SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #767 (33), Tuesday, May 7, 2002
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TITLE: Veterans Seeking Equal Recognition
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: During World War II, Arctic convoys transported material from the West to the U.S.S.R. to aid its fight against Nazi Germany. In recognition of their service, Soviet sailors who served in the Soviet Navy and merchant marine in these convoys received the Arctic Defense Medal.
Now a group of navy veterans is behind an initiative to see that foreign sailors who served in the convoys also receive the recognition their Russian counterparts feel they are due.
"We should give all proper recognition to our colleagues - sailors from Great Britain, the United States, France, Poland, Denmark and Norway - who put their lives at risk just as we did," says Anatoly Uvarov, a captain in the Soviet Navy during the war. "They sailed and often died together with us under the fascist bombs in order to bring essential aid to the Soviet Union."
As a result, last fall Russian veterans of the Arctic convoys launched an initiative to see that all veterans of the allied Arctic convoys receive the Russian medal. "They absolutely deserve the medal that all of the Russian convoy veterans already have," Uvarov says.
Between Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 and the end of World War II, thousands of sailors served in convoys delivering aid under the Lend-Lease program, under which the U.S. delivered arms, ammunition, food supplies and other strategic items to allied countries fighting the Axis powers.
Thousands of sailors in foreign navies and merchant marines were killed or wounded serving in the convoys. Britian alone lost 2,000 naval and 1,000 civilian sailors on this transport route.
Between Aug. 31, 1941 when the first "Dervish" convoy arrived in the Soviet port of Archangelsk, and May 1945, the U.S. and Great Britain organized 42 convoys to the northern ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. In partial payment, the Soviet Union sent 36 convoys bearing raw materials in the opposite direction.
Although the crews of the merchant vessels were usually from a number of countries, the British Navy guarded the convoys until they reached Soviet waters, at which point the Soviet Navy would take over responsibility for defending them. Even with protection from warships, the route was dangerous: An average of between five and six vessels from each convoy were sunk by German submarine and air attacks.
"The battles in the Arctic were the most horrendous of all I had seen in my life," says Eddie Grenfell, a British veteran of the Arctic convoys, who also served in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. "I remember the terrible day when a German bomber sank the Empire Lawrence, the convoy ship I was on, and the horror of that day," Grenfell said in a telephone interview from England.
On May 27, 1942, the convoy of which the Empire Lawrence was part was attacked by over 200 German aircraft of the Luftwaffe. At 2:00 p.m., a flight of six medium bombers focused their attacks on the Empire Lawrence, scoring five direct hits and triggering an explosion in the ammunition-filled holds that turned the vessel into one gigantic fireball.
"I remember it as if it were just yesterday. Flying through the air surrounded by large chunks of steel, one that looked like the ship's funnel," Grenfell says. "I hit the water and went down very deep, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself faced with a swirling black turmoil instead of the green sea I had expected.
"With my lungs close to bursting, I prayed, even argued with my Maker ... . Something was hanging on my right arm. I gave a heave, and brought to the surface the body of someone impossible to recognize. A piece of metal, still there, had almost halved his head in two."
Thanks to his rescue by a British lifeboat, Grenfell survived the ordeal and went on to serve on three more convoys.
Konstantin Sergeyev, a St. Petersburg resident who served in a submarine on the northern convoy routes, says that Grenfell was lucky, as the chances of survival for a sailor whose ship had been sunk were extremely low.
"The average temperature in the Arctic is minus 30 degrees Celsius and the Barents Sea, which the convoys were sailing through, is hit by about 10 to 15 storms a month," Sergeyev says. "A person can generally only survive in these waters for about three minutes."
Grenfell still remembers the conditions the freezing temperatures created on board the ships. "Even inside the ship, the bulkheads were covered with [five centimeters] of ice, and the guns were also iced up," Grenfell says.
Much as any rescue of a sailor in the water had to be done quickly, Uvarov says that there is also an urgency to seeing that the surviving foreign participants in the northern convoys receive their decorations. According to Uvarov, there are only about 250 surviving sailors who served in the convoys still alive in Britain, with another 40 living in the United States, 50 living in France and Norway, and another 50 in Canada and Poland.
Uvarov says that it has been a long haul getting through the bureaucratic barriers to convince the Russian government to award these medals. Previously, allied veterans of the convoys had received medals from Russia, marking the 40th and 50th anniversaries of victory in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War, but the convoy medal is of higher standing, as it is a battle decoration.
Last month, Uvarov and his companions finally received the answer they had been seeking, when Murmansk Governor Yury Yevdokimov, who is responsible for the region where the convoys served, sent them a letter asking them to provide a list of all eligible veterans, in order to send the list to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry for approval.
According to Ray Ball, another British convoy veteran, they would also be thrilled to receive the decorations, as those veterans who have been awarded Russian commemorative medals wear them with great pride.
"To be awarded a medal for actual service would be the icing on the cake, particularly as our own government has not recognized the Arctic convoys as a theater of war and has not issued a campaign medal," Ball said.
Uvarov says that, if all goes according to plan, veterans may get their wish soon. If all the necessary steps are taken quickly by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and a couple of other government bodies involved, the foreign veterans could receive their medals by early fall.
"I think that the most important thing in the world is the friendship between all nations. It shouldn't depend on the games of politicians, who just want to separate us," Sergeyev said. "We fought alongside our foreign allies. We helped each other. We really had the chance to see how reliable and great those people are and we want them to know how we feel about that."
TITLE: Two Russians Kill Five in Estonia
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two Russian citizens, both allegedly graduates of St. Petersburg's Nakhimov Military College, went on a killing spree across Estonia last week, Estonian police reported on Monday.
The suspects, 21-year-old Yury Ustimenko and Dmitry Medvedyev, 20, killed one Latvian police officer and injured two others while trying to escape to Latvia on Sunday morning, Baltic News Service news agency reported on Monday, quoting Estonian police sources.
Medvedyev was killed in the shootout, but Ustimenko managed to escape and is currently at large in the Baltic states, the police reported. Juris Rekshnya, the head of Latvia's police force, was quoted by Interfax on Monday as saying that Medvedyev "most likely came back to Estonia."
Estonian police said that the killers shot in the head and killed a Tallinn weapons-shop worker on Friday, and previously murdered in similar fashion a Tallinn taxi driver, a shop assistant in Tartu and a money courier in Sillamäe.The police also said that the killers could be directly linked to the attempted murder of a shop assistant in Tartu and a businessperson in Sillamäe.
"[The killers] were reveling in their crimes. Ustimenko and Mevedyev's diaries, which the police found, contained excited descriptions made by the films 'Brat' and 'Brat II.' [They] also made business cards with the job description 'predator' on them," said Andres Anvelt, Estonia's Central Criminal Police director in an interview in the Monday edition of daily newspaper Postimies.
According to Interfax reports on Monday, Latvian police suspect that the killers could be members of a neo-fascist organization, after finding portraits of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, as well as photographs of burning skyscrapers from the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, among the suspects' belongings. They also found the suspects' documents, a gun and briefcases containing explosives and detonators.
Estonian police sources also said that both suspects had managed to sneak into Estonia illegally, without visas. Four other people, who the police say met with the suspects and assisted them in carrying out the crimes, were detained in northeast Estonia on Friday, police said.
Early on Sunday morning, Estonian police launched a full-scale search operation, putting armed police patrols on the country's highways. "The police ask all drivers not to flash their lights in response to approaching cars, as it could disturb the operation. Drivers should also be extremely careful if they pick up hitch-hikers on the motorway," BNS quoted the police as saying.
According to the Estonian police, the suspects have also committed a range of crimes inside Russia, including in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. However, said Anvelt, "We don't have official confirmation of this yet. We are waiting for information from our Russian colleagues."
St. Petersburg Criminal Police Department officials said that they had not even heard of the killings, or the killers. "Jolly fellows," said an unidentified authority at the city's Criminal Police Department in a telephone interview on Monday. "But you are better off not asking us. We don't know anything about it."
TITLE: Watchdog Says Press Is Not Free Enough
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Media freedom in Russia is not as well-developed as it should be a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union gave journalists new independence, Russia's human-rights ombudsman said on Friday.
"There are cases when independent journalists are pressured, and not only economically," Oleg Mironov told Interfax, to mark World Press Freedom Day. "They are persecuted, threatened. They get killed by paid assassins. They go missing," he said. Mironov could not be reached for comment as his office was closed for Easter.
A leading Russian organization championing media freedom, the Glasnost Defense Foundation, said last month that 17 journalists had been killed in Russia last year in connection with their professional activities.
Mironov said he is also concerned about attempts by regional authorities to stifle critical media. He noted reports of local officials confiscating newspapers and cutting radio stations off the air.
"It is done openly," Mironov said, according to Interfax.
He said the government's legislation governing mass media was not working and was too weak. He called on the government to adopt a federal law that would "eliminate ungrounded limitations" on information, protect citizens' privacy and penalize officials and organizations who violate the rights of journalists.
"The authorities at all levels do not want to recognize the mass media as a mediator between the citizens and authorities," Mironov said.
President Vladimir Putin's critics have accused his government of stifling the critical media. They pointed to last year's takeover of the country's top independent television station, NTV, by the state-connected Gazprom natural-gas giant and this year's closure of TV6, the last remaining independent nationwide network, after a lawsuit filed by a minority shareholder linked to the government.
Putin has described both cases as purely business disputes, and said that the government had nothing to do with them, but his opponents disagreed, accusing the Kremlin of initiating the moves to stifle critical reporting.
TITLE: Smolny: Cherkesov Backs Latest Charge
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: On April 25, Viktor Krotov became the third St. Petersburg vice governor to have charges brought against him by the Northwest Region Prosecutor's Office in the last year, and City Hall officials have responded with a cry of "enough is enough."
The prosecutor's office charged Krotov with misappropriation of budget funds in connection with $40 million it says were earmarked for the Road Fund in 2000, but instead went, under Krotov's supervision, to projects associated with preparations for the 2000 World Ice Hockey Championships, which were held here.
Krotov denied the charges, saying that he had acted in accordance with the federal budget code.
City Hall has reacted to the incident with accusations that the charges against high-ranking city officials over the last year were brought on the orders of Viktor Cherkesov, the presidential representative for the Northwest Region
Governor Vladimir Yakovlev headed up the city's charge at a meeting held the day the charges were filed against Krotov, accusing the presidential representative's office of using media outlets he said are under Cherkesov's control to pressure City Hall officials.
"Is it the policy of the presidential representative's office to try to represent St. Petersburg in an unattractive way?" Yakovlev asked in a question directed at Nikolai Vinichenko, Cherkesov's deputy. "If this is the case, then they should come out and say it openly."
"How can you use the media to pressure someone for a whole year?" Yakovlev added. "First they release information that the person will be detained soon. Then they threaten him by announcing through the media that charges have been filed, and only then do they inform him officially. ... We're all familiar with the way this works and we don't need this kind of behavior anymore."
Alexander Afanasyev, the spokesperson for City Hall, was more specific, naming RTR state television and local news agency Rosbalt as media outlets taking part in a campaign against city- administration members.
"It's clear from watching [local] RTR reports broadcast in St. Petersburg and reading Rosbalt reports," Afanasyev said in a telephone interview last Tuesday. "Rosbalt is headed by the presidential representative's wife, so what else can you expect."
Cherkesov's wife, Natalya Cherkesova, heads up the Rosbalt agency in the position of project manager.
Representatives of the two media sources singled out reacted to the charges from Smolny by characterizing them as "emotional."
"Of course it's unpleasant for City Hall to hear negative reports about what is taking place in the administration, but it is they themselves who are able to do something to change the situation," Rosbalt News Editor Mikhail Berkovich said in a telephone interview on Monday. "Yes, we were the first to report the Krotov case, but we're not the ones who initiate criminal cases."
"As far as I know, there are no examples of cases where RTR or Rosbalt have engaged in mudslinging in their reports," he added. "If City Hall has examples of cases where this has taken place, it should go to court and prove it. But it hasn't."
Krotov is actually the fourth vice governor to run afoul of the Northwest Region Prosecutor's Office in the last year. An investigation was launched in November against Alexander Potekhin, the acting chief of the Media Committee, for engaging in illegal business activities. No charges were filed against Potekhin. Health Committee head Anatoly Kogan was charged with criminal negligence last month and Valery Malyshev, the head of the Sports and Communications committee, was charged with abuse of office in July.
Officials in Cherkesov's office stand by the charges.
"It is strange to hear these statements. There is no proof of this and it seems like an attempt to put pressure on the investigation," Alexei Gutsailo, spokesperson for the presidential representative's office, said in a telephone interview last Tuesday.
"There's no interest [in discrediting City Hall]. We have one goal here - to observe the law."
The Northwest Region Prosecutor's Office could not be reached for comment on Monday.
A number of local officials and political analysts say that the conflict between Cherkesov and Yakovlev has deep roots and may partially be the result of a struggle for influence within the administration of President Vladimir Putin.
One high-ranking City Hall official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Cherkesov's ill feelings toward Yakovlev were touched off in a row that followed Cherkesov's decision to take over the building that housed the city's Wedding Palace No. 2. The official says that City Hall's opposition to the action did not sit well with Cherkesov.
"He's not a general at all, but is acting more like some woman in a communal-flat kitchen - rancorously and vindictively," the official said.
But Alexei Musakov, the head of the St. Petersburg Center for Regional Development, says that the scrap between City Hall and the presidential representative is related to jockeying for position at the federal level, and that the Yakovlev administration's complaints about Cherkesov are being made at the behest of a group of Kremlin insiders.
"It has to do with the possibility of Cherkesov's status being elevated in the near future. There has been talk Cherkesov is in line to replace [Presidential Chief of Staff] Alexander Voloshin," Musakov said in a telephone interview last week. "This is not in all in the interest of some people [in the Kremlin]."
Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko faction member in the Legislative Assembly, agrees with the balance-of-power theory, saying that Yakovlev may be feeling that Cherkesov's position has been weakened of late as the idea to create an additional government structure in the form of seven presidential-representative posts in the country has not justified itself.
"It looks like [Yakovlev] has support behind him. From what I know, Voloshin's supporters are unhappy about the way the system works," Vishnevsky said in a telephone interview last Tuesday. "[Smolny's] reaction has its roots in a circle in the presidential administration that thinks that it just doesn't make sense for such a state structure to exist."
"If prosecutors can't do their jobs, they should simply be fired," he said. "There's no need to create another governmental position just to keep an eye on them."
TITLE: Fakes Costing Drug Companies $250M
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - More than one in every 10 pharmaceutical products sold in Russia is counterfeit, costing legitimate manufacturers at least $250 million per year in lost sales, industry officials said at a meeting in Moscow at the end of April.
Urging President Vladimir Putin to take quick action, they warned that counterfeits accounted for 12 percent of the market for prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and other pharmaceutical products and that the share could leap to 25 percent within two years.
"The problem has every potential to become a crisis in the country," said Robert Rosen, the executive director of the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, or AIPM. "Putin should recognize this problem at last. Without strong political will, we can not resist it effectively."
AIPM and the Coalition of Intellectual Property Rights released a survey of leading foreign and domestic pharmaceutical companies at the meeting that put $250 million as the conservative estimate of how much was being lost to counterfeits every year. At the rate counterfeits are flooding the market, that amount could double within two years, the survey found.
Previous government and industry estimates had suggested that counterfeit drugs accounted for much smaller market share than the 12 percent cited in the survey. Vladislav Kuznetsov of the Interior Ministry said in October that fakes had a share of 2.7 percent to 7 percent.
"Unfortunately, the survey confirms what we have suspected for quite some time," Rosen said.
Officials said there are four types of counterfeit drugs circulating in Russia: those containing completely different ingredients than promised, or so-called dummy pills; those containing ingredients of inferior quality; those containing a different active ingredient; and, most commonly, pharmaceuticals packaged to look like those of well-known producers.
The survey discovered that most counterfeit products sold in Russia are produced domestically. Imports came mainly from India, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
The study, conducted by GLS Research and PBN, surveyed 53 foreign and domestic pharmaceutical companies. Participants represented more than 55 percent of Russia's pharmaceutical market, including 25 percent of domestic medicines and 70 percent of imports.
More than half of the foreign and local producers reported that at least one of their products was currently being counterfeited. The list of fake drugs includes antibiotics, gastro-intestinal medications, cardiovascular and central-nervous-system medicines, pain relievers and antihistamines.
"The bottom line is a single bad counterfeit or 'look-alike' medicine can result in a very bad outcome for a Russian family, child or senior," Rosen said. "And that's simply one too many for an industry dedicated to saving lives, eradicating disease and lessening the pain and suffering of the sick."
The sale of counterfeits - from medicines and films to music and software - has flourished in Russia over the past decade. Intellectual-property-rights experts have put the cost of fakes to copyright owners at more than $1 billion a year. The government began tackling the issue in earnest two years ago as it mounted a bid for membership in the World Trade Organization.
Companies polled in the pharmaceutical survey ranked counterfeits and look-alike products as the No. 4 challenge to doing business in Russia. The top three are the value-added tax, government corruption and bureaucracy, respectively.
Industry executives said barriers in fighting counterfeits included inadequate enforcement of intellectual-property-rights laws, a lack of penalties for violations, weak political will, corruption and the lobbying power of domestic counterfeit producers.
"No one believes the issue is a priority among political leadership," said Peter Necarsulmer, president and CEO of the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights. Counterfeit products are not even defined in Russian law, he said.
Industry officials complained that, even when a counterfeiting company is investigated and found guilty, police cannot by law destroy the fake drugs. The impounded medicines sometimes later turn up on the open market.
"The industry's message is loud and clear," Rosen said. "The Russian government must pass and enforce laws where the penalties for counterfeit medicine equal the seriousness of this insidious crime."
Yevgeny Myazin, co-chairperson of the Union for the Protection of Consumers' Rights, said that amendments have been drawn up to counter fakes, but they have been waiting in the State Duma for approval since last year.
The survey asked executives to rate several government agencies and authorities on their effectiveness. None were viewed as being effective. The Health Ministry's department for control of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment received the highest ranking, while the Duma received the lowest. "At the same time, the survey found that most pharmaceutical companies are doing too little to protect their own intellectual-property rights," Necarsulmer said.
What's needed, he said, is consumer education. Consumers should be allowed to compare the legitimate product with the fake.
"Why are foreign producers raising this problem only now when the problem has grown to such proportions?" Myazin said. "The reason is many producers didn't want to frighten consumers away from buying legitimate products."
TITLE: Israelis, Palestinians Imprisoned by Politics
AUTHOR: By Frita Ghitis
TEXT: DURING my visit to a refugee camp in the jungles at the Thai-Burma border last year, a Burmese refugee leader related to me an important lesson he learned from the Palestinians: "You can't let life become comfortable for your people," he said, "or they'll give up the struggle." There's little chance that life will become excessively easy for Palestinians today. Still, the Burmese leader was on to something. Suffering is the fuel of the fighting in the Middle East, on both sides of the conflict.
The Palestinians are desperate from life under occupation. What else can they do, goes the standard explanation, but resort to terrorism? The Israelis are desperate after the slaughter inflicted upon them by terrorists. What else can they do, they say, but respond with an iron fist? The Palestinians have endured life with the indignities of Israel's occupation for decades. The Israelis have lived under the threat of destruction by their Arab neighbors for longer. Who's angrier? Who's more determined? Who has suffered more?
In the poisoned well of the Middle East, suffering is the magic potion that invigorates. Israel was built on the ashes of the Holocaust. "Never again" became the mantra of survival. After European anti-Semitism nearly succeeded in exterminating the Jewish people, the Jews of Israel pledged they would never again allow anti-Jewish hatred to develop into a machine of death. Every memory of the 6 million killed in Nazi death camps became a weapon of protection against the new threat from Arab countries repeatedly vowing to wipe Israel off the map.
All the while, most of the Palestinian people lived in misery under Israeli rule or as refugees in Arab countries, trapped between Israel's "never again" creed and the bluster of Arab dictators who exploited the refugees' living condition to divert attention from their own tyrannical rule. No one really worked to improve the lives of Palestinians, and both sides, Arabs and Israelis, unwittingly conspired to stoke the embers of their rage.
Israel may have the most powerful military arsenal in the region, but the weapon of choice in the Middle East is rage - loaded with the ammunition of suffering. Sadly, every salvo from this weapon provides the other side with ammunition. Every suicide bombing energizes Israel's determination. Every military incursion gives the Palestinians a rallying cry to hit again.
The cycle is made even worse by the strategic thinking, on both sides, that the unacceptable policies of the enemy should not be rewarded with compromise.
The manipulation of suffering is nothing new. Yugoslavia's war of self-destruction was built on reminiscence of horrors past. Slobodan Milosevic climbed to the top of the Serbian political world by visiting the site of the Serbs' great defeat at the hands of the Turkish Ottoman Muslims in 1389. The Serbs recounted in gruesome detail what the Croats, as Nazi allies, did to them, and the Croats and Muslims armed themselves with the suffering brought on by the horrors committed by the new Serbs.
But, when it comes to suffering, nobody can top the Middle East. Any Jew will tell you that no people have suffered like the Jewish people. But the Palestinians will be quick to point out that they are the ones suffering more today. Who's keeping count? Everyone is.
It's not easy to win a war fought with suffering and rage. The price is too high. It's even harder to stop this kind of war. It requires leaders with almost superhuman qualities. Not the kind who make sure their people's lives are difficult enough that they won't give up the struggle. It requires Mandelas, Ghandis, visionaries and statespeople. It takes men or women who can rise above human emotion to lead their people away from purely emotional reactions. Individuals like that are obviously not in charge today anywhere in the region. Perhaps they are somewhere, quietly pondering what is to be done. In the meantime, each side will continue to arm itself with rage, and punish the other with its sorrow.
Frida Ghitis is the author of "The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television." She submitted this comment to the Los Angeles Times
By Tom Ackerman
AFTER a week of traveling up and down Israel, I've found it to be a nation mired in a despair it has never known. Nothing captured that mood like a stop at Masada.
Overlooking the Dead Sea, the mountaintop fortress is where Jewish zealots killed themselves rather than surrender to Rome's mighty legions.
It has become an archaeological shrine to Zionist determination never again to leave Jews vulnerable to their enemies.
Yet even Masada has fallen victim to the Palestinian intifada.
Though this monument lies well within Israel's original borders, the tourist buses that carried Jews and gentiles no longer venture there, and its vast parking lot stands deserted, as even Israelis have opted to stay close to home.
For all their outer stoicism and a broad consensus that backs a fierce response to the suicide bombers, an unsparing realization has struck a majority of those Israelis who don't put their faith in divine destiny or messianic ideology.
They are struggling to cope with an emerging awareness of the true price of Israel's 35-year hold on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Outraged over a decisive shift in international sympathy toward the Palestinians, many Israelis accept their government's dismissal of this as just the world's latest spasm of blind prejudice against Jews. But a cold eye might also perceive this reaction as self-pity.
Self-pity also marks their grumbling as the bill for re-tightening Israel's grip on the territories literally comes due.
The government has just called for more tax hikes and cuts in education and welfare programs to pay for Operation Defensive Wall, the military offensive into the West Bank.
Now the country's political factions are haggling over the fairest way to share the fiscal pain.
But while most Israelis strongly assent to what they judge as elemental self-defense, much like Americans have endorsed the strikes in Afghanistan, many of them rue the decision to subsidize more Jewish settlements deep inside land that is still deemed by the government to be negotiable.
Yet during the past year, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has added at least three dozen more outposts, each requiring security deployments that demand a price in money and blood.
And only last month, Sharon told his cabinet that to withdraw from a single isolated settlement deep in the Gaza Strip - Netzarim - would be no more acceptable than giving up Tel Aviv.
But more settlements offer no more security, as even their supporters tacitly admit.
Just a few days after the first stage of Defensive Wall was declared successfully completed, four settlers in Adora, near the West Bank city of Hebron, became the latest to die in a Palestinian assault. And the government said to expect more terrorist attacks.
Three decades ago, when previous governments sanctioned the first settlements, Israeli pragmatists justified them as prudent first lines of resistance that could hold off the Arab armies bent on driving the Jewish state into the sea.
Yet today, with Israel's outer frontiers unchallenged, the settlements, which house more than 200,000 Jews, have become its soft underbelly, no longer providing either a buffer or a bargaining chip.
Instead, the settlements have become hostages, in constant need of Israel's protection. And in a cruel paradox, all Israelis find themselves hostages of the settlers for as long as their presence remains a central obstacle to political agreement with the Palestinians.
Tom Ackerman, a Washington correspondent for Belo Broadcasting, was based in Israel as a correspondent for seven years in the 1970s. He submitted this comment to The Baltimore Sun.
TITLE: Anti-Extremism Bill Is Only the Beginning
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: LAST week, President Vladmir Putin introduced a draft law in the State Duma intended to combat extremism. The draft would subject those found guilty of forming a group with the purpose of committing crimes against people based on the victims' social, religious or racial background to imprisonment for up to four years or to a fine of about $1,000 - 100 minimum wages.
While a law of this kind should have been passed long ago, I still think that it's better late than never. My question is: Will it do anything to change the situation in Russia with regard to racism and hate crimes?
It's a good question in a country where a significant portion of the population react positively to news such as skinhead attacks in outdoor markets on people from the Caucasus - litsa kavkazskoi natsionalnosty, or faces of Caucasian nationality, as these people are referred to here.
It's not a big secret that many Russians, particularly those living in larger cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow, feel negatively toward those - Russian citizens or not - who come from the south of the country. One only has to count the number of ads for apartments for rent that contain the line "calls from people from the Caucasus will not be accepted," to get a sense of how widespread these attitudes are. It's alright to buy fruit and vegetables from these same people in the city's markets, as long as nobody has to rent them a place in which to live.
There's a degree of hypocrisy in this and, I think, in the government introducing the new legislation as well.
My question for the government is: Who helped propagate this negative image in the first place? You can't suggest that a set of people are untrustworthy, liars and terrorists without sending extremists the message that harming that same people is somehow officially sanctioned.
When people like Putin and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov emphasized that they were "not excluding Chechen involvement" after the bombing of apartment buildings and a subway underpass in Moscow in 1999 and 2000, without also emphasizing that there is no actual proof or evidence to support this position, it just feeds this kind of attitude.
Xenophobic attitudes are not restricted to people from the Caucasus either. I hear a good number of Russians voice negative attitudes about anyone not from here. Foreigners should be disliked, as the explanation goes, because they have a higher standard of living here or because they try to apply their own attitudes to Russian lifestyles
I was in a cab with two Swiss journalists recently and the driver, in Russian, told me that the two should "have the s**t beaten out of them." He couldn't give any specific reason - he just hates foreigners. In a gesture of magnanimity, he did accept the money they gave him for the ride.
In another example, I got a call on April 21 from a British friend who is in St. Petersburg for a year to study. She told me that she had been warned by people not to leave the student's dormitory that day because there was a dangerous skinhead situation in the city. Listening to a friend talk about being afraid to go outside because of this type of xenophobic hatred really made it plain to me that it is an issue that has to be addressed.
The introduction of the new legislation is a step in addressing this issue. At least the government is confirming that the problem does exist and could get out of control if measures are not taken to deal with it.
But, I'm not sure that introducing laws and penalties is the most effective solution - especially if the punishment is meted out by a government that is involved in creating the problem.
I think that government figures have to act responsibly in making comments concerning people and groups that are not ethnic Russian, and people from the Caucasus in particular.
The derogatory use of the word chyorny, or "black" for people from the Caucasus has only been strengthened by the attitude of the government over the last few years. I'm afraid that, if the government doesn't seriously try to deal with the problem - both by enforcing the new law, if it is passed, and by changing its own way of doing things - then the victims of these attitudes may just decide to deal with the problem themselves.
TITLE: breaking a five-year silence
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Kolibri, one of the city's most popular bands, will make a rare live appearance this week to showcase its new album. The formerly all-female art-pop trio, whose name means "Hummingbirds," is augmented live by a guitarist, plus a number of pre-recorded backing tracks.
The new CD, "Lyubov I Yeyo Konyechnosti" ("Love and Its Extremities"), is an eclectic, yet beautiful, collection of electronic vignettes which soars above most current Russian pop music. It is the band's fourth album of new material, but its first in five years.
Kolibri's previous album, "Bes Sakhara" ("Demon of Sugar," or, phonetically, "No Sugar") was a collaboration with local alternative band Tequilajazzz in 1997. Since then, the band has made its film debut in Alexander Bashirov's 1998 film "Zheleznaya Pyata Oligarkhii" ("The Iron Heel of Oligarchy"); parted company with founder-member Natasha Pivovarova, who quit to launch a solo career in October 1998; and taken on board a pair of live instrumentalists in September 1999. Previously the band used backing tapes for live performances.
On disc, Kolibri marked time with 1998's "Remixes" and "Trio," a three-track collaboration with local improv band Volkovtrio in 2001.
While working on the album for the past couple of years , Kolibri consisted of vocalists/songwriters Yelena Yudanova, Inna Volkova and Irina Sharovatova, plus guitarist Andrei Gradovich, of 1990s guitar band Jugendstil, and keyboardist and arranger Oleg Emirov.
"The idea of a live sound and the search for musicians has occupied us for a long time, but it's a delicate process, and these things shouldn't be hurried," says Yudanova. "Gradovich has found himself a new home with the band: He's changed his style and bought some new guitars, because he played different music with Jugendstil."
However, Emirov, who brought so much to Kolibri's new sound that he was described as "the band's musical brain," left in March to devote himself to his new job as a sound engineer at the NTV television station in Moscow. The band's Korg Triton keyboard - which U.K. trip-hop artist Tricky hired when here last year - is still awaiting a new player. According to Yudanova, Emirov's principal contributions to the new album were arrangements, although he did add two of his own songs, which somehow seem to contradict the album's delicate atmosphere.
Every member of Kolibri sings self-penned numbers, so material by Pivovarova, who suggested the band's name and wrote some of its hits, has been excluded from the repertoire. Yudanova says Pivovarova is now "present in the group only as the past - as a memory."
The new album has been delayed by many things, including the crisis of August 1998, Pirovarova's departure, a split with the band's manager, the search for a label and waiting for an opportune moment: Yudanova says that it existed for over a year before it was finally released.
Before that, she says, the band "had been recording it for a very long time, remaking a lot of a tracks a few times and remixing them. But that's our style - we didn't invent it deliberately, it's just our bad luck. We are near the back of the line as far as the speed of recording albums is concerned."
Although Kolibri have toyed with theatrics and sported fancy outfits - tailored both by themselves and by alternative fashion designers - for many years, they now say that they are more concerned with music.
"We got a little tired of our theatrical style over the last 10 years," says Yudanova. "I am a fan of that style, but you can't continue doing any one thing for a long time. The band has to change at least every 10 years. It's a natural biorhythm for any living being or collective, be it a theatrical or musical one. Now we've chosen something in between, because we are stressing the music - emotions not easily expressed with gestures, movements and costumes, but deeper, internal emotions."
Yudanova admits that the band's audience is mainly an arts crowd, and does not expect the new album to be get much radio play: She says that the band does not fit the format that Russian radio stations and the record industry expect.
"We are a non-format band, and now there's a rule of format, although I don't quite understand what sense it makes," she says. "We've chosen the road of independence, so we have to put up with what accompanies it."
She adds, "We didn't want it, but it happened like this. All our attempts to flirt with commercial music end in failure. To do that you have to be cold professionals, but we are not cold professionals - we are hot dilettantes."
Kolibri play Red Club on Friday, May 10 at midnight. Links: www.kolibri.spb.ru
TITLE: a choreographer enjoying his job
AUTHOR: by Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A new production of the ballet "La Bayadere," restored to Marius Petipa's original 1900 choreography, will open this year's "Stars of the White Nights festival" at the Mariinsky Theater.
The creative talent behind this premiere is Sergei Vikharev, who has been associated with the Mariinsky for the last 20 years as a soloist and a choreographer. Vikharev's staging of "Sleeping Beauty" for the Mariinsky in 1999 won a Golden Mask, Russia's top theatrical honor.
In addition to his Mariinsky positions, Vikharev is chief choreographer at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, and this year he struck gold again, when his Novosibirsk version of "Coppelia" won the Golden Mask for best ballet.
In the run up to his latest premiere, Vikharev spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about his approach to the task of restoring great dance steps from the past and about his plans for the future.
Q: Why did you choose "La Bayadere?"
A: Let's say that "La Bayadere" chose me. In the early 1900s, it was among the Russian Imperial Ballet's most popular ballets. Matilda Ksheshinskaya danced in it. But, the way it is danced now, parts are missing; others, like the "Dance of the Shades," are being staged without scenery, and the character dancing has lost its purity. We put all that back in.
Q: We have no videos or living witnesses to the original stagings. What did you use as the basis for the restoration?
A: The texts of 20 ballets were recorded by Nikolai Sergeyev, a dancer and a choreographer at the Mariinsky in 1900s. When Sergeyev emigrated from Russia in 1918, he took his archive with him, and it was eventually deposited in the Harvard University Library in Massachusetts. We received copies from Harvard, and they are our working material.
Q: Do you want to stage something apart from restorations?
A: Sergeyev's archive is not bottomless. Still, I like very much what I am doing - we should not forget about our rich heritage. It is through the past that we see our future.
Q: So, there is no question of turning to the past as an escape from present-day Russian reality?
A: No. Firstly, you cannot escape from today's reality, especially if you live in the provinces. Apart from Moscow, Russia is one big province. Working in Novosibirsk is difficult because the theater dates from 1945 and missed out on the great tradition of luxury, the classsical period that the Mariinsky enjoyed. At the Mariinsky, you know that traditions did not stop - it has been the same theater for the last 150 years, with its archives, its library and its dance school.
Q: Would you say that the trend toward 'authentic' ballets corresponds in some way to the musical fashion of playing chamber music on period instruments?
A: Not exactly. They can use original 17th-century instruments. In ballet, we cannot resurrect dancers like Kshesinskaya or [Anna] Pavlova. We have to work with modern day dancers. You cannot have an authentic re-creation. We restore the style and dance technique.
Q: What do you think of modern dance or adaptations, like the recent "Nutcracker" or "Cinderella" in the Mariinsky?
A: I like art in all its forms, whether old or new. For example, in [Alexander] Ratmansky's new staging of "Cinderella" at the Mariinsky, I enjoyed the sense of humor, especially as shown in the role of the stepmother.
Every age adapts Petipa's ballets to its own vision. For many years "Coppelia" was not considered serious enough to be performed in the Mariinsky and was ignored.
Q: Can the dancers shift back and forth between classical and modern dance?
A: When we finish dance school, we have an academic training. The rest depends upon us and the choreographers. It is not easy to combine classical and modern dance in one dancer: Different muscles are used and different coordination is required.
Q: Can you comment on the state of ballet in general? It seems to dip in and out of fashion in rivalry with opera.
A: Yes, ballet has lost its attractiveness and prestige here in Russia. It is tricky to find good dancers. Parents advise their children to take up something more practical, like computing.
Q. Would you like to have your own dance company?
A. No. We passed though that phase during perestroika. Big ballets can be staged only in a state theater. Private theaters are good for experimental ballets, but "La Bayadere" cannot be done anywhere else but the Mariinsky.
"La Bayadere" premieres at the Mariinsky Theatre on May 31.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: When a performance is poor, blame the newspapers.
The editors of Fuzz, the local rock rag that promoted last month's Fuzz Awards concert, did not like the review of the show that appeared in the daily newspaper Kommersant and decided to try to guarantee good coverage - by asking its author "never to write about events we promote in the future."
Leonid Fomin, the magazine's associate editor, who cornered the report's writer, Stanislav Zelvensky, at the SKIF festival late last month, explained that this was also a request of his editor, which he, Fomin, fully supports.
Otherwise, Fomin said to Zelevensky, in the presence of The St. Petersburg Times, "You'll get in trouble."
Fuzz began as - and continues to be - an indepent, albeit somewhat-amateur, music magazine. But what happened is a sad illustration of how once-likable people mutate when they become part of "big" show business.
The next 10 days bring another series of birthday parties. Mainstream jazz players will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the city's first jazz concert with a big show called We Are From Jazz at the Cappella on May 7.
According to jazz writer and promoter Vladimir Feyertag - who will compere the concert with the Conservatory's Mikhail Byalik - "We Are From Jazz" is dedicated to the historic concert by Leopold Teplitsky's First Concert Jazz Band, which took place at the Cappella on April 28, 1927.
Teplitsky (1890-1965) was a pianist who was sent officially to the U.S. to study jazz and played at a Philadelphia agricultural exhibition for several months, before bringing jazz scores back to the U.S.S.R. and formed his band with his colleagues. This academic trip also led to him being sent to the gulag as a "spy" in 1930. See Gigs for the full lineup.
Also on May 7, techno fans will mark the ninth anniversary of the opening of the pioneering techno club Tunnel, which relaunched last month after a five-year hiatus.
Adding to the list, the alternative arts center Pushkinskaya 10 will remind its visitors, with a concert headlined by Akvarium, Yury Shevchuk and Deadushki at Lensoviet Palace of Culture on May 15, that, 13 years ago, it started as a squat in a decrepit downtown building .
Next week sees the opening of the JFC-promoted eighth running of the Jazz Spring in St. Petersburg Festival, which opens with an outdoor performance from Saxophones of St. Petersburg, a 20-piece saxophone band led by veteran sax player Gennady Golshtein. The show takes place just off Nevsky Prospect, outside Bogart's Cafe at 14 Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa at 5 p.m. on May 15.
According to JFC's Felix Naroditsky, this year's festival, which runs through May 25, aims to demonstrate the diversity of different jazz styles. Among the highlights are renowned French pianist Laurent de Wilde at JFC on May 19, and the international band Brazil All-Stars at the Shostakovich Philharmonic on May 22.
On the rock-club scene, urban-folk band Lya Minor will resume its local club gigs with three consecutive shows, at Griboyedov on May 9, Front on May 10 and Orlandina on May 11.
Also of note are concerts by ska-punk band Spitfire at Moloko on May 10 and Kolibri at Red Club, also on May 10 (see article, page ii). The venues are close to each other and, given that Kolibri's gig starts at midnight, it's quite possible to make both.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: things that make you go boom
AUTHOR: by Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Discussions around our office of who will review which restaurant are always interesting. Whenever a new restaurant opens, one of our writers will generally speak up to get to be the one to review it.
Such was the case when I heard that a new Mexican restaurant - Tequila Boom - had just opened at the corner of Voznesensky Prospect and Nab. Reki Fontanki. I love Mexican food, and the advertisements for the restaurant - stressing that the food is prepared by Mexican chefs and that the cuisine is authentic Mexican - definitely roused my curiosity.
Walking into the restaurant, my dining companion and I were immediately impressed by the atmosphere. There are two rooms, the first containing tables and the bar and the second set up with tables extending from the walls to an open spot in the center of the room. The arrangement in the second room is great for two reasons. First, it allows for the tables to be grouped together to accomodate larger groups of people. Second, it leaves space for the Latin-American dancers and singers that perform during the evening. We enjoyed the show but, if you're looking for a little quieter experience, the first room is more for you.
Opening the menus, we were pleased to find that the the food on offer provides a good variety at very reasonable prices. Appetizers range from 60 to 115 rubles ($2 to $3.70), with soups and salads priced between 75 and 150 rubles ($2.40 to $4.75). The main courses present a good degree of variety, from standards - such as fajitas and enchiladas - to the Alambre de Bistec, which the menu describes as a mixture of beef, bacon, peppers, port and onions covered with melted cheese and served with 10 tortillas. They range in price from 115 to 360 rubles ($3.70 to $11.50).
My dining companion and I opted to start out with a basket of nacho chips and salsa (60 rubles, $2) and a bottle of Corona beer (85 rubles, $2.70) each while we considered further options. The nacho chips were served with a basic, mild salsa and a guacamole mixture that was a little less thick than usual, but still very enjoyable.
Moving on, we decided to try the Frijoles Charros soup (80 rubles, $2.50), which turned out to be a very tasty and hearty bean broth, and the Cheese Quesadillas (also 80 rubles). The quesadillas came as a bit of a surprise for me, as the tortilla pocket in which the cheese had been melted was completely sealed and was thicker than those to which I was used. The dish also included fresh shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes, and the same two sauces that had been served with the nachos were now joined by a much spicier salsa, which added a kick to the dish. The overall effect was good
For our mains, we opted for the order-and-share approach. The Enchiladas Rojas Verdes (120 rubles, $3.85), comprised three soft tortillas filled with a beef mixture and ladeled with melted cheese and sour cream and was served with rice, while the Fajitas de Pollo (140 rubles, $4.50) again took me a bit by surprise. Being accustomed to the almost sauce-like mixtures provided for fajitas in most Mexican restaurants, I wasn't ready for the very simple pan-fried chicken served. But the change was good, as it made the dish a little fresher than is usually the case. The Tacos de Bistec fell even farther from the usual, as the six smaller, round tacos came soft, and the filling was a simple mixture of beef, onions and parsley. The main courses also came accompanied by the two salsas and the guacomole on the side, allowing us to flavor the dishes to our own tastes.
What's best about Tequila Boom is that it brings a little more variety to the Mexican-food scene here. What's on offer is different from the other two main Mexican resaurants - La Cucaracha and Senor Pepe's. For those looking for spice and crunch, the earlier arrivals are still probably the best choice. But if you prefer the fresh and simple, then Tequila Boom is probably the place for you.
Tequila Boom 57 Vosnesensky Pr. Tel.: 310-1534. Open daily, noon until 2 a.m. Dinner for two with beer, 875 rubles ($28) Menu in Russian only. Credit cards accepted.
TITLE: discovering goncharova
AUTHOR: by Alice Jones
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The name Natalya Goncharova resonates deeply in Russian cultural history. Alexander Pushkin, Russia's best-loved poet, died after a duel with French diplomat Baron d'Anthes to defend the honor of his wife, Natalya Goncharova. Early in the twentieth century, another Natalya Goncharova - a painter - burst onto the scene.
Although distantly related to Push kin's wife - her great-grandfather was the first Natalya's brother - the second Na talya paid little attention to history, instead distinguishing herself by her constant search for new art-forms and innovative approaches to her work, and gaining for herself the epithet "The Amazon of the Avant-Garde." Together with her life-long partner, the artist Mikhail Larionov - whom she met in 1900 while a student in Moscow - Goncharova stood at the forefront of the battles for a new Russian art, before emigrating to France in 1915.
Goncharova's Russian years, according to the organizers of a new exhibition of her work at the State Russian Museum, are a period of "the most exciting and prolific ... years of innovation, rebellion and creative discoveries." The exhibition arranges chronologically a wide selection of materials - letters and diaries, first editions of books that she illustrated and several pencil sketches that sit alongside the finished works - from the early 1900s to 1915.
What makes the exhibition so fascinating is precisely what Goncharova was criticized for over the years. She was accused of merely following the whims of artistic fashion, but the frantic journey through various styles and movements at the exhibition creates a very real feeling of Goncharova's path to maturity. The earliest works on display resemble a heady mix of van Gogh, Cezanne and Gaugin but, by the 1910s, Goncharova's switch to religious subjects seems to indicate a more tranquil maturity, and her solemn, icon-like figures, with their black, sightless eyes, form the basis for later works, such as the "Peasants Picking Grapes" cycle and the portraits of Jewish family life.
1913 brought another change of tack, as Goncharova and Larionov painted their faces with flowers and other symbols and wandered around Mos cow with other Futurists. Goncha rova's works from this period - "The Cyclist" and "Aeroplane Over a Train," for example - are amongst her best known in Russia.
The exhibition also has examples of Goncharova's illustrations for poetry collections by Alexei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. These heavy, black-and-white images prefigure the last work she completed in Russia, the album "Mystical Images of War," from 1914. Goncharova saw World War I as an apocalypse, with the disturbing contrast between black and white symbolizing a conflict between man and the heavens.
The collection is rounded out by the wildly colorful set and costume designs that Goncharova created for Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "Le coq d'or," which premiered in Paris in 1914. These simple, fairy tale-esque designs transformed Goncharova, as she said, "from a simple Moscow artist to a designer known throughout the world."
Natalya Goncharova: The Russian Years runs through July 15 in the Benois Wing of the Russian Museum. Open daily, 10 a.m. to 6 a.m. Closed Tuesday.
TITLE: breaking new ground
AUTHOR: by Gyulyara Sadykh-zade
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Since the end of the 1970s, St. Petersburg has traditionally thought of itself as a city that nourishes underground movements, which are fertile soil for various art-innovations and popular intellectual games in contemporary artistic discourse.
The reputation of such a 'pushy' small town, inclined toward all kinds of avant-garde experiments, faded somewhat at the end of the last century. Now, however, it is being born again, in no small measure due to the efforts of multifaceted cultural institutes, whose educational-propagandistic activity brings new ideas to the cultural landscape of the northern metropolis.
Germany's Goethe Institut is unarguably in the vanguard of this. This season, the institute drew the attention of theatrical theorists and practitioners to a month-long project rich in events.
The month began in the gallery at 137 Nevsky Prospect. There, in the small, half-dark basement, Gottfried Pilz's pastel sketches for the opera "Master and Margarita," by contemporary German composer Jorg Holler, were on display through April.
St. Petersburg's theater crowd sustains a special interest toward Gottfried Pilz for his work with the Mariinsky Theater's ongoing project to put on Wagner's opera cycle, "Der Ring des Nibelungen" - Pilz staged "Das Rheingold" and designed the sets for and directed "Die Valkure." In addition, he has staged a complete "Ring" cycle at the Helsinki Opera.
It was tricky, however, to grasp the designer's conception and to imagine the artistic realization of Holler's opera among the soft, barely visible drawings that were arrayed around the edges of the gallery. The exhibition was enlivened by music from the opera via CD players, supplied with headphones, dotted around the room: Each played a specific fragment from the music, which sometimes seemed to correspond better to the next sketch along.
Most of the action took place in the dim halls and on the small stage of Baltiisky Dom. There, in the thronged, resonant, Stalinist interiors, a traveling exhibition, which has been shown across Europe and whose theme - "The Stage Eye: Visual Art and the Theater" - included diverse installations and video and audio pieces by a score of contemporary German artists, was shown. All of the artists were active in the last third of the twentieth century, but almost none of them had direct relations with the theater. Therefore they were invited to react to this frontier subject. Indirectly, maybe, the civilizing impulse of the exhibition's curator, the playwright, script writer and art historian Wolfgang Schtorch, was challenged by some deep-rooted personal sense of a crisis in theatrical directing.
There were quite a few well-known names among those taking part in the exhibition, including Jochen Hertz, Karl-Friedrich Klaus, Klaus vom Bruch, Mark Lammert - who is also a renowned set designer - Thomas Schutte, Katarina Ziverding, Wolf Fostell and Gunther Jukke. The latter is known to Russian audiences for the large exhibition of his work that took place on the wall of Moscow's Kremlin in 1988.
The theme of Wagner was one which, in one way or another, ran through many of the month's events. The traveling exhibition also included five draft versions and models for the "Ring" cycle. In these, the artists played around and underlined the textures of the materials they employed - stone, metal, wood, glass, clay and ash - and this was probably the most interesting part of the exhibition.
Wagner's music in the context of contemporary Petersburg culture was the theme of the first of five round-table discussions that were convened as part of the month. Each discussion raised the most urgent problems of today's art: The forms it should take, and the prospects for the acceptance of contemporary artistic and theatrical thought in St. Petersburg's traditional artistic context.
TITLE: Chirac Gets Landslide Victory
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - President Jacques Chirac was re-elected Sunday in a landslide victory over extreme-right leader Jean-Marie le Pen, after a dramatic presidential race that shook France to its foundations.
The conservative Chirac was re-elected by the largest margin in the history of France's 44-year-old Fifth Republic. But the win, though huge, was less of a ringing endorsement of Chirac than a ringing rejection of le Pen, joined by all of France's major political forces.
With all votes counted in mainland France, Interior Ministry figures gave Chirac 82 percent of the vote and Le Pen 18 percent, excluding results from overseas territories.
Just two weeks ago, Chirac had scored just below 20 percent in the first round of voting - the lowest score for an incumbent president.
Chirac's victory was fueled by a larger turnout than for the April 21 first round, when 28 percent of voters stayed home. Turnout on Sunday was estimated at about 80 percent, with 20 percent abstaining.
In victory remarks, Chirac acknowledged that he had been re-elected in part by left-leaning voters who normally wouldn't have chosen him, but did so to block le Pen, a fixture on the fringes of French politics who is widely viewed as racist.
"You took your decision in full reflection, going beyond the traditional divisions," he told voters, "and for some among you, going above and beyond your personal or political preferences."
"We have gone through a time of serious anxiety for the country," Chirac said. "But tonight, in a great spirit, France has reaffirmed its attachment to values of the Republic."
Le Pen, from his headquarters near Paris, called the result "a stinging defeat for hope in France." He called Chirac's win an "equivocal victory gained by the Soviet method, with the coordination of all the social, political, economic and media forces."
Chirac named conservative senator Jean-Pierre Raffarin, 53, as prime minister on Monday.
Raffarin will head a new conservative government that Chirac has promised will swiftly respond to voter discontent and fears over rising crime. He will also help Chirac try to rally the right to victory in crucial parliamentary elections next month.
The announcement came after Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin tendered his resignation in a widely expected move that cleared the way for Chirac's new government, which will serve at least until the legislative voting in June.
Raffarin comes from outside the ranks of Chirac's own Rally for the Republic party. Raffarin, a member of the Liberal Democracy party, is a former marketing director who advocates opening France's markets to freer trade.
Though the son of a former government minister, Raffarin has a grass-roots image that has become his trump card as voters turn against the capital to demand more power at the local level.
Now, all eyes are turned to next month's parliamentary elections, called the "third round" by the left.
The worst-case scenario for Chirac, with a five-year mandate, would be a failure to obtain a majority of the right in the parliamentary vote, forcing him to share power with the left and crippling his ability to act.
Many blame his five years of tense power-sharing with Jospin for the unusual presidential vote, which featured 16 candidates in the first round - a clear sign of widespread discontent with the political status quo.
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Nigerian Plane Crash
KANO, Nigeria (AP) - Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo said Sunday that at least 106 people died when an airliner went down shortly after takeoff, slamming into buildings and mosques in a working-class neighborhood of the northern city of Kano.
The Nigerian EAS airline jet that crashed Saturday was carrying 76 people, and dozens are believed to have been killed on the ground.
It had taken off for Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, 696 kilometers south of Kano, authorities said. It crashed at 1:30 p.m. local time.
At least two people on board survived, aviation authorities said Saturday - one a male passenger who rose from his seat amid the wreckage and staggered away. The other survivor was a female crew member.
Bangladesh Ferry Sinks
DHAKA, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Searchers have found nearly 200 bodies after refloating a Bangladesh ferry boat that sank on Friday night, a senior government official said on Monday.
Up to 300 people are believed to have been drowned when the ferry sank 160 kilometers south of Dhaka in a storm in one of the worst Bangladesh ferry disasters since the 1980s.
"The ferry was refloated late on Sunday night and towed to the shore. The death count has reached nearly 200," said Manzur Elahi, an administrator in Chandpur district, where the ferry sank.
"I cannot give the exact number of deaths yet, but rescuers believe at least 50 more bodies had been swept away by strong currents in the Meghna river," he said by telephone. "We are searching for those bodies."
The three-deck ferry, M.V. Salahuddin-2, sank while on a trip from the capital, Dhaka, to Patuakhali district on the coast.
Violence in Colombia
QUIBDO, Colombia (Reuters) - Thousands of army soldiers attempted to retake remote villages in the Colombian rainforest on Sunday after clashes between warring leftist rebels and outlawed paramilitary forces claimed the lives of 45 children and at least 63 others.
Internal refugees from the lawless weapons and drug smuggling region streamed into the western provincial capital Quibdo, as some crippled survivors recounted horrific tales of the killings from their hospital beds.
One man, lying still in a hospital as television cameras hovered overhead, said he was hurt in a bomb attack on a church where hundreds had taken refuge on Thursday. Many people, he said, had been crushed or were buried alive.
Myanmar Leader Freed
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was freed Monday after 19 months of house arrest, and immediately pledged to do all she could to return democracy to military-ruled Myanmar.
"It's a new dawn for the country ... we only hope the dawn will come very quickly," Suu Kyi told a news conference at her party headquarters.
Her release had been widely expected following the most recent efforts by UN envoy Razali Ismail to break the 12-year-old political deadlock in Myanmar.
Razali, a Malaysian, visited Myanmar last month on his seventh visit to push forward the secret reconciliation talks between Suu Kyi and the junta, which he helped start in October 2001.
TITLE: Zenit Continues Win Streak
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A stunning strike from fullback Valery Tsvetkov and a breakaway from striker Alexander Kerzhakov saw Zenit past last-place Sokol Saratov on Saturday and propelled it into fourth place in the Russian Premier Division.
Thirty minutes into an otherwise uneventful first half, the ball broke from a scrappy passage of play to Tsvetkov, lurking outside and to the left of the Sokol penalty area, who took one touch before unleashing a 25-meter thunderbolt into the top right corner of the net.
Sokol, which failed to create a chance in the first half, rarely threatened in the second, and Kerzhakov sealed the win at 69 minutes. A header from Konstantin Konoplyov, on as a substitute for Alexei Katulsky, looked to be heading out of play just inside the Sokol half, but Kerzhakov got up to keep the ball in, before racing 40 meters and slotting coolly under Sokol keeper Yevgeny Plotnikov.
The day got even better for Zenit fans, as news came through from Moscow that bitter rival Spartak had lost 2-0, at home to Uralan Elista. A header after 9 minutes from Zurab Tsiklauri stunned the home team, and the same player scored again two minutes into the second half to hand Spartak its third-straight defeat.
Elsewhere, Lokomotiv Moscow stretched its unbeaten run to nine games with a hard-fought 3-2 win away at Rostselmash Rostov-na-Don Loko twice having to come from behind, with goals from Marat Izmailov, James Obiora and Dmitry Loskov, as the home team gave its resolve a severe examination.
TITLE: Canadiens Even Series With 4-1 Road Victory
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RALEIGH, North Carolina - Jose Theodor stopped 45 shots and Saku Koivu had a goal and an assist Sunday, leading the Montreal Canadiens past the Carolina Hurricanes 4-1 to even the best-of-seven series at one game apiece.
Montreal was outshot 46-16, but the Canadiens were able to solve Carolina goalie Kevin Weekes for two first-period goals - one on a great hustle play by Koivu - to quiet the crowd.
Weekes got in front of what appeared to be a harmless shot from Sergei Berezin from the top of the circle. The puck dropped at his pads and the Carolina defense relaxed. That was all Koivu needed, as he dug the puck out and flipped it past Weekes.
Koivu set up Montreal's second goal when he drew four Carolina players toward him as he skated down the right wing, then fired a cross-ice pass to a streaking Andrei Markov, who had joined the rush from his defensive position.
Markov made one move to get Weekes out of position and then backhanded the puck into the open side as he fell to the ice for his first career postseason goal.
Doug Gilmour's 60th career playoff goal on a power play 1:03 into the second gave the Canadiens a three-goal lead.
Rod Brind'Amour's goal with 0:06.8 left in the period drew the Hurricanes within 3-1 on a two-man advantage.
Bill Lindsay sealed the outcome with an empty-net goal that covered nearly the length of the ice with 1:11 left.
(For other results, see Scorecard)
TITLE: Kidd Leads Nets Past Hornets
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - When the game is on the line, Jason Kidd wants the ball.
He hit the go-ahead jumper and scored six of the Nets' final eight points, carrying New Jersey past the short-handed Charlotte Hornets 99-93 on Sunday in the first game of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
"I had to be aggressive," Kidd said after finishing with 21 points to lead seven Nets in double figures.
"I was riding my teammates for a while. I was very lucky that those shots went down."
Hornets star Baron Davis disappeared down the stretch.
Davis took only four shots in the final quarter, and none in the final 5:45.
Davis defended his lack of shooting, saying the Nets double-teamed him more in the fourth quarter, forcing him to pass to the open player.
That wasn't always the best option. David Wesley and Stacey Augmon each threw up air balls with the Hornets down 95-91 in the final two minutes.
Still, the Hornets played a strong game despite missing Jamal Mashburn with a viral illness.
Mashburn remains questionable after missing his fourth-straight playoff game.
Campbell, who scored 22 points, tied it at 91 with 3:04 to play.
After that, it was all Kidd. Immediately after a timeout, Kidd dribbled around a screen by Williams and hit a jumper to give the Nets a 93-91 lead with 2:53 to go. Campbell rimmed a jumper at the other end and Kidd hit a jumper in the lane for a 95-91 lead with 2:21 to play.
Detroit 96, Boston 84. The Pistons made sure there would be no rest for Paul Pierce - on offense or defense.
Michael Curry took care of that. Curry, in the starting lineup for his defense and leadership, scored a career playoff-high 15 points and played a big part in slowing Pierce as the Pistons beat the Boston Celtics in the opener of their best-of-seven second-round series.
"It's a big bonus," said Detroit's Cliff Robinson, who scored 30 points.
The Pistons made a team playoff-record 12 three-pointers and Jerry Stackhouse had 26 points and set career playoff highs with 11 rebounds and eight assists.
But this game was about defense. The Pistons held Boston to 38-percent shooting - Antoine Walker and Pierce combined to shoot just 14 of 39. Walker finished with 20 points.
Los Angeles 86, San Antonio 80. Both sides agreed it was a missed opportunity for San Antonio.
The two-time defending-champion Lakers survived 39-percent shooting and injuries to their two superstars Sunday, beating the Spurs to open their Western Conference semifinal.
"I think we did [miss a chance]," San Antonio's Malik Rose said. "They're not going to shoot that bad Tuesday night."
The Spurs, playing without the ailing David Robinson, shot even worse than the Lakers did, making 32 percent from the floor.
Tim Duncan had 26 points, 21 rebounds and four blocks, but missed his first 10 shots on the way to a 9-of-30 effort.
Shaquille O'Neal had to leave the game for nearly 10 minutes to get stitches after slicing his right index finger early in the third quarter.
He had 13 of his 23 points, four of his 17 rebounds and two of his four blocks after returning with 10:50 left.
Kobe Bryant bruised his right knee in a collision with San Antonio's Bruce Bowen. Bryant went to the locker room for treatment just when O'Neal returned.
Bryant returned with 4:36 left, as O'Neal made two free throws to snap a 71-71 tie and put the Lakers ahead for good.
A jumper by Rose with 1:13 remaining cut the Lakers' lead to 79-78, but a dunk by O'Neal with 1:03 left and a jumper by Bryant with 0:24.6 to go sealed the victory.
(For other results, see Scorecard)
TITLE: War Emblem Runs Wire-to-Wire for Win
AUTHOR: By Richard Rosenblatt
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOUISVILLE, Kentucky - War Emblem showed up at Bob Baffert's barn a mere three weeks ago. Even the trainer joked that he would need his best and shortest training job to win the Kentucky Derby.
Baffert came through. War Emblem went wire-to-wire and left 17 Three-year-old challengers in the dust, rolling to a four-length win over Proud Citizen and giving Baffert his third Derby win in six years.
"We sort of came in here through the back door, but we are leaving through the front door," Baffert said.
And with a lot of money. In addition to the winner's purse of $875,000, War Emblem earned a $1 million bonus from Sportsman's Park for winning the Derby after winning the Illinois Derby.
"I love you guys in America. Bob Baffert is a genius," the owner, Saudi Prince Ahmed Salman, said after becoming the first Arab owner to win.
Baffert's certainly a winner. "I loved this horse," he said. "I just didn't know if he was good enough."
Neither did the bettors, who sent him off as a 20-1 shot.
The victory at Churchill Downs was Baffert's third in the last six Derbys. He won with Silver Charm in 1997 and Real Quiet in 1998.
The trainer joined Max Hirsch and "Sunny Jim" Fitzsimmons as three-time Derby-winning trainers. Only Wayne Lukas, with four, and Ben Jones, with six, have more.
Proud Citizen, Lukas' last-minute Derby chance after the colt won the Lexington Stakes, ran a solid second. Like Baffert, Lukas was not considered a serious contender, despite past Derby wins.
"I couldn't be happier with the way this horse ran," said Lukas. "He beat some nice horses and I think he'll beat some more down the line."
War Emblem, as expected, set the pace in the 1 1/4 mile (2-kilometer) Derby and never let go of the lead, finishing in 2:01:13 - ninth-fastest in Derby history. The record belongs to Secretariat at 1:59:25 in 1973.
The victory was No. 5 in seven career starts and made War Emblem the first Derby winner to lead from the start since the filly Winning Colors in 1988.
"I told the prince, 'I owe you a Derby after last year,"' Baffert said. "The prince kept saying, 'Pinch me, Pinch me. Is this really happening?'"
Proud Citizen was followed by Perfect Drift and Medaglia d'Oro, all of which broke behind the winner and never seriously challenged for the lead.
Harlan's Holiday, the 6-1 favorite, was seventh and never a factor. Saarland, the second choice at 7-1, never made a run and wound up 10th.
War Emblem's jockey Victor Espinoza, a first-time Derby winner, said he knew he had won the race at the half-mile pole. "He was going so easy. I knew nobody was going to catch me," he said.
Espinoza said Baffert told him to be patient and not make his move too soon. Of course, it didn't turn out that way. "He told me to come from the gate clean and don't move until the last minute. I think he told me that a thousand times. Finally, he was right," Espinoza said.
Actually, the rider had no choice. The first time he saw him was early Saturday morning.
"This was like my first blind date," he said.