SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #752 (18), Tuesday, March 12, 2002
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TITLE: New Faster Visas Off to a Slow Start
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The initial results of an experimental program of fast-track 72-hour visas that was launched on Feb. 1 have been disappointing, say tourism operators dealing with the new regulations.
According to the federal government's Tourism Department, just 34 tourists received 72-hours visas in St. Petersburg during the first month of the program. Only one such visa was issued in Moscow and none in Kaliningrad.
"[The program] was started on the initiative of Governor [Vladimir] Yakovlev, who was hoping that it would increase the flow of tourists from Scandinavian countries, especially Finland, wanting to visit the city for a few days," said Alexander Sorokin, head of the Tourism Department of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, in a telephone interview from Moscow on Monday.
However, according to the City Hall Tourism Committee, not a single tourist from Finland has yet applied for a fast-track visa. So far, only citizens of Germany, Sweden, France and Switzerland have applied.
"It looks like the Finns don't understand this yet," said Vladimir Kovalyov, a member of the City Hall Tourism Committee.
According to the experimental program, citizens of Schengen countries, Britain, Switzerland and Japan who intend to visit Moscow, St. Petersburg or Kaliningrad for less than 72 hours can apply to an authorize tourism operator two days before arrival and receive their visas at one of six authorized entry points, including Pulkhovo International Airport and Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.
Oleg Davtyan, deputy head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Foreign Ministry, said that the program "is working normally, as it should considering that it is an experiment."
Local tourism operators, however, were not so generous, arguing that the well-intentioned experiment is being strangled by those charged with implementing it.
"I have a lot of work, but this has nothing to do with the [72-hour] visas. We didn't have a single application last month," said Lyubov Sofyan, who is responsible for visa processing at the Nordic Travel agency.
"Nobody wants to deal with the amount of paperwork that we have to process according to the rules [issued by the Foreign Ministry," Sofyan added.
Local tourism officials emphasized that more must be done to promote the new program abroad.
"There is still not enough information about this. But we are trying to promote this at all the tourism exhibitions abroad," Kovalyov said.
Sofyan, though, said that she had attended one such exhibition in Italy last month and was less than impressed. She said that the Russian Foreign Ministry's display was difficult to find and that the representative was "unhappy and reticent."
"The display was located somewhere behind a corner and was very hard to find," she said.
According to tourism operators, the procedures for applying for the visa that were laid out by the Foreign Ministry in January are not realistic and the $35 fee does not cover the actual cost of the process. Operators that spoke to The St. Petersburg Times stated that it takes at least four days for the Foreign Ministry to process all the documents, not 48 hours, as the ministry planned.
They also stated that cost of processing each visa is as much as $60. They also noted that each of the 13 local tourism operators authorized to participate in the program have to pay $100 each month to the City Hall Tourism Committee for a committee employee who meets arriving tourists at the airport and assists them in getting their visas.
"The timeframe and cost now is very close to those that tourists would have processing ordinary visas in consulates. The Foreign Ministry has created so many obstacles that the companies just don't want to deal with this," said a federal government official who asked not to be identified in a telephone interview Monday from Moscow.
"Take Sheremetyevo airport, for instance. Tourists arrive at the hall for transit travelers, and the consular department is located in a [completely] different part of the airport. So they have to wait until an airport employee calls the [consular] department and, if somebody happens to be there, then the tourist is lucky. Welcome to Russia," he said.
The official added that he believes the Foreign Ministry is not interested in seeing the experiment succeed because it is losing money by issuing cheaper visas.
Local tourism operators also noted that the program was hampered by the limited working hours of the consular department at the airport.
"We did not have any [such] visa applications this month," said Tatiana Muliko, a representative of the Dyum travel company. "In addition to other things, there is an additional constraint. The consular department at Pulkovo works from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., so tourists who arrive at other times cannot get such visas."
According to Pulkovo's flight schedule, there are two daily arrivals from Helsinki, one of which arrives when the consular department is closed. In addition, a daily flight from Vienna also arrives during this period.
"[Tourists] don't fly on those flights, because they know," said an official with the airport consular department who refused to identify herself.
TITLE: Stand Up and Be Counted, It's Census Time
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: UFA, Bashkortostan - Sergei Neverovsky, 40, a construction engineer, heard someone outside his apartment talking about the census and threw open the door, saying hospitably, "At last, the census is on. Please come in."
He was too quick to draw conclusions. The census is not until October. But when it does finally take place, every person living in Russia will be asked to answer 24 questions, making it possible to draw a portrait of the population for the first time since the Soviet Union broke up. Eight of those questions have to do with housing, and this is what has Neverovsky excited.
Neverovsky lives with his wife and daughter in an appallingly tiny apartment consisting of one room and a kitchen in an old wooden house that appears to be sinking unevenly into the earth. His daughter does her homework in the kitchen, where they also watch television and take showers. His neighbors on Ulitsa Tsyurupy, who live in similar wooden houses with an outhouse in the courtyard, said they were built in 1867.
But Neverovsky's perhaps unusual enthusiasm about the long-delayed census seems to have more to do with his work at the Bashkortostan Construction Ministry than with his living conditions. "I need the results of the census for work," he said. "We have to plan what and how much we should build, and for this we need to know the structure of the population and the conditions people live in."
The census is intended to serve as the basis for economic and social planning and forecasting, help define policies in welfare, migration and employment and provide a database for research. "By taking part in the census, people are providing information about themselves, which means they are participating in the preparation of long-term programs for particular groups of people," says one of the documents distributed by the Kros company, which won a tender in the fall to handle public relations for the census.
"The answers of the unemployed, say, will make it possible to study the local labor market and create jobs."
The last Russian census was taken in 1992, and since then much has changed.
Since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, many people from other republics - ethnic Russians and others - have moved to Russia, while emigration to Israel and to other countries has increased.
There has been significant population movement within Russia, too. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the wars in Chechnya and settled in other regions. The worsening of the economic situation has sent people looking for better opportunities elsewhere in the country. The birth rate has substantially dropped, and the death rate has skyrocketed.
"Basically the results of the last census are not valid any more," Akram Ganiyev, head of the State Statistics Committee in Bashkortostan, told a group of Moscow reporters who visited Ufa in late February.
The trip was organized by the journalists club Chetyre Storony and funded by Kros, which was given $8 million to prepare Russians for the census.
The census is long overdue. It was initially planned for 1998, but money problems resulting from the financial crisis that August caused it to be postponed. In the following years, officials continued to blame financial problems for the prolonged delay. The Law on the Census was finally signed and published in January of this year. The census is budgeted to cost the federal government 3.2 billion rubles ($103 million).
Among the most simple questions on the census form (such as age, sex, marital status, education and profession, number of children) are others that may prove a bit complicated for those living in ethnic republics such as Bashkortostan: questions of nationality and native tongue.
"I am a Bashkir," Bashkortostan's prime minister, Rafael Baidavletov, said in an interview. "But my wife is Russian, from Ivanovo. What are my [twin 10-year-old] daughters? I have no idea. We speak Russian at home."
Bashkortostan has residents representing dozens of nationalities, but Russians, Bashkirs and Tatars make up the three biggest groups. Russian and Bashkir are both official languages. In cities, the most common language on the street and at the work place is Russian, while in villages people tend to speak their native tongues. Intermarriage is common, and even the head of the republic's statistics agency is unsure of the nationality of friends and colleagues.
"I have just found out - just because of this census - that one of my deputies, Venera Vasilyeva, is Bashkir," Ganiyev said. "I did not care before. I chose her because she is a good specialist."
Vasilyeva, whose husband is Russian, said that her daughter has begun to ask - because the family has been talking about the census - which nationality she should choose when answering the questions in the census. "I told her to decide herself," Vasilyeva said.
People are allowed to determine their own nationality, and in effect the daughter of a Russian and a Bashkir could say she is Tatar or any other nationality.
"But we hope people will be responsible and say what they really think and believe in," Ganiyev said.
Zufar Yenikeyev, a deputy of the State Council, the republic's parliament, said some people may choose to call themselves Bashkir and give Bashkir as their native language believing, incorrectly, he says, that this would open more possibilities for themselves and their children. "Here, we do not have proportional representation of different nationalities in our government structures, as in Dagestan's parliament, and I don't know even who our deputies are by nationality - they have been chosen for their professional merits," Yenikeyev said in a telephone interview.
"But of course we keep in mind that representatives of the three largest groups should fill the three top positions in the republic.
"Our president is a Bashkir, and the head of the parliament's Representative Chamber is a Russian, because Russians are the biggest national group here," he said. "A Tatar heads the parliament's Legislation Chamber, and everyone considers it fair."
At the time of the last census, in 1989, Bashkortostan had a population of 4.4 million. Russians (1.55 million) formed the biggest national group, followed by Tatars (1.12 million) and Bashkirs (860,000). Among other groups were the Chuvash (120,000), Mari (110,000), Ukrainians (70,000) and Udmurts (20,000).
Even Ganiyev's statistics agency is unable to say how big the groups are now. "Only the census will tell," Ganiyev said.
TITLE: Census Takers Will Strive for Accuracy
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: UFA, Bashkortostan - For eight days in October, 600,000 census takers will knock at every door, canvas every dacha compound and visit every inhabited slum to try to reach every single human being in Russia.
They will get help from the police - who will accompany them to apartment buildings where people with criminal records are known to live and to places inhabited by vagrants - and from maintenance workers, who will be responsible for getting them into buildings with locked entryways.
But their biggest challenge will be to persuade people to open their apartment doors and to answer all questions truthfully.
Everyone will be asked to answer 24 questions about themselves, including questions about their source of income and housing situation. Every fourth person questioned will be required to give their position and a profile of the organization they work for.
A survey conducted in Moscow last fall by the Public Opinion Fund showed that 48 percent of the population will be reluctant to participate in the census. It is the question about income, presumably, that is most worrying for people in the capital, where the shadow economy is largest and where relatively few people survive on one official salary.
But even in provincial cities like Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, many are likely to balk at revealing their source of income. Gyulshat Galeyeva, 46, a doctor, said in an interview in her home that her family has only legal sources of income and even the daughter of her cousin who trades in a local market has a license.
But Galeyeva's neighbor Irina, who did not want her last name published, said many people could be expected to lie about their income. "I am a programmer and I meet many different people," she said. "I know people who own firms on the side. But if you look them in the eye, you cannot imagine anyone more honest. Why would such people betray themselves in answering this question?"
Sergei Osipov, a spokesperson for Kros, a public-relations firm that won a government contract to promote the census, conceded it will be difficult if not impossible to make sure people answer honestly. "Those who have illegal sources of income could say that they are living on a salary and no one would check them," he said. "Of course it would not be true, but that is how the census works."
Other people may hide their source of income out of embarrassment.
"What should I answer? That I live on the money that I beg from my relatives?" said Bulat Abdulbaneyev, 63.
His wife, Pamira, said she did not want to open their door to the interviewer at all.
"Times are not easy now," she said. "I think the organizers must simply tell us the date and the time that they come for the interview and we will come out of our apartments and fill in the forms in the corridor."
Census organizers say they are making an effort to hire census takers they believe will do their job honestly. Many will be teachers and students, and all will be checked out to make sure they do not have a criminal record.
As a further safety measure, people who are uncomfortable opening their door to the census taker will be able to fill in the form outside their home. There will be local census centers, much like polling stations during elections, where people can go to complete the forms.
Even with these precautions, a problem of trust remains. Some people fear that their personal data will become known to thugs, or certain government agencies, either as soon as the information is collected or later when it is being compiled and recorded.
The personal information listed on individual forms is, by law, to be seen only by the State Statistics Committee. Even other government agencies must wait until the data are compiled and processed to study the results of the census. Tax inspectors, for example, are not legally allowed to see how an individual answered the census questions.
Akram Ganiyev, head of the State Statistics Committee in Bashkortostan, said procedures were still being worked out to prevent unauthorized access to census information. Under the Administrative Code, census takers and census officials who release information to unauthorized people can be fined.
Foreigners, including tourists staying in hotels, also will be asked to answer a few basic questions for the census, including the purpose of their visit. Those who work in Russia will have to give their date and place of birth, country of permanent residence, citizenship and nationality. They will not be asked their source of income.
The census runs from Oct. 9 to Oct. 16.
TITLE: Customs Seizes Bomb Exposé
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev and Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two liberal lawmakers entered the country Sunday with copies of a controversial documentary presented last week by one-time Kremlin insider Boris Berezovsky, but only one of them was allowed to bring in the politically charged consignment.
Sergei Yushenkov, a leader of the Liberal Russia political movement funded and co-chaired by Berezovsky, returned to Moscow with 1,000 copies of the film, which accuses the Federal Security Service of complicity in a series of deadly apartment bombings in 1991. Yushenkov told Ekho Moskvy radio he had had no problems with customs.
But his fellow State Duma deputy and Liberal Russia member Yuly Rybakov, who tried to bring 100 copies of the film to St. Petersburg, said his batch of the videotapes was confiscated. He said he was supposed to hand over the tapes to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly lawmakers and some deputies at State Duma.
Rybakov said customs officers at Pulkovo International Airport disregarded his immunity as a lawmaker and took the tapes "without legal grounds."
"They said the consignment might be for commercial use and sealed the boxes, giving me a receipt saying I had given them over for storage," Rybakov said in a telephone interview Sunday. "But I did not hand them over - they were taken from me."
Rybakov said he was quite surprised when he saw article No. 4 printed on the back side of the receipt, which read: "Items confiscated on political grounds are not subject to return."
Rybakov said that the customs officials took his passport and said they will not give it back to him until he signed the receipt. However, they returned it after Rybakov said that he would spend the night at the airport.
"This shows that there are things to be afraid of," he said in a telephone interview Sunday.
Rybakov said Sergei Yushenkov was also stopped at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow and his copies of the tape were also confiscated, but they were almost immediately given back to the deputy,
"In Moscow, they were more clever," Rybakov said.
A customs spokesperson at Pulkovo confirmed on Monday that the tapes had been confiscated.
"One hundred video tapes - this is a commercial item according to the customs rules, and customs officials are not interested in what is recorded there, 'Titanic' or a film made by Berezovsky," said Dmitry Kokko, a spokesperson for the Northwester Customs District.
Rybakov said he plans to discuss the incident with senior customs officials and prosecutors and to raise the issue for discussion in the Duma, Interfax reported.
However, Pavel Krasheninnikov, a liberal deputy from the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, warned against looking for political motives behind the seizure.
"It was just the [professional] zeal of St. Petersburg customs officers," he said on NTV. Krasheninnikov also said that if the information in the film proves untrue those involved in its production and broadcast could face libel charges.
"It has nothing to do with the lawmaker's immunity. What if a deputy was crossing the border driving a cargo truck full of televisions?" Kokko said and added that he met with Rybakov on Monday morning and told him that he can take the tapes back after paying a customs duty of approximately 20 percent of the declared value of each tape.
A 10-minute clip of the documentary, which was produced by French journalists on the basis of NTV footage, was shown to journalists last week in London, where Berezovsky lives in self-imposed exile.
Berezovsky said the film contained proof that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, was involved in the 1999 apartment blasts that killed some 300 civilians and in a foiled blast attempt in Ryazan. But the clip offered no new data or conclusive evidence to support the charge.
The FSB denied Berezovsky's accusations, hitting back with charges that he had financed an armed incursion by Chechen rebels into Dagestan in August 1999 and plotted the kidnapping of an Interior Ministry general in 1998.
"Evidence contained in the film is rather persuasive," Yushenkov said on NTV, as he distributed the tapes to reporters who met him at the airport. "It demonstrates how the secret services deceived Russian citizens."
"If a television channel can be found that is not afraid to show the film, that will make the task [of disseminating it] much easier," Yushenkov said on Ekho Moskvy. He added that screenings at movie theaters were also an option and that the top-priority site for a showing would be Ryazan.
TITLE: Journalists Team Up With Primakov for TV6 Tender
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Putting an end to days of difficult negotiations, the team of ousted TV6 journalists led by former General Director Yevgeny Kiselyov has agreed to join forces with a broadcasting group created by former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in a bid to get back on the air.
Kiselyov's team decided to merge its newly created company, Shestoi Telekanal, into Media-Socium, a nonprofit partnership formed by Primakov, who now heads the Russian Chamber of Commerce, and Arkady Volsky, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP.
Media-Socium reportedly has the Kremlin's blessing, making it a favorite to win the March 27 tender for broadcasting rights on the Channel 6 frequency, formerly held by TV6.
The journalists, backed by about a dozen businesspeople, withdrew their separate bid for the broadcast license late Thursday in order to act jointly with Media-Socium, Tatyana Blinova, the Kiselyov team's spokesperson, said Sunday.
The Press Ministry confirmed that it had been informed in writing of the journalists' decision, Interfax reported.
By last Wednesday's deadline, 13 other companies had also submitted bids for the broadcasting rights.
Kiselyov denied suggestions that by teaming up with Primakov the journalists were putting their independence at risk.
"Having such a political heavyweight as Yevgeny Primakov on the team is a big plus," Kiselyov was quoted by Interfax as saying. "Many television companies in the West dream of having on their board of directors a former prime minister, a former foreign minister or a former foreign-intelligence chief. Here, we have all of them in one person."
Kiselyov said Thursday that before signing up with Media-Socium, his team worked out "all the necessary ... legal points to protect the journalists and editorial policy" from shareholders, Media-Socium members and the government.
Blinova said all the participants in Media-Socium will have "absolutely equal rights." She also said the programming proposal submitted to the Press Ministry under the joint bid had been developed by the Kiselyov team.
Primakov seemed pleased by the decision. "I want this to be real television," he was quoted by Interfax as saying Thursday. "There is no talk of censorship. Real television can only be produced by professionals, and the TV6 team certainly has some of those."
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: Kokh Faces Legal Challenges
AUTHOR: By Gregory Feifer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Alfred Kokh, the former Gazprom-Media general director who was named a member of the Federation Council last month, faces legal challenges ahead of his confirmation scheduled for next week, Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday.
Kokh was elected on Feb. 26 by the Leningrad Oblast's legislature to represent the region in the upper house.
Federation Council member Oleg Petrov has since filed suit in the Leningrad Oblast city of Vyborg, asking that the election results be reviewed.
Kokh's nomination came as a surprise to a number of regional legislators. He was nominated shortly before the voting, effectively stalling the candidacy of Oleg Safonov, a security adviser to the Oblast governor who had been expected to take up the post.
Kokh received 29 votes to Safonov's 12. Four deputies voted against both candidates.
Petrov said the nominating procedure had been violated, declining to go into detail, Kommersant reported. The Vyborg court scheduled a review for Wednesday, the day the upper house is expected to confirm Kokh as a senator.
Leningrad Oblast Prosecutor Yury Prokofiev filed another case asking that Kokh's election be annulled because the candidate declared his income improperly by submitting it in handwritten form.
Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov told Kommersant that the upper house would consider the charges if it were to receive a formal complaint before next Wednesday.
As head of the State Property Committee in the 1990s, Kokh oversaw the so-called loans-for-shares program, widely reviled for selling major assets for tiny sums. Kokh was fired after the 1997 sale of the Svyazinvest telecoms holding. He was appointed to head Gazprom's media arm in 2000 and played a large role in the takeover of NTV television.
TITLE: Chechen Village Sends Out Call for Help
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After seeing 82 residents killed or vanish, the Chechen village of Tsotsin-Yurt has signed an appeal urging the West to prevent the "mass extermination of Chechens" by Russian troops, a Chechen organization said Monday.
The Chechen National Salvation Committee, which backs rebel Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, said that 700 residents of Tsotsin-Yurt in the Kurchaloi district had signed the petition detailing the deaths of 82 villagers during the ongoing Chechnya conflict, and that it would forward the letter to human-rights activists at the United Nations, the Council of Europe and Human Rights Watch.
"We ask you to help us to stop the genocide against our nation and, as a first step, to send international observers to Chechnya," said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The St. Petersburg Times.
Of the people listed, 41 died or disappeared during so-called mopping-up operations in the village. More than 20 died of wounds inflicted by gunfire or bombings, five were killed at checkpoints and six were tortured to death, the letter said. In addition, 12 people were picked up for questioning in their homes, some as long as two years ago, and have yet to return.
Ruslan Badalov, head of the Chechen National Salvation Committee, said Tsotsin-Yurt villagers brought the letter to his office in Nazran, Ingushetia, on Saturday.
They told him they were holding a round-the-clock protest against the violence in their village "for the third week running."
The letter also outlines incidents of alleged military brutality, including one described by Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya after a visit to the village last month. According to the letter and Politkovskaya, federal troops killed five people, including a pregnant woman, near Tsotsin-Yurt on Feb. 4 and burned the corpses. Two of the people were Tsotsin-Yurt residents.
The Federal Security Service, which is overseeing what it calls "the counter-terrorist operation" in Chechnya, could not immediately comment.
Lecha Yakhyayev, spokesman for the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, said the letter "blows the situation out of proportion" and that it would be difficult to prove the individuals mentioned were all peaceful civilians.
"Some of them could have been fighters who were killed when they tried to escape," he said by telephone from Grozny.
Diederik Lohman, Human Rights Watch's director in Moscow, said the letter was a sign that many Chechens were fed up.
"What is going on in the republic - and it is remarkable at the moment - is that people have started to openly and publicly protest against the murders of their relatives and neighbors," he said. "They understand that there is no other option to ever stop this war."
Human-rights activists say thousands of civilians have died in fighting that started in 1999.
q
The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it was "surprised, to put it mildly" by the U.S. State Department's criticism of Russia's human-rights record and objected in particular to the "odious" section on Chechnya.
"One gets the impression that its writers simply used old drafts, as if nothing had happened in either Russia or the United States in recent years, as if the events of Sept. 11, 2001, had not occurred and the international community had not closed ranks in the battle against terrorism," the ministry said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
The State Department's annual human-rights report, which was published Monday, said Russia had a poor record regarding the independence and freedom of the media and in Chechnya. Russian security forces in Chechnya have "demonstrated little respect for basic human rights and there were credible reports of serious violations, including numerous reports of extrajudicial killings by both the government and Chechen fighters," the report said.
Russian officials from President Vladimir Putin on down have portrayed the conflict in Chechnya as a war against international terrorists. However, U.S. officials note that some of the rebels do not have international ties, and they have criticized Russian military abuse of civilians - though the criticism was toned down greatly after Russia became an enthusiastic member of the anti-terrorist coalition.
The Foreign Ministry said that the State Department pronouncement on Chechnya reflected the efforts of "certain circles" in the United States that object to the new U.S.-Russian partnership against international terrorism.
TITLE: Lift on Caspian Caviar Ban Renews Threat to Belugas
AUTHOR: By Christopher Pala
PUBLISHER: Special to The Moscow Times
TEXT: ASTRAKHAN, Southern Russia - Alexander Kitanov is on the front lines of the battle to save the 200-million-year-old beluga sturgeon from disappearing, a victim of the tastiness of its own eggs.
Kitanov, who for two decades has been running a fish farm to raise sturgeon fingerlings, or babies, for release in the Volga, is alarmed with the recent decision by the animal-protection arm of the United Nations, CITES, to lift its first-ever ban on international trade in Caspian caviar.
"They should have kept the ban," Kitanov said, when told late last week of CITES' decision. "The belugas are simply going to disappear."
Kitanov isn't alone in his disappointment with the Wednesday ruling by Geneva-based CITES, which stands for Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. Caviar Emptor - which groups conservation organizations the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council and SeaWeb - will push for a reconsideration of the lifting of the beluga ban during three days of talks with CITES officials in Geneva starting Tuesday.
"The beluga sturgeon has been called the most valuable fish in the world because of its caviar," said Vikki Spruill, the executive director of SeaWeb. "It is more important now than ever for consumers to realize that it is in bad taste to eat the eggs of an endangered species."
At issue is a magnificent fish that can live for more than a century, grow to six meters and weigh 900 kilograms. But when even underage specimens yield 4.5 kilograms of caviar - which a poacher in the Caspian region can sell for $500 - concerns about safeguarding the fish from extinction takes the back burner to easy cash in the eyes of fishermen.
In its decision, CITES is allowing the five caviar-producing states of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran to export a total of 142 tons of caviar this year, 9.6 percent less than in 2001.
Even though its own publication called the beluga situation "catastrophic," CITES justified its lifting of the ban by saying that Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan had joined Iran (whose caviar exports were not banned last year) in "launching a coordinated program for surveying and managing sturgeon stocks."
"This breakthrough on sturgeon management marks a dramatic step forward toward transparency and cooperation," CITES Deputy Secretary General Jim Armstrong said in a statement.
"There is no such management program," countered Arkadiusz Labon, until recently head of the Caspian Center for Management of Bioresources of the Caspian Environmental Program, which is funded by the European Union.
He said the only coordinating body among the five countries, "the informal Committee on Bioresources, is a cheap surrogate limiting itself to determining catch quotas."
Labon helped organize a three-ship, six-week expedition in the Caspian Sea last summer to count sturgeon, and only 28 beluga were found in the 254 sturgeon caught, far fewer than years past. The trip found that only 15 percent of the beluga caught were adults, another sharp drop over previous surveys.
Labon and other experts say this illustrates how, despite some 70 million to 90 million fingerlings being released around the Caspian by fish farms like Kitanov's, poachers have wiped out nearly all of the adult beluga population over the past 10 years. The situation with the other species of sturgeon, though alarming, is not as bad as the beluga's.
Advocates of the ban say the existence of a legal trade makes the illegal trade much harder to control. The illegal catch is estimated at up to 10 times the legal catch.
Caviar Emptor is fighting in court to get the beluga placed on the U.S. endangered species list. This would end beluga caviar sales to the United States, its second-biggest consumer after Switzerland. U.S. consumption of legal beluga caviar is estimated at 1,600 female fish, according to Lisa Speer of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Kitanov, meanwhile, is doing what he can to keep the sturgeon population stable - but there is little he can do.
Each spring, the fishermen who legally net the sturgeon swimming up river to reproduce keep the bigger and healthier females alive and bring them to Kitanov's fish farm. At the farm, the most technologically advanced of seven such farms in Russia, the eggs are hatched and the fingerlings are released into the river a few weeks later when they weigh three grams.
"Last year, we got 20 percent fewer beluga females with roe than the previous year," he said. "Even five years ago, I was able to choose the best females, between 20 and 30 years of age, and I'd let the others go. Now I have to keep every one I can get, even though they are almost all under age and a lot of the eggs don't hatch."
He said the drastic fall in the adult population has awoken a deep instinct in the beluga that makes them reproduce before they have reached full maturity, usually around 17 years.
Kitanov has started a policy of performing cesarean operations on all roe-bearing females and keeping them on his farm in the hope that when they will be ready to reproduce again in a few years, they will be in better condition.
"I have about 40 of them now," he said. "They are my insurance."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Kursk Plan
MOSCOW (AP) - A top submarine-design bureau has worked out a plan for raising fragments of the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine that were left on the Barents Sea floor when its gutted carcass was lifted last fall, its director said Monday.
Igor Spassky, the head of St. Petersburg's Rubin design bureau, which played an active role in the larger salvage effort performed by a Dutch consortium, said the operation to raise pieces of the Kursk bow would be carried out this summer exclusively by Russian experts.
When the Kursk wreck was raised in October, its fore compartment was sawed off and left on the seabed out of fear it could destabilize the lifting. The navy wants to raise some of the bow fragments to find additional clues to what sank the submarine.
Officials have said it is necessary to raise some pieces of the bow to prevent any possible danger to the fishing and shipping in the busy, shallow area.
Book-Burning Reprieve
MOSCOW (SPT) - A Maryland Congressional representative has intervened to postpone the burning of more than 1 million Russian books from the Victor Kamkin bookstore in Rockville, Maryland, RIA-Novosti reported Monday.
Representative Constance Morella told journalists Sunday that she had asked Sheriff Raimond Kight of Montgomery County, where the bookstore is located, to take the books to a local police warehouse for a few days while the search for a permanent storage facility continues, RIA-Novosti said.
Founded 50 years ago by Russian immigrant Victor Kamkin, the bookstore was a major seller of literature from the Soviet Union in the United States but, with the end of the Cold War, interest in Russian-language books faded. The current owner of the store is $200,000 behind in rent and has been served with an eviction notice. Unable to find a buyer for the collection, which workers at the store estimate could number nearly 2 million books, the owner had arranged for the books to be destroyed at the county incinerator.
Adoption Trial
MOSCOW (AP) - The trial of an Italian woman charged with bribery and forgery in connection with adoptions of Russian children by foreigners opened Monday, but was immediately postponed for a day, prosecutors said.
Nadezhda Fratti, of the Italian adoption agency Arcobaleno, was arrested more than a year ago in the southern Russian city of Volgograd. She is accused of forging documents and bribing officials to facilitate adoptions. If convicted, she could face up to eight years in prison, said Lyudmila Yelestratova, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor's office.
Benefit Auction
MOSCOW (SPT) - A two-day auction of Russian art to benefit victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States was due to begin Monday in Manhattan, Interfax reported.
The auction was organized under the auspices of the Culture Ministry, the Moscow Association of Industrialists and the Museum of Modern Russian Art in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The sale will include paintings, drawings and sculptures by Russian artists Ernst Neizvestny, Oskar Rabin, Mikhail Shemyakhin, Vladimir Nemukhin and the team of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, among others.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was expected to open the sale, scheduled to coincide with the six-month anniversary of the attacks. Bidding for pieces of art by the auction's better-known artists was expected to start at $15,000.
TITLE: Air-Cargo Firms Shunning New Terminal
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While a new air-cargo terminal that has been in the works for four years opened its doors last Monday, squabbles between terminal management and air-freight carriers have led the latter to continue to work from the old facilities.
The project to build the Pulkovo Cargo Terminal, which is located in the area between the Pulkovo-1 and Pulkovo-2 airports and the Pulkovskoye highway, was initiated by Pulkovo Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa in 1998, with $8 million of the $12 million construction cost covered by a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The remainder of the cost was covered by Pulkovo and Lufthansa.
With an area of 8,000 square meters and the capacity to handle 30,000 tons of cargo per year, the new terminal had been billed as a big step forward from the existing facilities. One air-cargo industry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the old facilities, which are located within Pulkovo-1 and Pulkovo 2 themselves, are not heated and are unequipped to deal with frozen, dangerous or live cargo. But the source said that a big jump in the prices being charged to freight expediters and the airlines have led the airlines to question whether the new facility is worth it.
"I have serious concerns with relation to the prices being offered by the new terminal," the source said. "The terminal is using its monopoly position to try to charge rates two or three times higher than before."
As a result, the companies involved have so far refused to sign on to work out of the new facility.
The story behind the present stand-off began in the middle of December, when Pulkovo Airlines sent all of the cargo-transport departments of the airlines working out of St. Petersburg a letter signed by Nikolai Kolesov, the deputy general director of Pulkovo airlines and the chairperson of the administration board of the new cargo terminal. The company operating the new facility, Pulkovo Cargo Terminal, is 40-percent owned by Pulkovo Airlines, with another 40 percent of the company's shares owned by Lufthansa and the remaining 20 percent in the hands of the Lenstroyzhilservis construction firm. The letter informed them that, commencing on Feb. 15, all handling of cargo at the old warehouses would be transferred over to the new facility.
But a letter signed Jan. 22 by the cargo representatives of 11 foreign airlines - including British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Finnair, Air France and Austrian Airlines - informed the management of the new terminal that the airlines were not prepared to sign new deals.
The companies listed a number of grievances with the new site, including the lack of proper licensing for the terminal, a lack of clarity as to how the system at the new location would function and the level of the fees to be charged for using the facility.
The companies wrote that, if some kind of compromise could not be reached between the two sides, they would seek other methods of shipping cargo out of St. Petersburg.
The same letter was also sent to Pulkovo Cargo Terminal General Director Kristian Altmann.
A reply to the letter came from Boris Demchenko, Pulkovo Airlines' general director, at the end of January. Demchenko wrote that new contracts and tariffs for using the cargo terminal would be discussed with the carriers on an individual basis.
Then, in a letter dated Feb. 5, Pulkovo Cargo Terminal officials provided information explaining how the system at the new facility were to work, while also extending the deadline for moving to the new terminal to April 14.
Despite the request in the letter for airline representatives to sign agreements with Pulkovo Cargo Terminal quickly, they aren't in a rush to do so.
"We've been negotiating with the management of the new terminal, but haven't signed an agreement yet," said Dmitry Ivanov, cargo-sales representative for Dutch airline KLM in St. Petersburg. "We still have a number of questions where we have yet to reach an understanding. I'm worried most of all about the proposed prices for the handling and storage of cargo, as well as with levels of efficiency and quality control."
"We can't sign any agreements with our customers, as Pulkovo Cargo Terminal Pulkovo hasn't even shown us a published price list for their services and for handling procedures approved by customs authorities " said Natalia Fedorova, the CIS general director of Cargo Service Center, a firm which handles freight expedition for KLM Cargo.
"If the terms offered by the new terminal aren't satisfactory for the headquarters of the airlines, they will probably just decide to close their cargo operations in St. Petersburg and ship by an alternate route, through Moscow or Helsinki," Fedorova said. "But I'm hopeful that we will reach an agreement, as the management at Pulkovo Cargo Terminal has started to show a willingness to move toward our position."
Frank-Uwe Ungerer, the acting general director of Pulkovo Cargo Terminal, confirmed that the new prices are higher than those charged by the old Pulkovo warehouses, but he refused to discuss exact figures, saying that they will be agreed to on a company-by-company basis. He defended the hikes, however, saying that the new prices reflected the new facility and higher levels of service.
"It's not realistic to simply compare the prices at the old and new terminals," Ungerer said Monday. "The new terminal offers the transport companies new working conditions and the complete range of services needed by air-cargo firms."
But prices aren't the only things worrying the airlines. While Pulkovo Cargo Terminal officials are trumpeting the broader set of services, industry outsiders worry that this will drive other firms from the market.
"The new terminal wants to become a monopoly in the fields of the organization, sales and custom brokerage for cargo shipping," one source, who asked not to be named, said. "Using its monopoly position, the terminal will be able to push out other firms that are working in customs brokerage and expedition."
About 70 percent of international import and export cargo going through Pulkovo is carried by the top five foreign airlines companies Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, Finnair and Air France.
The total volume of cargo moved through Pulkovo-1 and Pulkovo-2 in 2000 totaled about 3,860 tons and rose by about 70 tons in 2001. Officials at Pulkovo Cargo Terminal say they expect the growth rate of air-cargo tonnage to continue to increase at a rate of about 10 percent per year.
TITLE: Ban on U.S. Chicken Takes Effect
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Discount chain Pyatyorochka used to fill the freezers of its stores in St. Petersburg and Moscow with inexpensive U.S. poultry. But the Russian ban on the birds, which came into effect Sunday, has left the retail giant scrambling to find new suppliers that can provide cheap meat.
"We don't know if the consumers of cheap American chicken are ready to consume more expensive Russian chicken, or whether they will now completely refuse to eat it altogether," said Pyatyorochka General Director Sergei Lepkovich.
The price of Russian poultry is 30 percent higher than the U.S. imports, which last year accounted for about 70 percent of all poultry sold in Russia.
As some retailers sought to find other sources for poultry, a team of 12 U.S. officials was at the Agriculture Ministry raising a squawk about its decision to stop issuing import licenses March 1 and ban the meat on March 10. The ministry had said U.S. authorities failed to provide sufficient information about the antibiotics, preservatives and other substances used in the poultry industry, and had accused U.S. exporters of violating Russian veterinary rules.
First Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Dankvert said after the meeting that the ban could be lifted as soon as 60 days, which implies that a 1996 Russian-U.S. agreement on poultry imports will be revised, Interfax reported.
Dankvert said the U.S. side had confirmed that antibiotics used for human medical treatment are also used in poultry farming, allowing new requirements for the quality of supplies to be drafted within a week.
The meeting also resulted in the formation of four expert groups to discuss food-supply certificates, salmonella-contaminated poultry and the use of antibiotics, hormones and other preparations in raising chickens.
Dankvert cautioned, however, that there may be no quick solution - even within 60 days - because tests over the weekend found the presence of salmonella in six more samples of U.S. poultry meat. Last week, Russian experts said they found salmonella in nine shipments of U.S. poultry in St. Petersburg ports.
"It is pointless to discuss other problems until the salmonella problem is resolved," Dankvert was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Some lawmakers, meanwhile, saw a silver lining to the ban.
"If [Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister] Alexei Gordeyev ends up having enough political clout to stand up for Russian poultry farmers, then Russia could cover that enormous supply from United States within 1 1/2 years," Nikolai Kharitonov, head of the Agrarian-Industrial bloc in the State Duma, said on NTV television.
But, if the ban goes on indefinitely, Russia will never be able to satisfy demand for poultry, said Larisa Dorogova of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies. "But it is necessary to cut the share of imports to support local producers," she said.
Russia imported more than 1.3 million tons of poultry last year, with over 1 million coming from the United States.
TITLE: Gazprom Wins a Round in Sibur Battle
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In a legal coup for Gazprom, a Siberian judge on Monday appointed an external manager to oversee operations at Sibur, Russia's largest petrochemical holding.
The Salekhard Arbitration Court picked Mikhail Fomenkov, a Moscow-based lawyer, to put together a recovery plan that will stave off Sibur's bankruptcy. Last month, Gazprom filed a lawsuit to bankrupt Sibur, which owes the gas monopoly 28.9 billion rubles ($932 million).
"We are satisfied with the choice and expect Fomenkov to act in the interests of all creditors, not only Gazprom," said an official with the gas monopoly.
This appointment is the latest in a series of victories for Gazprom as it tries to gain control of its rogue subsidiary. In January, federal prosecutors opened a criminal case against Sibur's top managers at Gazprom's request. Former Sibur President Yakov Goldovsky and former Vice President Yevgeny Koshchits - who were taken into custody shortly after the case was opened - remain in detention.
A Moscow court last week rejected an appeal for the release of Goldovsky and Koshchits, who were charged last month with colluding to illegally siphon off more than $80 million worth of Sibur's assets. Both men face maximum jail terms of five years if found guilty.
Fomenkov will take the helm of Sibur for one year, after which creditors will meet to decide the company's fate.
Another hearing on Sibur's bankruptcy proceedings will be held on April 26.
TITLE: New Scandal Shows Business' Dark Side
TEXT: THE latest business scandal has hit Russia. It would appear that the almost-completed deal to sell Ingosstrakh, Avtobank and Nosta to Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska has been halted. The parties are accusing one another of racketeering and murder, and the whole thing has become politicized; Avtobank was purchased by oligarchs close to the "family," while the former owner of Avtobank, Andrei Andreyev, a veteran of the Soviet-era agency that dealt with the theft of state property, has found support among the St. Petersburg chekists.
The scandal became public almost by chance, which makes the light it casts on the seamier side of Russian business all the more terrible. Andreyev was not the owner of Avtobank initially. He was merely the head of Avtobank's security department, while the real owner was Yury Belov. Belov's two other partners, it seems, were Avtobank head Natalya Rayevskaya and Rodion Gamzayev - otherwise known as Radik - who allegedly has ties to organized crime.
However, Belov died in strange and suspicious circumstances at the end of 1999 and his shares passed over to Andreyev, as all of the shares in the holding company were nominally held by Avtobank cleaners and drivers - and the latter were all informers in the pay of the security department, which was under Andreyev's complete control.
Andreyev's arrival on the scene at Nosta in 1999 was marked by the contract killing of Yury Grishin, owner of 63 percent of Nosta shares. Andreyev's empire started to crumble, however, when one of the partners whom he had booted out of Nosta tried to bankrupt the company. Nosta's bankruptcy also threatened to bankrupt Avtobank, which had lent the enterprise more than $100 million. This concerned Gamzayev, who resolved to get out of the business and demanded $50 million from Andreyev for his share.
Andreyev couldn't find this money and sought to resolve his differences with Gamzayev by other means. The difficulty was that Gamzayev had been the man who resolved this kind of problem for Andreyev, and now he was to be the victim. The by-now flabby security department flinched at this tricky assignment and chose instead to surrender one of its bosses (Andreyev) to the other (Radik).
Andreyev, facing prison for ordering a killing, transferred two- thirds of the holding's shares to Radik and Rayevskaya, sanctioned the sale, and signed a piece of paper saying he renounced all claims to the shares. Anton Malevsky - another Andreyev partner, co-owner of Nosta and reputed of the Izmailovo criminal group - brought this piece of paper to the buyers. In return, the buyers promised to pay Andreyev $4.8 million and to pay all his debts (including a multimillion-dollar debt to Malevsky). Only after Malevsky's death on Nov. 6 did Andreyev go to the police organized-crime department with a fantastic story about how Radik had stolen his business by blackmailing him with this contract killing that had "allegedly" been ordered by him.
The whole story is thoroughly unpleasant. Andreyev himself hardly comes out smelling of roses as the security department head who mysteriously inherited the empire from its dead owner; and all his partners are either dead, dumped or under investigation. Deripaska, who didn't have too many qualms about buying a "stolen" metals company, doesn't come out looking too good, either.
But it is the law enforcement agencies that halted the deal that arouse the least sympathy. It would seem that they were not too bothered by the fantastic absurdity of Andreyev's statement, nor the authenticity of the film establishing his guilt, nor the fact that, rather than going to the police initially, Andreyev went to complain to Malevsky. The astronomic figures quoted by Andreyev for his broken business empire made the small-fry police officers' heads spin. And all of this was perfectly seriously called "a fundamental break with crime and the criminal division of property."
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT.
TITLE: Understanding the Strings Attached to Customs Exemptions
AUTHOR: By Ruslan Vasutin and Dmitry Mayorov
TEXT: ONE of the most serious issues encountered by companies with foreign investment that utilize customs and VAT exemptions on in-kind contributions is that of compliance with requirements of Article 29 of the Russian Customs Code.
The provisions of this article place limitations on the use of conditionally released goods on which customs-payment exemptions have been granted. It is clearly stated that such goods may only be used for the purposes in relation to which the exemption was granted. The use of such goods for other purposes is allowed only with permission from, and the making of customs payments to, Russian customs authorities. The term of these limitations is not fixed.
Obviously, such limitations were introduced for the purpose of preventing the misuse of goods already granted exemptions when cleared through customs.
However, the need to use such goods for other purposes arises in some cases that have nothing to do with realization. For example, the necessity to write off equipment can arise in the form of 100 percent depreciation due to force majeure - as a result of fire, breakdown, natural catastrophe, etc. - when equipment is or damaged to the degree that it can no longer be used for its original purpose. An example would be a truck purchased as an in-kind contribution that was subsequently damaged beyond repair in an accident, or was stolen.
Until earlier this year, a 1994 order from the State Customs Committee titled "On the Adoption of the Regulation on Tax Regime of Destruction" was in force, which allowed the claim of a customs regime of destruction in relation to conditionally released goods. This order did not oblige companies in these cases to repay earlier granted concessions to the customs authorities.
However, with the introduction of a new "Regulation on Customs Regime of Destruction" No. 3, this type of operation became impossible.
Besides the writing off of equipment, another hot issue is the leasing out of goods imported as in-kind contributions. A January 1999 Letter from the State Customs Committee outlines terms under which the lease of such goods is not considered as use for "other" purposes, provided that the equipment is carried on the books of the lessor. The transfer of such an asset from the books of an enterprise with foreign investment to the books of the lessee is viewed by the customs authorities as a violation of the designated purpose and, therefore, requires the reimbursement of any sums previously granted as concessions.
The reorganization of enterprises that have been granted exemptions on in-kind contributions is also a very thorny issue. The State Customs Committee has not issued an opinion on the question of the status during the reorganization of an enterprise of exemptions on goods imported as the in-kind contributions of a foreign founder. Some examples of completed reorganizations indicate, however, it is possible to maintain such exemptions after a reorganization as long as approval has been granted by the customs authorities.
Prior to operations, like those mentioned above, that lead to changes in the status of such goods from an accounting standpoint, it is recommended that, in keeping with a 1998 Customs Committee directive, all companies that have benefited from in-kind contribution exemptions should apply to the customs authorities to receive permission to maintain the status of conditionally released goods.
Such an application, if correctly prepared and based on specific facts can help in two ways. First, it can often help avoid a decision by the customs authorities that exempted goods are being used for purposes other than those under which they received customs-payment exemptions. Second, even if customs authorities make such a decision, the firm can protect itself from having to pay customs penalties and fines on top of reimbursing the sum originally granted as a concession.
Ruslan Vasutin is the senior manager and Dmitry Mayorov the head of the customs consulting group at the St. Petersburg Office of Andersen Legal. They contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Eternal Love Story Touches Hearts Everywhere
TEXT: In response to "58 Years on, This Love Is Still Going Strong" on March 7.
Editor,
I only discovered your excellent Internet site a few days ago, since my interest in Leningrad during World War II was recently stirred after reading a novel titled "The Bronze Horseman" by Paullina Simons, who was born in Leningrad. The novel is described as a magnificent epic of love, war and Russia, and it certainly lives up to that description.
When I accessed The St. Petersburg Times this morning, lo and behold, I found that your top story was a true and poignant story, the eternal love of a woman for her long lost pilot. This story also has the makings of a magnificent epic of love, war and Russia.
"He shall not grow old as we that are left grow old, / Age shall not weary him, nor the years condemn, / At the going down of the sun and in the morning, She remembers him." The above tribute, is based on a verse - with minor changes - from the poem "For The Fallen," written by Laurence Binyon in 1914.
I was born in Ireland. My family moved to England just prior to the outbreak of World War II. I experienced the beginning of the war and the German air raids, when I was eight years of age. It was the most frightening episode of my life, but nothing near the horrors of the prolonged siege endured by the people of Leningrad during World War II. It is the continued tenacity of the Russian people, in the face of sheer adversity, that impresses me. Thank you to The St. Petersburg Times for such an interesting and moving story.
James O'Sullivan
Brisbane, Australia
Editor,
I enjoyed this story very much. I understand how Galina Popova feels. She has my blessing and respect.
We all have a special love that doesn't want to leave our hearts. I have one too. Her name is Lupita, and she is alive and well. Lupita is the love of my life. People tell me to forget her, and that she does not love me. I say to myself that the important thing is that I love her very much, and nobody can take that away from me.
I would like to say to Popova, "keep your hope alive and don't let anybody influence you. I know you and he will someday be together."
Carlos Ceja
Tijuana, Mexico
Editor,
I am just a man secretly in love with a woman from St. Petersburg! I just read your article about the love affair of Galina Popova and her Alexander Kukushkin. It has moved me so much!
I was born in 1962, way after the war and in the wealthy and comfortable country of Switzerland, so one might say I can't understand what love in times of war and starvation is. But I think that I do. A three-month romance is not much, but at such times of war, it must have felt like a lifetime of intense passion to them.
Anyway, please keep up the good work. It is so much better to read such stories than the eternal bad news about corrupt and greedy politicians who take us for idiots. War, politics, finance, corruption - the same old news! But each story of love is new and an eye-opening breath of fresh air in our otherwise dull everyday lives. Once again, bravo.
Alain Cazzaniga
Switzerland
Expensive Tariffs
In response to "Bush's Tariff Draws Moscow's Wrath" on March 7.
Editor,
While I recognize that the steel industry is vital to U.S. security interests and must be protected, I share Russia's opposition to the proposed tariffs on imported steel. I would rather that Washington assist U.S. steel companies either by subsidies or simply by placing orders to stockpile steel for future use in the advent that foreign sources are disrupted by war, for example.
I am pleased at the changes in US-Russian relations over the past decade. I long ago realized that we, as well as what we call western Europe, owe a long-forgotten debt to the Russians. Americans dwell carelessly in a land insulated by two vast oceans. This makes it easy for us to be judgmental of a country such as Russia, which faces threats from all sides. I desire not only improved relations with Russia, but hope that one day we enjoy a close alliance.
Bryan Dunn
Dallas,Texas
Editor,
I am a current student at Wabash College in the United States. My family has strong ties to the steel industry, which pays for my college education. I can see why we need tariffs, but as an economics student I also see how bad the idea of tariffs is.
I personally feel that the United States is wrong in putting such tariffs on the steel, and the industry needs major reconstruction. I just want people to realize that if the American steel industry goes under, there will be a great deal of people without jobs, which does not help with the current recession we are in. Personally, I might even have to leave school.
Also, the industry here in Indiana plays a great deal in the local community, which has already felt the impact of the layoffs. I believe that the tariffs are to be a short-term solution for the inevitable, but they are needed to help slow the "shock" to the communities. Note: Not all American steel companies agree with the tarrifs either. Nucor Corp. has lobbied against them for quite some time now.
Seth Ditchcreek
Crawfordsville, Indiana
Electioneering?
Editor,
Professionals in the United States say that for every steel job saved in the States, eight jobs will be lost in other manufacturing sectors. They say this is a political, not an economic decision. There are elections coming up, and the states where the steel mills are located are important to the Bush administration. Complain loudly, it may change some minds.
Bob Houston,
Detroit, Michigan
TITLE: Dispelling the Myths of Accession to the WTO
TEXT: By Maria Gorban, Sergei Guriyev and Ksenia Yudayeva ALTHOUGH the Russian goverment has decided to join the World Trade Organization, there is no consensus in society regarding WTO membership and its consequences for the economy. Moreover, despite growing public awareness, many stereotypes still prevail concerning accession. Below we offer a review of the main stereotypes or myths, and look at the arguments on which they are based.
Myth 1: Russia will be flooded with imports and the country's industry will be wiped out.
This assumes that tariffs currently protect domestic industry against outside competition, that WTO membership will lead to a drastic reduction of tariff barriers and that the government will lose all instruments for protecting industry. The truth is more complex.
First, average tariffs are between 7 percent and 15 percent, which is fairly low by international standards. Moreover, due to the poor functioning of the State Customs Service only about half of tariff payments are actually collected.
Second, joining does not necessarily mean a reduction in tariffs. Tariff rates will be decided during accession negotiations, and some tariffs may even be raised. However, it is true that tariffs will be more or less fixed - a point that might not appeal to Russian manufacturers, many of whom are used to the idea that tariffs can be arbitrarily changed at any time. It is important, therefore, that both the government and industry think very carefully about tariff policy before the agreement is signed.
Third, the government will not lose its ability to protect domestic industry, since WTO members are allowed to implement temporary defensive measures. Furthermore, the exchange rate provides a lever for protecting industry.
Finally, it is true that exposure to international competition may be detrimental in the short run to certain sectors of the economy. However, the long-term consequences of not joining could be even more damaging, if serious industrial restructuring does not take place.
Myth 2. Agriculture will be destroyed and the country will become dependent on food imports.
Claims that the agricultural sector will cease to develop if the economy becomes more open are unfounded. Many of the problems in this sector will persist regardless of whether Russia joins the WTO or not. These include soft budget constraints, ill-defined property rights and farmers' lack of access to credit. WTO rules allow for substantial support and protection for agriculture - in fact, to a much greater extent than is currently the case in Russia.
Myth 3. The financial sector will wither away.
Advocates of this myth claim that, since the banking system, insurance industry and pension funds are still too weak to face foreign competition, joining the WTO will lead to the collapse of financial institutions.
Many people favor continued protection of the financial services market. However, as the experience of the past decade has shown, without the credible threat of foreign competition banks lack proper incentives to improve their operations.
It should be noted, however that WTO membership will not immediately saturate the market with foreign banks, as a period for acclimatization to a more competitive environment is provided.
Myth 4. Lower tariffs will cause imports to surge and discourage foreign investments.
The logic of this myth is that countries with poor investment climates have to choose between imported goods and foreign investments. If the domestic market is protected by tariffs, it is cheaper to build a factory inside the country. If the market is open goods will be produced abroad and imported.
However, this is not corroborated by the experience of other countries that have joined the WTO. Their experience shows that accession works as an invitation for foreign direct investment. Not only do member countries receive more FDI than non-members, but also the accession process itself tends to be accompanied by FDI growth. However, improving the investment climate remains a prerequisite for achieving long-term economic growth, regardless of whether Russia joins the WTO or not.
WTO accession alone will not help Russia to survive in the global economy, just as staying out of the WTO will not save the country from structural unemployment, lack of investments etc. To better prepare for competition, Russia needs to pursue policies aimed at increasing mobility and flexibility. At this stage, it is crucial that both government and business get more information about WTO rules and are fully briefed on potential benefits as well as the problems that may arise.
Maria Gorban, Sergei Guriyev and Ksenia Yudayeva work at the Center for Economic and Financial Research in Moscow. The full version of this report is available at: www.cefir.org.
By Mikhail Delyagin
THE Russian government is forcing the pace of negotiations on WTO membership in order to achieve accession by December 2003. In this connection, it is important to dispel certain myths and incorrect stereotypes that have formed.
Myth 1. Over the past two years, the government has energetically explained to the public the consequences of this country becoming a member of the WTO and today analysts and businessmen possess full information regarding the implications.
The government has conducted more than 300 conferences in which it has propagandized and insisted that there is no alternative to WTO membership, given that the organization regulates 96 percent of world trade. But the government has not provided the business community with substantive information and, in fact, it does not itself possess such information. There is not even an official translation of WTO agreements, and the unofficial ones that exist contain mistakes and inaccurate commentary.
Myth 2. The government is fully aware of the consequences of joining the WTO.
The government has not even attempted to evaluate the effects on the economy of adherence to standard WTO conditions, including how changes brought about in a given sector or branch will impact the rest of the economy.
Myth 3. The government is conducting itself openly, with full public involvement in WTO discussions.
As Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref stated last month, Russia's WTO negotiating position is confidential. However, maintaining secrecy after the statement of this position in Geneva can only be motivated by a desire to withhold information from the public. This flies in the face of such WTO principles as transparency.
Myth 4. The government has to the maximum degree taken businesspeople's wishes into consideration and thus its position corresponds to the country's needs.
The government has only involved the better-organized section of the Russian business community, while the interests of less well-organized sections have not been taken into account.
Myth 5. The government has been conducting negotiations on all the most important component conditions of WTO membership.
It has had negotiations on all areas in which it has specialists, i.e. on tariffs, agriculture, civil aviation, etc. However, these are secondary issues, and key areas such as services and systemic issues have not been discussed because the government lacks specialists in these fields.
Myth 6. Membership will not affect the interests of commodities producers.
One of the agreements on subsidies would force Russia to introduce a uniform energy tariff for all regions of the country and all branches of the economy. This would undermine all energy-intensive producers, including aluminum producers. Moreover, this agreement means that demands could be made for domestic tariffs to be brought up to world levels.
Myth 7. According to Gref, losses resulting from non-membership in WTO were $2.1 billion in 2000 and $4 billion in 2001; the gains from membership in the first four or five years will be up to $18 billion.
This calculation is based on an estimated $1 billion in losses from the non-export of ferrous metals. These losses, however, have nothing to do with non-membership in WTO; they result from metals producers' fears of going to court and instead signing a bilateral agreement in 1999 voluntarily restricting exports of steel to the United States. The estimated benefit from joining is based on the belief that membership will put an end to the application of anti-dumping measures against Russia. This, however, is not the case. The United States, for example, restricts access to its markets irrespective of whether a country is in the WTO or not.
Myth 8. Joining the WTO will enable us to adopt the "right" laws.
As our experience with the IMF between 1995 and 1998 shows, "external governance" of Russia is bad for two reasons: because Russia and the West have fundamentally different interests (being strategic competitors) and as a result of the West's failure to understand the realities of this country.
To conclude, it would be a huge mistake for Russia to join the WTO in December 2003. We should join later, once the Russian economy is stronger. Furthermore, declaring any deadline for completion of negotiations deprives our partners of all incentive to make serious concessions.
Mikhail Delyagin, director of the Institute for Problems of Globalization, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times prior to his recent appointment as macroeconomic adviser to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.
TITLE: Are We Sure They're Suffering Enough?
TEXT: IT'S an old story. Last week, another soldier at a military base in Leningrad Oblast grabbed his machine gun and made a break for it, looking for a better life. Although his weapon was found soon after, the soldier is still at large, one of about 5,000 young conscripts who escape from the army each year.
Last month, the government and the Duma spent a lot of time and energy debating proposed laws on alternative military service. Although this law is supposed to enshrine the constitutional right to not serve in a military capacity, my impression from listening to the debate is that our politicians - and most average Russians - seem to think that every male in the Russian Federation must suffer for at least two years of his life.
I was approached last week by a colleague taking a poll on the issue and one of the questions he asked was, "Should alternative service be organized far away from the homes of people serving?" When I said that I didn't understand the question very well, he helpfully explained that "there is always the hidden question about whether or not each individual would suffer fully."
No one seems to be talking about the effectiveness of alternative service or, for that matter, of military service in general. Everyone seems to just accept that soldiers are running away in droves, that they spend inordinate amounts of time drunk, that they are always being beaten by their comrades and officers and that they feel that they are generally just wasting their time.
Take my own military experience as an example. During my two years of active duty, I fired a machine gun twice (missed both times) and once I fired from a tank (a direct hit).
Then I spent one year in what was then East Germany, working with the German police who were sorting out traffic accidents caused by drunk Russian officers who were smashing cars into trees all over the Sachsen-Anhalt region. Most of them hadn't managed to learn a single word of German despite living in the country for several years.
As a result, I spent a lot of time translating for them while they bought new cars and the like. Sometimes this got to be pretty funny. Once I dropped by the quarters of an officer in my unit just as he was finishing his dinner. He welcomed me in a friendly way and said, "By the way, can you tell me what this package says. I bought it the other day and, you know ... Damn Germans, the stuff is breaking my teeth."
"It's dog food," I said meekly.
In a nutshell, that was what my non-alternative service consisted of. It probably was even a little bit useful both for me and my country.
Anyway, I told the pollster that everyone should be given the chance to choose alternative service without any conditions. The army will end up with the same number of soldiers, since those who are now goofing off or running away will likely opt to serve in hospitals or clean streets instead.
"It is the fault of commanders that soldiers run away," said Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov during a visit to St. Petersburg last week.
This is partly true. Of course, commanders are responsible for discipline, but they can't stand by every soldier all the time protecting them from their "friends." The problem is much more concerned with money and conscription. When we have volunteer soldiers getting a decent wage, such problems will be much fewer.
"But what about patriotism?" the pollster asked.
It's hard to feel patriotic about a country that wants its soldiers to suffer, I thought to myself.
TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: Picture this: the skulking ruler of a corrupt and vicious regime, hunkered down in his palace, besieged by the forces of good as he plots to unleash weapons of mass destruction on his "satanic" foes across the sea. Accused of war crimes and military aggression, he cynically turns to religion, often calling in the leader of the country's largest fundamentalist sect to lend "moral" support to the criminal regime. Together, the ruler and the holy man engage in frenzied diatribes against the enemies of the state, especially that sinister conspiratorial power lurking behind every eruption of evil in the world - the Jews.
A portrait of Saddam Hussein, raging desperately as he braces for the final reckoning at the hands of history's avenging angel, George W. Bush? No, it's just our ole pal Tricky Dick - Nixon, that is, not Cheney -- back from the dead in White House tapes released this week: yet another star turn from the Founding Father of modern American politics.
In the tapes, recorded in early 1972, we find Nixon hankering to hurl his nuclear thunderbolts at Vietnam - standard Cold War ranting for the apostate Quaker, who first suggested nuking 'Nam back in 1954. More relevant to the current scene is the Jew-bashing duet Nixon shares with the American elite's favorite fire-breathing evangelical, the Reverend (sic) Billy Graham.
Graham has - not to put too fine a point on it - sucked from the teat of American power for more than 50 years, lending his "moral authority" to various presidents (usually when they're in political hot water) then leveraging the resultant publicity into boffo box office for his stadium harangues around the world. He is perhaps best known in recent years for a miracle that changed the course of human history - saving the soul of the aforementioned angel, G.W. Bush.
Bush credits Graham with "planting the seeds" of fundamentalist faith in his pre-presidential person during a family gathering in 1985. Graham was visiting the Bush clan's luxurious compound in Maine, mooching free meals and sucking up to the sitting vice president, Daddy Bush. (Well, what else should a disciple of Christ be doing? Breaking bread with the poor or something? Get real.)
At that time, of course, young George was in wastrel mode, boozing it up and losing millions of dollars of other people's money in the oil companies Daddy's friends gave him to play with. But the meeting with Graham struck a chord in the lost soul, as Bush himself (or rather his ghostwriter) tells it, in properly hagiographic tones: "[Graham] sat by the fire and talked. And what he said sparked a change in my heart. I don't remember the exact words. It was more the power of his example. The Lord was so clearly reflected in his gentle and loving demeanor."
That divine emanation was somewhat occluded in the Nixon meeting, where Graham heatedly denounced "satanic Jews" and warned Nixon that the "Jewish stranglehold" on the national media "has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain." The Lord-reflecting preacher then gently and lovingly described how he turned the Jews' two-faced perfidy against them with wily Christian deception of his own.
"A lot of Jews are great friends of mine," Graham begins with gentle, loving sarcasm. "They swarm around me and are friendly to me, because they know I am friendly to Israel and so forth. But they don't know how I really feel about what they're doing to this country, and I have no power and no way to handle them."
Graham chortles heartily when Nixon's toady and enforcer, H.R. Haldeman (the Karl Rove of his day) tells him to "wear a Jewish beanie" at an upcoming meeting with Time Magazine editors. And he yearns for a Nixon re-election later in the year: "Then we might be able to do something" about those nefarious Hebrews, says Graham.
As with Bush, Graham's potent spiritual seed found fertile ground in Nixon. "It's good we got this point about the Jews across," the president says after the meeting. "The Jews are an irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards."
This week Graham issued a most Nixonian reply to the taped revelations, saying he had "no memory" of the occasion, but even so, he "deeply regretted" comments he "apparently made" during the meeting. "Apparently"? Perhaps those "satanic Jews" doctored the tape, eh, Billy? As it says in the Gospels: "When the sins of thy past confront thee, always use a weasel-word to squirm thy way out."
These days, the elderly Graham is too frail to whack the Bible leather on the road anymore. His place has been taken by his son, Franklin, who runs the racket along the same old lines: hell-fire for the common folk, political cover for the high and mighty. Indeed, Franklin was called upon by the skulking ruler of yet another corrupt and vicious regime in January 2001, when he showered the Lord's blessing on the illicit inauguration of the unelected wastrel whom Daddy Graham put on the road to glory all those years ago.
Meanwhile, Bush is still faithful to his Imam's teaching. He believes that Jews are damned to eternal torment, unless they adopt his own pinched and primitive fundamentalist faith - an opinion that once landed him in hot water with his less-jihadic mother. Alarmed at her son's ignorant intolerance, she called - who else? - Graham to set Junior straight. Graham's response? "I happen to agree with what George says."
Well, he would, wouldn't he?
TITLE: Local Star Heads for Broadway's Bright Lights
TEXT: With his smash hit film, "Moulin Rouge", behind him, Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann is looking ahead to new projects: specifically, his Broadway production of Puccini's opera "La Bohème," which he plans to make into a movie.
After a comprehensive search for the right soprano to sing Mimi, Luhrmann settled on a relative unknown - 26-year-old Yekaterina Solovyova from St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Academy for Young Singers.
Solovyova - whose repertoire at the Mariinsky includes Musetta in "La Bohème", Guilietta in "The Tales of Hoffmann" and Zerlina in "Don Giovanni" - recently spoke with The St. Petersburg Times about suddenly being center stage.
Q: How did you first learn you had been invited to audition for Luhrmann?
A: We were on a tour in Yaroslavl last fall when Larisa Gergieva - the artistic director of the Mariinsky Academy for Young Singers - received a phone call.
Apparently, one of Luhrmann's assistants had seen me in the Mariinsky production of "La Bohème" in which I sing the part of Musetta. He invited me to audition. I was overwhelmed - happy, thrilled and excited.
This first audition took place in Valencia in early December. I don't know who my rivals were, but there were twelve singers altogether - six sopranos and six tenors and baritones.
Q: What happened during that first audition in Spain?
A: It was a very interesting experience! The whole thing lasted about 40 minutes. First Luhrmann asked me to sing two arias from the opera, but then came something unexpected. The director asked me to explain the contents of the arias in Russian while the music played on and the camera filmed me. Then Luhrmann asked me to perform some scenes from the opera with all the sincerity he saw when I was speaking Russian.
After that the audition continued on the back staircase! Luhrmann led me and his assistant around back and we repeated the scenes all over again on the stairs. This was quite an unusual audition for me, but the environment was inspiring. My spirits were very high, and I sung my role with pleasure and confidence.
Q: When did you hear about the results of the audition?
A: Immediately. Luhrmann said they enjoyed my performance very much and would like to see me at the next audition in New York later in December. I was so happy - I couldn't believe all this was happening to me. I returned to St. Petersburg to rehearse with my vocal coach, Hrair Khanedanyan, and to prepare for the audition in New York.
The second audition in New York was focused on our acting abilities, and that proved to be a big challenge for me. I had to faint at the snap of the director's fingers. Then he would throw a coat on me and tell me to pretend I was freezing. He switched off the lights to help me perform evening scenes. This went on for almost five hours as the director tested and compared all of us.
The following day I found out they had picked me. I was overwhelmed. This felt like an incredible change in my life.
Q: How do you feel about Luhrmann's films?
A: I adored "Moulin Rouge." I saw it several times, even before I even knew about the casting. Luhrmann is a very creative and inventive director. He has a very acute mind and an incredibly charming personality.
Q: You sing the role of vivacious and coquettish Musetta in the Mariinsky's production of "La Bohème" directed by Jan Judge. Were you surprised to be invited to perform a very different character from the same opera, the fragile and tragic Mimi?
A: Though I have listened to many recordings of this opera, the Mariinsky production was an enormous help. It made this music related to me. I am very deeply involved with this opera now. Personally I feel much closer to Mimi, although I adore Musetta and would never refuse to perform this role. She is such a fiery, sparkling character, so stimulating.
Both these roles require a lot of acting, and preparing for the role of Mimi in the Luhrmann's production I am very happy I have been performing Musetta. It is a big help vocally and also artistically as I could learn more about Mimi through Musetta's eyes.
Q: When are you going to start rehearsing for "La Bohème" in New York?
A: The rehearsals will start in August and last for several weeks. The production will first be performed in several cities throughout the United States. After the Broadway premiere, we will start working on the film version.
Q: If the film takes shape, it will make your debut on the screen.
A: Yes. Right now I can't even imagine myself on the screen. I never seriously considered a career in film. But with the chance I've been given, I am looking forward to a new and incredibly exciting experience.
Q: During the Yelena Obraztsova International Vocal Competition in 1999, you received a special prize from Italian opera diva Renata Scotto, who judged the contest. Scotto awarded you a master class because she was enchanted by the sincerity and depth of your singing and impressed by your potential. What have you learned from her?
A: Scotto is a fascinating performer, whose singing is very nuanced. And these were precious nuances she taught me. She gave me the master class in Finland in summer 2000, during the annual Mikkeli festival organized by [Mariinsky Theater artistic director] Valery Gergiev.
We were talking about plunging into the character, about the performing styles and international standards of singing - where to put fermato or where to sing cadence.We haven't seen each other since. Of course, I am hoping to meet her again.
Q: This is your third year at the Mariinsky Academy for Young Singers, which you entered right after you graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. What have you gained from the academy?
A: The academy's program is so comprehensive. We are taught everything from etiquette to foreign languages to the most delicate nuances of performing styles. And all this is done with great care. Our coaches treat us as if we are their own children.
If I love something, I devote all of myself to it, and I do love singing. We are at the academy almost all day, between the individual lessons, group classes, rehearsals, language training, performances. It sounds exhausting, but I like that. And I feel rewarded. When I sense that the audience is happy and hear people applauding, I am in heaven.
Since childhood I have felt very close to the Mariinsky - although it was first the ballet that enchanted me. My uncle, Yury Solovyov, danced at the Mariinsky and I grew up watching ballet rehearsals, dreaming to dance here myself. I even went to take the exams at the ballet academy, but I didn't pass. This was a big disappointment for me, and I still remember crying all the way home. That trauma took a long time to heal.
Q: Do you remember your first exposure to opera?
A: I was five years old and the opera was "Kay and Gerda" by Sergei Banyevich. It made a very strong impression on me, but it wasn't until my final years in high school that I decided to pursue a career in opera.
Q: Has Luhrmann's invitation made you think of starting an independent career - of heading West?
A: I am not ready to part with the Academy. I still feel I have a lot to learn.
Q: During and after the castings, what was stronger - your fellow academists' support or jealousy?
A: Friends and even some fellow academists called me in New York all the time to wish me luck and encourage me! And I must say I felt much stronger knowing how much they support me.
Q: What is your dream role?
A: Tatiana from "Eugene Onegin." And Liza from "The Queen of Spades" is just magnificent. The music mesmerizes me - send shivers up and down my spine. I am not ready to sing Liza now, but I hope to perform it one day.
Q: What do you sing at home for pleasure?
A: I don't sing at home! I spend almost all of my waking moments at the theater, singing or rehearsing, so the little time left to spend at home - which is almost always nighttime - I reserve for sleeping.
Q: And when you sleep you are learning your roles ... ?
A: I do have dreams about the theater! Remarkably enough, the day before I was invited to the casting in Spain, I had a dream in which I was singing Mimi in the production of "La Bohème." I very rarely sing Mimi - and only during contests or concerts. I never performed this role. In fact, as I finished telling Larisa Gergieva about this dream, the phone rang!
Q: Would you call yourself a fatalist?
A: I do believe in fate.
- Interview by Galina Stolyarova
TITLE: U.S. Planes Hit al-Qaida Caves
AUTHOR: By Kathy Gannon
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GARDEZ, Afghanistan - U.S. fighter jets pounded the mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Monday, unleashing a bombing barrage intended to wipe out any remnants of al-Qaida holdouts in the region's warren of caves.
Hundreds of weary U.S. soldiers descended from the Afghan mountains after a grueling battle against al-Qaida forces. American forces taking part in Operation Anaconda pledged to fight on until the last of the fighters surrendered or died in the Shah-e-Kot mountains.
"The al-Qaida and Taliban extremists seem to be in much smaller pockets now - not the larger groups that we saw the first few days," said Major Bryan Hilferty, spokesperson for the 10th Mountain Division. Hilferty also said that five U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers were wounded on Sunday and Monday, but coalition forces reported little fighting and no sustained fire from the al-Qaida holdouts for the past four days.
Afghan commander Mohammed Ismail Khan said the al-Qaida forces are weak, but reaching them is a problem because land mines surround their positions. Forces on the ground are counting on the bombing to soften al-Qaida positions. "The bombing has been so strong. I don't know how anyone can survive," Khan said.
Coalition forces said they killed at least 500 fighters and that about 200 were believed to be left. Eight Americans and three of their Afghan allies died. Another commander, Haji Nawab Zardran, said U.S. forces were on the front lines clearing mines.
Operation Anaconda was launched March 2 to crush al-Qaida and Taliban forces in the mountains of Paktia province.
U.S. soldiers returning from the front lines expressed disappointment, however, with one glaring absence: Afghan troops. According to pool reports from the region, the original plan was for U.S. soldiers to pull out after a couple of days and be replaced by Afghan troops led by commander Zia Lodin. According to U.S. troops, his unit never showed.
"Who cares?'' said one soldier in the battle zone, south of the town of Gardez. "I don't think anybody here cares anymore. If Zia comes, great. If not, oh well.''
Zia was unavailable for comment because his unit is back in the fight.
In the town of Gardez, an Afghan commander, Ismail, said al-Qaida and Taliban forces in the area were "75 percent spent," and he expected a final push within the next two days.
Ismail said that in the past two days, Australian commandos and vehicles had been dropped into the battle area, presumably to search for small pockets of al-Qaida members who might try to slip away through narrow gorges.
Hilferty said some enemy fighters had been captured and were being interrogated, but he declined to say how many.
The Afghan Islamic Press reported that hundreds of masked gunmen manned checkpoints in the eastern town of Khost to search for weapons. The gunmen have also forced shops and markets to close as part of the massive search.
The operation came a day after attackers killed four men from the Zadran tribe led by warlord Bacha Khan, who is leading an Afghan militia fighting alongside U.S. troops.
Khost is on the southeastern end of the battle area and is close to the Pakistani border. The area, a hotbed of support for the Taliban and al-Qaida, has been the scene of several sporadic bombings and shootings since the U.S.-led operation began eight days ago.
TITLE: Bush Outlines Next Phase of War on Terror
AUTHOR: By Scott Lindlaw
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - U.S President George W. Bush paid tribute to the global coalition against terrorism and previewed the war's next phase as more than 1,000 people gathered at the White House to mark the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Bush invited over 100 ambassadors to the White House on Monday to commemorate the day six months ago that New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington were attacked. Among those also attending were members of Congress, relatives of some 300 victims and top administration officials.
Bush planned to offer a "broad outline of what's been accomplished and where we are headed, the challenges we face as the war on terrorism continues," White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe said. A primary focus of the president's speech was an acknowledgment of the importance of the global coalition against terror, Johndroe said.
As American forces made new advances against the last known major pocket of al-Qaida resistance, the president planned to offer a more detailed outline of the administration's plans to stamp out the terrorist network.
"I realize we're in for a long struggle," Bush said last week in Florida. "I ... will outline where we are in this war on terror, and I'm going to remind the American people that we've still got a task at hand in Afghanistan, which is to deny sanctuary to al-Qaida killers."
TITLE: Disappointing Zenit Crashes in Dagestan
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A moment of madness from goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeyev and a cruel deflection were enough to deflate the pre-season hopes of St. Petersburg soccer fans, as Zenit lost 2-0 away at Anzhi Makhachkala on Saturday.
Second-half goals from Budun Budunov and Vladislav Prudius gave the Dagestan club its first points of the new season after Zenit had been the better side in the first half. New signing Vladimir Mudrinic twice came close for the visitors with shots from outside the box, including one that hit the post, in what was otherwise 45 minutes of mostly uneventful football.
In the 53rd minute, Anzhi broke the deadlock. Ilya Tsymbalar gained posession of the ball near Zenit's corner flag and swung in a cross toward the far post. Malafeyev needlessly rushed out to make the catch, missed, and a grateful Budunov scored probably the easiest goal he will get all season, heading in from point-blank range.
The game, played in strong winds blowing off the Caspian Sea, then degenerated into a series of largely scrappy exchanges, neither team being able to impose itself or create much in the way of scoring opportunities.
Prudius sealed the match in the 81st minute. Taking the ball about 25 meters from the Zenit goal, he struck a hopeful-looking shot, which deflected off a Zenit defender's heel, before looping gently over Malafeyev - who was again poorly positioned - and into the far corner of the net.
For Zenit head coach Yury Morozov, the most worrying thing to come out of the game was that his team, especially after going a goal down, seemed to stop competing, especially in midfield. The departure of three of last season's key players was evident, and Morozov, to fulfill the club's pre-season promises, must now find a way to build a cohesive unit to replace them.
While Vladimir Mudrinic had an encouraging game, Anzhi dominated midfield without great difficulty. Wide men Denis Ugarov and Alexei Katulsky, neither of them genuine wingers, failed to provide the team with any width. As a result, Zenit's strike force of Alexander Kerzhakov and Predrag Randjelovic was starved of service and largely anonymous. Randjelovic was substituted by Andrei Arshavin shortly after Anzhi's first goal.
Defensively, Zenit - barring Malafeyev's nerves and the deflection - was solid for most of the game. New signing Milan Veshnitsa had a solid debut on defense alongside club captain Alexei Igonin, who kept Anzhi's most dangerous player, Dzhaffar Irismetov, under wraps until the striker was substituted just after the hour. Sarkis Ovsepyan, employed as a sweeper, was rarely troubled all afternoon.
Elsewhere on the opening two days, Spartak Moscow also made a disappointing start to the season as it could only draw 0-0 at home to Rostelmash Rostov-na-Donu. The home side had the best chance via a penalty shot, but Dmitry Parfyonov could only hit the post.
Spartak's city rival, CSKA, tops the first-week standings after a comprehensive 4-0 defeat of Torpedo-ZiL Moscow. Dmitry Kirichenko, signed in the off-season from Rostselmash, hit a hat trick on his debut for the army club.
Zenit's next match is at home to Rotor Volgograd, at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Petrovsky Stadium.
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: Brackets Set For March Madness
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA wanted to limit travel in this year's tournament. The selection committee succeeded, but only in part. The committee tried to keep teams closer to home for the opening two rounds with a new system that showed it wasn't flawless.
"We can't avoid all travel because two-thirds of our teams are from east of the Mississippi," committee chairperson Lee Fowler said Sunday. "What we're trying to do is develop a system where we can cut down on travel."
Fowler, also the athletic director at North Carolina State, said 39 teams stayed in their own time zones, compared with 22 last year, and another 15 were sent one time zone away. Only 11 teams, compared with 20 last year, were moved two or three time zones.
The top four seeds are Duke, Kansas, Maryland and Cincinnati. Duke, which plays in the South, was seeded No. 1 for a record fifth straight year. Kansas took the top spot in the Midwest, its first No. 1 seed since 1998, and Maryland and Cincinnati earned their first top spots.
In the women's tournament, it seems that what happens at the end of the season is what matters the most.
That was never more clear than in the case of Southeastern Conference rivals Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Tennessee won the SEC regular-season championship by three games over Vanderbilt and was No. 1 in the RPI and schedule strength. But the Lady Vols lost to LSU in the semifinals of the conference tournament and Vanderbilt won it. So what happened? The NCAA selection committee on Sunday made Vanderbilt a No. 1 seed and Tennessee a No. 2.
There were no surprises among the other No. 1 seeds - Connecticut in the Mideast, Duke in the East and Oklahoma in the West. All won their regular-season and conference titles.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Safin, Wilander Split
INDIAN WELLS, California (Reuters) - Marat Safin has confirmed that his coaching partnership with Swedish tennis legend Mats Wilander is over. The 22-year-old Australian Open finalist teamed up with Wilander in March 2001, but the Swede's busy life means he no longer has time to coach the Russian player.
"I think everybody understands that Mats is playing tournaments on the Senior Tour and that he has a family," Safin said. "It's a bit difficult to have a coach for all the year. That's what I need, a coach that can spend with me like 30, 40 weeks a year. He could not make it for those reasons."
Safin said he would remain on good terms with Wilander - who as a player won seven Grand Slams and 26 other titles - but had no regrets. "I think it was the right solution just to finish, but I'm still maintaining contact with him. We are good friends, and that's more important than to have a business together, I think," he said.
Bat Stops Play
HOUSTON (AP) - Houston guard Moochie Norris was buzzed by a bat on the basketball court Friday night, causing a delay in the Rockets-Warriors NBA game before the mammal was captured by a ballboy. Norris cringed and froze with an astounded look before referee Courtney Kirkland halted play.
The animal continued flying around the court, swooping and climbing, sometimes lapping the court above the second deck before making another dive. The Rockets and Warriors, many laughing, scattered as the crowd egged on the bat. Play resumed about five minutes later as the bat returned to the rafters.
It descended again during a timeout promotion in which children were shooting baskets. Ballboy Greg Mueller nabbed the bat with a net and carried it out of the arena. The bat was released outside and flew into a tree.
Els Wins Again
DUBAI (Reuters) - South Africa's Ernie Els fired a closing three-under-par 69 as he romped to a four-shot victory in the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday and his third title of the year. The World No. 3 claimed his third stroke-play victory in succession with a 16-under-par total on the Emirates course.
"So far, so good," said Els. "I've had a really good start to my season. I've won three times and I'm really enjoying it. I always felt I was in control today from tee to green and it was a comfortable win in the end."
Els became the first player in Dubai Desert Classic history to win twice, just a week after keeping Tiger Woods at arms' reach to clinch the Genuity Championship on the PGA Tour.
Sweden's Niclas Fasth, despite drawing even with the South African after eight holes, ended in a distant second place at 12-under-par and one stroke ahead of compatriot Carl Pettersson.
Da Matta Rolls On
MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Brazil's Cristiano da Matta opened the CART Indy-car season on a winning note for the second consecutive year Sunday, with another dominating performance at the Monterrey Grand Prix.
Picking up where left off last year with victories in two season-ending races, da Matta led for 52 of 85 laps around the 3.5-kilometer circuit, bringing his Toyota-Lola home 1.67 seconds in front of Scotland's Dario Franchitti.
Da Matta's Newman-Haas teammate Christian Fittipaldi was third, with Mexico's Michel Jourdain pleasing the crowd with a fourth place finish. Canada's Alex Tagliani, who was involved in a horrific crash at a race in Germany last year that resulted in Alex Zanardi having both legs amputated, rounded out the top five.