yev and [Yury] Luzhkov, the founding fathers of the three parties, will become co-chairpeople of the new party," said Alexander Bespalov, committee chairperson of the union.
 The party sees its leader as President Vladimir Putin. "There is a unifying force in this party, and we all know this man," Bespalov said.
 The party plans to form a shadow cabinet that will be ready to replace existing cabinet members when the time comes, he said.
 
 
Senior Officials Fired
 

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Ka zakh President Nursultan Na zar ba yev dismissed two senior officials Wed nesday amid a row over the pace of political reforms.
 The president's press secretary, Asyl bek Bisenba yev, told a news conference in the capital Astana that Uraz Dzhandosov, a deputy prime minister and former central banker, had been sacked along with Deputy Defense Minister Zhanat Yertlesov.
 The two men, who had earlier offered to step down if the president so wished, were part of a political group formed last weekend with a pledge to deepen political reforms.
 
 
Weapons Destroyed
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A state commission tasked with destroying Russia's 40,000-ton stockpile of nerve and chemical agents said Wednesday it had destroyed all of its category-three chemical weapons - the lowest - ahead of schedule, evidence of a commitment to destroy the vast arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union.
 "The destruction of chemical weapons of the third category ... has today been fully completed," said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the commission. 
 
 
Minister: No Repeats
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Ukraine's new defense minister said Wednesday that his nation was determined to avoid a repeat of last month's accident in which a Ukrainian missile downed a Russian passenger plane.
 "We intend to do everything possible to rule out similar tragic incidents," Ukrainian Defense Minister Vladimir Shkidchenko said in Moscow on Wednesday.
 Shkidchenko replaced Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk, who was fired along with his aides on Oct. 24 over the catastrophe.
 
 
Accepted in Absentia
 

Moscow (SPT) - Boris Berezovsky has joined the Liberal Russia movement as a member of its political council, Interfax reported Wednesday.
 Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov, deputy chairperson of the movement, said the decision to accept Berezovsky was made unanimously at a meeting of the political council Wednesday. When asked how Berezovsky, wanted by Russian authorities, would take part in the council's work from abroad, Yushenkov said Berezovsky "would vote on decisions over the telephone or by proxy." 



TITLE: Cause of Crash Still Unknown
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Investigators on Wednesday examined the flight recorders of a chartered turboprop that crashed with 27 people on board en route to Moscow from the northern Siberian town of Khatanga but said they were not ready to say what caused the accident.
 Khatanga's mayor discounted a theory that a business dispute was to blame.
 The Il-18 operated by IRS-Aero came down late Monday night about 250 kilometers north of Moscow in a Tver forest. Local residents said they heard an explosion about the time of the crash. Rescue workers on Tuesday retrieved the plane's flight recorders and the remains of the 18 passengers and nine crew from debris strewn over 1.5 kilometers.
 "We have examined all three recorders, but we are still analyzing them," said Viktor Trusov, an investigator at the Interstate Aviation Committee.
 Aviation experts say an explosion may have taken place aboard the plane, pointing to the scattered wreckage, reports from residents and the calm manner of the pilots in the moments before the crash.
 Russian media reports suggested that a business dispute may be to blame.
 The plane was carrying the father of Kha tanga businessperson Oleg Kuche renko, who had charted the plane.
 Also on board were the head of the Kha tanga Aviation Enterprise, Vla di mir Ovchinnikov, and his deputy, Vya che slav Gyrlya. The enterprise runs the Khatanga airport and operates regional flights.
 TV6 television, citing unnamed sources at the Khatanga Aviation Enterprise, reported the airport had recently come under pressure from unspecified powerful interest groups in the nearby Taimyr Peninsula. TV6 also said the company was running a lucrative tour business for Western tourists.
 Khatanga Mayor Nikolai Fokin ruled out a terror attack.
 "This is all rubbish - those were wonderful people and there haven't been any threats against them," Fokin said in a telephone interview.
 Fokin said Ovchinnikov and Gyrlya were flying to Moscow on a business trip.
 They were to visit the Property Ministry to discuss spinning off noncore assets in the aviation enterprise such as residential housing and a power plant, he said. They were also to meet with travel agencies to promote a tourist route to the North Pole that the company had been operating for a decade.
 Khatanga Aviation Enterprise officials said they were not ready to discuss the crash. Kucherenko was unavailable for comment.
 Fokin said Kucherenko owns a restaurant and two stores in Khatanga and heads Syndassko, a state-owned agriculture company.
 Kucherenko chartered the Il-18 aircraft this year to fly residents to southern destinations and to ship supplies to Khatanga, Fokin said.
 IRS-Aero head Vladimir Kotelnikov said he was at a loss to explain the crash and was waiting for the results of the investigation.

TITLE: Can the U.S. and Russia Agree About Afghanistan?
AUTHOR: By Megan Twohey
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - What speaks louder in Afg hanistan - weapons or money? The answer could be key in deciding whether Russia, which has been arming the opposition for years, or the United States, with hundreds of millions of dollars to offer, will have a stronger sway over the allegiances of the new Afghan government.
 Should the new government that takes shape be pro-Western, Russia, in a worse-case scenario, could find its cashcow oil and gas industries shaken, some analysts said. Western companies could win approval to build pipelines across Afghanistan that would end Russia's near-monopolistic grip on lucrative Caspian energy shipments.
 For now, however, unity is the theme being invoked by Russian and U.S. officials working to bring democracy to Afghanistan. Putting years of discord about Afghan politics behind them, Moscow and Washington in recent weeks have found common ground on a new Afghan administration, agreeing that it should be a coalition representing all of the country's ethnic groups, including the majority Pashtuns. Members of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban would be excluded.
 Russia wants "a coalition of all nationalities and peoples living on Afghan territory without any discrimination, with one exception: discrimination against the Taliban," Defense Minster Sergei Ivanov said Monday, reiterating early Russian remarks.
 The United States and Russia sent special envoys to Kabul this week to work with the Northern Alliance, which now controls much of the country, on setting up a post-Taliban government. United Nations officials are also participating in the talks.
 Their meetings have resulted in an agreement from the Northern Alliance to hold an all-Afghan conference in Bonn next week to build a provisional council that would pave the way for the establishment of a formal government.
 Although Russia and the United States say they will not try to create a government, they both would certainly like to influence it.
 Russia has for decades had a vested interest in the country in its backyard. In recent years Moscow has been providing the Northern Alliance with guns, tanks and other weapons for its fight against the Taliban. The arms shipments continue to this day, and the Kremlin has signaled that it has no plans to stop.
 The U.S. government, in contrast, has done relatively little in Afghanistan since Soviet forces withdrew in defeat.
 That all changed with the terror attacks of Sept. 11, when the White House pinned the blame on Osama bin Laden and leaders of his al-Quaeda network, believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.
 Two months of U.S-led air strikes against the Taliban have provided what the Northern Alliance couldn't muster with Russian weapons alone - the extra muscle to retake much of Afghanistan. 
 Arms and ammunition have had their place, but what the country really needs now is money for reconstruction, analysts said. 
 "The only way to underpin discussions of democracy is to pour billions and billions of dollars into Afgha ni stan," said Thomas Withington, a research associate at the Center for Defense Studies at King's College in London. "In order to drag it back into civilization, you have to essentially build the country from scratch."
 The United States is more than ready to lend a helping hand. U.S. President George W. Bush last month committed $320 million in assistance to Afghanistan. On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department held a conference of representatives from 21 countries and the European Union to discuss further assistance. It was the first step in what is expected to be a long-haul effort to rebuild the country. 
 Russia, with financial concerns of its own, is unlikely to offer to chip in.
 "I can't imagine how Russia can participate in an economic reconstruction," said Alexsei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center. 
 "The Northern Alliance leaders can take assistance from anyone now. But they will prefer not to deal with Russia, but to organize their coalition based on the interests of the West, especially the United States," Malashenko said.
 U.S. and Russian officials currently seem to see eye-to-eye on resolving the conflict, but what would happen once an Afghan government is set up is anybody's guess. As Alex Vatanka, editor of Jane's Sentinel Russia CIS, sees it, the sticking point may well be Caspian energy.
 "U.S. and Russian interests could diverge over Caspian oil," Vatanka said by telephone from London. "Russia has been persisting on having oil imported westward from the Caucasus. A stable government in Afghanistan would mean that the U.S. could get away with having its oil companies operating from there and Pakistan. What will happen to the interests of Russian oil?" 
 Malashenko said any U.S.-led economic recovery plan in Afghanistan would likely include an American-financed pipeline.
 "A ... pipeline is a key point. Its construction would create a huge infrastructure," Malashenko said.
 "Russia has wanted all the gas and oil pipelines to go through Russia," he added. "Now a new line could be opened in another direction, which would be a big step in the redistribution of energy in the region."
 Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation in Washington offered a similar prediction, pointing out that the U.S. company Unocal just four years ago courted Kabul over such a project. In 1997, it put together a consortium to build a $2 billion pipeline through the country.
 "As long as the Taliban was in power, U.S. plans to build a pipeline were a pipe dream," Cohen said. "However, with stability returning to Afg ha ni stan, Unocal or other energy companies could revive the project."
 Such a pipeline could be built from Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Indian or Pakistani markets, he said. 
 However, energy experts in Moscow said such predictions were off the mark.
 "I'd be surprised if, after 20 years of war, the U.S. would want to build a pipeline in Afghanistan," said Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research for United Financial Group. Also, Washington is unlikely to want to disrupt its increasingly close relationship with Moscow, he said.
 Even if such a pipeline were built, it would be years before it was completed. Analysts agreed the odds are not good that peace would last long enough in a country like Afghanistan to allow large undertakings like pipelines. Ethnic and religious divisions have destroyed previous attempts to create broad-based governments in Kabul.
 "The track record is poor when it comes to implementing a peace plan for Afghanistan," Vatanka said. "We'll have to wait and see what happens after the conference [in Bonn]."

TITLE: World Price Jumps as Oil Majors Talk Cuts
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW -The country's oil barons nonchalantly backed Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko on Thursday as he ended weeks of confrontation with the world's biggest crude producers by saying Russia was ready to cut exports to stabilize prices.
 Khristenko's announcement that Russia would cut enough to trigger a much larger OPEC cut also calmed the budget panic the government has been in since oil prices went into a free fall last week, dropping several dollars below the $18.50-a-barrel worst-case scenario envisioned in the 2002 federal budget.
 The price of Russia's benchmark Urals bounced nearly a dollar on the news to $18.77, while Brent crude for January delivery jumped $1.35 to $20.08 in London. 
 "We understand that measures taken to stabilize the [oil] market, including additional measures, can only be taken jointly and responsibly by [all producers] and compliance is a must," Interfax quoted Khristenko as saying.
 "We are ready for this, and these efforts should lead to a stable and fair level of oil prices as of the new year," he said, adding that a fair price is between $20 and $25 per barrel.
 The presidents of top producer LUKoil, Vagit Alekperov, and of No. 3 Tyumen Oil Co., Simon Kukes, calmly acquiesced to the government's new position, although they said a decision wouldn't be made until they and other oil majors meet with the cabinet on Friday.
 Kukes, speaking at the International Oil Forum in Moscow, also said that the head of No. 2 producer Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, would be on board. Khodorkovsky had been the most vocal opponent of cuts in recent weeks.
 The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries wants the country to join other non-OPEC members in production cuts of 500,000 barrels a day begining in January. If they do this, OPEC will cut 1.5 million bpd.
 Kukes said that Russian oil companies could fairly easily divert some 100,000 to 150,000 barrels per day to the domestic market. Russia currently exports some 3.3 million bpd. He said the measure would provide the necessary cut in export volume and that the diverted amounts could be used at home. Russia's refineries have around 120,000 bpd of spare capacity, he said.
 "And while there are practically no facilities in which to store oil - companies can hardly store oil for more than three days - refined products can be stored for up to a month," Kukes said. 
 The cuts should be proportional to the share of oil each company exports, he said. "But [TNK] is ready to take the leading position if necessary." 
 Kukes said that if Russia cuts its exports, the prices for global benchmark Brent would average between $19 and $23 per barrel in 2002. If the situation remains as it is, prices would drop to about $13 per barrel of Brent for the year, and much lower in the first quarter.
 Norway, the world's third-largest exporter after Saudi Arabia and Russia, said Thursday it would cut output by between 100,000 and 200,000 if other non-OPEC countries follow suit. 
 Unstable prices, however, did not seem to worry oil executives too much Thursday as they were more interested in talking about their companies' future projects and goals.
 Alekperov said LUKoil, which turned 10 years old this week, is considering joining the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project. BP, the project's largest investor, was to give a presentation to the Russian government Friday, Alekperov said. 
 If the government gives the go-ahead to participating in the construction and managing of the multibillion-dollar pipeline - which is to carry oil from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast - LUKoil will make its decision, he said. 
 The project was initially drawn up during U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration with the aim of preventing a Russian monopoly on transporting oil from central Asia via the already-built Caspian Pipeline System, which will be officially inaugurated Tuesday.
 Meanwhile, LUKoil is exploring ways of increasing its exports and, like the other major producers, expand into the gas business. 
 Alekperov said that LUKoil is hoping to boost oil exports by reversing the flow of Ukraine's Odessa-Brody pipe line, which has a throughput of more than 12 million tons a year. The company is currently in negotiations with the Ukrainian government.
 And LUKoil, like Sibneft and Yukos, is preparing to bolster its gas business once the gas market is liberalized and Gazprom, which has a domestic monopoly, is forced to open up its proprietary pipeline network.
 LUKoil plans to build gas refineries in Western Siberia, which would allow the company to increase its natural-gas output while minimizing dependency on gas-refining monopoly Sibur. A purchase of some of the refineries from Sibur is also being considered, Alekperov said.

TITLE: Aluminum Exec Seeks Kremlin Aid
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The deputy head of the country's largest aluminum company called on the government Thursday to help companies move their capital abroad. 
 In order to compete with international giants, companies such as RusAl, Gazprom and LUKoil must develop into transnational businesses, and to do so they need agencies along the lines of the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. and a "normal" export-import bank, said Alexander Livshitz, deputy CEO of Russian Aluminum, or RusAl.
 "There is simply no alternative except to export capital if the largest bauxite reserve is in Guinea and the largest alumina plant in the CIS is in Ukraine. There is no other route to expand business in the aluminum sector. All other major aluminum companies are transnational," he said.
 "In the social consciousness, export of capital is capital flight and wrong.... We need to invest or we can't expand our business, but no one is backing us up," Livshitz said.
 In addition, the government should push Europe and the United States to declare Russia a market economy, strive to upgrade the country's OECD rating, which is currently in the second- lowest category, and make railway and energy tariffs predictable, he said. 
 "We could become a competitive transnational within three or four years if we move confidently in the directions I laid out. There is no other path ... and we should walk this path with the government," Livshitz said.
 However, although RusAl is comparable to world leaders in terms of production volumes and exports, it lags in terms of openness, corporate governance, access to financial markets and government support.
 Livshits was speaking at a conference on the metals industry, devoted to consolidation against the backdrop of globalization.
 But, while the aluminum giant wants to go global, steel majors Severstal and Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant (MMC) said domestic consolidation was the key to surviving the global market.
 "The profitability of medium-sized plants is tending toward zero. The profitability of small plants in the near future is basically non-existent. ... [They] cannot survive global competition," said Mikhail Buryakov, head of strategic planning at MMC. 
 Only the country's big three steel producers - Severstal, MMC and Novolipetsk - can turn a profit, he said.
 To improve its position in the market, MMC plans to create a vertically integrated holding from coal and iron ore mining to metallurgy to energy and transportation companies.

TITLE: City Budget Clears Final Vote
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Legislative Assembly passed a city budget for 2002 on its third and final reading Wed nesday with a projected surplus of 1.1 billion rubles ($36 million).
 Thirty-five legislators voted for and one against a budget forecasting total revenues for the city next year of 57.3 billion rubles ($1.9 billion) and expenditures of 56.2 billion rubles ($1.87 billion).
 The single vote against the draft came from the head of the Yabloko faction, Mikhail Amosov, who said his "no" vote was the result of concerns about the system laid out in the budget for paying public-sector workers and Smolny's refusal to increase spending in certain social areas.
 The surplus figure remains virtually unchanged from the budget's first reading, even though Smolny has revised its revenue projection to a figure 3.5 billion rubles ($167 million) higher than was originally forecast. Administration officials say that the higher figure is the result of additional income they expect to receive from personal income taxes, profit taxes and licensing fees.
 The surplus figure has remained the same because the city's plan calls for larger payments on debt than in the original version of the budget. The city's debts presently stand at 10 billion rubles ($333 million), which will shrink to about 8.65 billion rubles ($288 million) by Jan. 1, 2003 according to the plan.
 On the spending side, the biggest beneficiary from the new budget is education, with expenditures set at 10.6 billion rubles ($350 million), representing a 60-percent boost in outlays over the 2001 budget.
 Although Smolny decided to use the extra funds forecast since it submitted the first draft of the budget to pay off city debt, the debt-servicing portion of the 2002 budget is actually 500 million rubles ($16.6 million) lower than the figure for the year before.
 Smolny's Finance Committee provided a breakdown of sources of revenue for the budget, with the biggest contribution coming from personal income tax, which is expected to generate 28.4 billion rubles ($946 million) next year. One-hundred percent of the receipts from the 13-percent flat tax goes to regional governments. Profit taxes account for 11.8 billion rubles ($393 million), while 5.5 billion rubles ($183 million) come from excise duties and 4.6 billion rubles ($153 million) from property taxes.
 Other taxes beside personal income tax are shared between the federal government and the regions as in accordance with the Tax Code, with the Value-Added Tax (VAT) being an exception. All VAT receipts go directly to the federal budget.
 The federal budget projects total VAT receipts for next year of 712 billion rubles ($23.7 billion) of which 18 billion rubles ($600 million) will be collected in St. Petersburg.
 According to statistics from the St. Petersburg Tax Inspectorate, tax collection for the first nine months of 2001 totaled 54 billion rubles ($1.8 billion), with roughly 40 percent of the funds transferred to the federal budget and the rest retained for the St. Petersburg budget and the Territorial Road Fund.

TITLE: EBRD Does Its Part With $4 Bln of Beer Investment
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Forget oil, the largest investor in the country says the best business bet in Russia is ... beer.
 The EBRD, set up in 1991 by the Group of Seven industrialized countries to ease eastern Europe's transition to a market economy, said Wednesday that of all the industries it has invested in, its favorite is brewing.
 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has invested more than $4 billion in Russian projects ranging from power generation to construction, but arguably has had the most profound effect on the beer market, claiming to be financially involved in every fifth beer produced here.
 "Across the emerging markets for the last 20 years beer has probably been one of the safest investments one could make," EBRD first vice president Noreen Doyle said Wednesday at the Moscow presentation of the bank's annual transition report.
 "In good times or in bad, no matter what oil prices are, people will always drink beer," EBRD chief economist Willem Buiter added. "Also, it is a very liquid investment," he said, without a hint of irony.
 "There isn't a large foreign brewery left in Russia, with the exception of Sun Interbrew, which has not yet received money from the EBRD," said Alexei Krivoshapko, consumer-goods analyst at United Financial Group. "And all of them have the potential to increase their sales by 15 percent to 17 percent annually in the next five years."
 Beer consumption has more than doubled in the last five years, hitting 5.2 billion liters in 2000 and making Russia the No. 6 beer market in the world, according to official statistics. And it is expected to grow nearly 10 percent this year, with per capita consumption estimated to reach 37 liters.
 The market is booming and competition is fierce, with no single brewer holding a dominant position. The biggest producer, Baltika, is estimated to have 20 percent of the market, with No. 2 Sun Interbrew at about 15 percent. The rest is split between hundreds of breweries.
 The brewing industry has one of the highest concentrations of foreign capital of any sector. More than 50 percent of the Russian beer market is controlled by foreigners - a figure unmatched in any other industry save confectionary.
 Baltika, which, is 75-percent owned by Scandinavian-controlled Baltic Beverages Holding, was the first company in Russia to receive a loan from the EBRD, worth $40 million, after the 1998 crisis. The company said Wednesday its 2001 production grew 29 percent year on year to 106.4 million decaliters over the first nine months. And total sales for January to September amounted to 11.6 billion rubles ($387 million).
 The EBRD this year also signed a $10.2-million investment in the modernization and expansion of Vena, one of the leading St. Petersburg breweries, majority owned by Finland's Oy Sinebrychoff.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Crossing Borders
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Baltika brewery, Russia's biggest beer producer, has decided to increase its activities ouside Russia, the company's general director Taimuraz Bolloyev said at a Thursday press conference, Interfax reported.
 According to the news agency, Bolloyev said the company is looking to the Chinese beer market as well as finishing off the upgrading of the Krinitsa brewery in Belarus.
 Part of the draw for the company comes from Chinese tax laws, which grant concessions to new investors during the recoupment period. "The investment climate in Russia has become unfavorable," Bolloyev said Wednesday, according to Interfax.
 Bolloyev also released company economic data, saying that Baltika's profits had jumped by almost 43 percent for January through September as compared to the same period last year as determined by International Accounting Standards.
 
 
UES Talking With City
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Unified Energy Systems chief Anatoly Chubais and Governor Vladimir Yakovlev met Thursday in an effort to find a compromise in the dispute over management of the city's electricity-transmission network, Interfax reported.
 According to Yakovlev, the two sides reached agreement on a number of steps with the aim of resolving the battle in the near future and will continue negotiations over the fate of electricity networks built in last ten years.
 Chubais said that one result of their meeting will be the creation of a working group including representatives from both sides, Interfax reported. The UES group will be headed by Andrei Likhachyov, the general director of Lenenergo, the local energy utility, Chubais said.
 "We agreed to give up fighting in the courts and try to reach a negotiated agreement," Chubais said.
 
 
Ready To Load
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Deputy Transport Minister Vladimir Yakunin announced Wednesday that the newly-constructed Primorsk port will begin operation on Dec. 27, according to Interfax.
 "The first tanker will arrive to take on oil will arrive that day, Yakunin said, adding that the terminal at the port will have a capacity of 12 million tons per year, Interfax reported.
 Preliminary estimates of the cost of the first part of the port project were approximately $600 million.
 The oil terminal is to form part of the Baltic Pipeline System (BTS), which will transfer oil for export from the Timano-Pechorskoye and West-Siberia oil fields. Timano Pechorskoye is also in Siberia.
 
 
DLT Battle Continues
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Arbitration court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast declared illegal an addeitional shares emission of Dom Leningradskoi Torgovli (DLT) department stores, Interfax reported Thursday.
 According to Daniil Petrov, the deputy head of legal department at St. Petersburg Property Committee (KUGI), the ruling came in response to suits filed by the Federal Securities Commission and KUGI, Interfax reported.
 Interfax reported that city administration representatives said last month that the city will sell it's share in the store once all questions about ownership have been resolved in court. 



TITLE: EU and India Explore Ways To Boost Ties
AUTHOR: By Rajesh Mahapatra
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW DELHI, India - India and the European Union on Thursday agreed to boost their trade and investment ties, putting aside their sharp differences in the World Trade Organization over environment and competition rules.
 "It is not all about confrontation between the EU and India. What matters in the end is that together we have succeeded," EU Commissioner of Trade Pascal Lamy said Thursday at a two-day India-EU business meeting in the Indian capital.
 Earlier this month in Doha, Qatar, India reluctantly agreed with the other 141 WTO members to negotiate new issues like the environment, competition rules and government procurement.
 India agreed to a new round of talks after winning two major concessions, which would allow poor countries to override drug patents during crises to make cheap generic versions available and delay negotiations on new issues by at least two years.
 Lamy said the EU supported India on a number of issues, including patent relaxation during health crises, because those were legitimate concerns of developing countries.
 Lamy and Maran also met separately to discuss setting up of working groups in areas like steel, marine and farm products, textiles and environment.
 The EU is India's biggest trade partner. However, India, a country of more than 1 billion people, ranks only 18th on the EU's list of trade partners with just 1.3 percent of EU's total imports. India-EU trade totaled $22 billion last year.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Bonus Bounced?
 

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentina denied on Thursday it would postpone $1 billion in year-end public-sector bonuses, but analysts said the cuts could be necessary if the country is to honor key deficit targets.
 President Fernando de la Rua denied reports that this year's bonuses could be delayed so Argentina can stick to its "zero deficit" pledge to balance its budget, a condition of international support from the International Monetary Fund.
 But analysts said the government may have no choice as Argentina struggles to meet about $4 billion in debt payments by the end of the year amid fears its battered economy could collapse in the biggest sovereign default ever.
 
 
Help for OPEC
 

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - World oil prices leapt on Thursday as Norwegian Oil Minister Einar Steensnaes said Norway was willing to slice production to help the OPEC cartel and Russia's Deputy Prime Minister said Moscow also was ready for action to help prices.
 London Brent crude futures ended $1.12 a barrel higher at $19.85, up more than $3 from Monday's two-and-a-half-year low.
 Norway's Steensnaes said: "The government has decided that if OPEC and non-OPEC countries carry out cuts, then I have got a mandate to carry out cuts of from 100,000 to 200,000 barrels [a day]."
 
 
Europe Lagging
 

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union's economy is falling further behind the U.S. economy, largely because of a failure to embrace new technologies, said a EU report released Thursday.
 As a result, "standards of living in the EU have fallen persistently behind those of the United States in recent years," said the report, issued by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.
 The report attributed the widening gap to less innovation and "slower introduction of information and communications technologies."
 Although the report showed increased economic growth and falling unemployment in the 15-member EU through the late 1990s, gross domestic product per head fell to below two-thirds the U.S. level. 



TITLE: Maybe the World Hasn't Changed That Much
AUTHOR: By Robert Skidelsky
TEXT: IT is fashionable to say that the suicide bombing of New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 has profoundly changed the world. All press comment has been based on this assumption, with appropriately "deep" analyses of its effects on international relations, the world economy, globalization and so on.
 I want to introduce a skeptical note. The historian Alan Taylor, writing about the origins of World War I, denied that great events always have great causes. I want to amend this: Great events do not always have great consequences. Sept. 11 changes the international landscape, but not by as much as one might think.
 Francis Fukuyama, in his now much-derided "End of History" thesis, in essence predicted that the 21st century would be more peaceful and less militarized than the 20th century had been because there were now no major causes of great-power conflict. This thesis still seems to be valid.
 The 20th century was made warlike by two things. In the first half, Germany was dissatisfied with its place in the international system and had the muscle to attempt to overthrow that system on two occasions. We need not expect a third attempt from that quarter.
 The period from 1945 to 1991 was dominated by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. This was a world-wide struggle between two political and economic systems: capitalist democracy and communist totalitarianism. It ended in the defeat of the Soviet Union. The new Russia is too weak to be a threat; its dearest desire, on the contrary, is to join the West. China, too, is looking for its place in the post-communist order.
 In other words, there are no dissatisfied great powers prowling around the international jungle. This situation was not changed by the events of Sept. 11. That is why the United States has found it relatively easy to construct a worldwide coalition against terrorism.
 Attempts to refute Fukuyama's optimism by positing Sept. 11 as the first shot in a global "clash of civilizations" between the West and Islam seem to me to be wholly misplaced. They result from three unfortunate tendencies in human thought: the first being the belief that periods of peace are bound to be short interludes between wars; the second, identified by Karl Popper in his old age, being the unwillingness of our intellectual class to believe that things might go well for capitalist civilization; and the third being our tendency to construct monoliths out of pluralisms.
 In a crude tit-for-tat, Osama bin Laden demonizes the West as the Great Satan, and we demonize Islam as the Great Enemy. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops that there is no single West and there is no single Islam. The main conflicts of the modern world are within civilizations, not between them. We remember the Islamic offensives against Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries, the crusades, the fall of Constantinople, the battle of Lepanto, the siege of Vienna, and forget the much longer periods of peaceful coexistence between the two civilizations, and the historical interpenetration of Islamic and Christian thought.
 To be sure, something has changed. Put at its starkest, the bombings, by destroying the myth of the United States' invulnerability, have destroyed the unilateralist basis of U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy. The sole superpower can no longer do as it pleases. For the first time in its history, the United States needs its allies as much as its allies need it.
 This is difficult for the United States, but it is good for the world. Little is being heard now of the Russian-Chinese doctrine of "multipolarity," a response to U.S. unilateralism, which was really an attempt to construct a new balance of world power. Today, Russia and China are staking their claim, together with the European Union, to be partners in a negotiated world order.
 Although it took Sept. 11 to make it clear, multilateralism is, in fact, the right and logical outcome to the end of the Cold War.
 Russia and China will expect to be rewarded for their support. Russia's price is obvious: less criticism of its Chechnya policies, eastward expansion of NATO to be conditional on Russia's integration into a new European security system and rapid accession to the WTO. At a further remove, China's price will be reduced U.S. support for Taiwan.
 In theory, Sept. 11 should have given the European Union greater leverage in international affairs, but there is no entity able to take advantage of it. For Britain, Sept. 11 has reaffirmed the importance of its "special relationship" with the United States. But it is a strictly subordinate relationship. Many in the EU aspire to a more equal partnership, but are frustrated by the weakness of EU institutions. However, the net effect of Sept. 11 will probably be to accelerate the EU drive to a common foreign and security policy. This will be seen as the only way to keep Europe at the big table.
 Islam's price will be the hardest for the United States to pay. It is to end asymmetric U.S. support for Israel. One can be agnostic as to the precise connection between the terrorist attack on the United States and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Let me put it this way: To Islamic fundamentalists, the United States is the great imperialist Satan, and Israel its agent in the Middle East. Bin Laden explicitly made this coupling in his recorded statement.
 However, none of this is as important as the fact that the coalition against terrorism has to be global if the war against terrorism is to be won, and it will not stay global as long as Palestine continues to smolder. Syria's President Hafez Assad made this plain to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Damascus. Terrorism has to be fought by political as well as military means - as has always been true.
 The difficulty of keeping Arab support will become even greater if a link between the Sept. 11 bombing and Saddam Hussein is discovered, causing the coalition against terrorism to move on from Afghanistan to tackle Iraq. Before this happens, an Israeli-Palestine settlement must be well under way.
 Between the Jewish fear of being thrown to the wolves as they were in the Nazi period, and the Palestinian hatred of Western colonialism in the occupied territories, international statesmanship has extraordinarily little room for maneuver. In fact, I doubt if any settlement will be possible unless the discussion is moved out of its present rut onto a higher plane. We need an act of political invention similar to that which brought to an end the succession of French-German wars.
 To evolve a Middle Eastern equivalent of the European Union in which the warring nationalities and religions of the region could find a common home would be a supreme achievement. Perhaps Sept. 11 has provided just the right spur.
 To conclude on a moderately cheerful note: Sept. 11 has not destroyed the long-term grounds for optimism about the post-Cold War world. What it has done is to alert us to the urgency of tackling problems that tended to be swept under the carpet in the first flush of optimism. Was it not Goethe who wrote that God had sent mankind the Devil in order to stir it out of its accustomed sloth? Perhaps we will look back on bin Laden as the devil from whose evil acts some good came.
 
 <i>Robert Skidelsky is professor of political economy at Warwick University and a member of the House of Lords. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: There Are Millions of Lives at Stake
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Life has long been cheap in Afghanistan. Life expectancy is 46 years, every fourth toddler dies and millions this summer were already dependent on UN food.
 But as harsh as the past has been, America's new war in Afghanistan has created a dramatically new situation - one that is equal parts hope and fear. Hope, because world attention and charity is focused on Afghanistan like never before; fear, because the month-long U.S. bombing campaign has disrupted crucial UN food-supply networks that are only today starting to be reactivated.
 It's possible, then, that 2001 will be the year Afghanistan broke free of the famine that in recent years has regularly claimed the lives of tens of thousands of children.
 It's also still very possible, however, that hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians, as always mostly women and children, could be dead from malnutrition by spring. It all depends on how much aid can be trucked into Afghanistan in the next few weeks.
 The bombing of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan eventually prompted the successful Northern Alliance offensives - and with them a breakdown in public order, one that has turned the Taliban from grudging UN partners into a hostile force. This had until just days ago left truck drivers, the backbone of any major aid effort, unwilling or unable to do their job
 Given that the UN says 7 1/2 million Afghans are dependent on UN aid to survive, what happens if that aid can't get in? A week ago, Kofi Annan was complaining that only half of the food aid Afghanis tan needed was getting into the country. UN workers remained grimly upbeat - as diplomats, they had to be. But the more outspoken aid workers at private charities were quick to note that feeding just half of the 7 1/2 million hungry could work out at 3.75 million starvation deaths by spring.
 &quot;Aid is not getting in. We are on the cusp of a massive humanitarian crisis, the like of which we haven't seen for decades,&quot; Dominic Nutt, a spokesman for Christian Aid, said last week. Now the UN food trucks are rolling again, finally. And actually, the UN has more financial resources at its disposal to help Afghanistan than it has had for years.
 But the situation remains precarious. The breakdown of law and order and the bombing still hinder aid workers, who now must race against snow to reach thousands of Afghans in communities accessible only by treacherous mountain passes.
 Happily, it looks like we might pull it all off. The Taliban are in retreat, and on Friday the World Food Program announced that, having performed &quot;logistical miracles,&quot; it was finally trucking food into Afghanistan at a pace that could, if sustained, prevent mass starvation. (Though WFP officials and NGO aid workers are quick to add that getting that food to the people who need it most remains a big question mark.)
 However, even if we are finally succeeding, it owes more to luck than to planning. For three weeks, we ignored UN and aid-agency pleas to halt the bombing for a few weeks, so food could be rushed in before the crippling snowfalls. For weeks, we staked everything on the fighting spirit of the Northern Alliance at a time when no one seemed sure that they would ever move at all. It has all along been a helluva gamble with the lives of millions - one we barely seemed to be conscious of taking.
 
 <i>Matt Bivens, a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, is a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com]. </i>

TITLE: Beware the Praises of Experts
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: IT would seem to be a pretty good rule of thumb that if the international business press and financiers of the world's major institutions start referring to a country as a success story - or, God forbid, an &quot;economic miracle&quot; - then that country should only expect problems in the future.
 Not so long ago all the newspapers were full of stories heaping praise on the Argentine economic miracle. Today, Argentina is on the verge of bankruptcy, unemployment is running high and the public has lost all trust in politicians. Following the collapse of the NASDAQ, the United States went from being one of the key engines of global economic development to being a source of problems for the rest of the world.
 Russia's recent history confirms this rule. The August 1998 financial meltdown was preceded by enthusiastic reports from Western analysts predicting the onset of an unparalleled economic boom. After 1998, the same experts wrote Russia off as a complete basket-case, a place where reforms are not properly implemented and corruption and inefficiency prevail.
 Of course, the Russian economy started to grow immediately after this. However, it took Western analysts about two years to notice.
 Finally, in the third year of stable growth, Western business leaders recognized that Russia was a land of opportunity and once again declared that reforms were on track after all.
 No sooner had Russia started receiving high marks from the world business community than oil prices started to fall and a new economic crisis became a real prospect.
 The problem with the majority of economic analysts is that, generally, they don't analyze anything. If things are going well, then there is no sense in studying the specific reasons for success; everything can be explained by the consistent implementation of neo-liberal reforms. If problems arise, then either the reforms have not been carried out consistently or they have not been sufficiently radical.
 Moreover, it doesn't seem to embarass anyone that the same countries - whether the Czech Republic, Argentina or Russia - are cited in turn as examples of where liberal reforms have been implemented successfully and then as paragons of inefficient bureaucratism.
 Between 1991 and 2001, Russia underwent no radical structural economic reforms. All that happened was that the price of the ruble to the dollar fell, and soon after the price of oil went up.
 The moment that the flow of petrodollars dries up, structural problems in the economy will immediately come to the fore once again. Worse than that is the discovery that the standard set of liberal prescriptions at the government's disposal can do little to cure the various maladies.
 Once again, the imbalance is exposed between the natural-resource sectors that provide real revenues for the budget and the poor processing industries that provide a livelihood for the majority of the population.
 The economic growth of the last few years was made possible only because natural-resource monopolies found they had surplus funds, which have been distributed among other sectors of the economy in a somewhat random fashion. Now that these surpluses are no more, the rest of the economy is returning to its original moribund state.
 The political monopoly of the Kremlin has been maintained on the back of high oil revenues and is likely to disappear along with them. The bubble will burst and the resulting market correction will unavoidably spill over into a political crisis. In fact, Russia's bubble has been more political than economic. It variously goes under the name of &quot;strong presidential power,&quot; &quot;strengthening of the state,&quot; or &quot;increased manageability of the country.&quot;
 Strong support for opposition candidates in major regional elections was seen even before the first symptoms of economic slowdown appeared. With the onset of winter, all the usual social problems will again come to the fore, and hopes that they can be resolved will vanish along with the flow of petrodollars.
 In the Kremlin, they instinctively understand the problem and are getting nervous, but they can do nothing. No one can say exactly how the crisis will develop and what forms it will take.
 The only thing that is clear is that when the political bubble bursts, the noise will be much louder than when the stock markets crash.
 
 <i>Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist. </i>

TITLE: They Have a Different Word for Everything
AUTHOR: By Marc Fisher
TEXT: AS U.S. forces geared up to enter Somalia in 1992, urgent word arrived at the Defense Language Institute that the military needed speakers of Somali.
 At the institute, America's foremost language-teaching facility, &quot;We put out an all-points bulletin: Does anyone know this language?&quot; recalls Paul Bannes, who teaches Russian there. &quot;In all the U.S. armed forces, there was only one person who knew Somali. He was found and immediately flown to our institute, where overnight he worked to compile a one-page pamphlet of must-know Somali for [the troops].&quot;
 This is not how the greatest country in the world should be doing business, yet in the days after Sept. 11, we went through the same drill. It hasn't been pretty. Seeing the director of the FBI go on television to beg for speakers of Arabic - not to mention less-common Afghan tongues - was nothing short of pathetic.
 Only 8 percent of U.S. college students study a language. Of those, only 10 percent pick a tongue other than Spanish, French or German. And not even 10 percent of language students ever achieve functional proficiency in it.
 The numbers on Arabic are shocking: Only 4,300 U.S. students were studying the language in 1998, says John Eisele, president of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic. Sure, enrollment in beginning Arabic courses zoomed this fall; at Princeton University, the number tripled. But it takes three years to reach fluency in that difficult a language, and &quot;almost nobody reaches the level of proficiency the government needs in the military and intelligence,&quot; says Richard Brecht, director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. &quot;We always find ourselves in this situation because our education system is market driven.&quot;
 The market just doesn't work for what teachers call &quot;less-commonly-taught&quot; languages. So the government subsidizes those courses, pumping money, for example, into Russian instruction after the Soviet Union launched its first Sputnik rocket in 1957. But when the U.S. Embassy in Iran was taken over in 1979, none of our staff there spoke Farsi, Brecht says. He adds that when we discovered terrorists' plans in Arabic after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, &quot;we didn't process the information for months because we didn't have the people.&quot;
 At the convention, the Defense Language Institute sought to fill immediate positions in Afghan and Pakistani languages. &quot;The fact is we don't have a sure-fire formula for finding capable instructors of less-commonly-taught languages,&quot; Bannes said.
 
 <i>Marc Fisher is a columnist for the Washington Post, to which he contributed this colum. </i>

TITLE: a homecoming for borodina
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Olga Borodina's contract with the Mariinsky Theater stipulates only three local performances per year, so each appearance is necessarily an event. The world famous mezzo-soprano with the deep, velvety voice divides her time among the musical capitals of the world. Her performance this year in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Bizet's &quot;Carmen&quot; at New York's Metropolitan Opera was mesmerizing. Last year, she was triumphant in Francesco Cilea's &quot;Adriana Lecouvrer&quot; at Milan's La Scala. She is universally hailed as perhaps the world's most captivating and convincing Delilah and the most dramatic Eboli.
 On Sunday, this Petersburg native returns to the Mariinsky stage with a concert program of works by Mussorgsky, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Dargomyzhsky, giving local audiences another opportunity to be enthralled by her miraculously nuanced and immensely powerful voice. Mariinsky artistic director Valery Ger gi ev will conduct.
 Borodina is candid about the role that Gergiev has played in her life from the beginning of her career, when he generously gave leading roles to the recent St. Petersburg Conservatory graduate.
 &quot;He provided enormous support in helping me to choose repertoire, [he is] the person who established me as an artist and encouraged me to believe in myself,&quot; Borodina said. &quot;And he, after all, introduced me to the world.&quot;
 The singer joined the Mariinsky company in 1987 and had her international debut at Covent Garden, singing Delilah across from Placido Do mingo's Samson. The performance met with tremendous acclaim and provided an impressive start to her international career.
 Borodina is a remarkably flexible performer, singing both dramatic and lyrical roles with equal - and considerable - success. While conceding that lyrical roles are less exhausting physically, Borodina says that she nonetheless finds singing evil protagonists to be more rewarding. 
 &quot;Dramatic roles are, indeed, more sophisticated. They have more spice and spark. Stronger characters are much more exciting to perform,&quot; she said.
 Over the years, the singer and the conductor Gergiev have developed a unique, almost symbiotic relationship enabling them to feel and anticipate one another. 
 &quot;This is absolutely the truth. Even if I stand with my back to him, I can sense him,&quot; Borodina said. &quot;We have achieved a rare, fantastic mutual understanding.&quot;
 This is not to say that the pair sees eye to eye in all matters. Borodina does not share Gergiev's passion for Prokofiev and Wagner. Likewise, many of the operas in which the singer shines - such as Nikiolai Rimsky-Korsakov's &quot;The Tsar's Bride&quot; or Georges Bizet's &quot;Carmen&quot; - have yet to be staged for her at the Mariinsky.
 &quot;I am not at all a Wagnerian singer,&quot; Borodina said. &quot;So even though Gergiev sometimes tries to suggest that I sing, for instance, Brunhilda [of the Ring cycle], I reject these proposals. There are 27 operas in my repertoire, and I prefer doing things that better suit my voice than Wagner.&quot;
 Nonetheless, the pair is proud of their artistic union and continue to plan new collaborations. Gergiev admiringly refers to Borodina as a &quot;vocal monster,&quot; an appellation that captures the artistic and emotional power of her presence. 
 &quot;It is an honor for the theater to have this singer performing here,&quot; Gergiev notes.
 Some of Borodina's colleagues are surprised that this international icon keeps coming back to St. Petersburg.
 &quot;I am often asked what ties me to Russia and, frankly, I can't offer any rational explanation,&quot; she said. 
 &quot;I have, perhaps, too much of a Russian personality. This country is a very spiritual place, and I get nostalgic when I am away for too long.&quot;
 <i>
See listings for details. </i>

TITLE: three remarkable lives in a dynasty
AUTHOR: by Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <strong>A Triptych from the Russian Theater </strong>is an artistic biography of a remarkable theatrical dynasty whose influence on opera and drama was felt not only in Russia, but on stages around the world.
 &quot;It is hard today to imagine how much the Russians loved their theater; to say it was their life is no exaggeration.&quot; Victor Borovsky, a distinguished Russian theater historian and the author of this book, is referring to a time during the latter part of the 19th century, a time when interest in opera and the theater was growing in Russia. This period forms the springboard for an excellent book in which Borovsky follows the colorful lives of three members of the Komissarzhevsky family, through to the 1950s. In doing so, he also brings to life some of the issues as central to artistic expression in 19th- and early 20th-century Russia as in Britain or the United States today: the relationship between actor and director; the extent to which theater reflects life; the importance of the spiritual side of life and its manifestation on the stage; and symbolism in theater.
 The first section of the biography follows the changing fortunes of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky (1832-1905), a leading tenor at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. As Borovsky writes, Komissarzhevsky did not look for adventures, they happened of their own accord, lending him the glamour of a romantic hero offstage. He was also highly respected as a teacher of vocal technique and stagecraft. 
 After his retirement from performing, he became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his private pupils was the young Konstantin Stanislavsky, who was dreaming of an operatic career. 
 Komissarzhevsky's daughter, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, (1864-1910) is the subject of the second part of this biography. She is the foremost actress in the history of the Russian theater and became a cultural institution. Her friends and admirers included Sergei Rachmaninov, Fyodor Shalyapin and Anton Chekhov. She played Nina Zarechnaya in the premier of &quot;The Seagull&quot; in 1896 at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Chekhov said: &quot;No one so truly, really and deeply understood me as did Vera Komissarzhevskaya.&quot; She founded her own theater in St. Petersburg, highlighting Vsevolod Meyerhold's productions.
 Despite her public successes, Vera suffered much in her private life. Borovsky describes the torments of her marriage to Count Vladimir Muravyov, including his affair with her sister, which resulted in a child. The strength of Vera's love for him is reflected in her suicidal despair following this episode. But it was her refusal to submit to the blows of fate, combined with &quot;a melancholy and compassion reaching ... deep into the heart&quot; that drew her contemporaries to her. When she died in 1910, she was mourned throughout Russia. Her grave at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery continues to be visited by hundreds of admirers.
 The final and longest section of the book, and perhaps the most entertaining, with its peppering of British theatrical voices and associations, describes the life of Vera's half-brother, Fyodor Komissarzhevsky <i>fils </i>(1882-1954), who began his artistic work in her theater as head of production alongside Meyerhold. He studied architecture and music, spoke several European languages fluently and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the arts. Komissarzhevsky became an eminent director of opera and drama in pre-Revolutionary Russia. He wrote numerous books and articles, first in Russian, then in English, that show an original view of the nature of theater. He emigrated in 1919 and for 20 years was a leading figure in British theater. 
 His first engagement in England was a production of Alexander Borodin's &quot;Prince Igor&quot; at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His productions of Chekhov's plays were a revelation both to actors and to the public, for besides being a great producer, Komissarzhevsky was also a brilliant stage designer. He had nothing in common with the photographically realistic English designers of the time. Komissarzhevsky was a leading director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and his innovative productions, many of which he designed himself, are still regarded as classics. 
 He left England in 1938 for the United States, where his contribution was again considerable. He set up his own theater school in New York City. 
 The book is based on Russian and Western archival material and unpublished memoirs and letters, as well as interviews with theater greats John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quayle and Charles Laughton, who all claim to have been influenced by Komissarzhevsky. 
 Borovsky also interviewed Ernestine Stodelle-Komissarzhevsky, the last wife of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, who allowed him access to her private papers. Apart from a few articles in academic journals - mainly about Vera - nothing has been written in the West about the Komissarzhevskys. This book, as well recording three remarkable lives, traces Russian theatrical culture over a century and its impact on British and American theater. It contains 81 rare photographs, and though a scholarly book packed with facts and notes, it is a good read.
 
 <i>Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky studies at the School of Slavonic Studies and writes on the Russian theater.
 
 &quot;A Triptych from the Russian Theater: An Artistic Biography of the Komissar zhev sky Family,&quot; by Victor Borovsky. Published by the University of Iowa Press, $49.95. 588 pages. </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Pakistan's Sabri Brothers, who played locally on Sunday, proved to be a great success, selling out the venue with an estimated 300 more people unabel to get tickets and heading home disappointed. However, they shouldn't despair too much, since we have the chance to hear another star of global music - Armenia's <strong>Djivan Gasparyan </strong>- who will play two concerts in the city over the weekend.
 Gasparyan is con sidered one of Armenia's greatest musicians, a living legend. He is the foremost virtuoso of the duduk, an oboe-like instrument dating back to Armenia's pre-Christian times that is made of apricot wood and capable of sustaining droning notes for long periods of time. 
 The duduk's range is only one octave. However, it requires considerable skill to play because its dynamics are controlled by constantly adjusting the lips and fingers. The duduk has a warm, soft, slightly nasal timbre and is used in both folk songs and dance music. 
 Gasparyan was born in 1928 in Solag, a village near the Armenian capital Yerevan. He began to play the duduk at the age of six, gaining much of his knowledge by listening to the great masters. He is also an accomplished folk singer and a composer.
 Gasparyan has toured Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In the United States, he has performed extensively in New York and Los Angeles, where he appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, he has received exposure to Western audiences via performances with the Kronos Quartet. Gasparyan has also collaborated with Lionel Richie and Peter Gabriel and has recorded soundtracks for the movies &quot;The Russia House&quot; and &quot;The Crow&quot; and Atom Egoyan's film &quot;Calendar.&quot; 
 <i>7 p.m., Fri., Nov. 23, Sat., Nov. 24, Lensoviet Palace of Culture, 42 Kamennoostrovsky Pr., 346-0438.
 </i><strong>Moloko, </strong>arguably the best local rock club, will celebrate its fifth birthday with an all-night concert featuring the popular Afro-rock band Mark schei der Kunst. Moloko has filled the niche that was left after the pioneering alternative TaMtAm club folded in 1996 - a few months before the launch of Moloko. It is a youth-oriented and friendly venue where some of the most exciting concerts take place. 
 <i>Moloko's Fifth Anniversary Party with Markscheider Kunst, Animal Jazz, Lyudi Lopesa and a bunch of DJs. 7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 29.
 </i>Coincidentally, the local rock publication Fuzz will have its own event on the very same night. The magazine will present its documentary <strong>Fuzz-Film: Rock of the 1990s, </strong>which includes interviews and music from a number of Russian artists. 
 The film seems to be yet another part of Fuzz's self-celebrating campaign dedicated to its 10th anniversary, a campaign that started with the publication of &quot;Fuzz Book&quot; in the spring. The book mostly praised the magazine and its editors and was not very enticing reading for outsiders, and there are serious apprehensions that the documentary will be more of the same.
 The magazine's subject matter is mostly the same, uninventive Russian rock that is played on Moscow's Nashe Radio - Vyacheslav Butusov and Nochniye Snaipery, who will be performing at this weekend's event, are perfect examples of the style. 
 <i>Fuzz: Rock of the 1990s. A film screening and a concert by Tequilajazzz, Vyacheslav Butusov and Noch niye Snaipery. Lensoviet Palace of Culture. 7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 29.
</i> 

 - by Sergey Chernov

TITLE: a bit of latvia in our backyard
AUTHOR: by Robert Coalson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg, of course, is justifiably proud that in 2003 it will be celebrating its 300th birthday. Although 300 is certainly a distinguished age and much of importance has happened here over the last three centuries, we shouldn't overlook the fact that most of our neighbors are considerably more venerable. Moscow celebrated its 850th birthday in 1997, for instance, and Helsinki celebrated 450 years just last year.
 This year is Riga's turn, as the city that is now the capital of Latvia was first mentioned in the chronicles in 1201, making it 800 years young this year. Anyone who has the chance to visit Riga and join in the festivities certainly should take advantage, but for those of us who aren't likely to get there soon, there is a local option. Rizhsky Dvorik on Ulitsa Maya kov skogo has set itself the goal of creating a tiny corner of Riga right here in St. Petersburg, down to the wrought-iron decorations and the terracotta drinking cups.
 While Rizhsky Dvorik is far from the fanciest or most interesting place in town, it is cozy and inviting. Just six tables in an airy interior of tan wood and tile floors, the place has a genuinely relaxed atmosphere, as opposed to those places that obviously <i>strive </i>to seem relaxed. Unfortunately, the fireplace here is a fake, but if you squint and look at it out of the corner of your eye, it doesn't seem to matter that much. The mulled wine goes down just as smoothly. Overall, it is a great place to wander into on a dark and snowy St. Petersburg evening.
 Like the interior, the menu is cozy and unpretentious, offering a small but passable survey of hearty Latvian dishes. I am no expert on Baltic cuisine, but I'd characterize the food at Rizhsky Dvorik as a cross between German and Russian, which is probably what you'd expect. Although there isn't much here in terms of spices, the Latvians are doing interesting things with dried fruit and they seem to share Russia's penchant for herring.
 If you are anything like me, the thing you'll notice first about Rizhsky Dvorik's menu is how inexpensive it is. The priciest item on offer is the rainbow trout entree at just 170 rubles ($5.67). Even the wines go for from 450 to 600 rubles ($15 to $20) a bottle, but several selections are available by the glass for 30 to 60 rubles ($1 to $2). 
 From the nine salads on the menu, we choose the Rigas Setas (Latvian for Rizhsky Dvorik) house salad for 90 rubles ($3), which was a simple, but refreshing combination of sliced beef, chicken and pork tossed together with salad vegetables and topped with walnuts and dried apricots. The menu described the dressing as a &quot;cognac sauce,&quot; but it seemed rather like mayonnaise to me. The apricots were a nice touch.
 The night being cold and wet, we couldn't pass up on the soup. We decided to split one called Perzan, a creamy vegetable soup with parmesan cheese for 60 rubles ($2). The aroma was spectacular, but my dining companion and I split sharply on the soup itself. I found it thin and rather plain, while she described it as &quot;hearty&quot; and &quot;warm in your tummy.&quot; 
 For a main dish, I ordered the &quot;pepper steak&quot; for 135 rubles ($4.50), which was a rather small piece of cubed steak with a white sauce flavored with sweet peppers. The sauce was heavy but passable, and the whole meal was surprisingly filling despite the seemingly small portion. The presentation was simple, but pleasant. Again, &quot;unpretentious&quot; seems to be the theme of the day.
 My dining companion made a bolder choice, going for the &quot;beef rulet&quot; for 150 rubles ($5). This was an envelope of ground beef stuffed with dried plums and apricots and served with a &quot;madera&quot; sauce. I liked the taste of this dish considerably more than that of my pepper steak, but unfortunately, my dining companion did too, so I was unable to arrange a switch.
 In short, I wouldn't say that Rizhsky Dvorik was a unique experience or that it would justify a special trip across town. But if you find yourself in the neighborhood and you are cold and looking for an easy-going place where you are welcome to sit as long as you like, this is a place to keep in mind.
 
 <i>Rizhsky Dvorik, 34/4 Ulitsa Maya kov skogo, 273-1149. Open daily from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. Dinner for two with beer, 820 rubles ($27.33). Menu in Russian only. No credit cards accepted. </i>

TITLE: swiss cinema today
TEXT: <strong>La Femme de Rose Hill (The Woman Of Rose Hill) </strong>(1989, Switzerland - France). A young woman from Rose Hill, Mauritius, arrives in rural Switzerland to marry her pen-pal, Marcel, who is much older. Directed by Alain Tanner. <i>7 p.m. Fri., Nov. 23, 3 p.m. Sat., Nov. 24.
 </i><strong>Who's Next? </strong>(1999, Switzerland) Peasant Max might have stayed in his lonely Alpine pasture forever, but an American puts the idea in his head that with the help of an edelweiss flower he could have any woman he liked. Directed by Felix Tissi. <i>7 p.m., Sun., Nov. 25.
 </i><strong>Hotel Belgrad </strong>(1999, Switzerland). A couple makes love in a hotel in this short film. She lives in Switzerland; he is from Belgrade, which was destroyed during the war. What has been destroyed may be restored in this hotel room. Directed by Andrea Staka. <i>Shown before &quot;Who's the Next?&quot; 7 p.m., Sun., Nov. 25.
 </i><strong>La Difference (The Difference) </strong>(1999, Switzerland). This eight-minute animated film deals with transexuality. Directed by Rita Kung. <i>Shown before &quot;Who's the Next?&quot; 7 p.m., Sun., Nov. 25.
 </i><strong>Azzurro </strong>(2000, Switzerland - France - Italy). A touching story of a grandfather, Guiseppe, who fights against significant odds to pay for the surgery that will restore his blind granddaughter's sight. Directed by Denis Rabaglia. <i>4:50 p.m. Sat., Nov. 24, 4:50 p.m. Sun., Nov. 25.
 </i><strong>Vollmond (Full Moon) </strong>(1998, Switzerland - Germany - France). On the day after a full moon, twelve 10-year-old children, are found to be missing in the four language regions of Switzerland. Directed by Fredi M. Murer. <i>7 p.m. Wed., Nov. 28, Sat., Dec. 1.
 </i><strong>Beresina oder Die letzten Tage der Schweiz (Beresina, or The Last Days of Switzerland </strong>(1999, Switzerland). This black comedy tells of a Russian call girl named Irina (Yelena Panova) who finds herself in the midst of a plot to overthrow the government, a scheme initiated many years before by an obscure political organization, the Beresina Alarm. Directed by Daniel <i>Schmid. 7 p.m. Fri., Nov. 30 - Sun., Nov. 2
 </i><strong>Das Geschriebene Gesicht (The Written Face) </strong>(1995, Japan - Switzerland). This film is a variation on the subject of ideal female beauty as seen through the eyes of a man. It is also a journey through the face of the great Kabuki actor, Tamasaburo Bando. Directed by Daniel Schmid. <i>7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 29, Sun., Dec. 2
 </i>
 <i>Films are shown at Dom Kino. For updates, call 314-0638 </i>



TITLE: Another Mystery Anthrax Death Hits U.S.
AUTHOR: By Kathryn Masterson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DERBY, Connecticutt - A 94-year-old woman from rural Connecticut died of inhalation anthrax Wednesday, five days after she was admitted to a hospital. The source of her infection, distant from other recent bioterror attacks, remained a mystery.
 Ottilie Lundgren died at 10:32 a.m., a Griffin Hospital official said. The retired widow was brought to the hospital Friday suffering from an apparent respiratory infection after falling ill a couple of days earlier.
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the infection after similar test results at the hospital and state health laboratory, Governor John Rowland said.
 Doctors at the hospital had suspected anthrax shortly after Lungren was admitted. The CDC was expected to conduct an autopsy.
 Lundgren lived by herself in a modest ranch-style home in Oxford, about 45 kilometers southwest of Hartford.
 &quot;It doesn't seem like something of this magnitude should happen in a town like this,&quot; said John Dunleavey, 23, who grew up in the neighborhood.
 Lundgren's niece, Shirley Davis, told The Hartford Courant that her aunt had stopped driving. &quot;She went to the hairdresser's and to [church] when she was up to it. I nearly fainted when the doctors told me they suspected anthrax.&quot;
 Rowland said the early investigation was focusing on the mail, considered the source of most other anthrax cases. The woman's whereabouts over the last few weeks were also being researched.
 The governor said there was no indication the woman is related to any government official or member of the media or had any public activity that would cause her to be a target of terrorism.
 Four other people have died - two Washington postal workers, a hospital employee in New York City and a newspaper photo editor in Florida - since the anthrax scare began early last month. Six other people fell ill with the inhaled form of the disease, while others had the milder skin form of the disease.
 With the exception of the New York hospital worker, whose case is also a mystery, recent cases of anthrax have centered on letters sent to media outlets and members of Congress.
 Doctors at Griffin Hospital said Lundgren already had been ill for two days when she was admitted last week.
 &quot;Any elderly patient will have a hard time fighting any kind of infection, even the most common type of bacterial infection,&quot; Dr. Lydia Barakat said at a news conference.
 Doctors initially suspected pneumonia and tested Lundgren's blood Saturday. When bacteria were detected, additional tests showed they matched the properties of anthrax, said Dr. Stephanie Wain, who runs the hospital's lab.
 U.S. Postal Service spokesperson Jim Cari said mail to Oxford goes through a processing center in Wallingford. That center was recently tested for anthrax and showed no sign of contamination, Cari said. Rowland said that authorities would provide antibiotics as a precaution for 1,000 employees at the Wallingford and at a post office in Seymour.
 Oxford, a town of fewer than 10,000 residents about 115 kilometers from New York City, has one bank and no hotel, according to the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development.
 &quot;It is weird that a 94-year-old woman in Oxford would possibly have anthrax,&quot; Rowland said. &quot;[But] there's no rhyme or reason to what's happened over the last eight weeks, either.&quot;
 The 94-year-old Lundgren was a retired legal secretary.

TITLE: More Bloodshed as U.S. Mediators Arrive
AUTHOR: By Ibrahim Barzak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KHAN YOUNIS REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Five Palestinian children were killed on their way to school Thursday by a powerful explosion in a Gaza Strip refugee camp. In the West Bank, Palestinians fired at an Israeli factory, injuring two workers.
 A Palestinian security commander said that one of the children apparently kicked an unexploded Israeli tank shell that they had found lying on the ground, setting it off. Israeli officials, however, said the blast might have been caused by Palestinian-made explosives.
 Both sides were quick to tie the incident to a new American effort to enforce an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire. Two U.S. mediators - William Burns of the U.S. State Department and retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni - are expected in the region next week.
 &quot;This is how [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon is welcoming the American delegation, with more bloodshed of our children,&quot; said Ahmed Abdel Rahman, the secretary general of the Palestinian cabinet.
 Arieh Mekel, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, said that with the impending arrival of the U.S. team, &quot;we can't ignore the possibility that they [the Palestinians] want to use the incident for purposes of propaganda.&quot;
 Mekel said Israel shared the grief of the bereaved families.
 The blast went off at about 7:30 a.m. in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. A group of children was on the way to a UN elementary school in the camp when the explosion occured, witnesses said.
 Sufian Abu Jamea, 15, said he was about 300 meters away when he heard the explosion. &quot;I turned to see from where it came. I saw parts of a leg flying in the air. Then I ran away,&quot; Abu Jamea said.
 A Palestinian security official, Colonel Khaled Abu Ola, said one of the children apparently had kicked an unexploded Israeli tank shell. He said his account was based on witness testimony and reports by police investigators.
 Abu Ola had initially said an Israeli tank shell hit the school Thursday, but the army denied there was Israeli shooting in the area at the time.
 The five children killed were all members of the Al-Astal extended family, one of the largest in the Khan Younis camp, Palestinian officials said. Among the victims, ranging in age from seven to 14, were two pairs of brothers, doctors said. The bodies were badly charred.
 The refugee camp has been a scene of frequent fighting between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops guarding the nearby Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal. An Israeli Army outpost is several hundred meters from the site of the explosion.
 Also Thursday, three armed Palestinians in a jeep crashed through the gates of an Israeli factory near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, opened fire and lightly injured two workers, said factory owner David Yagouri. Yagouri said he tried to return fire, but that his pistol jammed. &quot;[The gunmen] reversed out of the factory and escaped through the same gate which they had burst through,&quot; Yagouri told Israel radio. The Israeli military confirmed the shooting attack.
 Earlier Thursday, Israeli forces raided Azzarieh, a Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem, and shut down three offices of the Palestinian Authority, the military said. The offices belonged to three different Palestinian security services.
 The military said the offices were shut down to &quot;prevent terrorist activity,&quot; but did not explain further. Israel said the presence of Palestinian security forces in Azzarieh was illegal, a violation of interim peace accords. The suburb is under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, with Israel remaining in charge of security.
 Mekel, the Israeli Foreign Ministry official, said the raid was part of a government campaign to challenge the Palestinian Authority presence in east Jerusalem and its West Bank hinterland. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war, as their future capital.
 In another raid, Israeli forces entered the village of Bir Zeit, just north of the West Bank town of Ramallah, and arrested six supporters of militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, Palestinian intelligence officials said.
 The renewed tensions came as U.S. President George W. Bush met in Washington with the two Mideast envoys ahead of their truce mission.
 Several agreements have been reached during more than 14 months of Palestinian-Israeli fighting but have not been carried out. Each side blames the other for continuing violence.

TITLE: Cyprus Still an Obstacle for Turkey EU Bid
AUTHOR: By Ben Holland
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey's swift show of willingness to help shape the future of Afghanistan has won praise and perhaps financial rewards from the West, but another ethnic impasse closer to home bars membership in the Western club that Turkey most wants to join. 
 Many believe the 27-year division of Cyprus is one of the biggest obstacles to Turkey's European Union membership, adding urgency to talks between the leaders of Greek and Turkish Cypriots set to resume next month.
 Cyprus heads the list of contenders to join the union, and EU approval for the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government's bid could come as early as next year. If that happens, Turkey has threatened to annex the island's north, where it maintains 35,000 troops in a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state that only Turkey recognizes. Turkey says a solution on Cyprus should come before EU membership. 
 Turkey's parliament will hold a closed session Friday on Cyprus. Ministers say they are ready to pay the costs of closer integration with the north, but some warn that those costs will be too high. 
 &quot;Without a doubt, it would mean turning Turkey's EU membership into the most distant of dreams, or abandoning Turkey's candidacy altogether,&quot; wrote Ismet Berkan in daily Radikal. 
 Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has gone further, warning that Cyprus' admission to the EU could spark a Turkish-Greek war. The two countries have come close to war three times since Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 in the wake of a short-lived coup by supporters of union with Greece. 
 Some analysts believe the EU could try to ease Turkish concerns over Cypriot membership by promising to speed up Turkey's own accession. 
 &quot;Suppose Turkey knew it could start accession negotiations in the reasonably near future,&quot; said William Hale, a Turkey specialist at London's School of Oriental and African Studies. &quot;Would they go ahead with all the things they've threatened?&quot;
 At the moment, Turkey's bid to join the 15-member bloc seems to have little momentum. 
 The latest EU report offered faint praise for Turkey's reform efforts, saying Ankara still had a long way to go before it could open membership negotiations. Even Turkey's deputy premier, Mesut Yilmaz, admitted Turkey had no right to be proud of its progress. 
 Human rights and freedom of expression are among the EU's chief concerns, along with Turkey's determination to block access to NATO resources for a planned EU army unless it is given a voice in decision-making. 
 A breakthrough in the Cyprus reunification talks could regain the lost momentum, but that has been an elusive prize in nearly three decades of failed initiatives. 
 Some Turks say the only hope of a solution lies in giving both communities in Cyprus a stake in the European Union. 
 The proposal could win the support of Turkish Cypriots concerned by the growing economic gap with their southern neighbors, said Cengiz Aktar, a specialist on Turkey-EU relations at the Istanbul think tank Boga zici Communications. 
 &quot;I think the north realizes that this isolation cannot last for ever,&quot; he said. &quot;Don't forget that GDP per capita is in the south is $13,000, in the north it's $3,000.&quot; 
 The Union has always said it would prefer to admit Cyprus as a united island. But as Denktash and Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides prepare for their first face-to-face meeting in four years, there is little time to achieve this. 
 &quot;The clock is ticking,&quot; Aktar said. &quot;Once the south joins, it will be more difficult to settle this issue.&quot;

TITLE: English Players Threatening To Strike Over TV Revenues
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - With an unprecedented English soccer strike set to begin Dec. 1, the labor dispute appeared headed for the courts Wednesday as both sides blamed the other for the impasse and displayed no sign of compromise.
 After Tuesday's collapse of talks over television revenue, the players union gave league officials notice that a boycott of televised matches would go ahead starting the weekend of Dec. 1-2.
 It would be the first strike in the history of the English game.
 The Professional Footballers' Association is seeking an annual 5-percent share - or about Pound27 million ($40 million) - of the leagues' television income. The Premier League offered Pound50 million ($72.5 million) over three years.
 &quot;It's time to protect the very future of the union,&quot; union chief Gordon Taylor said. &quot;We feel we have been left with no alternative.&quot;
 The Premier League said a strike would be illegal because players' contracts are held by clubs and not the leagues. Officials said they would seek a High Court injunction to stop a strike.
 &quot;We have to do everything we can to stop the strike,&quot; said Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's chief executive. &quot;It is unthinkable that players are thinking about striking. It is unthinkable the public won't be able to watch televised [soccer].&quot;
 The first match that could be called off would be the Dec. 1 game between defending champion Manchester United and Chelsea at Old Trafford.
 All other matches in the Premier League and the first, second and third divisions would also be off unless television cameras were banned from the grounds. While some games are broadcast live, virtually all other games are televised in some form for recorded highlights.
 Taylor said European and domestic cup games would not be affected by a strike.
 The players' union announced earlier this month it had the support of 99 percent of its members in the long-running dispute over ballooning television money. High-profile players - including Manchester United's David Beckham - have said they would accept whatever the union decided.
 Taylor appeared on television programs Wednesday to criticize the &quot;patronizing and arrogant&quot; attitude of the Premier League negotiators.
 &quot;They are forever putting up another obstacle,&quot; he said. &quot;It's just the high-handed arrogance of them. The gap to be bridged is absolutely loose change to them, but to us it's a big item and it's a big principle. In reality, the Premier League have strung us along.&quot; 
 Peter Risdale, the influential chairperson of Leeds United, said he would stop paying his players if they went on strike.
 &quot;If our players refuse to play, we'll have to stop paying them,&quot; he said. &quot;It is not an industrial dispute. There's no dispute between Leeds United Football Club and our players about their contracts: We pay them to play and they are happy to play. We have no choice but to say, 'You will not be paid because the wage money comes from TV money.'&quot;
 Aston Villa chairperson Doug Ellis said players will &quot;suffer very heavily&quot; if they go ahead with a walkout.
 &quot;If they continue with this strike we will apply to the High Court for an injunction to stop them going on strike,&quot; he said. &quot;If that fails, which I doubt it will, then obviously we will see them in court and consequently I think they will lose and that will be to their detriment.&quot;

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Roy Staying Home
 

DENVER, Colorado (AP) - Patrick Roy , the winningest goalie in NHL history, stunned the hockey world on Wednesday night by bowing out of the Salt Lake City Olympics.
 The 36-year-old Canadian, who plays for the Colorado Avalanche, cited rest as the main reason to sit out the games.
 "I want to be ready and focused for the playoffs and get some rest," Roy said after sitting out against the New York Islanders. "With the quality of goaltending, the team shouldn't be worried."
 Roy also wants to watch 12-year-old son Jonathan play in a Pee Wee tournament in Quebec.
 Roy spoke with Wayne Gretzky, the Canadian team's general manager, earlier Wednesday and his decision was announced during the Avalanche's 5-4 loss to New York.
 
 
Stars Go Dealing
 

DALLAS, Texas (Reuters) - The Dallas Stars, looking to boost a lineup not producing enough goals, pulled the trigger on a pair of trades with the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.
 The Stars acquired left wings Martin Rucinsky and Benoit Brunet from Montreal in exchange for right wing Donald Audette and center Shaun Van Allen.
 Dallas also traded Jyrki Lumme to the Leafs for Dave Manson in a swap of veteran defensemen hours after Lumme had cleared waivers. That deal was subject to Lumme passing a physical with the Maple Leafs.
 Rucinsky, who missed 25 games because of injury last season and has just two goals and six assists in 18 games this season, was Montreal's leading scorer during the 1999-2000 campaign with 25 goals and 24 assists in 80 games.
 
 
Prost Team in Trouble
 

PARIS (Reuters) - Alain Prost's dream of a successful French Formula One team was close to collapse on Thursday when the team he bought in 1997 went into receivership.
 Prost Grand Prix was placed in the hands of receivers - the first stage on the road to bankruptcy - by a court in Versailles, near the team's factory, a court spokesperson said.
 The French constructor will be monitored by the court for a period of six months and judge Franck Michel has been named the team's administrator, the spokesperson added.
 The decision does not mean that Prost Grand Prix must withdraw from the 2002 world championship, only that it has failed so far to find funds to cover debts estimated at around 200 million francs ($30 million).
 
 
Duke Wins Again
 

LAHIANA, Hawaii (AP) - The top-ranked Duke Blue Devils beat the Ball State Cardinals 83-71 Wednesday night, something No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Kansas couldn't do the previous two days, and won the Maui Invitational for the third time in as many appearances.
 Duke's run to the title wasn't without a scare: The defending national champions just got past Seton Hall 80-79 in the opening round. But the Blue Devils (3-0) never gave Ball State (2-1) a shot at completing what would have been the best three days a team, especially an unranked one from a mid-major conference, ever had.
 Unbelievably quick Jason Williams led Duke's defense while still coming up with 22 points. Tournament MVP Mike Dunleavy shook off first-half foul trouble to play his usual all-around game and had 16 points and nine rebounds.