SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #760 (26), Tuesday, April 9, 2002
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TITLE: Putin SeekingFresh Ideas
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva and Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin reprimanded his cabinet on Monday for insufficiently bold economic planning and called for fresh ideas in preparation for his upcoming state-of-the-nation address.
 
"The government must aim for more ambitious plans" that would help Russia catch up with major industrial countries, Putin told a cabinet meeting, according to the official presidential Web site.
 The latest government forecasts have predicted continued growth of the national economy, which has been on the rise for the past three years. Moreover, the surprise announcement by Iraq on Monday about plans for a 30-day moratorium on oil exports was sure to boost oil prices - a crucial factor for Russia's coffers.
 But Putin called the four-year program developed recently by his cabinet "insufficently intensive."
 The document provides for an optimistic and a pessimistic scenario of economic development up to 2005, with cumulative GDP growth at 17.5 percent and 15 percent, respectively. 
 "Neither of these [scenarios] guarantees even a reduction in the gap between Russia and the main industrial countries," Putin said, "a reduction that we have been saying is so important."
 Under the plan, the government expects annual growth of from 3.2 percent to 4.6 percent. After 2005, when structural reforms are expected to start paying off, the rate should speed up to from 5 to 5.5 percent. But many economists, including presidential advisor Andrei Illarionov, believe performance can be better.
 Experts said the president is casting about for new ideas, largely because a widespread drop in the standard of living could do significant damage to his popularity - still soaring above the 70 percent mark, for the time being.
 "According to general estimates, the gap between rich and poor decreases if GDP growth exceeds 5 percent," said Oleg Vyugin, chief economist with Troika Dialog. "This is a very important indicator, ... as the main touchstone of political success is a rise in personal income at all levels."
 Despite triumphant reports from government officials, traditional economic ills - such as payment and salary arrears - are on the rise, he said, leading to heightened social tensions. Furthermore, regional elites are unhappy with innovations such as the Land Code, the redistribution of tax revenues and the proposed reform of the power monopoly, Ryabov said.
 Despite earlier announcements by presidential representatives that the state-of-the-nation address was tentatively set for April 18, Putin appealed to the cabinet on Monday for new ideas.
 "The time is coming to finish work [on the address]," he said. "If there are any additional ideas about plans for economic development, I ask that you present them as soon as possible."
 "It looks like the president has not made up his mind about what he wants to see in the address," Ryabov said. 
 The Web site gazeta.ru reported Friday that the president's annual policy speech will be delivered at least a week later than the provisional April 18 date due to disagreement about content. The report, which cited unnamed sources, said the delay had to do with an array of difficulties, including selecting a venue for the speech and choosing between opposing plans for military reform.
 Lyudmila Timakova, deputy head of the presidential press service, said Monday that the date of the presidential address had not been finalized. She called April 18 - announced by the president's envoy to the State Duma, Alexander Kotenkov - a "tentative, working" date.
 However, Ryabov said that even April 18 is later than the traditional timing for the address, delivered in past years in late March or early April.
 The president's search for new ideas has led him to seek the opinion of experts beyond the circle of his close aides. In recent weeks, Putin met with a group of noted left-of-center economists and discussed the plight of small business with noted Siberian scientists.
 "What is going on is a search for new ideas," Ryabov said. "The president is not convinced that today's course and [Economic Development and Trade Minister German] Gref's program is the main road that will lead Russia toward prosperity."
 However, according to Vyugin, it is not surprising that the government's estimates for economic growth have been conservative, especially since institutional reform - and, consequently, investment - have been sorely lacking.
 "We drove into reforms on a 1970-model car, and the bureaucracy is still functioning under those outdated standards," Vyugin said. "The government has based its forecast on the realities that exist today - that is why it is so conservative. They just can't substantiate 8-percent growth, because there are no grounds for it."
 Iraq's announcement that it would suspend oil exports for at least a month in protest over Israel's incursion into Palestinian-controlled areas pushed up the price of Urals blend on Monday by $1.25 to $24.73 per barrel. Vladislav Metnev, an oil analyst with Renaissance Capital, said he did not expect long-term benefits from the move. "It is too early to say that the average price will exceed $23.50 per barrel, which is the figure in Russia's 2002 budget. An average price of $18 to $20 looks more reasonable," he said.

TITLE: Ingush Poll Shows Kremlin's Hand
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The controversial race for the Ingush presidency will be decided by a runoff after none of the eight contenders managed to collect the 50 percent plus one vote needed to win the first round of voting, an election official said Monday.
 
The runoff will be held between Alikhan Amirkhanov, Ingushetia's representative in the State Duma, who won 33 percent of the vote Sunday, and Kremlin-backed FSB General Murat Zyazikov, who garnered 19 percent of the vote, said Akhmet Arsamakov, a member of the Ingush elections commission, by telephone from Nazran.
 The election campaign has been dogged by mutual recriminations and courtroom scandals, culminating last week in a decision by the Supreme Court to oust Khamzat Gutseriyev, the candidate backed by former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev, from the race. Political analysts said that the move reflected the intervention of the Kremlin, which they say has tried to sideline Aushev and his allies in an attempt to put its own man in charge of the sensitive region neighboring Chechnya. 
 Amirkhanov, a former Communist bureaucrat in Soviet Checheno-Ingushetia who became a successful businessperson in the 1990s, is another close associate of Aushev, whom he helped to create a free economic zone in the republic from 1994 to 1997. In 2000, Aushev appointed Amirkhanov deputy prime minister of the republic, and in 2001 supported his bid to win a seat in the Duma. 
 Media reports have often presented Amirkhanov as a backup candidate for Gutseriyev.
 The final official results of the first round of voting will be announced at a meeting of Ingushetia's elections commission Tuesday, Arsamakov said, adding that the commission will decide the date of the runoff.
 Alexander Veshnyakov, head of the Central Elections Commission, told Interfax on Monday that the second round must be held by April 28. Veshnyakov also said that despite "strong political tension," the election in Ingushetia went ahead without significant violations.
 Following Gutseriyev's removal from the running, eight candidates were left to contest the election Sunday, with Zyazikov, 45, and the republic's acting president, Akhmet Malsagov, 42, who is also considered loyal to Kremlin, tipped as favorites.
 Experts said the ousting of Gutseriyev was the most decisive move the Kremlin has made in regional elections. 
 Leonid Smirnyagin of the Moscow Carnegie Center said that Ingushetia's proximity to Chechnya, and the fact that it has absorbed the bulk of Chechen refugees, was the main motive behind Moscow's keenness to have one of its own proteges in charge of the republic.
 "The intervention of the federal center in the Ingush elections is not related to Aushev," Smirnyagin said. "It is just because it is impossible to wage the war in Chechnya further or to do illegal business in Chechnya without having a grasp of Ingushetia."
 Originally set for March 2003, the Ingush election was brought forward when Aushev, who had ruled the republic since 1992, unexpectedly resigned from his post on Dec. 28 last year, reasoning unconvincingly that the republic's presidential elections should not be held simultaneously with its parliamentary elections, also scheduled for March 2003.
 Reports in the Russian press suggested that Aushev, a decorated veteran of the war in Afghanistan and one of the country's most influential regional leaders, was pushed into quitting by the Kremlin, which was irritated by his position on the Chechen conflict. Aushev overtly called for ending the violence in Chechnya and for a political resolution to the conflict, while the military bluntly blamed the Ingush president for turning his republic into a safe haven for Chechen rebels.
 After Aushev resigned, 23 candidates threw their hat into the ring for the republic's top post, among them the president's brother, Bagautdin. However, Aushev nominated Gutseriyev, the Ingush interior minister at the time, as his successor. Later, 14 contenders withdrew from the race for various reasons, six of them reportedly asking their supporters to vote for Gutseriyev.
 Gutseriyev is a younger brother of Mikhail Gutseriyev, the head of state-owned oil company Slavneft, who in 1994 helped Aushev to create a free economic zone in Ingushetia. In 1997, the zone was eliminated, following accusations of tax and customs fees evasion.
 The Kremlin's candidate, Zyazikov, was picked from the office of President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Southern Federal District, Viktor Kazantsev, where he was serving as Kazantsev's deputy before joining the election campaign. An FSB career officer, Zyazikov earlier headed the service's branch in the Astrakhan region.
 Together with human-rights advocates, Gutseriyev's supporters persistently accused Kazantsev's office of forcing the local media to give Zyazikov's campaign disproportionately large coverage and called for Putin to look into it. In a recent televised statement, Aushev called the intervention of Kazantsev's office "short-sighted, filthy and boorish" and proposed opening a criminal investigation into it. 
 Gutseriyev's opponents accused him of taking money from his brother to finance his campaign. 
 On March 18, two Ingush citizens appealed Gutseriyev's registration as a presidential candidate to the local Supreme Court, complaining that he had violated election law by running his campaign from his minister's chair instead of taking a vacation. Gutseriyev was registered as a candidate on Feb. 9 and resigned formally as interior minister only on March 7. 
 Ingushetia's court dragged the case out until last Wednesday, when the Supreme Court in Moscow demanded that the case be transferred to it.
 On Friday, the court ruled that Gutseriyev's registration should be canceled.
 Meanwhile Mikhail Gutseriyev finds himself in a similar situation to his younger brother. Next Monday, Slavneft shareholders will hold a meeting with two items on the agenda: ousting him and electing a new company president. 
 The Supreme Court's decision to remove Khamzat Gutseriyev from the Ingush election is seen as unusual because, in most other similar cases, the federal authorities don't pay much attention when regional officials conduct election campaigns from their official seats.
 The selective justice in Gutseriyev's case has outraged prominent human-rights campaigners.
 "Surprisingly, candidates supported by the Kremlin usually commit the most outrageous violations of the law and employ the dirtiest election technologies," Lev Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement, said Friday.
 Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group and one of the most respected human-rights advocates in Russia, said the federal authorities are not shy of using national state television to promote the candidate they back and tarnish his main opponent.
 A late-night news show on RTR television aired a report Thursday blatantly attacking Gutseriyev, accusing his ministry of corruption.
 "We have never before witnessed such bold interference in the regional elections," Alexeyeva said.
 Gutseriyev himself said that he was expecting the verdict, Kommersant reported Saturday. He called the campaign against him "dirty and unceremonious" and said that it was spearheaded by Kazantsev. 
 By edging Aushev and his bankers, the Gutseriyevs, out of politics and big business, the Kremlin risks alienating Ingushetia from the federation, said Vladimir Pribylovsky, the president of the Moscow-based Panorama think tank.

TITLE: Seleznyov Stays as Party Suffers
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr. and Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Any doubts Gennady Seleznyov may have had about staying on as speaker of the State Duma - a prospect that was vocally opposed by his nominal boss, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov - were cleared up late last week after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
 
"There is no need for me to leave the post of Duma speaker," Seleznyov told reporters Friday, saying that Putin did not consider such a move "expedient."
 "Seleznyov is ... an experienced man who represents a party that won the votes of more than 20 million people," Putin was quoted as saying by the Web site gazeta.ru. "And these people have the right to see their person among the [country's] top leaders."
 However, Seleznyov's decision to hold onto his seat - and the Kremlin's approval of the move - is highly unlikely to stop the current onslaught against the Communists, which some experts say is aimed at stemming the party's financial resources ahead of parliamentary elections next year.
 Earlier last week, Seleznyov said he was considering resigning in response to a reshuffle of Duma committee chairpeople that stripped the Communists of eight of their 10 leadership posts in the chamber. 
 After the redistribution of power - which was initiated by a Unity-led coalition of centrist and liberal factions, ostensibly with the Kremlin's blessing - the Communists announced that they would give up the two minor committees they had retained and called on Seleznyov to step down.
 "Seleznyov can no longer occupy this post," Zyuganov said Friday on Ekho Moskvy radio. The Duma has espoused an "unabashedly right-wing" policy, Zyuganov said, and if Seleznyov "stays with this team" he will lose the trust of Communist voters.
 Politicians and political analysts said that what lies at the root of the anti-Communist offensive is money.
 Alexei Podberyozkin, a former dissident member of the Communist faction who now heads the little-known United Socialist Party of Russia, said Friday that the main objective of the committee reshuffle was to strip the Communists of state-funded offices, aides and other so-called "administrative resources" ahead of the next elections.
 Georgy Satarov, head of the Indem think tank, gave a similar assessment in an interview published Saturday in the Izvestia newspaper.
 "Having lost the chance to influence decision-making in the Duma's committees ... the Communists have lost their attractiveness among lobby groups. This will inevitably lead to a sharp drop in the flow of funds into the Communist Party treasury," Satarov said.
 Another important financial resource the Communists stand to lose is the Duma's main administrative body, or <i>apparat</i>. Late last week, the centrists' efforts to oust the apparat's chief, Seleznyov's ally Nikolai Troshkin, finally bore fruit when Troshkin submitted his resignation Friday. Seleznyov will have to sign off on the resignation this week.
 Gazeta.ru reported that the Duma's apparat handles some 2 billion rubles ($64 million), much of which is controlled by the Communists. With Troshkin's departure, &quot;the Communist Party will lose a guaranteed source of funding for its regional structure, as well as a headquarters, which the apparat has doubled as for the past six years.&quot;
 The Web site also reported last week that the Communists' popularity in the regions has surpassed that of the Kremlin-backed United Russia party by 14 percentage points - 35 to 21 - and Zyuganov has said his party would soon call for early parliamentary elections.
 After Seleznyov announced his decision not to resign, the Communists said that they would consider the possibility of ousting him from the party at meetings next week, Interfax reported on Saturday.

TITLE: Thousands Protest Slow Military Reform
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With the spring draft creaking along across the country, several thousand Muscovites marched to the Kremlin on Saturday demanding speedier implementation of military reform, including the switch to a professional army.
 
The rally was organized by the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, which has been criticizing President Vladimir Putin and the army's top brass for dragging their feet over the issue of military reform. 
 The issue has become so contentious in fact, that, according to one media report, the Kremlin has decided to postpone Putin's state-of-the-nation address, which had been tentatively set for April 18, because of disagreement about the pace and extent of military reform.
 Equipped with signs calling for &quot;Military Reform Now!&quot; and a huge Russian tri-color flag, the demonstrators marched to the cheerful military tunes of a brass band and the rhythms of some Hare Krishna drummers. Organizers managed to get half of downtown Moscow closed off for the rally, causing problems for unsuspecting motorists, but allowing the procession to stretch from the Defense Ministry to Ploshchad Revolutsii, where a stage had been constructed for the demonstration's main attraction - a rock concert.
 The demonstrators, many of them around draft age, demanded that mandatory service in the demoralized, cash-strapped army be reduced from two years to six months as of next year and that the ongoing draft be the last one before a changeover to contract-based service.
 Putin and his cabinet have been supportive of reforming the army, plagued by hazing, draft-dodging and desertions, which sometimes end in violence. From the start of his presidential term, Putin has been talking about abolishing the draft, cutting the army, modernizing its arsenal and raising its prestige, but few fundamental changes have been implemented so far. 
 Top military officials insist that overhauling the armed forces will require at least six to eight years and major funding, while liberals such as SPS and the Yabloko party have been calling for speedier, more radical reform, which they say would cost less than the military claims.
 SPS leader Boris Nemtsov submitted a proposal earlier this year to cut the armed forces from the current 1.2 million jobs to 400,000 over the next five years. Nemtsov said Saturday that the changes would cost only 30 billion rubles, or 10 percent of the current defense budget.
 Nemtsov called Saturday's rally the start of a national campaign and promised that similar demonstrations would follow in coming months in the regions.
 &quot;The Union of Rights Forces has exhausted all possibilities for negotiations with the president and the Defense Ministry and is coming out to the streets for the support of ordinary people,&quot; Nemtsov told reporters as the rally was beginning outside Defense Ministry headquarters near Arbatskaya metro.
 In addition to cutting the duration of service and the number of soldiers, SPS has also called for major new benefits for military personnel, such as low-rate mortgages and free higher education.
 But, according to a report posted Friday by the Web site gazeta.ru, the government - although generally supportive of the SPS plan - calculated recently that it was not economically feasible.
 As a result, the report said, Putin's aides are busy reworking the president's address, which will have to be pushed back at least a week from the anticipated April 18 date. The new version, according to the report on gazeta.ru, will include a revised proposal on military reform from the General Staff - offering to cut mandatory service to 18 months and stretching out the transition to a professional army until 2010.
 Although many of the SPS demonstrators were around draft age, they seemed to support the rally largely for entertainment purposes, while their older counterparts voiced greater concern about the army's future.
 &quot;I do not believe that in two years, when I'm to be drafted, something will change and I will be able to choose. But it's nice to be here, to have beer with friends,&quot; Sergei Zabotin, 16, said.
 Yevgeny, a 38-year-old computer programmer, who came with his 12-year-old son Vasily, was more somber.
 &quot;As the father of a boy who will be of draft age in five or six years, I'm personally interested in the reform being introduced as soon as possible. I would like to worry about things like how to raise my son properly and give him a good education, rather than having the headache of finding a way for him to avoid the draft,&quot; he said.
 In recent years, draft commissions nationwide have been facing a major shortage of conscripts, who fear hazing or being sent to volatile regions like Chechnya and find different ways of draft-dodging - from buying documents saying they are in poor health to paying bribes for admission to college or simply hiding from enlistment officials. 
 After the concert on Ploshchad Revolutsii began, the crowd grew as more young people came from the suburbs to see popular rockers Splin and Chicherina. Moscow police estimated that some 3,000 young people gathered for the show. 
 Interfax reported that a makeshift explosive device went off in the crowd during the concert around 4 p.m. and three 15-year-old school students were hospitalized with cuts and minor wounds, but SPS representatives denied the report.
 While Saturday's rally included plenty of optimistic rhetoric, it coincided with a serious setback for proponents of alternative military service, another idea supported by SPS: Four of 29 young men undergoing experimental alternative service in a hospital in Nizhny Novgorod received draft notices Friday.
 The conscripts said they would protest the decision on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Remains Discovered
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Soldiers have found human bones in cliff-side caves in southern Chechnya, and security officers speculated that the remains belonged to servicemen who had been captured during the first Chechen war from 1994 to 1996, media reported Friday. Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesperson for the Federal Security Service, said the captured soldiers had probably been used as slave labor for the rebels. The bones were sent to a military laboratory for analysis. 
 Meanwhile, Amnesty International on Friday issued an appeal for information on the whereabouts and condition of 11 men who allegedly disappeared during a military sweep of the town of Tsotsin-Yurt from March 26 to March 30. The rights group said it had received reports that soldiers were demanding $1,000 for release of three of the men. On March 29, federal officials acknowledged some responsibility for abuses during the much-criticized sweeps, ordering troops to make searches for suspected rebels more transparent.
 
 
President's Rights
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - The Constitutional Court ruled last week that the president has the right to fire regional leaders and that the State Duma has the right to dissolve regional parliaments, Interfax reported.
 Both provisions are part of a package of the legislation President Vladimir Putin introduced in 2000 in a move widely seen as a bid to tighten his grip on the regions.
 
 
Novaya Compromise
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Novaya Gazeta appears to have reached a compromise with the Krasnodar judge who won an unprecedented $1-million libel suit that threatened to bankrupt the newspaper. 
 Novaya Gazeta representatives and Judge Alexander Chernov, who sued the newspaper for defamation, met Friday and agreed that Chernov would write to a higher court asking that the amount of fine be cut "to a reasonable level," while the newspaper would acknowledge errors in its reporting.
 Chernov said Monday that he was satisfied now that the newspaper was obliged to acknowledge its shabby reporting. He said he will negotiate the amount of the fine with Novaya's editor, Dmitry Muratov. Novaya Gazeta's deputy editor Sergei Sokolov said the newspaper would file an appeal this week in hope of a reduced fine. 



TITLE: Bushehr Reactor Tops the Agenda for Russia, Iran
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin and visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi last week underlined their commitment to continued bilateral cooperation, in a relationship that has vexed Washington and tarnished the recent U.S.-Russian honeymoon.
 
At their Kremlin meeting on Friday, Putin pointed to the &quot;very important role&quot; that Iran plays in the region of central Asia and the Middle East. Kharrazi responded that Iran &quot;gives special importance&quot; to closer cooperation with Russia &quot;both in bilateral and international issues.&quot;
 The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has warned that a $800-million deal to build a Russian nuclear reactor in the Iranian city of Bushehr could help Iran build nuclear weapons. 
 However, Moscow has refused to drop the deal, saying the light-water reactor could not be used for developing a nuclear bomb and would remain under international control.
 U.S. officials have also accused Russian entities of leaking missile technologies to Tehran - a charge Moscow has rejected. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters Friday that the U.S. criticism of alleged trade in dual-use technologies had never addressed specifics.
 &quot;If someone is concerned, we're ready to consider this - not if it's words, but specific facts,&quot; Ivanov said. &quot;And we haven't got these facts.&quot;
 Ivanov reiterated Moscow's disapproval of Bush's dubbing of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an &quot;axis of evil,&quot; calling such labels a leftover of the Cold War era. However, he did not join in Kharrazi's repeated criticism of U.S. &quot;unilateralism&quot; - reflecting Moscow's distancing from its one-time attachment to a &quot;multipolar world&quot; as its relations with Washington have warmed up.
 Ivanov and Kharrazi exchanged the ratification documents on the treaty Putin and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami signed in March 2001, which called in particular for joint work on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Ivanov said Khatami and his Russian interlocutors had discussed the importance of giving a &quot;political impetus&quot; to joint projects in the energy, aircraft construction, transport and communications sectors.
 The Bushehr reactor is set to be built by December 2003 and start up by 2005. Officials from the two countries have discussed plans for building a second reactor at the same plant.
 &quot;Guided by the results of work on the first power unit, the sides are now discussing the possibility of completing construction of the second unit,&quot; said Viktor Kozlov, the head of Atomstroiexport company, which is building the Bushehr plant.
 Kozlov said that a total of 5,000 tons of equipment, including the reactor's body, had already been shipped to Iran. About 3,900 Russian and Iranian workers are building the reactor, Kozlov said, according to Itar-Tass.
 Alongside concern about the Bushehr plant, U.S. officials have alleged that some Russian companies were leaking missile technology to Iran. Speaking to reporters in Athens, Greece, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated Moscow's strong denial that Russia had assisted Iran's missile or nuclear-weapons program.
 &quot;Russia's alleged supply of nuclear or missile technologies to Iran has been discussed for a long time, but it is nothing but a myth,&quot; Ivanov said. 
 At the same time, he said, Russia would continue selling conventional weapons to Tehran.
 Meanwhile, in a university speech Thursday, Kharrazi voiced concern about the U.S. military presence in central Asia, which Putin has accepted calmly.
 &quot;It's we, the countries of the region, who must take care of security in central Asia,&quot; Kharrazi said, according to Itar-Tass.
 In his talks with Russian officials, Kharrazi also discussed the status of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. 
 Kharrazi predicted that Iraq's recent proposal to suspend oil exports to the United States as a lever to affect the Middle East conflict would work only if all oil-producing Islamic countries &quot;make a unanimous decision,&quot; Interfax reported.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Karimov to Stay
 

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (Reuters) - Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov got his five-year term extended to almost eight years Friday when parliament rubber-stamped the results of a recent referendum harshly criticized by the West.
 "The next presidential election is set for the first Sunday of the last 10 days of December 2007," a parliament press office spokesperson said after the overwhelming vote. The poll falls on Dec. 23, 2007.
 
 
Art To Be Returned
 

MOSCOW (AP) - In a gesture timed for President Vladimir Putin's trip to Germany next week, the State Duma on Friday quickly approved a bill providing for the return to Germany of medieval stained-glass windows that were looted by the victorious Red Army at the end of World War II.
 The bill, passed by the Duma by a 262-11 vote, called for the return of 111 14th-century stained-glass windows from the Marienkirche in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, on the Polish border. The bill must be approved by the Federation Council and signed by Putin to become law.
 The church will mark its 750th anniversary in 2003, and Russian officials had pledged to return its stained glass, which is currently on display in the State Hermitage Museum. 
 Moscow has balked at returning the treasures, seen by most Russians as rightful compensation for the huge losses the country suffered in the Nazi invasion.
 
 
Fund Begins Payments
 

MOSCOW (AP) - An Austrian fund established to compensate victims of Nazi slave and forced labor made its first payments to Russian survivors on Thursday, handing out money to 10 elderly people.
 The federal government agency aiding the Austrian Reconciliation Fund said the 10 were among more than 2,300 survivors who would receive compensation. The government has sent a list of 3,000 more claimants to the Austrians. Survivors or their inheritors have until Nov. 27 to file claims.
 The fund was established in 2000 to compensate an estimated 150,000 central and eastern Europeans forced into slave labor after Austria was absorbed into Nazi Germany in 1938.
 Russia had been the only country whose survivors had not yet begun to receive payments from Austria. In Poland and the Czech Republic, about 95 percent of those who qualify have already received some money. According to the law that set up the 436-million euro ($380-million) fund, all payments must be made by November 2003.
 
 
Russians Cool on U.S.
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Russians are increasingly critical of the United States, according to a poll released last week, which showed the number of people who described their attitude as good dropping from about 70 percent in September to below 50 percent in March.
 Forty-two percent of respondents to the poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, or VTsIOM, described U.S.-Russian relations as friendly, good-neighborly or normal, down from 62 percent in September. Fifty-two percent said the two countries' ties were cool, tense or hostile, as opposed to 34 percent in September.
 The poll put Russian attitudes toward the United States at their worst level since summer 1999, when Moscow and its citizens fiercely opposed the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. 



TITLE: Who Stands Behind Russia's Foreign Policy?
AUTHOR: By Gregory Feifer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Unlike with President Vladimir Putin's domestic policies, which are usually ascribed to one or another group of advisers within the corridors of power, the genesis of foreign policy is a murky affair.
 
Market reform can be traced to the recommendations of the distinctive so-called St. Petersburg group of technocrats who are not shy about making their positions known. But no clear group influences foreign policy, and analysts are generally at pains to identify which individuals have the most access to the president's ear. Putin's renowned silence about his objectives irks members of the foreign-policy establishment.
 &quot;Those who support the president's foreign policy among the elite are a tiny minority,&quot; said Sergei Karaganov, head of the independent Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, an influential group whose members include a number of the country's political, academic and economic elite. Karaganov was speaking at a council briefing in March.
 Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center agrees. &quot;Foreign policy is initiated by a small group of policy-makers,&quot; he said in an interview.
 When he came to power, Putin vowed to restore the dignity Russia lost with the Soviet collapse. He began on a distinctly hard-line note, booting U.S. foreign-service officials out of Moscow last year in a case of tit-for-tat after Washington expelled Russian diplomats it accused of spying.
 The president is now using his new pro-Western stance as a political show of strength - even as many of his supporters bemoan major concessions to the United States, such as allowing U.S. troops in former Soviet states.
 But a number of instances in which Putin has capitulated to the West can be put down to sheer pragmatism - such as his decision not to publicly criticize Washington's announcement last December that it would pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Moscow had called the treaty a cornerstone of security, but could do nothing to save it.
 Putin has been welcomed on the global stage as a responsible leader, a role he clearly relishes. But Western leaders have only somewhat muted their criticism of Moscow's brutal campaign in Chechnya, and the United States has made it clear it will continue to pursue an essentially unilateral foreign policy, brushing aside criticism from opponents and allies alike.
 Economic dividends for Russia are a more palpable motive for friendliness to the West, especially given the country's role as one of the world's top oil and gas producers.
 Despite general support for his policies, Putin is widely reproved for making his decisions behind closed doors. While Karaganov's views are often close to the Kremlin's outwardly pro-Western position, for instance, he bitterly criticizes how policy is formulated and publicized.
 &quot;No one understands what he [Putin] really wants in foreign policy and that's a giant drawback,&quot; Karaganov said at a Moscow conference last week.
 But Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected analyst, tells a different story, saying that rather than formulating policy himself, Putin only gives a final nod to initiatives worked out by a host of others.
 Chief among them are members of the president's administration, and specifically its secretive chief Alexander Voloshin. The administration sets strategic goals and exerts the greatest influence on foreign policy, Markov said. A former economist with ties to exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, Voloshin is one of the last major officials in power to have taken office under Putin's predecessor, former President Boris Yeltsin.
 Voloshin is said to represent the interests of Yeltsin's political clan, which generally favored stronger ties with the West. But the chief of staff rarely appears in public and almost never makes statements, much less about foreign policy.
 Among bona fide foreign policy gurus said to have the president's ear are Kremlin deputy chief of staff and top presidential foreign-policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko, who occupied the same position in Yeltsin's administration and is in charge of Putin's appointment book.
 Second in influence, Markov said, is the Foreign Ministry, which works out tactical approaches to policy set in the Kremlin. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, a career diplomat, has generally shown himself to be a cautious official.
 Third in importance, Markov said, is the Defense Ministry, headed by Putin's close and hawkish associate Sergei Ivanov, who, like Putin, is a former KGB officer. The Carnegie Center's Ryabov said Sergei Ivanov is the only one of Putin's advisers who can without question be said to influence foreign policy.
 Ivanov often makes saber-rattling statements and reflects the outwardly more cautious approach to relations with the West that held sway before Sept. 11. The government's liberal economic bloc of technocrats - including Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref - are among the groups that play a part in foreign policy, not least with their pressing for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. Big business, especially exporting firms such as gas giant Gazprom and oil major LUKoil, also has a role in pushing its interests.
 Finally, members of the &quot;foreign-policy elite&quot; - academics, analysts, legislators with foreign policy expertise and other shapers and mirrors of public opinion - also influence the Kremlin's foreign policy decision-making process.
 Chief among them is Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council's foreign-affairs committee, another former KGB agent who is reputed to be a close presidential adviser. Reflecting the Kremlin's current foreign-policy line, Margelov supports warmer ties with the United States, saying the position is in the interests of Russia's national security. 
 &quot;I hate to say this, but fortunately for us the Americans got involved,&quot; Margelov said of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan in a recent interview with the Financial Times.
 He tied the campaign in Afghanistan to Russia's war in Chechnya, justifying the internationally criticized conflict by saying, &quot;Sept. 11 has shown us we have a common enemy.&quot;
 Margelov has been a Kremlin spinmeister for some time, dating back to when then Prime Minister Putin was looking to run for the presidency. Margelov followed by helping run the military's propaganda effort at the start of the second Chechen war in 1999 in his position as chief of Rosinformcenter, the state information agency notorious for keeping a tight lid on the campaign while releasing dubious statistics and rosy forecasts.
 Markov said Margelov's importance to the Kremlin lies less in his formal role as foreign-policy chief in the upper house than in his promise as a young, up-and-coming politician.
 Also influential, but to a significantly lesser degree, are members of Karaganov's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Karaganov is close to Prikhodko, Markov said, but not to the Kremlin as a whole.
 &quot;Many [of the council's] proposals aren't accepted and some are even sneered at,&quot; he said. The once mighty U.S.A. and Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by Sergei Rogov, has even less of a role in policy-making, Markov added.
 The Council on Foreign and Defense Policy had a far greater say in the affairs of Yeltsin's Kremlin. Karaganov is close to Yevgeny Primakov, the former spymaster and longtime foreign minister who was the main factor behind increasingly hawkish foreign policy under Yeltsin's administration. Karaganov, in his own words an &quot;informal adviser to the president,&quot; says his council does not aim to influence policy but rather the minds of the political elite.
 However, the council was instrumental in the ouster of pro-Western former Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in 1996 and the installation of Primakov in his place, ending a brief diplomatic honeymoon with the West following the Soviet collapse.
 Appointed prime minister in 1998, Primakov became a Kremlin foe, a position that was underscored when he joined forces with powerful Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov in a failed bid to run for the presidency. Karaganov went into the enemy camp as a chief adviser.
 In the days after Sept. 11, Putin moved away from the so-called Primakov doctrine of &quot;multipolarity&quot; - advocating cooperation with India and China to balance the global reach of the United States - and toward the ostensibly pro-Western yet firmly pragmatic and often even hard-line views of his behind-the-scenes advisers.
 Those included Putin-supporters Markov and his associate and chief Kremlin spin guru Gleb Pavlovsky, head of the Efficient Policy Fund and creator of the strana.ru web site, which publicizes the Kremlin's positions.
 Ryabov said that while Markov and Pavlovsky's influence has been strong, it has declined somewhat since the beginning of the year as Putin pushed his overtures to the West even further.
 The newest tendency was more than clear when the Kremlin barely issued a peep after Washington announced it would pull out of the ABM Treaty. Observers had been expecting an outcry.
 When the Pentagon said in March that it was sending up to 200 troops to Georgia, several politicians and diplomats flew off the handle. Those who objected loudly included Foreign Minister Ivanov and Dmitry Rogozin, chairperson of the State Duma's foreign-affairs committee and a known hawk.
 In a by-then familiar pattern, Putin kept quiet on the issue before giving the final word: U.S. troops in Georgia did not pose a threat to Russia. 
 &quot;Eighty percent of such cases reflect a policy of 'good cop-bad cop,'&quot; he said. &quot;The rest are a result of incompetence,&quot; he added, naming as an example Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov's decision during a recent trip to Israel to skip a meeting with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
 Markov agreed, saying he was absolutely certain Rogozin's position on Georgia - in which he proposed the Duma vote on recognizing the independence of two breakaway regions of Georgia - had been orchestrated ahead of time with the Kremlin.
 Meanwhile, among those to bemoan current policy is Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika think tank, once political strategist to Luzhkov and also a member of the Council of Foreign and Defense Policy. He said the 1990s had brought ruin to a coherent policy mechanism amid Yeltsin-era anarchy, from which the country has yet to recover.
 &quot;Foreign policy has many towers,&quot; he said at the council conference, alluding to the Kremlin's many spires. &quot;There's no single policy because each one [tower] has its own.&quot;
 Liberal Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov also criticized Russia's foreign policy by saying it did not reflect the will of the people and that it was caught between the old Soviet command system and a more democratic future. &quot;The authorities are alienated from society,&quot; he said.
 But Ryzhkov also said it was crucial for Russia to become an integral part of Europe, echoing the views of another liberal, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who praised post-Sept. 11 foreign policy as Putin's chief achievement.
 &quot;The vector of foreign policy can have strategic perspectives and serve as a prologue to Russia's becoming a European state in the widest sense of the word,&quot; Yavlinsky told Interfax recently.
 As Moscow and Washington prepare for a summit in May, both sides aim to further boost U.S.-Russian relations with the negotiation of a nuclear arms-reduction agreement and the development of a new NATO framework that would give Russia a greater say in decision making.
 But Karaganov said Putin's reliance on a small group of advisers and refusal to publicize his goals would create problems. &quot;[Putin must] attract people from different parts of the country, not only from Moscow,&quot; he said. &quot;If he doesn't explain what he wants, he can't attract those who would otherwise support him.&quot;

TITLE: French Propose MiG-AT Partnership
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: ZHUKOVSKY, Central Russia - After taking a short flight over Zhukovsky Airfield just south of Moscow, French Air Force chief Jean Pierre Job patted his Russian co-pilot on the shoulder and said he was pleased with the new Russian-French advanced trainer jet.
 
&quot;The French engine and the Russian frame go very well together,&quot; General Job said Friday after his first ride on the MiG-AT, a joint project between Russian Aircraft Corp. MiG and France's Thales Avionics and Snecma engine-maker. &quot;I was impressed by the quality of the craft's performance. It is very easy to pilot.&quot;
 Job said at the demonstration that the MiG-AT symbolizes an important step in relations between the two countries, which fought side-by-side in World War II and have since cooperated in the aircraft industry. 
 Russia and France began cooperation on the craft in 1997. The two existing MiG-AT prototypes, built at MiG's production facility in Moscow, are powered by two Snecma Larzac 04R20 engines. The craft that Job flew also uses Thales' Topflight avionics system, while the other prototype uses Russian avionics. 
 The MiG-AT was first designed in the early 1990s to replace the Russian air force's vast fleet of Czech-made L-29 and L-39 trainer jets. The craft first flew in 1996, as did its main competitor, the Yak-130. 
 So far, the MiG-AT's two prototypes have made 750 flights, said the plane's chief designer, Vasily Shtykalo. The trainer is now going through a program of official tests, and it is expected to be certified for use by the air force in 2003. MiG has big plans for selling the jet abroad, but the craft must be accepted by the Russian Air Force before foreign countries would even consider buying it.
 MiG-AT was at the center of controversy last month when the air force chose Yakovlev's Yak-130 in a tender for a new trainer jet. The air force said the Yak-130 is superior because it combines the features of a trainer and a combat jet, allowing for its use in conflicts. 
 Until recently, Yakovlev had cooperated with Italy's Aermacchi in building the Yak-130. Aermacchi, however, is pursuing its own M346 trainer project, which is based on the Yak-130.
 Commander in Chief Vladimir Mikhailov confirmed Friday that the air force will split the contract between the two trainers. &quot;We will use both the Yak-130 and MiG-AT when they are built,&quot; Mikhailov told reporters, declining to give the number of jets required by the air force.
 Yakovlev is currently focusing its efforts on building its first prototype at its Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod. The company plans to deliver four Yak-130s next year, after which it will begin 18 months of official testing.
 Both companies are estimating that the Russian air force will need hundreds of trainer jets after the Czech planes are decommissioned, although the air force itself has said that no new planes will be bought before 2005.
 Though touting their jets for Russian student pilots is a priority for both MiG and Yakovlev, tapping foreign markets is of equal importance. MiG sees the French contribution to the MiG-AT as serious leverage in negotiations.
 MiG acknowledges that its trainer will face fierce competition in the year's to come from other foreign trainers, but the company is confident of its niche in the market.
 &quot;The star hour for the MiG-AT could be the period from now until 2008,&quot; said Igor Amosov, executive secretary of the Russian-French MiG-AT coordination council.
 MiG will be competing with Britain's BAE Systems Hawk trainer; the L-159 advanced light-combat aircraft, developed jointly by the Czech Republic and U.S. Boeing; Italy's Aermacchi M346; European EADS's Mako; and U.S. Lockheed Martin's T-50.
 MiG hopes to sell its trainer to poorer countries. Amosov said the MiG-AT costs half as much as Britain's Hawk, which retails for around $20 million. Both jets are competing for an Indian order of some 60 trainer jets.
 Another advantage lies in safety, with the MiG-AT having two engines, while its competitors have just one, Amosov said. Also, Snecma and Thales have a widespread network of servicing centers should the craft need repairs.
 Russia and France should be able to sell as many as 400 MiG-ATs before 2010, Amosov said, and MiG's own proceeds from these sales could amount to as much as $3 billion. MiG also has some 12 other jets in various stages of assembly, he added.
 Asked whether France will sign the aircraft for its own air force, Job said that it was too early to say.
 He said France needs to replace its German/ French Alfa-Jet trainers, but that it plans to fly them until at least 2012.

TITLE: Yukos Closer To Grabbing Gas Producer
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - To further solidify its grip on Rospan International, oil major Yukos on Monday named new managers and a new board of directors at the lucrative Siberian gas producer.
 
Viktor Solovykh, a vice president at Yukos' exploration and production division, was appointed general director, replacing Rospan external manager Mikhail Rubtsov.
 &quot;The election of the new management, as well as the closing of Rospan's bankruptcy proceedings, will allow the work of the enterprise to get back to normal,&quot; Yury Beilin, Yukos president for exploration and production, said in a statement. &quot;This is in the interests of all of its shareholders, creditors and workers.&quot;
 Yukos owns a controlling stake in Rospan, and oil major Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, is the company's largest creditor. On March 26, the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled to halt bankruptcy proceedings against Rospan. This was done against the wishes of TNK officials, who have long had their eyes on Rospan's $9 billion in gas reserves.
 A group of armed guards tried to storm into the company's Novy Urengoi office in an attempt to install a new general director, Prime-Tass reported Friday. The group's affiliation remains unclear. TNK asked the Yamal-Ne netsk and Novy Urengoi regional administrations to intervene and put a stop to the conflict.
 Yukos said in a press release that its offer to sell 44 percent of Rospan's shares to TNK is still good.
 The government's 36.8 percent stake in the Siberian oil producer will be auctioned off May 24, and the starting price has been set at $225 million. Both Yukos and TNK have said they would participate. 
 Analysts say that Yukos will give TNK this stake if TNK agrees not to participate in the upcoming auction of Eastern Oil Co.

TITLE: Duma Rebels on Central Bank Legislation
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In the face of government and Central Bank opposition, the State Duma passed controversial amendments to the law on the Central Bank in the crucial second reading in a landslide vote Friday.
 
&quot;The government will raise the issue of returning [the amendments] to the second reading,&quot; Interfax quoted Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying after the Duma session.
 The government objected to amendments that would create a 13-member National Banking Council with the right to approve the Central Bank's annual financial statements and accounting rules. The government has been pushing for a 12-member council with supervisory powers.
 Central Bank Chairperson Sergei Ignatyev, who recently replaced Viktor Gerashchenko, a bitter opponent of the amendments, worked on the government's amendments while serving as Kudrin's first deputy in the Finance Ministry.
 President Vladimir Putin's representative to the Duma, Alexander Kotenkov, said that, due to a technicality, the amendments would have to be returned to the second reading, which is when the main text is hammered out, Prime-Tass reported.
 Bowing to government wishes, the Duma rejected one amendment that would have made the National Banking Council, with the board of directors and Central Bank chairperson, a governing body, thus leaving the Central Bank with no governing bodies of its own.
 In a compromise, deputies agreed to a Jan. 1, 2003 deadline for the Central Bank to divest its stake in the country's second largest bank, Vneshtorgbank, pending a separate law. The amendments stipulate the Central Bank's divestiture from Russian foreign banks, but set no deadline for its stake in No. 1 Sberbank.
 Other amendments passed Friday would give the National Banking Council power to approve the Central Bank's administrative expenses, including pension and insurance contributions and capital expenditures; approve the procedure for allocating the Central Bank's retained earnings; request the Duma instigate an Audit Chamber review of the Central Bank and its affiliates; and name the Central Bank's auditor. The council would also have the right to review the Central Bank's draft monetary policy and review quarterly the information provided to the board of directors on the Central Bank's activities.
 &quot;The important thing is that the National Banking Council is not a governing body, but it could still limit the Central Bank's independence by using its given functions to put pressure on the Central Bank,&quot; said Alexei Moiseyev, an economist at Renaissance Capital.
 The amendments raise questions about implementation and the division of authority and accountability among the National Banking Council, the Central Bank's board of directors and the Duma.
 &quot;The issue is not only what authority the governing bodies are given, but how they're demarcated,&quot; said Alexander Astapovich, deputy head of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. &quot;All operating issues should be the decided by the Central Bank.&quot;

TITLE: Mortgages on Farms in Line for Deputies' Approval
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The State Duma decided on Friday to allow farmland to be mortgaged, removing one of the main obstacles to development of the agricultural sector.
 
&quot;For agriculture this innovation is like a second wind, or maybe even more - it has been given a second life,&quot; Vyacheslav Gushcha, a lecturer at Krasnodar Agrarian University, said in a telephone interview Friday. &quot;Now agricultural enterprises will be able to get access to the credit resources that they desperately lack.&quot;
 The Duma approved an amendment to the 1998 Law on Real Estate Mortgages, which had listed farmland, along with state and municipal lands, as ineligible to be mortgaged.
 The amendment allows farmland to be mortgaged just like apartments, buildings and most of other types of land, such as private or corporate plots under individual buildings, including dachas with their gardens or agricultural enterprises. The amended law must still be approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
 The amendment had been long under discussion, but the issue gathered new momentum with the Duma getting ready to tackle a long-awaited law on the sale of agricultural land. The legislation is expected to come up for a first reading later this month. 
 Gennady Kulik, the new head of the Duma's Agriculture Committee, told the newspaper Vedomosti just after his appointment Wednesday that he believes the legislation must include a section outlining procedures for mortgaging farmland.
 But the issue is complicated and requires more than just a section in the law legalizing agricultural land sales, said Grigory Bystrov, vice president of the European Council for Agriculture Law and member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
 &quot;All the participants in this market, including banks, farms, real estate and insurance companies, surveyors, appraisers and others, must be clearly defined and the mechanisms of their responsibilities must be made clear,&quot; Bystrov said Friday by telephone. 
 &quot;We must decide which system of land appraisal would be used to assess land plots before they are sold - a cadastre or market one - and the state must provide some start-up capital to launch the mortgage system.&quot;
 Dmitry Zhukovsky, an official in the mortgage department of state-owned Rosselkhozbank, which gives low-interest loans to agricultural firms, said his bank has been working on a system of land mortgaging for a long time, but many issues are not yet clear, including how to assess the value of the land and what interest rates to charge.
 Perhaps the biggest problem to be solved before farmland can be mortgaged on a large scale is making sure the owners of land have proper title deeds registered with the Justice Ministry.
 About 12.4 million villagers got land plots as a result of the privatization in the early 1990s. The only document most still possess is a certificate on land ownership issued locally. The Justice Ministry started to register land parcels only at the end of the decade, and only those who bought or sold parcels would have registered their property.
 Most land is held in common in the former collective farms that have restructured into joint-stock societies, and any decision on mortgaging the land would require bringing all the owners together.
 This would be difficult, because at least 50 percent of the people who participated in the privatizations are dead, have left the villages or emigrated, agricultural experts say. The new law on agricultural land is expected to spell out how to settle the issue with the absentees.
 Another problem is determining the value of a land parcel. Federal and regional governments are supposed to pay for a cadastre - a valuation of the land, usually for taxation purposes - but a lack of funding means that owners usually must pay themselves if they want to mortgage or sell their land.
 &quot;Cadastre valuation might take about half a year and could cost up to 500,000 rubles ($16,000) depending on the size,&quot; Zhukovsky said. &quot;This is because for large land plots aviation photography must be done and it is expensive.&quot;

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Chicken Confidence
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - U.S. chicken industry officials said they expect to meet Russian demands on tightening quality control on poultry exports, Interfax reported Monday.
 Satisfying the demands of the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary service is the main condition for lifting the ban on poultry imports that Russia imposed March 10.
 U.S. Poultry and Egg Export Council President Jim Sumner said he had reason to believe the ban would be lifted in line with the conditions of the signed protocol, Interfax reported.
 
 
Ruble Firms
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The ruble firmed against the dollar on Monday on the interbank market as banks sold dollars to boost ruble liquidity, dealers said.
 "Trading started quietly, but later it looks like a large client [dollar] offer appeared and the dollar for 'today' delivery fell," a dealer said.
 "Now the quotes are a bit higher, but the dollar is unlikely to move significantly higher."
 In the unified trading session of eight exchanges, which usually serves as the basis for the Central Bank's next day ruble/dollar rate, the ruble's weighted average for today settlement was little changed at 31.1893 per dollar from the previous 31.1820.
 
 
Moore Positive
 

MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - Russia may become a full member of the World Trade organization in about 18 months, WTO Secretary General Mike Moore said in an interview published Monday in Vremya Novostei.
 "I strongly believe that Russia has all chances to join the WTO within the coming 18 months. We see a real progress in Moscow, Washington and Brussels," he said, referring to recent support for Russia's WTO bid by the United States and the European Union.
 "I would be very disappointed if Russia fails to become a WTO member by the next WTO ministerial meeting in the second half of 2003," he said.
 Russia and WTO members still have to settle a number of disagreements, including the level of protection for Russia's agricultural sector, Moore said. 



TITLE: Time for Europe To Take Free-Trade Lead
AUTHOR: By Stephan Richter
TEXT: WITH its heated rhetoric and threats of retaliation, the trans-Atlantic fight over U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to raise tariffs against imported steel may look like just another trade dispute. But Pascal Lamy, trade commissioner for the European Union, is using the steel spat to make the EU the new rule maker for international trade.
 
His effort marks a role reversal of historic proportions in world politics. Fifty years ago, there was a country that, when it came to international trade, put the welfare of the world economy ahead of its own. That country was the leading economic power of its day, and its ideas about economics and finance determined the direction global policy would take; it was, of course, the United States.
 The United States is still the world's leading economic power. But what happens when the hegemon's chief loses sight of the global picture and becomes distracted by internal matters - like securing the votes of steel states? Someone else, with different ideas on how the global economy should be organized, might fill the vacuum. Lamy, one of Europe's most strategy-minded politicians, is hoping to do just that.
 The Europeans are taking great care to play by the rules in the steel dispute. The EU is keen to ensure that even stiff European retaliation is fully justified under World Trade Organization rules. It hopes that U.S. action, by contrast, looks as much as possible like a temper tantrum.
 Not that the Europeans are above street-level politics. The EU has already prepared an attack plan in the form of a carefully chosen set of countervailing tariffs - covering 316 products, from motorcycles to orange juice, worth more than $2 billion - designed with the U.S. electoral map in mind. If, as many people believe, Bush adopted the steel tariff in large part to secure steel-state votes in 2004, the Europeans are ready to try to show that the steel tariff can also result in lost votes in states where people are hurt by Europe's targeted retaliation. The EU plan will not go into effect until other tactics have failed, in particular anti-tariff cases brought before the WTO by the EU and others against the United States. But Lamy has his plan ready just in case.
 Clearly Lamy is hoping that, one way or another, the U.S. administration will find that the steel tariffs are all pain and no gain. If it does so, he will be ready with an ingenious, and very European, proposal that would go far beyond safeguarding metal-working jobs. Lamy well knows that trade discussions can rapidly get bogged down in detailed discussions that, while they may provide arcane entertainment for industry experts, leave little room for sweeping strategy. He is interested, however, in leveraging the steel quarrel into a different kind of opportunity, as can be glimpsed in a letter he sent to his U.S. counterpart, Robert Zoellick, in mid-February.
 As Lamy notes in his letter, the root problem is the global steel-production overcapacity and resulting stiff competition. Bush is raising tariffs to shield U.S. industry temporarily from competitive pressures so that it can restructure. The big steel companies face heavy &quot;legacy costs&quot; - promises of pension and health-care payments.
 In his letter to Zoellick, Lamy proposes a fund that &quot;could meet legacy costs associated with the definitive closure of production facilities, help steel workers retrain and promote economic development in regions where steel plants were cutting capacity or closing.&quot;
 This fund, Lamy noted, could be financed by a 2-percent levy on steel sold in the United States, whether domestic or imported. Lamy emphasized that Europe wants to assist the U.S. steel industry in restructuring to avoid collapse. But at the same time, Europe wants the steel tariff removed. U.S. acceptance of this approach would show that there are other ways for governments to affect industrial policy beyond throwing up occasional tariffs.
 Most experts agree that the U.S. steel tariff probably violated WTO rules. The Bush administration is already facing a high-profile loss in the WTO's decision that corporate tax breaks for U.S. exporters were against the rules. (It is now up to the U.S. Congress to adjust the tax code to pass muster with the WTO and thereby avoid sanctions.) Another loss would be embarrassing for a country that has placed the Doha round of trade negotiations at the center of its international economic policy.
 More important, U.S. actions seem to betray the United States' free-trade legacy. In the formative years of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - the precursor to the WTO - the United States was willing to make significant sacrifices to strengthen the free-trade system. But the United States was also the rule maker because the system was, after all, its creation. The Europeans, on the other hand, were the source of major violations and tensions in the system.
 Now the tables are turned. Europe is far from being the poster boy of international trade, as witnessed by its attempts to keep out Latin American bananas a few years ago. But what is different now is that the United States is willing to be a violator of trade rules - and that Europe is willing to seize the opportunity to become rule maker itself.
 How? Europe, by the way it frames its complaints to the WTO, will get to structure the nature of the case. That, in turn, will play a huge role in determining the nature of implementing rules. In an area like world trade, where much of the &quot;case law&quot; remains to be determined, this amounts to substantial power.
 In the weeks to come, it is important to remember that the bottom line for Lamy and the EU is not steel. It is nothing less than wresting the leadership of world economic regulation from the United States. U.S. violations of WTO rules are the route by which Europeans can assert their interpretation of those rules. By playing the good global citizen, Europe aims to become the world's pacesetter. That is one goal that all the 15 EU countries can agree on.
 
 <i>
Stephan Richter is publisher of The Globalist, a daily online magazine about the global economy. This comment appeared in The New York Times. </i>

TITLE: President Facing An Impossible Task Ahead
TEXT: THIS month marks the halfway point in President Vladimir Putin's first term. Putin continues to enjoy high poll ratings, a submissive parliament and a reputation as the strong hand on the tiller of state. But will that be enough to earn him a second term?
 
Russia has seen dramatic changes during Putin's first two years, but no real reform. One of the authorities' main problems is the shortage of good people. The standoff between the Yeltsin-era &quot;family&quot; and the new blood from St. Petersburg has turned into a standoff between incompetent clerks and talented con artists. The oligarchs are the sort of people who will survive under any regime, unless they're taken out at short range. Most of the members of Putin's inner circle are appointed according to a simple principle. Like the Saracen soldiers assigned to guard Frederick Barbarossa, they are strangers in their own land and in this business environment. And for that reason they will fight all the harder to preserve the power of those who made them what they are today.
 Two years without reform is a long time. Eighteenth-century England could pass two, 10 or 100 years in internecine feudal strife. But feudal wars over infrastructure are something else entirely. Russian oligarchs can't invest in upgrading their fixed assets because investments in bureaucrats deliver solid profits, while money sunk into fixed assets drains a company's resources and makes its enterprises attractive targets for acquisition. Natural monopolies are even less likely to invest in fixed assets. In theory they should furnish financial support for the Kremlin, but in fact they're more often stripped by their own managers.
 Our industrial equipment has depreciated by an average of more than 80 percent: Soon pipelines will start to burst and factories grind to a halt. Fifteen companies control 80 percent of Russian exports. As the crisis approaches, they will start to ask the government for help. Without it, they won't survive. In order to bail out the industrialists, the government will begin to borrow money in the West and sell off the Central Bank's gold and cash reserves. When those reserves are exhausted we will face an economic crisis that will make August 1998 seem like a walk in the park. The new crisis will be the result of a general collapse in the country's industrial infrastructure. By that point, the names of our industrial oligarchs will probably be long forgotten, just as today we have forgotten the once-mighty bankers Alexander Smolensky and Vladimir Vinogradov.
 And after that crisis the government will have no choice but to sell off our remaining industries to foreigners piecemeal and for a song. Will the infuriated, impoverished people stand for the auctioning off of the motherland? Or will political outsiders, denied a place at the trough, finally stir the people to a new Pugachyov rebellion? Putin is doing the predictable thing, but to save Russia will require him to do the impossible.
 
 <i>
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT. </i>

TITLE: New Code Regulates Managerial Liablity
AUTHOR: By Maxim Kalinin and Igor Gorchakov
TEXT: THE adoption of the new Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, which was passed on Dec. 26, 2001, and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 30, 2001, will bring considerable changes in the entire system of administrative law when it enters effect on July 1, 2002. From that date, the code will be the single federal law regulating the legal liability for breaches of Russian laws governing currency, customs, antimonopoly issues, advertising, some taxation areas and some other areas. Currently, these areas are governed by a number of different laws, including the federal Tax Code, Customs Code, and the law &quot;On Currency Regulation and Currency Control.&quot;
 
The Code of Administrative Offenses also introduces some important new regulations that will increase the liability of managers of Russian companies for certain violations of Russian law. In particular, Article 14.21 provides that the general director or other executives of a Russian company responsible for its management, shall be held liable in cases of the &quot;improper management&quot; of the company. The term &quot;improper management&quot; is defined very broadly and may include any actions contradicting the lawful interests of the company and/or its creditors that result in a reduction of the company's assets and/or other damages. A general director found by a court to have committed an act fitting this definition faces a fine of up to 10 minimum monthly wages (each 100 rubles, or about $3.20) or &quot;disqualification&quot; for a period of up to three years.
 Further, in accordance with Article 14.22 of the code, any manager may be penalized for carrying out transactions or committing other acts that do not lie within his or her competence. For example, the general director of a Russian joint-stock company may be penalized in accordance with this article if he/she concludes a &quot;major transaction&quot; without the approval of the board of directors or a vote at a general shareholders meeting when such approval is required. The penalty prescribed in this article is the same as that in Article 14.21.
 The inclusion of &quot;disqualification&quot; of a manager or a member of the board of directors as one of the penalties prescribed is interesting in that it represents another new element introduced by the code. Disqualification entails prohibiting the person who is determined to have committed an offense the right to hold a management or administrative position in any company for a term lasting from six months to three years. 
 If the disqualified person violates the prohibition on holding such positions, he or she can be fined an amount of 50 minimum monthly wages. Likewise, if a company hires a disqualified manager or does not terminate a contract with a manager after his or her disqualification, the company can face a fine in the amount of up to 1,000 minimum monthly wages.
 This element is one that may raise some difficulties in practice, as the code does not provide for establishment and maintenance of a register of disqualified managers, leaving it unclear as how companies are to be expected to be aware of the status in this respect of a manager they are planning to hire.
 
 <i>
Maxim Kalinin is a partner and Igor Gorchakov an associate at Baker &amp; McKenzie law firm's St. Petersburg Office. </i>

TITLE: Troubles Are Just Beginning for the New TV6
AUTHOR: By Manana Aslamazian
TEXT: THE tender for TV6's broadcasting license that ended March 27 was a very stressful experience for all involved - indeed in my two years as a member of the Federal Tender Commission (responsible for awarding broadcasting licenses) I cannot recall such a difficult tender. The whole thing was highly politicized, and there was a great deal of speculation regarding who would win, who actually stood behind each of the 13 bids, how much influence the authorities had on the commission, whether there would be a level playing-field, etc.
 
To start with, I personally wish that the tender had never had to take place - that is, I wish the situation with TV6 had never developed as it did and that the shareholders, LUKoil and Boris Berezovsky, had been able to come to an agreement and avert bankruptcy proceedings. 
 However, things did not work out that way and the commission found itself faced with MNVK (the legal entity that held the TV6 license) being put into liquidation and the necessity to make a decision as to who should receive the license for TV6's frequency once MNVK is finally liquidated. 
 The tender process was very difficult and I often found myself of two minds. On the one hand, I was sympathetic to the team of journalists under Yevgeny Kiselyov and wanted them to be put back on air. The events surrounding NTV and TV6 deprived a very professional and strong team of journalists (a team with a lot of interesting programs and stable ratings) of the opportunity to practice their profession. 
 On the other hand, there were 12 other bids and naturally the issue arose of awarding the license to a consortium that was new and different. I had doubts about the Shestoi Telekanal consortium, consisting of Kiselyov's team and a group of oligarchs as financial backers. However, the presence of a large group of investors seemed to have certain advantages, as no single person would be able to influence the editorial line of the team (one of the main accusations leveled against Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky vis-a-vis their media holdings). With many divergent interests, it would be hard for one person to use the channel as a weapon for furthering his political agenda. 
 But then there was the concern that the various oligarchs could come to some agreement among themselves, that stakes would be sold, and as a result, before too long control of the channel would be concentrated in the hands of one person.
 Furthermore, just a few days before the deadline for submitting tender bids, the idea was floated of Kiselyov's team and the group of oligarch-backers joining forces with the Media-Sotsium non-commercial partnership, led by Yevgeny Primakov and Arkady Volsky. This was a most alarming development as it looked exactly as if the authorities did not trust the Shestoi Telekanal consortium and thought it necessary to put some supervisors in place to serve as the eyes and ears of the Kremlin - people that the Kremlin trusted and who would serve as a guarantee that the channel would be loyal (in particular at sensitive times such as during elections).
 In assessing bids for broadcasting licenses, there are three main criteria: (i) the quality of the <i>tvorcheskaya kontsepsiya, </i>which covers programming plans and how interesting they are deemed to be from the perspective of the viewing public; (ii) the quality of the business plan, who is providing the financing, and how commercially viable the whole project is deemed; (iii) the professional qualities of the journalists and the &quot;creative team.&quot;
 When I started to read the tender bids, it became apparent that none of the consortia were putting forward very original and fresh ideas for the channel. For the most part, they contained general ideas and none of them struck me as outstanding. Those consortia that already had broadcasting experience tended to list old programs that they planned to revive. The concept presented by the Media-Sotsium consortium was the most detailed and obviously it had the major advantage that Kiselyov's team is a known quantity with a track record.
 It was clear that the tender commission members were in a Catch-22 situation. If we voted for Media-Sotsium and the Kiselyov team, people would say that a deal had been done and that the commission members were simply Kremlin puppets voting as they were told. If we voted against them, on the other hand, people would again shout that we were Kremlin puppets for not allowing the &quot;democratic&quot; Kiselyov team back on the air, smothering freedom of speech, etc. Thus, it was pretty obvious that either way, we would make a lot of people unhappy. 
 In short, we decided not to worry about public opinion and focus entirely on delivering a decision that would best serve the interests of the viewing public. In the end, the commission voted unanimously for Kiselyov's team and the Media-Sotsium bid, despite certain concerns: While, it is in the president's interest to be seen to be returning Kiselyov and Co. to the airwaves, so that no one can accuse him of clamping down on freedom of the press, in view of the structure of the consortium the editorial team could be &quot;controlled.&quot;
 Apart from TV6, I thought there were three other strong bids. One of which was the Ultrakomtrast bid - a consortium involving the former first deputy head of TV6, Pavel Korchagin, and anchor Andrei Norkin together with financing from TPG Aurora. On the commercial / financial side, their bid was stronger than that of Media-Sotsium, but they did not have such a strong team of journalists and this was one of the reasons why they lost out.
 The situation surrounding TV6, however, remains extremely difficult. First, bankruptcy proceedings for MNVK could drag on until autumn and maybe for much longer, and it is quite possible that Kiselyov and his team will not be able to recommence broadcasting for quite some time.
 Second, TV6's regional network to a large extent consists of partnership agreements with independent regional television companies (the TV6 broadcasting license itself covers just Moscow and 22 other cities) and this network is at serious risk of falling apart as regional companies look for alternative sources of programming to fill the void - indeed some have already found alternative partners. Thus, the winning consortium will have its work cut out to restore the network to its former strength and the sooner they get back on air, the better.
 
 <i>Manana Aslamazian is general director of Internews-Russia, a nonprofit organization that provides support to independent regional television broadcasters, and a member of the Federal Tender Commission. She contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: I'm Being Done a Disservice
TEXT: LAST week, the State Duma voted down a proposal by the Liberal Russia party to set up a parliamentary commission to investigate the 1999 apartment-building bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, which killed more than 300 people.
 
Liberal Russia, it should be recalled, is funded by self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who has been claiming for months now that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind the explosions. He recently paid for a film entitled &quot;The Assassination of Russia,&quot; which made these accusations once again without offering any new evidence to support them. The accusations that the FSB was involved in the explosions have been widespread since the incidents themselves and have never been properly investigated.
 In voting down Berezovsky's motion, the deputies probably felt that there was no point in getting lost in the labyrinth of mutual accusation and denial that this scandal threatens to become. But I really wonder if refusing to discuss the matter and hear whatever evidence is available is really the right way for a struggling democracy to proceed.
 The other day, Yuly Rybakov, a Duma deputy from St. Petersburg who was elected on the Union of Right Forces ticket but who is now a leader of Liberal Russia (although he says that he is not a member of the party and lists himself as an independent), handed me a stenogram from a session of the Duma that was held on Sept. 13, 1999. 
 The situation at that session was very tense. There had already been considerable violence in Dagestan and, earlier that very day an apartment-building explosion on Kashirskoye Shosse in Moscow that killed 124 people.
 According to the stenogram, a very strange thing happened as the session was being opened. Speaker Gennady Seleznyov interrupted the proceedings with a surprising announcement.
 &quot;I have just received a report. According to information from Rostov-na-Donu, an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night,&quot; Seleznyov said.
 And then Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the Liberal-Democratic Party and deputy speaker of the Duma, chimed in: &quot;And there is a nuclear-power station in Volgodonsk.&quot; The deputies then proceeded to discuss the situation without returning to this startling information.
 The interesting thing about this exchange is that the apartment-building explosion in Volgodonsk, which killed 19 people, took place three days later, on Sept. 16.
 Rybakov has sent an official inquiry about the incident to the Prosecutor General's Office, asking that Seleznyov be interrogated about the incident. The speaker himself has been coy. Cornered by reporters last month in the Duma, he was asked who gave him this report and he replied with a broad smile, &quot;It wasn't Berezovsky.&quot;
 Maybe there is an innocent explanation. As it turns out, there was an explosion in Volgodonsk on Sept. 13. A small device went off on a city street, injuring two schoolteachers and a student. A homemade bomb also exploded in the village of Artyom in the Primorsky Region that day. 
 &quot;Seleznyov may have just mixed things up, since everyone was thinking and talking about the Kashirskoye Shosse explosion in Moscow,&quot; reasoned the pro-Kremlin Web site strana.ru in a report last month.
 What disturbs me most is that the deputies in the Duma don't seem at all curious about any of this. They voted not to screen Berezovsky's film at an official session. The pro-Kremlin factions - Unity and Fatherland-All Russia - voted the resolution down, despite the fact that the Communists, Agrarians and the Union of Right Forces voted to watch the film. Control of the Duma these days is in the hands of the Kremlin.
 Maybe the deputies thought it would be a waste of their precious working time. This argument seems a bit flimsy, though, when you consider how much time they spent discussing the &quot;anti-Russian conspiracy&quot; at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Or how much time they spent at a recent session debating the proper spelling of the Russian word for &quot;parachute.&quot;
 Rybakov told me that more than 200 deputies took copies of the film from him to watch at home.
 &quot;They will watch it under their blankets so that no one sees them,&quot; Rybakov sneered.
 Union of Right Forces leader Boris Nemtsov was quoted by the BBC last week expressing despair over the concept of parliamentary inquiries.
 &quot;The experience of attempts to set up a commission to probe the Kursk disaster shows that the centrist factions never support the idea of commissions of inquiry, fearing that they may thereby do their boss a disservice,&quot; Nemtsov said.
 It looks like it will still be a while before Duma deputies see the people of Russia as their &quot;boss&quot; and worry about whether or not they are doing the people a &quot;disservice.&quot;

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: You will be much relieved to know that U.S. President George W. Bush's witless dithering while the Holy Land burns is, in fact, a manifestation of the will of God. 
 
That's because Witless was appointed to his post not, as you might think, by five corrupt bagmen on the Supreme Court, but by the Almighty Himself. The revelation of this divine anointing was proclaimed at a Texas church this week - on Easter Sunday no less - in the presence of Bush the Father and Bush the Son. 
 The latter received the Word of his apotheosis with a humble chuckle and lordly nod of his head, AP reports, as the Reverend Michael Taylor of Canaan Baptist Church looked back on the glorious five weeks of recount litigation that parked Junior's blessed butt in the Oval Office.
 &quot;My friend, President Bush, for us who believe, that day of the counting it was all over but the shouting,&quot; cried Taylor, as the rafters rang with &quot;Amen!&quot; from the congregation. The recount result, Taylor said, was &quot;the will of God, who appoints those who are in authority to be there.&quot; (Including, of course, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar, Idi Amin, Ayatollah Khomeini, King George III - God's little sunbeams every one, raised up and confirmed in power by His mighty hand.)
 Taylor promised there would be &quot;blessings to the believer&quot; on the final day of reckoning, but warned that God would take a break from meddling in electoral politics to &quot;launch the most terrifying judgement on the unbelievers,&quot; who will burn in eternal hellfire for their failure to subscribe to the narrow set of superstitions, prejudices and self-selected cultural norms embraced by a certain number of white American fundamentalists in the early 21st century.
 Braced by this message of exquisite theological subtlety, Bush ran out and ordered the divinely appointed leader of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, to &quot;denounce terrorism&quot; by making a speech, in Arabic, to that effect to his people. At that very moment, of course, Arafat was barricaded in his office by the divinely appointed Ariel Sharon, with no electricity and no access to communications, save for a few cell phones with fading batteries, and Israeli tanks pointing their gun barrels at the door.
 Bush also urged Arafat to use his Palestinian Authority police to &quot;do more&quot; to round up suspected terrorists. At that very moment, of course, Israeli military forces were arresting and/or shooting Palestinian Authority police by the hundreds and destroying their offices all across the West Bank, effectively destroying the ability of the PA to operate in any capacity whatsoever.
 Hellbound disbelievers in Bush's divine wisdom might be forgiven (as if hellbound disbelievers <i>could </i>be forgiven, of course!) for thinking these presidential adjurations were nothing more than the senseless blatherings of a weak and ignorant mind overwhelmed by events. But as always, hellbound disbelievers would be wrong.
 Yes, it's true that Bush's words bore little relation to reality (when do they ever?); but surely we have learned by now that there is method in his mouthing madness. He can spew any number of contradictions - such as supporting a UN call for Israeli withdrawal while also approving the Israeli incursions, and so on - for one simple reason: <i>he doesn't care.</i>
 Bush doesn't care how many Palestinian grandmothers are shot dead on their way to the hospital by Israeli snipers. He doesn't care how many Israeli teenagers are blown to bits at Passover celebrations. He doesn't care how many Palestinian children grow up in squalor and captivity, how many Israeli children live in fear and trembling every day of their lives. He doesn't care how brutalized both peoples become, how hardened by hate, their humanity numbed and diminished by killing.
 For 14 months, Bush sat on his hands, downgrading the peace process to a backwater for low-level functionaries and retired errand boys. The unfolding horror in the Holy Land was only a sideshow to the main events: the coming invasion of oil-rich Iraq and the projection of U.S. dominance over oil-rich central Asia. 
 Plans for the attack on Afghanistan were finalized (and communicated to the Taliban) in the summer of 2001 - well before bin Laden's pre-emptive strike. And of course, Daddy's folly in keeping Saddam in power after the Gulf War - and Daddy's crimes in betraying the Shiites and Kurds who, at his urging, rebelled against the Iraqi regime - must be erased from history; that was a given from Day One of Junior's administration. 
 The Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be left to simmer - even at a high heat - as long as it didn't spill over and interfere with grand strategy. The death and suffering of those trapped in the conflict meant nothing to a man busy &quot;reordering the world&quot; according to God's will - and the greed of his partners.
 But now the pot has boiled over - and Bush's irritation at having to deal with such trivia was palpable. For days, he bristled testily at questions about his Mideast &quot;policy&quot; - which is of course no policy at all, except to get those hellbound Jews and heathen Arabs to shut up already so he can get on with the godly business of killing Iraqis and pumping black gold from the Caspian basin.
 By midweek however, Bush grew calmer, heartened by a headline that gave joy to all those who hunger and thirst after righteousness:
 &quot;Oil Prices Rise Amid Mideast Turmoil.&quot;
 Ah yes, the Lord looks after His own.

TITLE: Iraq Stops Exporting Oil To Protest Israeli Attacks
AUTHOR: By Sameer Yacoub
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein said on Monday he was cutting Iraq's oil exports for 30 days or until Israel withdrew from Palestinian territories. The announcement triggered an immediate increase in world oil prices.
 
Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid said the cutoff took place as Saddam spoke to the Iraqi people at about 2 p.m. local time. The Turkish state-run pipeline company BOTAS, confirmed that Iraq had stopped exporting.
 Analysts have said such a boycott, which Saddam had earlier threatened, would not affect world oil supplies because other major members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have not agreed to join Iraq's call and other producers likely would make up the difference.
 The United States and Europe are the major buyers of Iraqi oil. Iraq produces more than 2.7 million barrels of crude oil daily, according to OPEC.
 In London, May contracts of North Sea Brent crude shot up on news of Iraq's embargo by $1.44 to $27.43 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. They settled back somewhat to $26.98, up $0.99 from Friday's close.
 On the New York Mercantile Exchange, contracts of light, sweet crude for May delivery jumped to $27.20 before easing back to $26.88 a barrel, up $0.67 from Friday.
 Saddam said Iraq's top leaders met earlier Monday and decided &quot;in the name of the people of Iraq ... to stop exporting oil totally as of this afternoon through the pipelines flowing to the Turkish ports and the south for 30 days&quot; unless Israel withdraws earlier. He said that if Israel had not withdrawn within that 30 days, Iraq would consider what action to take.
 Iraq first called on Arabs to cut oil supplies last week as a way of pressuring the United States to force Israel to end its military incursions into Palestinian territory.
 &quot;The oppressive Zionist and American enemy has belittled the capabilities of the [Arab] nation,&quot; Saddam said Monday. He said the Israeli move into Palestinian territory was intended &quot;to break the Arab and Palestinians and force them to surrender with humiliation to the Zionist-American alliance.&quot;
 Saddam has portrayed himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, a tactic that has helped him break Iraq's isolation since the 1990 invastion of Kuwait.
 U.S. President George W. Bush has failed to win Arab support for another attack on Iraq. He accuses Iraq of supporting terrorists and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
 Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Islamic countries should stop supplying oil for one month to countries with close relations with Israel. 
 Iraq's oil cutoff could pressure other Arab leaders to take similar measures.
 &quot;The Iraqi decision will certainly have an immediate impact on the prices given the volatile situation in the Middle East and recent oil disruption in Venezuela,&quot; said Walid Khadouri, editor in chief of the Middle East Economic Survey.
 &quot;But it is not expected to impact the supplies in the world market.&quot;

TITLE: Blair Speech Signals Support For Anti-Saddam Campaign
AUTHOR: By Ron Fournier
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: COLLEGE STATION, Texas - British Prime Minister Tony Blair emerged from weekend meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush to throw his support behind U.S. plans to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
 
&quot;The regime of Saddam is detestable,&quot; the prime minister said hours after leaving Bush's ranch on Sunday.
 &quot;To allow weapons of mass destruction to be developed by a state like Iraq ... would be grossly to ignore the lessons of Sept. 11, and we will not do it,&quot; Blair said at Texas A&amp;M University.
 Blair's remarks, the strongest signal yet he would support U.S. attacks on Iraq, were a last-minute addition to his speech - drafted Saturday night and Sunday morning while he visited Bush his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
 Chinese President Jiang Zemin, in remarks published on Sunday, urged the United States to refrain from military action against Iraq. &quot;International disputes cannot be solved by force,&quot; he said.
 Blair faces mounting pressure in Britain, including from members of his Labor Party, to steer Bush away from military action against Saddam. Treading carefully, Blair initially did not name any countries when he said terrorist states must be confronted.
 &quot;If necessary, the action should be military and again, if necessary and justified, it should involve regime change,&quot; he said. Bush uses &quot;regime change&quot; to describe what he has in store for Saddam.
 Blair quickly followed the general warning with a specific one to Saddam: &quot;He has to let the [UN weapons] inspectors back in - anyone, any time, any place the international community demands.&quot; Iraq has blocked the promised inspections.
 Blair suggested that any action against Saddam will not occur right away.
 &quot;We will proceed, as we did after Sept. 11, in a calm, measured, sensible but firm way,&quot; he said.
 He also that said countries such as Syria, Iran and North Korea can still change enough to avoid retribution.

TITLE: Russia Tops Sweden To Make Davis Semis
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Marat Safin refused to hang around and tied up Russia's quarterfinal against Sweden with a day to spare.
 
Having never beaten seven-time champion Sweden coming into the tie, Kafelnikov and Safin turned history on its head and swept into an unassailable 3-0 lead by Saturday evening.
 &quot;Now the work is done we can celebrate,&quot; grinned Safin after the decisive doubles victory.
 Sunday's null matches saw Sweden's Thomas Johansson easily overcome Mikhail Youzhny in the first reverse-singles to give Sweden its only win.
 Australian Open champion Johansson beat the 19-year-old Russian, playing only his second-ever Davis Cup match, 6-3, 6-4, in 1:16 on the red clay courts of Luzhniki Stadium. 
 In the second reverse singles match, Sweden's Andreas Vinciguerra retired in the second set after aggravating an old back injury during a match against Andrei Stolyarov.
 On Saturday, Kafelnikov and Safin struck back from being down two sets to one to beat Jonas Bjorkman and Johansson 3-6, 7-6, 6-7, 7-5, 6-3 in the doubles.
 Kafelnikov and Safin followed up on their singles victories to beat the Swedes in 3:38 to send Russia to its first Davis Cup semifinal since 1999.
 &quot;We were motivated and we gave it 100 percent,&quot; said Kafelnikov, who at 28 is eager to secure a Davis Cup victory to add to his Grand Slam titles and Olympic gold medal.
 The Swedes took the first set after Kafelnikov lost his serve in the fourth game, but narrowly lost the second in a tiebreaker when the Russian fired an ace and then slammed a return straight down the line to gain two decisive points.
 The third set again went to a tiebreaker, but this time Sweden held the upper hand, ignoring screams and cheers from the sellout crowd of 13,000 and racing to a 7-2 win.
 The fourth set provided an even matchup, until the Russians broke Bjorkman in the 12th game as he served to stay in the match. Bjorkman was broken again in the fifth set, giving Russia a 5-3 lead. Kafelnikov served for the match, firing off an ace and some solid returns to win 6-3.
 On Friday, Safin made up for losing to Johansson in the Australian Open final by outplaying the Swede 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Kafelnikov then scored a 7-6, 6-3, 6-1 win over Enqvist.
 Russia will host Argentina, a 3-2 winner over Croatia on Sunday, in the semifinal in September. The other semifinal sees the U.S., which beat Spain 3-1, take on France, which downed Croatia 3-2.
 
 <i>(Reuters, AP) </i>

TITLE: Juve Win, Inter Loss Open Up Title Race
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MILAN - Juventus roared back into the Italian title race with a 4-0 win at Perugia on Sunday as first-place Inter Milan suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at home to Atalanta and AS Roma drew 2-2 at relegated Venezia.
 
Juventus remains in third place with four games remaining, but it is just three points behind Inter which has 62, while Roma stayed second with 60 points
 Roma trailed 2-0 at Venezia with just three minutes to go, but substitute Vincenzo Montella scored two penalties as Fabio Capello's side escaped with a point.
 At the San Siro, Daniele Berretta grabbed the winner for Atalanta after Inter's Christian Vieri had cancelled out Luigi Sala's 43rd-minute opener.
 In the race for the fourth Champions League spot, Chievo and AC Milan drew 1-1, leaving Bologna in fourth place after its 1-1 draw at Torino on Saturday.
 
 <strong>
Spain. </strong>Valencia stayed level on points with Real Madrid at the top of the Spanish Primera Liga after a 4-0 thumping of Real Sociedad on Sunday.
 
Goals from Ruben Baraja, Kily Gonzalez, Miguel Angel Angulo and substitute Mista put Rafa Benitez's side back alongside the leader, which laid down the challenge with a simple 3-1 victory at home to Rayo Vallecano on Saturday.
 With five games left, Real and Valencia both have 62 points, with Vicente del Bosque's team ahead because of its superior goal difference.
 Deportivo Coruna, which hosts Real on the last day of the season, retains an interest, with its 5-0 stroll past Real Mallorca on Saturday, keeping it four points behind the top two in third place.
 Celta Vigo, which went down 2-0 at Espanyol, and Real Betis, held to a goalless draw at home to Osasuna, both lost ground in the race for the fourth Champions League qualifying place.
 Celta slips back to fifth, behind Barcelona on goal difference, with Betis in sixth a point further back.
 
 <strong>
England. </strong>Premiership leader Arsenal beat Tottenham 2-1 on a penalty kick with six minutes left Saturday, while second-place Manchester United edged Leicester 1-0. Arsenal leads United by two points and has a game in hand.
 
Freddie Ljungberg shot the ball past Keller in the 24th minute to put Arsenal ahead, but Tottenham tied it in the 81st on Teddy Sheringham's penalty kick. Arsenal went up for good three minutes later, when Tottenham's Dean Ri chards fouled Thierry Henry, and Came roon's Lauren beat Keller on the penalty kick.
 Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored in the 61st minute for United, which is bidding for a record fourth straight title. As a result of the loss, Leicester was relegated.
 In other games, it was: Bolton 4, Ipswich 1; Chelsea 3 Everton 0; Middlesbrough 2, Aston Villa 1; Southampton 1, Derby 0; and West Ham 2, Charlton 0.
 In Scotland, Celtic clinched the Scottish Premier League title - claiming consecutive championships for the first time in 20 years - by thrashing Livingston 5-1.
 
 <i>(Reuters, AP) </i>

TITLE: Iginla Reaches Half Century
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CHICAGO - Calgary's Jarome Iginla became the first - and probably only - 50-goal scorer in the NHL this season as he scored both Calgary goals in a 3-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.
 
After the Blackhawks opened a 3-0 lead on first-period goals by Tony Amonte, Steve Sullivan and Michael Nylander, Iginla reached the 50-goal plateau with a power-play goal with 18.2 seconds left in the period.
 His slap shot from the top of the right circle sailed over Jocelyn Thibault's glove and just under the crossbar to cut the Blackhawks' lead to 3-1.
 Iginla added his 51st goal at 5:51 of the second period, raising his season points total to a league-leading 94. His second goal survived a video review - it was unclear whether Iginla knocked the puck in with his stick or body as he was checked to the ice by Chicago defenseman Joe Reekie.
 Iginla is virtually assured of being the NHL's only 50-goal scorer this season. Following play Sunday, Boston's Bill Guerin was second in the goal-scoring race with 40. Washington's Peter Bondra and Toronto's Mats Sundin were tied for third with 39 goals each.
 The Blackhawks' victory snapped a two-game losing streak and moved them into sole possession of fourth place in the Western Conference.
 &quot;That was a big-time win for us,&quot; Sutter said. &quot;I know this club had 71points last year and we have 93 now.&quot;
 In other games, it was: New Jersey 3, Boston 2 (OT); Buffalo 5, Tampa Bay 3; Montreal 3, Ottawa 1; Colorado 4, St. Louis 2; Anaheim 4, Dallas 1; Carolina 1, Atalanta 1; and Vancouver 4, Phoenix 3.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Americans Dominate
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - American swimmers smashed three world records to bring the world short-course championships to a dramatic conclusion Sunday.
 Aaron Peirsol lowered the men's 200-meter backstroke mark, Lindsay Benko bettered the women's 200-meter freestyle record and Peirsol set the U.S. on the way to another world standard in the men's 4x100-meter medley relay.
 Australia ended on top of the medals table in the Olympiisky pool, claiming two more golds for Ashley Callus and Grant Hackett to take its tally to 10 titles, against eight for the Americans.
 Sweden's Therese Alshammar had to win the 50-meter freestyle twice to claim her fourth gold of the championships after earlier victories in the 100-meter freestyle and the 4x100-meter freestyle and medley relays. The appeals' jury ordered a reswim because a loose screw in the starting block in lane two, occupied by Australia's Sarah Ryan, made the block move in the original race. But there was no change in the medal positions.
 
 
Culloty Takes National
 

LIVERPOOL (Reuters) - Twenty-to-one shot Bindaree galloped to Grand National victory Saturday, landing jockey Jim Culloty a dream double after his Cheltenham Gold Cup win last month.
 Culloty scooped the world's most famous steeplechase after a thrilling tussle up the run-in, regaining the lead from 10-1 chance What's Up Boys. He won by a hard-fought length and three quarters after a ding-dong battle with the classy Hennessy Gold Cup winner.
 Blowing Wind, the 8-1 favourite, given a patient ride by champion jockey Tony McCoy, plugged on 27 lengths behind to be third, the same place he held last year behind Red Marauder. Just 11 of the 40 runners completed the course.
 
 
New One-Day Record
 

PORT ELIZABETH (Reuters) - Australian captain Ricky Ponting admitted his side had "thrown caution to the wind" at the start of its world-record run chase to win the sixth one-day international against South Africa.
 Australia reached 330-7 to win by three wickets, overhauling South Af rica's 326 for three - its highest score against Australia - with five balls to spare.
 The previous record for a successful run chase by a side batting second was 316, achieved by India against Pakistan in Dhaka in 1997-98, and Australia itself against Pakistan in Lahore in 1998-99.
 "We threw caution to the wind, took the challenge head on and got over the line," Ponting said afterwards. "I'd be lying if I said we were confident of winning."
 
 
France Gets Slam
 

LONDON (Reuters) - France clinched its first grand slam in four years with a new blend of flair and disciplined defence in a thrilling 44-5 defeat of Ireland in the Six Nations championship on Saturday. The French became the first team to achieve the feat since the tournament was expanded to six teams with the addition of Italy in 2000.
 On Sunday, former captain Law rence Dallaglio scored on his return to international rugby as England ran in six tries to finish off its Six Nations campaign with a 45-9 victory over Italy.
 The weekend's other match saw Scotland beat Wales 27-22 in an intense but error-riddled match in Cardiff.