SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #755 (21), Friday, March 22, 2002
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TITLE: Brodsky To Have A Place At Last
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The poet Iosif Brodsky may have done much to contribute to St. Petersburg's heritage, yet the city where he was born and where he lived for 32 years until leaving Russia in 1972 has never erected a monument to him.
All that is about to change, however, after this week's announcement by Alfa Bank and the city's buildings and architecture committee announced an international contest for just such a monument this week.
The competition will consist of three rounds, the first of which will be a competition of ideas and concepts, to be presented to the organizing committee before July 1. The second round, starting in the second half of August and running through November, will try to find suitable locations for the projects that have been submitted.
After this, according to the Vice President of Alfa Bank, Alexander Gafin, about half a dozen participants will be put forward to the third round, and they will be given stipends to make models and sketches of their proposed ideas.
The monument is scheduled to be in place for St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary, but, according to the project's directors, this will more likely be the date for dedicating the monument than completing it.
Alfa-Bank has allocated $26,000 for the prize fund. The winner will receive $15,000, with the rest being divided between the other finalists. The bank will not, however, be financing the actual construction of the monument. "We expect other organizations, and even ordinary people to participate," Gafin said.
No members of the St. Petersburg city government were invited to join the international jury, as the organizing committee argue that Brodsky himself would not have wanted this monument to have any affiliation with officialdom.
The high-powered jury will, however, include the poet's widow, Maria Brodskaya; Thomas Krens, the director the Guggenheim Foundation; Vladimir Gusev, the director of the Russian Museum; Hermitage Director Mikhail Pyotrovsky; the poet Yevgeny Rein; and Vladimir Spivakov, the director of the ensemble Moscow Virtuosi. The jury's only connections to St. Petersburg's administration are the city's Head Architect, Oleg Kharchenko, and its Head Artist, Ivan Uralov. The contest also boasts a representative Expert Council that consists of prominent artists, sculptors, poets and art historians.
Local cultural circles sounded a note of caution about the contest, fearing that many local artists would take the word 'monument' too literally, limiting it to sculpture.
Architectural competitions in St. Petersburg have not been very successful of late, with the competition to design the monument for the city's 300th anniversary being the most recent illustration. "It was depressing to see the predomination of trivial thinking among my fellow-artists," said Uralov of that contest. St. Petersburg's 200th birthday, by comparison, was commemorated by the construction of Troitsky Bridge.
There are hopes, however, that the forthcoming competition may be saved by its international element.
"Brodsky and his verse belong to the entire world, which makes us hope the contest will be met with much enthusiasm outside Russia," Gafin said. "The international status of the contest will undoubtedly raise the quality of the result."
Yakov Gordin, editor of the literary magazine Znamya and a member of the Expert Council, said that he, like Uralov, was depressed by what he saw during the recent 300th-anniversary competition, and sees little artistic potential for similar contests. "What I saw of that contest was enough to make me start to panic," Gordin said. "To be absolutely honest, we need to be prepared for the plan not to take shape in the near future."
As for the monument to Brodsky, Gordin said, there is a risk that the plan may become obscured by differences between members of the Expert Council, a great many of whom knew the poet personally.
Alexander Borovsky, the head of the State Russian Museum's Newest Trends Department and also a member of the Expert Council, concurred. "The biggest mistake the sculptors may make would be to try to personalize the poet's image," he said. "A deeply personalized monument is sure to cause controversy on the jury."
Another Expert Council member, Mikhail Milchik, who runs the Brodsky Museum Foundation, offered his view of the situation. "Maybe I am biased - as I represent the interests of a museum that is yet to take shape - but the Brodsky Museum may well turn out to be the best solution," he said. "It would be best because it is going to be a living organism, a literary community center - as the Anna Akhmatova museum [at 34 Nab. Reki Fontanki] is already."
The idea is for the Brodsky Museum to open in a communal apartment where Brodsky once lived on Ulitsa Pestelya. Alfa Bank is planning to buy rooms in the apartment to set up the museum.
The question of the monument's possible location is open to debate, although most of the jury and the expert council suggest Vasilievsky Island. The most obvious reason for the choice is the famous line: "I will come to die on Vasilievsky Island," from one of Brodsky's untitled verses. The choice has been criticised for not saying anything new about Brodsky, but those who knew the poet personally explain that Vasilievsky Island would be suitable in a much wider sense.
"While a [St. Petersburg State University] student, Brodsky frequented [one of] our friends' apartment on Vasilievsky Island - and this 'house with the dark-blue façade' is present in his verse," Gordin said. "For Brodsky, Vasilievsky Island appeared as the essence of St. Petersburg, as a symbol of the city."
Head Artist Uralov pointed out the proximity of water, which is common to all the towns which Brodsky loved, and in which he lived most of his life. "St. Petersburg, Venice, Manhattan in New York - these ... are united by the theme of water," he said.
Alfa Bank's Gafin is optimistic about the project's future. "If several interesting projects appear, they may be offered to other cities, for example Venice or New York," he said.
Links: www.brodsky.alfabank.ru
TITLE: Why U.S. Chicken Bugs Russia
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva and Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Vladimir Fisinin knows American chicken, and he says it's dangerous.
As the vice president of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the general director of the Inter-regional Scientific Center for Pedigree Poultry Farming, Fisinin has been studying chickens for decades.
He dismisses accusations by Washington that Moscow's ban on U.S.-poultry imports, implemented March 10, is a tit-for-tat move for punitive U.S. tariffs on steel announced just a few days before.
"I would like to point out," he said, "that American farmers are injecting the chickens they grow with antibiotics used to treat people. This is prohibited in Russia."
The danger, according to Fisinin - and many other experts from around the world - is that antibiotics such as penicillin, chlortetracyclin and erythromycin, which are commonly used to treat human maladies, are used by U.S. poultry farmers in staggeringly large dosages and accumulate in the meat they produce. Ingesting this meat then reduces the immune system of the person eating it and increases the likelihood of an allergic reaction.
"It is dangerous, especially for children and old people," he said.
The European Union - no stranger to health issues regarding meat - banned U.S.-poultry imports in 1998. China did the same, as did several other nations, including Ukraine in January.
U.S. officials and poultry farmers insist they have the highest health standards in the world and the antibiotics they use disappear by the time the chicken is eaten.
However, even within the United States a growing number of prominent health organizations, scientists, politicians and consumer rights groups are calling for a ban, or at least a restriction, on what they say is the dangerous overuse of antibiotics. The routine use of antibiotics has become so prevalent, they argue, that it is helping to create new super strains of harmful or fatal drug-resistant diseases.
Some 70 percent, or 9 million kilograms, of all antibiotics used in the United States every year are administered to healthy chickens and other animals to make them grow bigger and compensate for unhygienic conditions, according to KAW, a U.S. coalition dedicated to eliminating the inappropriate use of antibiotics in farm animals.
Identifying it as a major cause of antibiotic resistance among people, the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association and numerous other leading health organizations have called for a sharp reduction in the agricultural use of antibiotics.
According to a study in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that was published in October, one in three samples of supermarket poultry was contaminated with salmonella and, of the 13 strains found, 83 percent were resistant to at least one antibiotic, while 53 percent were resistant to at least three.
For Russia, the quality of U.S. chicken is a national health issue. Beginning in 1989, under former President George Bush, the United States began exporting enormous quantities of chicken to Russia which came to be called Bush legs. Thirteen years later, U.S.-poultry exporters earn $600 million a year here and account for two-thirds of the market.
"The ban on U.S. poultry should have been implemented a long time ago," said Ivan Vasilenko, a leading chemist and the deputy head of the State Scientific Center for Antibiotics.
"All over the world, antibiotics must be separated into those that are for animal use and those that are for human use," he said.
People who are allergic to a certain kind of antibiotic could suffer an allergic reaction if they eat meat from a chicken injected with that antibiotic, Vasilenko said.
But the real danger, he said, is that, when chickens are fed with antibiotics, bugs form in their flesh that are resistant to that antibiotic.
"It is sometimes impossible to treat a person infected in this way, as the only known medicine against a disease that carries the bug is an antibiotic to which the bug has resistance," Vasilenko said.
Tatyana Guseva, an allergist at the Institute of Allergology and Clinical Immunology, said that even minute amounts of antibiotics ingested from eating chicken can be harmful.
"An overdose of antibiotics might occur when a patient is treated with antibiotics that neither the doctor nor the patient knew was already in his body. This could happen from ingesting food containing antibiotics," she said.
What worries specialists like Guseva and Vasilenko is that no one knows exactly what the health consequences in Russia have been from eating the meat of chicken treated with antibiotics because no one has ever had the money to do a proper study of the issue.
Indeed, this in one of the main debating points of the visiting 12-member team of U.S. trade, health and agriculture officials currently negotiating with their Russian counterparts in an effort to lift the ban.
"The Russian government was asked: 'Did you find any antibiotics in our chicken?' And they said: 'We can't afford to find it out,'" a source close to the U.S. delegation said Tuesday.
"Russia uses antibiotics, too," he said. "If you don't monitor, how do you know they don't use it. Just because it's not approved it doesn't mean they don't use it.
"In America, each facility has a state inspector. We monitor, we know the quality of our chicken. Russian farms are not monitored, most of them are not even clean," he added, with obvious frustration.
An Agriculture Ministry spokesperson countered the accusation, saying that unlike the United States, where inspectors are on the payroll of producers, Russian producers are subject to spot-inspections several times a year.
Last week, U.S. negotiators confirmed that their producers used antibiotics and dosages prohibited in Russia. Doses of tetracycline, for example, are 200 times the legal limit. They also admitted to using arsenic to make their chicken more aesthetically pleasing.
TITLE: Federal Troops Stage Major Grozny Sweep
AUTHOR: By Yuri Bagrov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Audit Chamber head Sergei Stepashin met with Chechen officials to discuss alleged mismanagement of federal funds Thursday, while federal troops launched their largest military sweep of Grozny in six months.
Troops blocked off Grozny on Thursday morning, erecting extra checkpoints and fanning out through the city in search of suspected rebels. The operation followed the killing Wednesday of a Chechen police officer, his wife and daughter and the wounding of five prosecutors whose car was blown up as they rushed to the scene of the attack.
Rebels claimed other victims Wednesday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 16 in land mine explosions, ambushes and other attacks across Chechnya, according to an official in the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration. Three Chechen police officers were killed and two were wounded in mine explosions.
Stepashin attended the weekly Chechen cabinet meeting in Grozny on Thursday. He said that auditors were investigating reports of the misuse of funds, including double-billing for housing renovations that had already been performed. The results of the audit will be announced in Moscow, Stepashin said.
Federal forces temporarily blocked an aid convoy sent by the Danish Refugee Council on Thursday, saying it had insufficient documentation.
Dmitry Medlev, a council employee in Nazran, Ingushetia, said that the convoy was stopped near the southern Chechen village of Tsotsin-Yurt as the result of a "misunderstanding" and that it was allowed to proceed after an hours-long delay.
Meanwhile, Akhmad Kadyrov, the Moscow-appointed Chechen leader, predicted Thursday that the war in Chechnya would end by the fall. He heaped criticism on the rebel leadership but accused some in the military of keeping the war going so they could profit from the illegal sale of the Chechnya's oil outside its borders.
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A remote-control explosive filled with metal bolts went off Thursday near the house of a prosecutor in Dagestan, but the official was not hurt.
"The explosive whistled past my head while I was on my way to the car to go to the office. I escaped death quite by chance," said Magomed Orudzhev, a prosecutor in the Sovietsky district of Makhachkala.
Orudzhev said that the attack was related to his professional activities and that prosecutors had already identified several suspects, but he declined to give more details.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Extortion Bust
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The St. Petersburg police and FSB have detained seven people reputed to be members members of the Tambovskaya gang, including two former police employees and a former city tax inspecor, Interfax reported on Thursday.
The report said some of the arrested have been charged with extortion in connection with threats made against a man the police, identified as E. Alexeyev, at the Dyuny resort in Sestroretsk in October. The police said the suspects demanded that Yeliseyev to pay them $300,000 or they would harm him physically.
The report said the police found a hunting rifle and 85 rounds of ammunition in the men's possession when they were detained.
Screen Premiere
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - State Duma lawmaker Yuly Rybakov said Monday that he will present Boris Berezovsky's documentary "The Assassination of Russia", which suggests that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk.
Rybakov said "anyone who wants to see it" can come to a Liberal Russia party conference, which is scheduled to be held Saturday at 11.00 a.m. at the Proletarsky Palace of Culture, located at 125 Obukhovskoy Oborony Prospect.
The Duma deputy said that he plans to circulate a petition at the meeting to ask President Vladimir Putin to set up a special commission including not only representatives of the Prosecutor's Office and State Duma members, but also members of the public, to investigate the bombings
Lost and Found
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Police arrested a 26-year-old man on Thursday after he was found walking down the street carrying an anti-aircraft missile, Agence France Presse reported.
According to AFP, the police reported that the man said he had found the fully operational Igla missile on a shooting range just outside the city, and was on his way to show it to friends when he was arrested.
NATO Hopes
BERLIN (Reuters) - Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday he hoped talks on giving Moscow a greater voice in NATO would bear fruit by mid-May.
In separate remarks in Prague, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said he was optimistic the talks would remain on track despite reports of a breakdown in negotiations.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Gusarov and a team of experts are to meet NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Guenther Altenburg in Brussels on Friday to try to advance the talks ahead of a May 14 and 15 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Reykjavik, Iceland.
"We are hoping, at least we are conducting affairs so that the document will be ready by the Reykjavik meeting in mid-May so that it [the council] could begin its work," Ivanov said.
Vietnam Hand Over
HANOI, Vietnam (Reuters) - Vietnam said Thursday that Russia's handover of the strategic naval base of Cam Ranh Bay was under way but the two countries were still negotiating as to when it would be completed.
"The two sides are carrying out hand-over procedures at the port as mutually agreed," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Phan Thuy Thanh said.
Thanh was speaking a week before Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was due to visit Vietnam, although he is not due to go to the port. Kasyanov is due to visit Hanoi from March 26 to 28.
TITLE: Knyazev Gets Four Years for Fatal Crash
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Former Russian diplomat Andrei Knyazev was sentenced to four years in a low-security prison Tuesday for a car accident in Canada that killed a pedestrian and left another badly injured.
The Tverskoi district court said that Knyazev, a former first secretary at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, would have his driver's license revoked for three years after he is released.
Knyazev's lawyer said he would appeal for a lighter sentence.
Canadian diplomats and relatives of the pedestrians involved said after the trial that they were pleased with the verdict, which caps an incident that strained ties between Canada and Russia.
Knyazev, now 45, was returning from an ice-fishing trip in January 2001 when his Chrysler Cirrus lurched onto a sidewalk in an Ottawa suburb, killing civil lawyer Catherine MacLean, 50, and injuring her friend Catherine Dore. Canadian police said Knyazev appeared to be intoxicated.
Moscow refused to lift Knyazev's diplomatic immunity - sparking outrage in Canada - and promised to try him in Russia. Two days after the accident, Knyazev was dismissed from his post and brought home.
Moments after Judge Yelena Stashina read the verdict Tuesday, two police officers rushed into the courtroom, clamped handcuffs on a bewildered-looking Knyazev and whisked him away.
Knyazev, who was allowed to stay at home on a written promise not to leave Moscow, will now have to wait out further legal proceedings at the Krasnaya Presnya prison.
Knyazev's lawyer, Andrei Pavlov, did not attend Tuesday's hearing, which only consisted of the reading of the verdict. Closing arguments were made in the weeklong trial last Friday.
Pavlov said later that he had been busy defending another client and that his presence had not been necessary.
Prosecutor Alexander Tikhonov, clearly delighted with the ruling, saw Pavlov's absence differently.
"Probably the lawyer didn't want to be near his client at the moment when the handcuffs were put on him," Tikhonov said.
He had asked the court to give Knyazev five years, the maximum punishment for the charge of a violation of traffic regulations that results in a death.
In Canada, Knyazev would have faced up to 20 years in prison, Tikhonov said.
Knyazev denied during the trial that he drank alcohol on the day he hit the two pedestrians.
However, prosecutors called several of Knyazev's former colleagues to testify that he had drunk whiskey at the ice-fishing party and continued to smell of alcohol several hours after the accident occurred.
Tikhonov also presented Canadian police records that showed Knyazev had been involved in a total of four traffic accidents in two years, including the fatal 2001 crash. The records said Knyazev was intoxicated in two of the accidents.
Dore's husband, Phillipe, said he was satisfied with the ruling.
"The whole process was fair and the judge was unbiased and competent," he said. "And I appreciate the possibility to participate in the process, granted to me by the Russian government."
Relatives and Canadian investigators were flown at the government's expense to Moscow to attend the trial. Tuesday's verdict ordered Knyazev to return the costs.
Donald MacLean, brother of the woman killed, said in a statement passed out to reporters that "the Russian court has done a good job" and that he accepts the court's verdict.
"We hope this verdict will bring closure to victims and their families," Canadian Ambassador to Russia Rodney Irwin said. "Diplomats should draw lessons from this process. They should behave according to the laws of the country where they are living."
Pavlov said he would argue for a reduced sentence based on the absence of alcohol tests in the case. Knyazev, citing his diplomatic immunity, had refused to take the tests immediately after the accident.
He also said it had not been proven that the level of alcohol in Knyazev's blood was above the limit of 80 milligrams per liter allowed under Ontario law.
"It wasn't proven that Knyazev was drunk beyond this limit," Pavlov said.
Knyazev has seven days in which to file the appeal.
TITLE: Sutyagin Release Refused By Court
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an appeal to release researcher Igor Sutyagin while he waits for the FSB to reinvestigate his spying case.
Sutyagin's lawyers said they would file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.
Igor Sutyagin, a researcher at the prestigious U.S.A. and Canada Institute, was charged with treason in October 1999 for allegedly divulging classified information about the readiness of Russian nuclear arms to British company Future Alternative. Sutyagin and his colleagues at the institute say he had no access to secret documents and obtained his information from publicly available sources.
The Kaluga regional court ruled in December that the indictment presented by the Federal Security Service was too vague and sent it back to investigators.
Supreme Court Judge Zyamil Galyulin threw out the request to free Sutyagin after a one-hour-long closed hearing.
Sutyagin's chief lawyer, Boris Kuznetsov, slammed the decision.
"Hypocritically, the court defends Sutyagin's rights and at the same time keeps him in prison," Kuznetsov told reporters. "The Kaluga court could summon enough conscience not to sentence Sutyagin and, in the meantime, couldn't collect enough courage to acquit him."
Sutyagin, held in a Kaluga prison for more than two years, refused to travel to Moscow to attend the trial Wednesday because of his poor health, Kuznetsov said.
He said Sutyagin would gain an easy victory in the European Court of Human Rights.
Sergei Kovalyov, a liberal State Duma deputy and former ombudsman, said more Russians needed to file complaints to the European court.
"Russian justice will only change when the number of European court decisions on complaints from Russian citizens reaches a critical mass," he said.
Sutyagin has six months in which to appeal to the Strasbourg-based court.
Both Kuznetsov and Kovalyov said the Supreme Court's refusal was politically motivated.
"There may have been little politics in the Sutyagin case at the beginning, but these days purely political decisions are being made because the very prestige and dignity of the FSB depend on them," Kuznetsov said.
Galyulin could not be reached for comment, and nobody picked up the telephone at the Supreme Court's press office Wednesday afternoon.
Courts will no longer be able to send cases back for further investigation after July 1. Under the new Criminal Procedural Code, which goes into effect then, a court will have to acquit the defendant if it deems the prosecution's evidence insufficient.
TITLE: Prosecutor To Deduct Fine From Borodin Bail Money
AUTHOR: By Robin Munro
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Geneva prosecutor who convicted former Kremlin property chief Pavel Borodin of money laundering said Tuesday he will this week deduct a fine and court costs from the $3-million bail paid for Borodin.
Borodin, who is now secretary of the Belarus-Russia Union, did not appeal prosecutor Bernard Bertossa's March 4 ruling and fine before Monday's deadline, and thus the conviction stands. Borodin, who has denied any wrongdoing, said he would not pay the fine because he does not recognize the ruling.
Bertossa said in a telephone interview that a 300,000-Swiss-franc ($181,000) fine and court costs of 35,000 francs ($31,000), a total of about $202,000, will be deducted from the bail. The remainder, he said, will be returned to Borodin through his lawyers.
Borodin's spokesperson Ivan Makushok said Monday the bail was paid by the Foreign Ministry using reserves of the Belarus-Russia Union. The union is jointly funded by the Russian and Belarus state budgets. This year's budget is about $110 million, of which two-thirds is paid by Russia.
Borodin's lawyer, Eleonora Sergeyeva, said Tuesday that deducting the fine was illegal and a procedure would be initiated to have the bail returned, Interfax reported.
But Bertossa said it is within the power of his office to deduct the money without appeal to any other authority.
In addition to Borodin, three Swiss citizens - a lawyer and two former bank clerks - were convicted and fined in the money-laundering case, the prosecutor said, declining to name them. They were fined from 20,000 to 30,000 francs ($12,000 to $18,000) Bertossa said.
The maximum fine for money laundering is 1 million Swiss francs ($600,000), he said.
Bertossa said he has documents showing that kickbacks in the order of $60 million were paid for lucrative contracts to renovate the presidential aircraft, Kremlin palaces and the State Audit Chamber building in Moscow. The contracts were with Swiss companies Mabetex and Mercata Trading. Borodin was found guilty of laundering about half of that amount through Swiss banks.
If the Russian authorities had cooperated with the Swiss investigation, more serious charges could have been proven, Bertossa said. The Prosecutor General's Office dropped its investigation into Borodin in late 2000, saying it had found no evidence of any wrongdoing.
"The problem with Russia was not that it didn't give cooperation in the sense it did not give us documents - because we had all the documents," Bertossa said. "The cooperation we were expecting from Russia was to prosecute the initial crime and that they didn't do. Mr. Borodin is trying to say now 'I didn't commit any crime in Russia and the main proof is that the Russians didn't do anything.'
"That doesn't mean anything," Bertossa said.
The prosecutor said Russia is cooperating in other cases and Switzerland is in the process of returning several million dollars it confiscated that are the proceeds of crimes committed in Russia.
TITLE: Russia Jumps Ahead In Oil-Producer List
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia has beat out Saudi Arabia to become the world's biggest oil producer - for the month of February at least.
According the estimates compiled by the Paris-based International Energy Agency, Russia pumped 7 million barrels per day last month, compared to Saudi Arabia's 6.9 million barrels per day.
Such an upset in the rankings hasn't been seen since the 1980s, when the Soviet Union led the world in oil production.
While the plunge and recovery in oil production mirrors the country's economic health since 1990, Russia's possession of the top spot may be short lived. And oil production isn't exactly what gets politicians excited: Most oil companies get a bulk of their revenue from exports, not domestic sales.
"While production is important, it's the exports that we look at," said Timerbulat Karimov, an oil analyst at the Aton brokerage. "And a month-to-month change doesn't really mean much, because oil production also varies according to seasonal swings."
Russia and Saudi Arabia were producing at the same levels in January before Russia surged ahead.
Last month, the United States came in third after Saudi Arabia with 5.8 million bpd. Iran and China followed with 3.3 million bpd each.
Saudi Arabia has led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Russia is not a member, in cutting its oil output to stabilize world oil prices. Prices had dropped as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks and the doubt the attacks cast over a speedy recovery to the global recession. If it wanted to, Saudi Arabia could increase its oil flow by up to 50 percent with a turn of a valve. Russia's oil industry, on the other hand, is working at full capacity.
"Saudi Arabia can step up output if it wants to, while Russia can step it up only if it continues investing," said Stephen O'Sullivan, the head of research at United Financial Group. "Investment requires profits and cashflow, elements which are under threat."
On Tuesday, the Russian government decided to extend export curbs until the oil price strengthens. An initial agreement to cut exports was struck last year and came into effect from Jan. 1. The benchmark Brent blend was trading at $24.66 at midday Thursday.
"International prices remain very firm, and the market has clearly priced in Russia's adherence to its quotas," O'Sullivan said.
But production numbers don't tell the whole story.
While Saudi Arabia exports most of the oil it produces, more than half of Russian oil stays in the country, mainly because state pipeline monopoly Transneft has a limited capacity that has not grown as fast as the nation's production.
This has caused a glut on the domestic market, where crude sells for a mere $4.25 a barrel.
While Russia pumps more oil than its Arabian rival, it exports half as much - 3 million bpd compared to Saudi Arabia's 6 million. But if exports of refined petroleum products are taken into account, Russia beats out Norway to become the world's No. 2 exporter behind Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
With a possible war brewing in the Middle East, some officials from the United States - the world's largest oil consumer - are evaluating the possibility of importing crude oil from Russia if supplies from OPEC countries are cut off. Transportation costs currently make such an arrangement unfeasible, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans has voiced the possibility of tankers carrying oil from the Sakhalin-1 offshore fields to the United States' Pacific coast. That is, once oil production at Sakhalin-1 - a consortium led by ExxonMobil - gets started.
TITLE: 'Cyclone' Hits No. 1 Auto Manufacturer
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In an operation dubbed "Cyclone Two" by the media, Samara law enforcement officers are combing AvtoVAZ's ledgers in a fresh thrust to rid the Tolyatti factory of alleged ties to organized crime.
But unlike the infamous Cyclone sweep in 1998, when a crack police unit forcefully occupied the plant, AvtoVAZ management this time around is working together with the police and the local department of the Federal Security Service (FSB) to uncover Tolyatti criminal groups believed to be siphoning off parts and selling cars in dealerships.
"We will work on finding all the routes by which metal and spare parts are supplied, especially on those routes where firms make money as intermediaries between the plant and their producers," Alexei Levkov, head of the Samara police department's economic-crime unit, said in remarks televised Thursday.
"The most important thing is to create a healthy situation with regard to the criminal conditions that have arisen around the auto business," an FSB official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said by telephone from Tolyatti.
There have been many instances of "organized crime, of stealing [from AvtoVAZ], of criminal groups attempting to negatively influence the day-to-day functioning of the factory and its commercial structures," he said. "Workers at the factory have been attacked by criminal elements."
AvtoVAZ played down the investigation, saying it is not targeting the plant directly, as was the case in 1998.
"The operation is aimed crime within the city of Tolyatti in general and not AvtoVAZ specifically," said AvtoVAZ spokesperson Vladimir Artsykov.
"The Cyclone operation ... creates a negative opinion in society of AvtoVAZ and its managers," the plant's head of security, Vladimir Nesterov, said in a statement. "No charges were brought against anyone then, and now the mass media are speculating about Cyclone again."
The ongoing probe was initiated after AvtoVAZ management sent an appeal two months ago to Lieutenant-General Vladimir Glukhov, the head of the Samara department of the Interior Ministry, asking for an investigation into a series of assaults on AvtoVAZ specialists. Details about the attacks are vague.
AvtoVAZ has long been criticized for not dealing with criminal groups that allegedly control the distribution of the factory's output. During the September 1998 Cyclone operation, law enforcement officials estimated that 80 percent of the plant's products was being sold through distribution networks controlled by eight different criminal groups. Over the next 10 months, 151 economic crime investigations where launched.
The ownership structure of AvtoVAZ is unclear. About 60 percent is cross-owned by VAZ-related companies, while the government owms 2 percent and Rusinvest 5 percent.
AvtoVAZ, which employs 120,000 people, is the country's largest carmaker, with a two-thirds share of the market. Last year it produced 750,000 vehicles and declared profits of 3 billion rubles ($96.4 million).
TITLE: Austrian Bank Expanding Russian Operations
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - As more and more Russians find themselves in the Forbes list of the richest people in the world, the potential for banks to increase their retail operations within the country is enormous.
Raiffeisenbank Austria, a fully-owned subsidiary of Austria's Raiffeisen Bank, announced Thursday its plans to open four new branches in Moscow and one in the regions over the next 16 months.
Raiffeisenbank chairperson Michel Perhirin said the bank will expand its retail network, adding to its existing six branches in Moscow and one in St. Petersburg, Prime-Tass reported.
"Even though Sberbank currently accounts for 80 percent of retail deposits, the room for other banks is very big. The potential retail market is estimated to be five times higher," said Richard Hainsworth, head of RusRating agency. "Whether they can tap this potential is a big question, but at least they have already realized that potential is there."
All major foreign players in the market, like Raiffeisenbank, International Moscow Bank, Citibank and Russian MDM-Bank, have announced plans to expand their retail operations.
Raiffeisenbank is No.1 among foreign banks in Russia in terms of attracting retail deposits. By Jan. 1, 2002, the bank had attracted $184.9 million, closely followed by IMB with $159 million.
"In five years, we expect to increase our assets to $2 billion from the current $900 million. Russia is a big part of our worldwide operations and we are fully committed to Russia. It is going to be one of the Raiffeisen Group's strongholds," Perhirin said.
But even when combined, the deposits held by the five leading foreign banks amount to only a fraction of the $15 billion accumulated by Sberbank, Russia's major state-controlled bank.
Sberbank head Andrey Kazmin said Thursday that, in 2001, the loan portfolio of Sberbank rose 70 percent to 420 billion rubles ($13.5 billion).
Kazmin said the bank has doubled lending to individuals, reaching 30 billion rubles ($964 million). Loans with maturities of up to 15 years accounted for 80 percent of total retail lending, he said.
But while the overall figures are impressive, analysts say they will hardly affect Sberbank's share price. They also see danger in the increasing number of long-term loans.
"Sberbank shares have a big upside potential, but I doubt that this news will drive them up," said Andrey Ivanov, a banking analyst with Troika Dialog. "The market usually takes Sberbank figures into consideration under international accounting standards. Also, the market in general tries to avoids shares of the companies that don't have enough transparency in their business, as is the case with Sberbank."
According to Hainsworth, by increasing maturity mismatch between its assets and liabilities, Sberbank is creating a potential liquidity problem for itself in the future, and if its depositors make a run on their money, it will have to go to the government for support
Sberbank was up 2.3 percent to $110 per share on the RTS on Thursday, driven by hopes that new Central Bank Chairperson Sergei Ignatyev will improve the bank's financial policy. Analysts say the stock is still undervalued, and can go up once the Sberbank policy is clear.
Renaissance sets the target price for Sberbank at $150 per share, an increase of 36 percent from present levels.
TITLE: Gerashchenko Departure the End of an Era
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia's Hercules has finally met his match.
The State Duma on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Viktor "Gerakl" Gerashchenko from his post as chairperson of the Central Bank, ending an era in which the portly banker showed Herculean strength in defending the Central Bank and the entire banking sector from pressure to reform.
Duma lawmakers quickly approved the appointment of President Vladimir Putin's candidate, the lanky First Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Ignatyev, to the unwieldy mammoth. Ignatyev is said to be a diligent number-cruncher who is not against toeing the Kremlin line.
Gerashchenko - who has been called "one of the funniest bankers" and "the worst central banker in the world" - told the Duma that his resignation was the result of "pragmatic considerations."
"I did not want to work another [five-year] term and leave the post when I am 69," he said, according to Itar-Tass. "I spoke about this with the president, who agreed with me and offered to appoint a new Central Bank chairperson right now rather than waiting until September."
Lawmakers presented him with a small bouquet of flowers.
Gerashchenko has not said what he will do next.
Those who have worked with or interviewed Gerashchenko call him fierce and quick-witted, if sometimes profane. He once introduced a foreign economist "come to reform Russia" to his "good friend" Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party. He has sprinkled interviews with references to Western movies. At an anniversary bash for Sberbank, the Central Bank-controlled retail monopoly, he raised his glass with the toast: "Long live Sberbank ... [pause] ... and its major shareholder."
"Gerashchenko's main achievement is that he headed the Central Bank four times," said Boris Fyodorov, who has been an outspoken critic of Gerashchenko since his days as finance minister in the early 1990s.
"His second achievement is that by the end of his time, the end of the decade, he came to understand that Central Bank independence is extremely important. I personally don't know of any others," said Fyodorov, who is now honorary chairperson of United Financial Group.
Others say he deserves more credit than he has gotten.
"Gerashchenko has been underestimated," said Christof Ruhl, chief economist at the World Bank in Russia. "This is man who was a banker for a long time before and spent much of his professional life outside the U.S.S.R., so it is not plausible that he didn't know what he was doing."
Since 1998, Gerashchenko has helped restore ruble stability, almost tripled the country's hard currency and gold reserves to $37 billion and fiercely defended the Central Bank's independence, a strategy that may have been meant to atone for earlier sins that fed destructive hyperinflation. He was sacked after the ruble lost 30 percent of its value on Oct. 11, 1994, a day dubbed Black Tuesday.
"He was printing huge amounts of money, feeding hyperinflation and, in that sense, taking part in the destruction of the Russian economy," said Peter Westin, an economist at Aton brokerage. "In 1998, we were expecting the same - mass printing, high inflation - but he didn't do that. He acted prudently on the monetary side."
There have been signs over the past year that "Gerakl's" strength was weakening. He failed to defend the mandatory 75-percent repatriation of export proceeds - a scheme he set up in 1998 that diverted rivers of hard currency into the Central Bank's reserves - from being slashed to 50 percent. He failed to win a reprieve on the Central Bank's divestiture from Vneshtorgbank, set for January 2003, despite an 11th-hour push from the Duma to move the deadline to 2005.
Gerashchenko fiercely opposed a bill on the Central Bank that is currently stuck in the Duma, calling amendments "unconstitutional" and "stupid." The crucial second reading has been postponed time and again, and each time, amendments that he found odious - divestiture from overseas banks, a National Banking Council fully endowed with oversight powers - disappeared or were watered down.
The very independence of the Central Bank may have led to Gerashchenko's downfall. Putin has not looked kindly on other impenetrable, state-connected fortresses such as Gazprom and the Railways Ministry, both of which saw their chiefs sacked in the past year.
Banking reform appears to be next on the government's agenda, but little could be done while Gerashchenko controlled the sector's regulator.
"He had a deficit of ideas in terms of bank-system reform. He knew what not to do and could explain why very professionally, but he had no constructive ideas," said Mikhail Matovnikov, deputy director of Interfax Rating Agency. "But it is not certain that his replacement will have better ideas. There is a high uncertainty factor."
The son of a state banker, Gerashchenko started his career as an accountant in the Central Bank's predecessor, Gosbank, in 1960. He moved on to Vneshtorgbank in 1961, charging up the ladder over the next four years to become head of banking-cashier operations. At the tender age of 27, he was named to the board of directors of the first Soviet foreign bank, Moscow Narodny Bank. He spent two years in the mid-'60s with the bank in London. (He says he never met the Beatles.)
In 1967, Gerashchenko was transferred to the Beirut branch of Moscow Narodny Bank as deputy director, and he left five years later as director. He moved to West Germany to head Ost-West Handelsbank in 1974. In 1977, he was asked to shore up Moscow Narodny Bank's Singapore branch, where poor credit practices had pushed it to the verge of collapse, according to the book "State Elite."
After returning to Moscow and moving up the chain of command at Vneshtorgbank, Gerashchenko was named head of Gosbank in May 1989. He stepped down in January 1991, only to be invited back in 1992 as the Soviet system was crumbling and the state bank broke into a dozen pieces.
"He was the right person at the right place for a short time, and that time ended awhile ago," said Kim Iskyan, a banking analyst at Renaissance Capital.
TITLE: Central Bank Chief Says He Won't Hurry To Institute Reforms
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The man tapped by President Vladimir Putin to replace Viktor Gerashchanko as Central Bank chairperson has spent this week saying that he would essentially follow the policies of his predecessor and vowed to maintain the stability of the ruble.
Sergei Ignatyev, nominated by the president Friday to head the bank after the abrupt resignation of Gerashchenko, told the State Duma's budget and banking committees on Monday that current monetary and exchange-rate policies were "well-grounded" and wouldn't be tinkered with in "the next few months."
The Duma voted 290-40 on Wednesday to appoint him, with four abstentions. Fifty-four Communists and 4 Agrarians boycotted the vote.
Ignatyev, the first deputy finance minister, said that he saw no reason to alter the government's ruble and inflation targets for 2002. The government considers taming inflation a priority and has targeted a range of 12 percent to 14 percent this year from 18.6 percent in 2001. Inflation unexpectedly soared to 3.1 percent in January and 1.2 percent in February, but Ignatyev said he still expects the target to be met.
Ignatyev also defended the government's ruble target of an average rate of 31.5 to the dollar for the year.
While Ignatyev may largely follow the policies of Gerashchenko, there is at least one key issue where the two disagree: Central Bank accountability to the government and parliament.
Gerashchenko, who has long irritated investors for his refusal to institute meaningful reforms, went out in dramatic fashion Friday in an unscheduled appearance in the Duma during what was supposed to be the second and crucial reading of a draft law on the Central Bank. Gerashchenko lambasted the bill, which was co-authored by Ignatyev and designed to increase the transparency and accountability of the bank, calling it "stupid."
"At least one fact about [Ignatyev] is clear so far: He does not take bribes and does not care about money in general," said Mikhail Matovnikov, deputy director general of the Interfax Rating Agency, which monitors the banking industry.
"For Russia it is so unique and surprising in a good sense, like marrying for love," Matovnikov said.
Most people had never heard of Ignatyev before Friday, when the 54-year-old was suddenly thrust into the media spotlight as the designated heir of Gerashchenko, who has run the Central Bank since the 1998 financial crisis.
Despite being near the center of power for the past decade, Ignatyev is little known outside the world of economics, where he has a reputation of being a serious, diligent and intelligent professional.
Born in Leningrad in 1948, Ignatyev graduated from Leningrad Energy College in 1967. He worked for five years as an electrical engineer in Leningrad before leaving for Moscow to study economics at Moscow State University, where he received his PhD in 1978.
Before starting his career in government he was a senior lecturer on economics at the Leningrad Institute of Soviet Commerce.
Unlike other new members of Putin's team, he had no relations with the St. Petersburg administration when Putin was a deputy to former Mayor Anatoly Sobchak.
Ignatyev was the deputy chairperson of the Central Bank during Gerashchenko's first stint as chairperson in 1992-93, but was forced out for being part of the "too-liberal Gaidar team," one former official said.
He joined the Finance Ministry again in 1993 as a deputy minister and in 1997 was promoted to first deputy with a wide range of responsibilities. He also worked as an economic adviser to President Boris Yeltsin in 1996-97.
Since 1997, he has been involved in almost every major issue at the Finance Ministry: internal and external debt, budget revenues, international financial organizations and macroeconomic policy.
He also headed campaigns against tax-evasion schemes used by big oil companies, established good relations with the IMF and the World Bank, and was responsible for macroeconomic stability.
TITLE: Kremlin: Oil-Export Curb To Be Extended
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia said Wednesday it would extend a curb on crude-oil exports until the end of the second quarter, but added a caveat that it might change its mind before then if prices rise steadily.
Russia, under pressure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, had initially agreed to cut exports by 150,000 barrels per day for three months from January to support prices when they were sliding because of a global economic slump and shockwaves from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"At the meeting it was decided to keep exports of oil in the second quarter at the level they were at in the first quarter of 2002," Tatyana Razbash, spokesperson for Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, said after a meeting between Kasyanov and the heads of Russia's biggest oil firms.
But Kasyanov also said Russia could review the export restrictions if the oil price was high and the market stable, Interfax reported.
"If after some time we see that the oil market is stable and there is a trend toward higher oil prices, the government and oil companies will revisit the issue of export curbs for the following months of the second quarter," Kasyanov was quoted as saying after the meeting.
OPEC said it was satisfied with Russia's decision.
"We are very pleased and appreciative of Russia's generous contribution to the stability of the market," a spokesperson for the cartel said from Vienna, Austria.
Analysts criticized the decision for encouraging shadow-economy activity and artificially slowing the economy.
The restrictions are being extended despite increasing data showing a rise in oil output, with two of the largest companies, Yukos and Sibneft, planning output growth of more than 20 percent this year.
"There are two ways: Either Russia will adhere to all its obligations and everyone - the budget, the companies and the people - will suffer; or the companies will look for gray schemes for exporting," Andrei Illarionov, President Vladimir Putin's top economic adviser, told Dow Jones Newswire. "This will add to the gray sector of the economy and to corruption."
He estimated that the deal costs Russia some $300 million every quarter.
"Russia is absolutely committing to doing absolutely nothing," said Chris Weafer, head of research at Moscow-based brokerage Troika Dialog. "It is damaging for Putin's credibility to allow his ministers to play this stupid game."
Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United Financial Group, said Kasyanov's statements avoided damaging confrontation with OPEC while leaving the way clear for Russia to ramp up exports again.
"I do not believe for a moment that the cuts will be enforced in the second quarter with as much stringency as they were in the first," he said.
Russia has been reluctant to cut its exports because it needs the revenues to help repay its $140-billion foreign debt.
OPEC cut its own production by 1.5 million bpd during the first quarter and decided at a meeting in Vienna on Friday to keep that cap in place in the second quarter, leaving output at 21.7 million bpd.
(Reuters, MT, AP)
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: New Audit Merger
HONG KONG (AP) - Arthur Andersen affiliates in Hong Kong and China said Thursday that they would merge with rival accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Andersen affiliates have been discussing combinations with rival firms since the U.S. arm of the Andersen Worldwide group was indicted last week on charges of obstruction of justice, when employees allegedly shredded documents and deleted computer files related to its work for failed energy-trader Enron Corp.
Arthur Andersen, as the U.S. arm of Andersen is known, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, and a trial was set for May 6.
The Asia-Pacific affiliates of Andersen had unanimously supported a global combination with rival KPMG earlier this week, saying they would pursue it even if similar talks with KPMG in Europe fell through.
No layoffs are planned, said Yvonne Chan, marketing manager of Andersen in Hong Kong Chan, as the Hong Kong and China firms create a 6,000-person operation in Hong Kong, a top regional finance center, and China, which is expected to grow and provide opportunities for Western businesses as it opens its economy as part of the WTO.
Old Audit Problem
LONDON (Reuters) - One of the last legal battles over the collapse of Barings goes to the British High Court in May, when the bank's liquidators argue that auditors Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu must shoulder some of the blame.
Liquidators KPMG are claiming more than Pound100 million ($143 million) from Barings' Singapore auditor, which they blame for not spotting huge losses run up through unauthorised deals by Nick Leeson, the derivatives trader who brought down Britain's oldest merchant bank in 1995.
The case against Deloitte, which could last a year, will be studied closely to establish how much auditors should rely on information given to them by company managers - an issue also at the heart of the collapse of U.S. energy-trader Enron.
Justice Evans Lombe, who will hear the case, dismissed a bid by Deloitte to side-step the claims by arguing that it had relied on false representations by company management.
Hearings started last year but were suspended when Barings' liquidators reached a settlement over a similar negligence claim against Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was was Barings' main auditor.
Shareholders Say Yes
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) - Compaq Computer Corp. investors gave their approval Wednesday for Hewlett-Packard Co.'s $20-billion acquisition of their company, a day after HP claimed victory in its own shareholder vote that was among the most contentious in history.
Investors holding 90 percent of Compaq shares voted for the merger, after many gathered for a 45-minute meeting in a Houston hotel ballroom. Shareholder John Pickering, an oil-industry retiree, said he was in favor of the merger even though he's a grandfather of four "that depend on the Houston economy," which will suffer layoffs as a result.
The merger would effectively end the life of Houston's technology pioneer, 20 years after it was born as a sketch on a restaurant place mat. But Compaq CEO Michael Capellas, who would be No. 2 executive at the new HP, said the combined company will have "a very large presence" in Houston with "a number of key product lines" based here.
TITLE: Reform Buried Under Central Bank Bureacracy
AUTHOR: By Richard Hainsworth
TEXT: LAST year, there was an overwhelming amount of talk about banking reform, something akin to a river in the spring thaw. The flood, however, abated in December, leaving a bland document on reform of the banking sector signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and then Central Bank Chairperson Viktor Gerashchenko. Moreover, despite all the verbiage, nothing was said about the single most important banking institution in Russia: the Central Bank. And yet it is the institution most in need of reform.
Whenever changes take place at the top, the hope is that the new broom will sweep clean, but the battle to reform the Central Bank will require huge political will, combined with tremendous organizational and leadership skills. In short, we should not expect too much too soon.
The banking sector does not form a single coherent system, as is the case in other economies. Banks are collectively failing in their primary macroeconomic task: They are not providing an effective mechanism for channeling the funds of depositors to businesses in the form of loans, thereby assisting economic growth.
Russia has a large number of banks that are small by international standards, and the demand for credit at all levels of the economy far exceeds banks' lending capabilities.
However, looking at the size and activities of individual banks, it becomes painfully clear that - given the economic, regulatory and legal environment in which they operate - it is entirely rational for banks to remain small and restrict their lending to a very select group of borrowers.
All commercial banks, including the subsidiaries of foreign banks, generate profits from much the same kinds of activities. If foreign subsidiaries are not substantially increasing their capital from external sources in order to take advantage of increased business in Russia, there is no obvious reason why Russian banks should be doing so.
That Russian banks are small and do not lend extensively are both symptoms of a much deeper malaise in the economy as a whole. It is inherently difficult to operate a bank in Russia because of the taxation, regulatory, and legal hurdles. The tax authorities look upon banks as cash cows, the regulatory authorities burden them with endless forms and rigid instructions and banks have difficulty getting rapid rulings in the courts.
The Central Bank, which is responsible for regulating the sector, has a head office with 22 departments and 79 regional divisions and is hugely overstaffed. It has more than 80,000 employees, compared with the U.S. Federal Reserve's 10,200 and the Bank of England's 4,650.
Some caveats are in order here, however, as there are some problems with access to data in Russia, and the most up-to-date figure comes from an interview given in May 2001.
Furthermore, the Central Bank is responsible both for the national currency and regulation of the banking system, while in other countries these tasks are split between different agencies. For example, the figure for the United States includes the Federal Reserve system, the Comptroller of the Currency, and state banking departments; while the figure for Britain contains some departments of the Financial Services Regulator together with the Bank of England.
Even so, the stark fact remains that the Central Bank's bureaucracy is eight times larger than its U.S. counterpart, which is responsible for regulating the largest economy in the world.
A second urgently needed change is to get the Central Bank to focus on the substance of regulation and look at what is actually going on inside banks and in the sector, rather than concentrating on irrelevant dots and commas. A couple of examples to illustrate my point:
"Why," asked the chief bookkeeper of a Siberian bank during a bank analysts' conference in September, "do Central Bank inspectors not take materiality into account when making their reports?"
"What's materiality?" was the Central Bank departmental head's response. For a lay person with no accounting training the term may be somewhat unusual, however a departmental head of the Central Bank should be well-versed in such terminology, to say the least.
So the provincial bookkeeper proceeded to explain to the Moscow bureaucrat: "If we miscalculate the value of our mandatory reserves [a figure in the millions of rubles] and transfer 240 rubles too few to the Central Bank, then the mistake is not 'material,' especially if we discover the mistake ourselves and rectify it soon after."
"Ah, but if you have made a mistake" came the bureaucrat's retort, "it has to be reported."
It did not seem to matter to him that the error was so small that it could not have any affect on the financial condition of the bank or undermine the purpose of mandatory Central Bank reserves. All he could see was the formal error.
In another incident in 1999, a major bank was forced to transfer back to a shareholder a sum less than $5, because, between the transfer of capital to the bank and the registration of the capital by the Central Bank, the exchange rate had changed and the "extra" capital had not been registered. One of the criticisms of Russian banks is that they are undercapitalized, but it can take many months - if not years - to register new capital with the Central Bank, and the delays are normally caused by irrelevant objections such as a stamp being in the wrong place on the page.
The real irony is that it is common knowledge - Central Bank officials have complained about it publicly - that Russian banks regularly paint a distorted picture of their financial condition in their monthly reporting to the Central Bank. And this rarely leads to problems for the banks concerned from the regulatory authorities, but woe betide any bank that gets the spacing wrong in one of its reports. The sheer volume of resources required by each bank to comply with every dot and comma of every last Central Bank instruction is a burden on costs. And the absurdity of it all is that - despite the volume and detail of reports - there is little evidence that the banking system is any the safer for it. Here a fundamental breakthrough is needed in approach and mentality.
In the short term, the simplest reform would be to consolidate the Central Bank's regional divisions, along the lines of President Vladimir Putin's grouping of the country's 89 regions into seven federal districts, or the rationalization of Sberbank's structure , which has reduced the number of regional sub-divisions from 80 to 18. This should be combined with a dramatic reduction in staff down to U.S. levels - downsizing by more than 85 percent. This would allow the Central Bank to retain its best staff and pay them more realistic salaries.
The implementation of such measures, however, will require considerable political and leadership leadership skills.
Richard Hainsworth is CEO of RusRating, a Russian bank-rating agency (www.rusrating.ru). He contributed this comment to The St. PetersburgTimes.
TITLE: The Pravda About the Fate of Kamkin's Books
TEXT: "The country that is so proud of its democracy [has] decided to use the methods of Nazi Germany. On March 11, in Washington, it was decided to burn over 2 million books, Russian classics such as Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Yes, to burn [them]. The books belonged to Viktor Kamkin's shop, which was the largest store selling Russian literature for the last 50 years in Washington. However, because of the drop in demand, the company was declared bankrupt... . In the 1930s, Hitler's thugs organized book burnings ... [and] who can guarantee to Americans that while annihilating today the bankrupt shop's books, one will not annihilate the works of writers and philosophers criticizing social, political, or economic life of the U.S.? Americans do not read much, so their treatment of books is different from that Russians are accustomed to. Well, Lev Tolstoy is not Steven King [sic]; however, is it possible that in such a rich country there is no money to buy these books for libraries?"
- Pravda.ru, March 11
WASHINGTON - Well, John Steinbeck is not Alexandra Marinina. So what? And anyway, why are Americans being berated because fewer Russian emigres are patronizing my hometown's Victor Kamkin Books - where the service was awful and the price mark-up outrageous? Russophiles can now order cheap books via the Internet or load up on them during trips to Moscow, so fewer and fewer can be bothered to pay a premium to interact with sullen Victor Kamkin staff - no great surprise, then, that the bookstore had some business problems.
Here is the real story of fascist America and the burning of Pushkin and Dostoevsky: A Russian book store with an enormous warehouse hit the skids; the owner was facing eviction and the prospect of his stock being put out on the street. Local authorities pointed out that putting 2 million books into the street would not work and warned the books would instead be incinerated. Journalists wrote up the story, and it made its way to the front page of The Washington Post.
Thousands of Russian emigre and/or Russophile customers swamped the store on its final weekend - hoping to buy a few very pricey books by way of expressing their support, or maybe hoping to get a better deal than the usual gouging. Connie Morella, the member of Congress from our district, took an interest, and so did the head of the Library of Congress. And a deal was brokered to send the books to libraries and Slavic collections across the United States at the expense of the taxpayer - a deal that even freed Victor Kamkin Inc. from enough debt to allow it to open a new and smaller store. From Moscow came only dark suggestions that this deal would not hold and the classics would be burned in the end - even as there were no constructive offers or interventions from Russian institutions.
Sure, there was luck involved here. If the books had been slated for recycling instead of burning, say, that less juicy story might have not made the Post; if the head of the Library of Congress was not James Billington, a leading Russia scholar, perhaps a happy ending would have been more elusive.
Nevertheless, many Russians I know have heard the story of how "in Washington it was decided to burn two million Russian classics." How many have heard that the real story is actually far more uplifting?
Matt Bivens, a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, is a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute (www.thenation.com).
TITLE: Mironov's Mistake Got It Right
TEXT: FROM the time the Soviet Union first established diplomatic relations with Israel, Jerusalem has been an obligatory destination for up-and-coming Russian leaders. Last week, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, had his turn. Once in Israel, the No. 3 man in the Russian power hierarchy cancelled a scheduled meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Mironov's decision - a gross violation of diplomatic protocol - attested not so much to his decisiveness as to his lack of experience. It also highlighted the incompetence of the entire St. Petersburg contingent, which bureaucrats in the capital have taken to calling the "Northern Alliance." Mironov's reasons for canceling the meeting, however, did most to betray his own incompetence. An official who is close to President Vladimir Putin, he declared that he could not meet with Arafat because this might be seen as support for terrorism. The Israelis are battling Palestinian terrorists, and we're battling Chechen terrorists. And the two battles are roughly the same.
The Israeli far right applauded Mironov's principled position, as did the Russian hawks who support the war in Chechnya. Strange as it may sound, however, pacifists should derive the most satisfaction from what happened - in Russia, anyway.
As a convinced opponent of the war in Chechnya, I cannot but congratulate the leader of the upper house on his outstanding contribution to the anti-war movement. By equating Chechnya with Palestine (and, by extension, Aslan Maskhadov with Yasser Arafat), Mironov greatly increased the status of the Chechen insurgency. Palestine is generally recognized as an occupied territory and the Palestinians as a nation with the right to create their own independent state. This has been confirmed by a series of United Nations resolutions, the last of which was passed last week with the backing of Russia and the United States. That resolution used the term "state" with regard to Palestine for the first time.
As for Arafat, you can think what you will about his actions, but he is the lawful and internationally recognized leader of Palestine. That is why the Israeli armed forces have not attempted to arrest Arafat or run him out of the occupied territories, although their tanks often approach to within a stone's throw of his residence. By placing Chechnya on the same level as Palestine, Mironov made it clear that, deep down, the Russian ruling elite recognizes that its troops in Chechnya are an army of occupation.
The top officials in Russia's foreign-policy establishment are far more experienced than the Federation Council speaker. Immediately after Mironov's unfortunate statement, those officials sprang into action to explain that he had expressed his personal opinion and that Russia's position remained unchanged. And Mironov himself has already back-tracked on numerous occasions. His position on this issue has become more and more vague with each new interview, though this is a case of too little, too late.
An unlikely coalition of hawks, racists and ultraright groups came out in support of Mironov both here and in Israel. The unity shown by flag-waving Russian and Israeli patriots has been truly touching. On the Russian side you have mostly avid or closet anti-Semites; on the Israeli side, as a rule, more or less open Russophobes. But both groups value the state above all else and believe that a modern state can be built on the principle of ethnic and religious exclusion. They are both prepared to justify any and all excesses committed by their soldiers. This united front of anti-Semites and Russophobes is held together by their common hatred for Muslims and their unanimous refusal to recognize the human rights of people of the "wrong" nationality.
There is no point in trying to explain anything to such people. You'll never turn a racist into a champion of human rights. But Russian politicians, who are more or less liable for their words and deeds, would do well to heed the lessons of the Middle East. The senseless and merciless wave of Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians is the result of 35 years of occupation, with no end to the victims and humiliation. The Chechens have not yet resorted to suicide bombings of Moscow restaurants. But on visits to the Promised Land, the Russian leadership should take the time to reflect on how the Chechens will behave if they come to believe that what lies ahead is 10 more years of daily "mopping-up operations."
Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.
TITLE: The Least He Could Do Is To Pay His Own Fines
TEXT: FOR most people, being convicted of money laundering would be enough to end a government career and send the guilty party, if not to jail then at least into an early retirement in disgrace.
But in Pavel Borodin's case, the Geneva prosecutor's conviction has allowed him to put the whole messy business behind him and to get on with trying to find new ways to use his government post to bring in cash.
It's not even at all clear that he will have to pay the fine and court costs - about $202,000 - out of his own pocket.
And, presumably, he gets to keep the $30 million that was deposited into his Swiss bank accounts around 1997, money that Swiss investigators said represented kickbacks from Swiss companies who, thanks to Borodin, were able to land contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate the Kremlin and other state property. This was back when Borodin managed the presidential property department under Boris Yeltsin.
Borodin denies any wrongdoing, but his silence when called to Geneva for questioning makes it hard to believe in his innocence. As does his decision not to appeal the prosecutor's conviction by Monday's deadline.
When state money is involved, the public has a right to demand better. And speaking of state money, who paid for those half dozen trips to Geneva? It's a pretty sure bet that Borodin didn't fly coach or stay in budget hotels.
Borodin was close to Yeltsin, whose retinue, the family, was also implicated in the scandal swirling around the Swiss company Mabetex.
Borodin is also close to President Vladimir Putin, whose first job in the Kremlin was under Borodin. In a biographical book intended to introduce Russians to their future president, Putin said he was grateful to Borodin for bringing him to the Kremlin in 1996. Even so, before facing the voters, Putin, as acting president, removed the scandal-plagued Borodin from the Kremlin and put him in charge of the lukewarm efforts to form a union with Belarus.
Although not much seems to be happening with this union, it gives Borodin a budget to play with - $110 million this year, mostly compliments of the Russian government.
In addition to whatever else the union may spend money on, it sent $3 million to Switzerland to bail out Borodin, and it is this money that the Swiss say they are going to use to cover the fine.
One questions the wisdom of allowing a convicted money launderer to hold a high state post, particularly as Russia is trying to get off the Financial Action Task Force's blacklist.
But at the very least, shouldn't Russia insist that Borodin pay his own fine?
This comment originally appeared as an editorial in the Moscow Times on March 21.
TITLE: multfilmy drawing on the past
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Yegor Timofeyev, the charismatic frontman of local band Multfilmy, knows all about the so-called "difficult second album syndrome." The band's follow-up to its eponymous debut album has been a full two years in the making.
"Superprize" was released on Feb. 26, but will only receive its St. Petersburg live debut next week. Multfilmy, or "The Cartoons," are known for their charming, tongue-in-cheek songs and British pop influences ranging from The Beatles to Travis, but singer-songwriter Timofeyev says that "Superprize" can not be classified so easily.
"It is really very eclectic, that is, one can't define the record's style, because some songs were written, say, five years ago and some right on the eve of a recording session," he said, sipping tequila at alternative club Fish Fabrique this week.
"That's why they [the two albums] differ, both in style and the way the lyrics are written. There are both more-or-less romantic songs and more mature ones [on "Superprize."] As for the music, it ranges from soft, guitar-based pop to sort of hard rock, in a contemporary sense."
"I'd say it's an analysis of what we have been through in the last three years. It describes the state of a person from 21 up to our age, 25. It even has a song called '25th Year.'"
Whereas "Multfilmy" was produced by popular producer Andrei Samsonov, the band decided to produce "Superprize" itself, although the album does contain one Samsonov-produced track.
The band's die-hard fans, who prefer a more straightforward Multfilmy sound, criticized Samsonov for over-producing the music. Timofeyev, however, says that the main reason for producing the second album themselves was "egotism."
"We wanted to do it our own way," he said. "Because Samsonov reworks a song completely, including arrangements, we wanted to see what we can do on our own. Most likely we'll do the third album with him again - not because we don't like what we've done, but because we'd been planning at it from the beginning."
According to Timofeyev, "Superprize" has drawn comparisons with the works of a number of Western bands including Dandy Warhols, Air, Muse and Blur. "There are probably reasons for that," he said, citing the album's eclecticism as one.
Multfilmy started out as one of the very few Russian bands that drew inspiration from contemporary British acts, and the band is now a favorite of British musical magazine NME's Russian edition, which was launched last September. Timofeyev, who has a strong dislike for most Russian rock, names British band Simian, and The Strokes and Train from the U.S. as his latest personal favorites.
Having a contract with Russia's leading rock label, Real Records, Timofeyev has a busy schedule, but claims he feels no pressure from being in the record business. "If I have no songs, I am free not to write them - just to say, 'No songs, sorry,'" he said. "Some [acts] have contracts with specified terms - say, you have to bring out two albums in two years. Ours has nothing of the kind."
Next week's concert will also give the band a chance to restore its reputation after its last local concert in October 2001, which Timofeyev describes as "terrible."
"It was a sheer nightmare, because [the promoters] provided a horrible system, so the sound was terrible in the auditorium, and we could'nt hear anything on stage," he said. "How can the guitarist play if he can't hear the bassist and the keyboard player? We kept on apologizing to our local fans for a long time."
Because of that concert, which also happened to be only the band's second headline show in a large venue, Multfilmy have considered abandoning their trademark screenings of Japanese Manga cartoons during performances.
"I really don't know," said Timofeyev. "The guys told me, 'We sang a romantic song, turned back to the screen and saw a Japanese girl bashing off a Japanese boy's head with a huge club, with brains flying around."
Multfilmy in concert, Lensoviet Palace of Culture, Tues., March 26, 7 p.m. "Superprize" is out now on Real Records. Link: www.multfilmy.2000.ru.
TITLE: a jewel in the hermitage's crown
AUTHOR: by Alice Jones
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg jewellery designer Darya Klimina recognises the significance of the Hermitage's new exhibition "Avant-Garde Jewellery: Sources and Parallels," which opened on Tuesday. "The Hermitage is finally paying attention to living jewellery designers, and this is not only encouraging but also a great honour for us," she says.
Klimina's work was displayed at the Hermitage in 2000 as part of the collection "St. Petersburg Jewellers at the End of the Twentieth Century," and the new exhibition confirms a growing interest in contemporary jewellery design.
The artistic streak in Klimina's family can be traced back to her great-great-grandfather, who created several of the mosaics in St. Isaac's Cathedral and in the Church on the Spilled Blood. Her father is an artist and designer, working in glassware and ceramics, but it is her mother, Svetlana Berezovskaya, who she describes as her "main inspiration," and from whom she learnt "everything there is to know about jewellery design."
Berezovskaya was chief artist at the jewellery factory Russkie Samotsveti for 33 years and under her the school of St. Petersburg jewellery design flourished and grew to what it is today. Her designs were presented to U.S. President Richard Nixon and French President Georges Pompidou, and gained her the "Order of Friendship of the People" for her tireless contribution to arts on a world stage.
A graduate of the Vera Mukhino Academy of Decorative Arts, Klimina's list of clients is no less impressive, as she has designed pieces for luminaries such as former President Boris Yeltsin. She has worked at Russkie Samotsveti for 20 years, but a variety of techniques and materials, coupled with a mixture of technology and skill, help keep her designs "exclusive and imaginative."
The Hermitage's "Avant-Garde Jewellery: Sources and Parallels" comprises 120 works produced over the last 30 years, by Russian and western designers. The most recent creations are those of some 25 Russians that aim to show visitors the progress that is being made in contemporary jewellery design, both in Russia and the West. As exhibition coordinator Marina Lopato says, "We want to show people that jewellery at the Hermitage does not just mean Faberge."
"Today, the modern vision of jewellery designers is not only expressed in new forms, but in the use of new and unusual materials," explains Klimina. Alongside traditional precious metals such as gold and silver, other materials making an appearance at the exhibition include plastic, paper, emu feathers and metals such as aluminium.
These unorthodox materials were used by the original avant-garde jewellery movement in the 1950s as a protest against the bourgeoisie, which was represented for them by gold and diamonds. Now, their purpose is more than simply symbolic. As Klimina points out, such materials do not tarnish, making it truly "jewellery for 21st-century living." Indeed, space travel, science and technology seem to have had a profound influence on pieces such as Manfred Bischoff's television-shaped brooch and Oxana Naumova's "mechanical" designs.
Klimina sees this new direction of jewellery design as a result of new discoveries in other fields. "Art reflects new advances in technology," she says. She now uses computers and hi-tech scanning machines to create her designs. However, she still believes that the true value of jewellery lies in the personal touch: "People have always produced jewellery by intricate handiwork and they always will. This is what makes it so precious."
Despite the futuristic vison of many of the designers, many works are linked with the past. Ancient times and mythology provide the basis for many of the works, including Felix Kuznetsov's "Crown of Rameses" and Giampaulo Babetto's heavy gold necklaces, which recall the riches of ancient Rome.
"There are certain shapes and symbols which have fascinated artists from the beginning of time, and at this exhibition we see the apple and the pyramid surfacing once again as subjects," says Klimina. To help visitors pick up on these "sources and parallels," several ancient works are displayed alongside their modern interpretations.
The exhibition includes the work of artists from many countries. Although Klimina admits that Russian design may be developing less quickly than in other Western countries - because of "fewer technological possibilities" - she declares with typical artistic patriotism that the Russian pieces set themselves apart "by their deep spirituality."
Dusha, or soul, has always played a major role in Russian art, and in jewellery design it shows itself in the many levels of interpretation that the pieces allow. As Klimina says, "However we progress into the future, as long as the Russian artist has his or her soul, our art will never die."
"Avant-Garde Jewellery: Sources and Parallels" runs through July 14 at the Hermitage. See listings for details.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Last Saturday's DJ Parade at Yubileiny was raided by a narcotics squad, who apparently turned up what they were looking for, according to RIA Novosti.
"As a result, two men, aged 24 and 28, were detained for selling 0.7 grams of heroin," the report says. "19 more people were detained for possession of drugs: two for possession of heroin, two for marijuana and 14 for amphetamines. The youngest detainee was 15, the oldest 21."
In light of this, the two-night event being promoted by the International Cultural Center - otherwise known as club Par.spb - with the Goethe Institute on Friday and Saturday looks rather timely.
Called "Heroin Hell," the nights are centered around the book "Christiane F. Wir Kinder vom Banhof Zoo" - which will be presented by its Russian translator - and the German film of the same name.
The 1979 book and 1981 film are based on tape recordings of a 14-year-old - identified only as Christiane F. - who turned to prostitution to support her heroin addiction.
Described as "one of the most shocking and controversial films ever made," the film is also famous for its David Bowie soundtrack, which is based on his Berlin years and includes "Warszawa," "Station to Station" and "Helden," the German version of "Heroes." The film also contains live footage of Bowie.
Also showing are recent German films about youth problems: Esther Gronenborn's 2000 "Alaska.de"; Vanessa Jopp's 2001 "Engel & Joe"; Hans-Christian Schmid's 1998 "23"; and Yuksel Yavuz' 1999 "Aprilkinder," shown either in German or in translation. In addition, German director Thomas Heise will present his chilling 1991 documentary "Eisenzeit," and a photo-exhibition about the 1980s Soviet underground will be on display.
Musically, local alternative band Kirpichi will play on the first night while the second night will be closed by Berlin band Mitte Karaoke. The action starts at 7 p.m. on Friday and at 4 p.m. on Saturday. For details call Par.spb at 238-0970 or 233-3374.
The choice of Par.spb - one of the more ambitious and innovative clubs to appear in the city lately - looks pretty good. Quite the opposite to Plaza, which has been chosen by the French Institute for a concert by Matmatah to crown the Francophonia festival.
Plaza is a nightclub-cum-restaurant whose music program is largely based on Russian pop and Eurodance - with neither the interior nor the audience suitable for Celtic rock played by a band from Brest. The concert takes place at midnight on Friday.
Anna Stolyarova, former vocalist of S.P.O.R.T. and, lately, of Skafandr and Tigry & Pchyoly, is now singing with the new band Kiparis, which will play at Fish Fabrique Saturday.
The three-piece band was formed last October and is rounded out by Lena Stankevich on bass and Alexander Tikhomolov on drums. Stolyarova says the band's style is defined by its instruments: bass, drums - acoustic and electronic - and vocals, and no guitars.
The band's new Web site - www.kiparys.narod.ru - describes the style as "lively electro/hard," Stolyarova claims that it's not that heavy, and the band even plays a reggae number. "It's neither alternative rock nor pop," she says.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: quirky, but inkol's not quite there
AUTHOR: by Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The quest to find the best neighborhood café in town (see The Dishes passim) this week took me and my trusty henchman Gopher to Vasilievsky Ostrov and Inkol, right by the State University's Journalism Faculty. It was, I believe, the first evening this year when the temperature has been above ten degrees Celsius, but not so warm that we wanted to sit by the door, which seemed, inexplicably, to be permanently open. Maybe the warmth was getting to the bartender.
We took some menus from the bar and sat down in the second of three interconnecting rooms, right by Inkol's curiosity, the turtle tank. I'm not sure why they have an aquarium on the bar, but watching the little blighters crawling in and out of the water proved mildly diverting. Further along, just past the framed "Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Women" poster, was another tank, this one containing an idle, bloated yellow frog, which Gopher soon nicknamed Jabba the Hut.
Having ordered two Bochkarovs at 30 rubles ($0.96) each, we asked our server for more time to peruse the menu. This was a mistake, as it was a good 15 minutes before she came back. Still, this did give us time to check out the vast array of dishes which Inkol has to offer.
The menu tries to have something for just about any time of day and to suit most tastebuds - except, invariably, vegetarians, whose choice is somewhat limited. As usual, we chose the salad-main route, but there are also hot snacks such as omlets, or bliny with anything from red caviar to jam. There are some more unusual items on the menu, including mussels, which appear as a main course and as part of the po-katolonsky salad.
I chose the tuna salad at 115 rubles ($3.70) and Gopher chose the amusingly named Mister Bob salad (75 rubles, $2.41), as he put it, for "giggles." Later we established that the name was a play on the Russian word for bean, bob, a connection we had somehow failed to make. The salad did contain plenty of beans and produced, as he put it, ''a myriad of flavors dominated by the fresh, crunchy string beans and pickles, well complemented by cheese and mayo.''
My salad also contained sweetcorn, tomato and cucumber, and was fresh and crunchy. The tuna was well-drained, and the whole thing was topped off with a pleasingly light oil-based dressing, although I could have had it with mayonnaise. Having just finished the salad, our server brought shchi, which I had asked about but not actually ordered. Still, there was no problem once the misunderstanding had been cleared up.
For the main course I had Polish pike-perch at 120 rubles ($3.86), with a side order of Brussels sprouts (50 rubles, $1.61), while Gopher plumped for the govyadina na shpazhkakh, or beef on skewers, at 185 rubles ($5.95). The fish had been boiled, was tender and flaky, topped with chopped hard-boiled egg and canned mushrooms in a buttery sauce, and somehow all seemed a bit bland. The sprouts were good, however.
Gopher's main course came in the form of two mini-kebabs of tender meat wrapped in tasty bacon. ''Mmm, bacon ...'' was the conclusion. The kebabs were complemented by potatoes in a cream-and-dill sauce, and a cowberry sauce which went really well with the meat. Cowberries were new to both of us, but, according to foodreference.com, they are <<an uncultivated member of the cranberry family ... primarily used in northern Europe to make jams and preserves.''
Musical accompaniment for the evening came courtesy of a couple of chaps on guitar, who picked their way through Western standards such as "Knocking on Heaven's Door." We had fun guessing the song from the semi-improvised introductions.
I came out of Inkol feeling slightly dissatisfied. Maybe it was the service, which was on the slow and uncommunicative side, although our server was good about answering our questions about the resident fauna. Maybe I just picked the wrong dishes. Maybe the stars were aligned inconspicuously. Gopher, however, said he would renew his acquaintance with Jabba the Hut and friends in the not-too-distant future.
Inkol. 32 1-aya Liniya, Vasilievsky Ostrov. Tel.: 328-3571. Open 11 a.m. to midnight. Menu in Russian only. Dinner for two with alcohol: 669 rubles ($21.50). No credit cards.
TITLE: Joint UN-Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal To Be Set Up
AUTHOR: By Edith Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council approved plans for a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's brutal 10-year civil war, a senior UN official said on Wednesday.
Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs Ralph Zacklin outlined to the council on Tuesday a timetable to get the joint U.N.-Sierra Leone court operating.
"This court will be a functioning court in all respects by the third quarter of this year, and I would expect that some of the first indictments might be handed down by the prosecutor by the end of the year," he said at a later news conference.
The court will try serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law since Nov. 30, 1996, when rebels signed a peace accord with the government that was supposed to end what was then a five-year war. That peace deal was followed by a military coup and several more years of fighting.
Rebels led by Foday Sankoh have killed, maimed and raped thousands of civilians since launching an insurgency in 1991 to try to gain control of the country's government and its diamond fields. Sankoh was imprisoned in May 2000 and is expected to be among the first people tried.
After abandoning several peace accords, rebels signed a cease-fire with the government in November 2000. Since then, over 47,000 combatants have handed over their weapons in a UN-sponsored disarmament program, and elections are scheduled for next year.
The UN-Sierra Leone tribunal represents a new kind of international court.
Unlike the war-crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which are entirely run by the United Nations with an international staff, the Sierra Leone tribunal will have a mix of local and international prosecutors and judges.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will appoint the majority of judges, the prosecutor and the registrar, while the Sierra Leone government will appoint the other of judges and the deputy prosecutor.
The go-ahead for the court follows Annan's announcement last month that the world body was abandoning nearly five years of negotiations with the Cambodian government to set up a UN-assisted Cambodian court. He said the government was obstructing efforts to create a framework that would guarantee a fair trial that meets international standards.
Zacklin said he has "no doubt Cambodians are looking at what's going on in Sierra Leone."
TITLE: Italian Economist Killed in Bologna
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROME - An offshoot of the Red Brigades terror group claimed responsibility for the slaying of a government adviser in a communique posted on the Internet on Thursday.
Economist Marco Biagi was shot dead Tuesday evening outside his apartment building in Bologna by gunmen on a motorscooter. Biagi had been working on labor reform - a bitterly contested issue in Italy.
Biagi, a 52-year-old university professor, was the second economist working on labor reform to be gunned down in three years.
The communique said he was targeted because his work made him part of a government that "represents the interests of bourgeois imperialism."
The interior minister said Biagi was killed with the same handgun used in the 1999 killing of another government economics adviser, Massimo d'Antona.
Both men advocated measures to loosen up Italy's labor market, one of the most rigid in Europe, by making it easier to fire workers.
The same organization that claimed responsibility for Biagi's killing also claimed responsibility for d'Antona's murder.
The Red Brigades bloodied Italy with terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 1980s.
The slaying has stunned the country, which has been split over the conservative government's plan to change Italy's labor laws.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Wednesday in Rome, Bologna and elsewhere to protest the political violence.
TITLE: Guerrillas on Violent Spree In Columbia
AUTHOR: By Andrew Selsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOGOTA, Colombia - Heavy fighting near the Venezuelan border killed at least 38 soldiers and leftist guerrillas, Colombia's military said on Thursday. The army said retreating rebels took refuge in the neighboring South American country.
Elsewhere, guerrillas occupied a pumping station at a reservoir in Colombia's southern Andes, cutting the water supply to more than 500,000 people, authorities said.
Seventeen army soldiers and 21 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have been killed in the fighting, which erupted Wednesday near the eastern town of Tibu and was continuing Thursday.
It was the heaviest combat seen since the peace talks with the FARC collapsed last month when the rebels stepped up their attacks on Colombia's civilian infrastructure.
Government fighter planes and attack helicopters were pursuing the rebels, who drew the army into the area after stealing and burning five vehicles that belonged to Colombia's state oil company on Sunday, said General Martin Orlando Carreno.
In a statement, Carreno claimed the rebels fled into Venezuela and were lobbing mortars into Colombian territory and making sporadic incursions. He said a group of about 150 guerrillas is believed to have a camp about a kilometer inside Venezuela "limiting any kind of military offensive against the terrorists."
Since peace talks ended on Feb. 20, the FARC has also sabotaged at least 11 telecommunications systems and blown up 79 electric transmission towers, leaving hundreds of thousands of people at least temporarily in the dark and without phone service.
There was no immediate reaction from the Venezuelan government.
TITLE: City Boxer Wins National Title
AUTHOR: By Christopher Hamilton
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg's Yevgeny Strausov ignored a cut over his left eye to knock down Moscow's Sergei Andreichikov three times and claim the Russian featherweight title on a close points decision Thursday at Yubileiny Sports Palace.
Andreichikov, originally from Belarus, came out the stronger of the two, but Strausov rallied to dominate the third and fourth rounds. He floored Andreichikov with a wild left hook in the third, and battered his wearying opponent with a series of uppercuts in the fourth.
Andreichikov recovered in rounds five and six, exploiting the cut over Strausov's left eye to keep the match close. Strausov managed to get back into the contest, and knocked Andreichikov down a third time in the seventh.
Both boxers threw a series of fast punches in the final rounds as they struggled with fatigue, but Strausov got the edge over Andreichikov, landing several punches in the closing seconds as he went for the knockout.
All three judges scored in favor of Strausov: Gennady Kakoshkin and Gennady Rudenko scoring 99-90, and Nikolai Sigov 98-91. Strausov remain undefeated professionally, with a 4-0-0 record. Andreichikov is 7-2-1.
The Russian featherweight title was considered vacant until Thursday night's showdown, which was the first national title fight in the 12-year history of Russian professional boxing to be fought in St. Petersburg.
Andreichikov had earned the right to fight Dmitry Kochmar from Nizhny Tagil for the title, until Kochmar came down with flu. According to Russian Boxing Federation rules the next highest-rated boxer - in this case Strausov - becomes the challenger.
As well as the featherweight title, the Tundra boxing team, based in St. Petersburg, enjoyed a successful night over several Moscow-based challengers. Alexei Osokin defeated Mikhail Bekish in a unanimous decision in the evening's heavyweight bout. At middleweight, Armenian Mger Mkrtchyan got a technical knockout in the second when Sergei Karanevich's coach threw in the towel. Faris Memedov also got a technical knockout over Oleg Bykov in a lightweight fight. Dmirity Kashkan got Moscow's only win on a split decision over Igor Askhatarov from Petrozavodsk. Nina Abrosova defeated fellow Petersburger Natalia Guseva in a women's match.
TITLE: A Night of Surprises in The NBA
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER - Call it the night of the unexpected in the NBA.
One surprise after another came along Wednesday night, from Michael Jordan making an unexpected return, to Shaquille O'Neal being held to two baskets, to the Portland Trail Blazers finally looking human again.
Jordan made an unexpected return from knee surgery, but did not start for the first time in nearly 16 years, scoring seven points in a reserve role as the Washington Wizards routed the Denver Nuggets 107-75.
O'Neal didn't have a field goal - or even a field-goal attempt - in the second half, as the Lakers lost decisively for the second night in a row, dropping a 108-90 decision to the Sacramento Kings.
Portland, which had won 15 of 16 games, ran into a New Jersey team that seized upon its lingering anger from the events of the night before to defeat the Trail Blazers 97-82.
Jordan, playing for the first time since having surgery on his right knee Feb. 27, made two of his first four shots before missing five straight. He finished 2-for-9 with two assists, two steals and a rebound in 16 minutes.
"I felt pretty good and was moving well, but obviously my rhythm wasn't quite there," said Jordan, who wore a protective sleeve on his knee. "I felt good and the guys weren't looking for me, and they were still being aggressive, which is what I wanted to happen anyway."
Washington has won three of four after losing five straight. The Wizards are 2 1/2 games behind Charlotte for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Spurs 108, Lakers 90. At San Antonio, the Spurs held O'Neal to just two field goals - both in the first half - and led by as many as 34 points.
The Lakers had beaten the Spurs six consecutive times, including a four-game sweep in last year's Western Conference finals.
"I'd venture to say that this one won't matter much come April," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "But I bet the Spurs feel better about themselves playing us."
San Antonio, which held the Lakers to a season-low 15 points in the second quarter, was led by Tim Duncan with 25 points, while Malik Rose added 19.
The Spurs have won 10 in a row - the longest current streak in the NBA - to move within one game of Dallas in the Midwest Division. The Lakers were coming off a 16-point loss to the Mavericks a night earlier.
San Antonio started to pull away midway through the first period. Duncan connected on three straight jumpers to key a 15-6 run that put the Spurs up by 11. The Lakers made only three of their 15 shots in the second, and the Spurs built their advantage as high as 23.
TITLE: Panthers Will Not Miss Bure
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SUNRISE, Florida - Pavel Bure may have been the best player on the Florida Panthers, but he clearly wasn't best friends with his former teammates.
"Any fan or anybody that doesn't think the organization did the right thing by trading Pavel, if they spent five minutes in the dressing room, they wouldn't be speaking negatively about the trade," goaltender Trevor Kidd said.
Kidd and other Panthers spoke out after Bure was traded to the New York Rangers on Tuesday.
The biggest beefs against Bure? His indifferent attitude and a failure to play within the system.
"Look, I'm not the best player in the world, but I'm going to try hard," Lindsay added. "And I've got to come and watch a guy that makes $30 million come to the rink last and leave first."
Bure, with 23 goals this season, led the NHL in goals scored the previous two years.
Bure, who turns 31 later this month, shrugged off the comments. "Everybody has their opinion, and I can't do anything about it," he said before Tuesday's debut with the Rangers. "Would I say something bad about them? No, I would never do that and I never will because I think that's no-class. ... Look at where this is coming from."
The Panthers had 50 points entering Wednesday night's games.
Panthers co-captain Paul Laus came closest to defending Bure. "You can't force a guy to be around the guys," he said. "He had his own things. You can't grab him and say you have to be here 24 hours a day. ... He's just a private guy. We all knew that."
Added Kidd: "Everyone that's been around him knows what he brings to the table. That's goals, and that's it."
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Russia Soccer Bid
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian parliament on Wednesday approved the country's bid to stage the European soccer championships in 2008.
Members of the State Duma adopted an appeal from Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to back Russia's bid to become the first East European nation to stage the championships.
"I give us an 80 percent chance of success," Russian football chief Vyacheslav Koloskov was quoted as saying in Wednesday's Sport-Express newspaper.
"Our advantage is that we are bidding as one country, as opposed to those who have filed joint bids. The government guarantees are the key to the whole process. It's a must."
Russia will face competition from a four-way Scandinavian bid involving Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway.
There were 258 votes out of 450 in favor of the appeal to the prime minister, and the Russians will now formally present their bid to UEFA next month.
Skier Stripped
LONDON (AP) - British skier Alain Baxter was stripped of his Olympic bronze medal in the slalom on Thursday after testing positive for a banned stimulant at last month's Winter Games.
The IOC disqualified Baxter, the first British skier to win an Olympic medal, and revoked his medal, making him the third athlete stripped of a medal for drug violations at the Salt Lake City Games.
The International Olympic Committee executive board said it was up to the international ski federation to consider further sanctions against Baxter, including a possible two-year ban.
Also disqualified was Vasily Pankov, a hockey player from Belarus, who tested positive for the steroid nandrolone. The Belarus team doctor, Evgeni Lositski, was banned from the next two Olympics.
Baxter, a 28-year-old Scot, tested positive for methamphetamine after his surprise third-place finish on Feb. 23. His medal will go to the fourth-place finisher, Austria's Benjamin Raich.
Five doping cases have now been confirmed from Salt Lake, matching the total of all previous Winter Olympics.
Hockey Puck Death
NEW YORK (NYT) - A 13-year-old girl who died Monday night, two days after being hit in the forehead with a puck at a NHL game in Columbus, Ohio, suffered a rare injury in which an artery leading to her brain ruptured when her head snapped back, a coroner said Wednesday.
The death raised issues about safety measures in arenas, and Bernadette Mansur, a spokesperson for the NHL, said that officials were "taking a look at everything as we now do it."
The girl, Brittanie Cecil, was hit by a puck after a Columbus Blue Jackets player took a slap shot in the second period of a game on Saturday night against the Calgary Flames. Cecil was the first person to be killed by a flying puck at an NHL game.
"She died as a result of damage to the right vertebral artery," Bradley Lewis, the Franklin County coroner, said Wednesday. "What happened was, when she was hit with the puck, her head snapped back in a type of whiplash action and caused damage to her artery."
Celtic Must Wait
GLASGOW, Scotland (Reuters) - Neil McCann scored a hat-trick as Rangers crushed Kilmarnock 5-0 to delay Celtic's Scottish Premier League championship celebrations on Wednesday.
Celtic is one win away from retaining its crown. It is 13 points ahead of its cross-town archrival with five games to go. Had Rangers lost, the title would have been Celtic's.