SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #770 (36), Tuesday, May 21, 2002
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TITLE: Deputies Push Registration Fees
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A group of Legislative Assembly deputies has introduced a draft law to charge foreigners to register with the city police, and the aim of the measure is to clamp down on the city's illegal residents ahead of next year's 300th-anniversary celebrations. The draft, which was introduced during hearings on Monday, would charge foreigners registering passports in the city 450 rubles ($14). Foreigners planning to stay for more than 10 days in the city are required to register their passports within 3 days of arriving.
 
"There's a regulation in the draft which would introduce registration payment of three minimum wages, which will be transferred to the police department budget to help the police to deal with this problem. Currently the police have no money to clear this category of citizens out of the city," Vice Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov, the head of the pro-Kremlin Unity faction in the Legislative Assembly and one of the authors of the draft, said in an interview on Monday. "We are talking about illegal workers and homeless people. We want to make the city look clean for the anniversary."
 Tyulpanov said the draft was formed according to similar legislation in Moscow. Mayor Yury Luzhkov issued the Moscow regulation in the wake of the 1999 apartment-building bombings there and, although the Moscow City Court declared the measure invalid because it is in contravention of the Russian Constitution, the regulation is still enforced.
 "How can we deal with [illegal aliens] if only 2 percent of Tajik gypsies staying in the city have passports? This law won't be effective," said independent lawmaker Vladimir Belozerskikh at the draft-law hearing on Monday. "According to our research, there were over 5,000 Tadjiks in the city last year and another 30,000 are expected this year. When you approach them, Tadjiks say they are not Tajiks, Muslims say they are not Muslims, gypsies say they are not gypsies. It will be difficult," he said.
 But while Belozerskikh says that the task will be difficult to achieve, this has not stopped Russian authorities in the past, and both St. Petersburg and Moscow have a rich history in trying to clear specific groups of people - the homeless, beggars and prostitutes - during high-profile events. 
 One such instance took place in 1980, when so-called "anti-social elements," including the homeless and prostitutes, where taken 101 kilometers south of St. Petersburg at a time when a large number of foreign tourists came to the city from the Olympic Games in Moscow. 
 "Thousands of them were taken out of town," Ruslan Linkov, the head of St. Petersburg branch of Democratic Russia Party, said in an interview on Monday. "They also used this opportunity to arrest a lot of dissidents so that it would be impossible for them to have contact with foreigners."
 "I remember when Richard Nixon made an official visit to the city in 1972. I was working at a radio research institute located on Krestovsky Ostrov," Yury Vdovin, Co-Chairperson of the Citizen's Watch human-rights organization said in a telephone interview on Monday. "One day they took away all of the homeless people who used to lie out there under the sun in bushes in the summer. Well ... five days later, after Nixon was gone, I saw the same homeless people laying under the same bushes."
 "They have to understand that there are social reasons why people are homeless and that it is impossible to make the situation better with these methods" he added.
 The most recent report of this practice was in October 1998, when Nochlezhka, an organization that provides aid to the homeless, reported that the city police, on orders from Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, were removing homeless people from the city's train stations to forests outside of the city. City officials denied the charges.
 According to Nochlezhka, there are at least 54,000 homeless people in St. Petersburg. The organization defines the homeless as those people who don't have a stamp on their passport denoting that they are registered as living in the city, so the definition includes not only those that literally have no home, but also refugees, displaced military officers and migrants who do have homes.
 A large part of the problem is a Catch-22 situation, where a person must have an official job in order to be registered, but finding legal work is almost impossible without registration.
 Mikhail Utyasky, the head of the St. Petersburg Police Passport and Visa Department, said that the police have not received any orders to crack down on the homeless.
 Alexander Prokhorenko, City Hall's representative in the Legislative Assembly, said that he doubts the law would be signed by the governor if it was passed in its present form, as it contradicts federal legislation. The draft does appear to contradict existing federal agreements reached with other CIS countries.
 Regardless of the draft's legality in relation to federal legislation, Vdovin says that the argument against it is more simple.
 "To call this law fascist would probably be found offensive by the fascists," Vdovin said. "Instead of this, they should be doing something to let foreigners come to the city, to work legally and to spend their money here but, instead, they scare off tourists and businesspeople with these attitudes."
 "How come when I'm staying in a hotel in France nobody comes after me to pay three French minimum wages to register?" Vdovin asked.
 The St. Petersburg police's Utyavsky said that about 300 citizens of other CIS countries that were in the city illegally were deported over the first four months of this year, after about 1000 were deported in 2001. According to the police, illegal aliens are usually put on a train to Moscow, and then flown back to their home countries.
 Utyasky himself doubts that the draft law will be effective, even if it is passed.
 "These questions are regulated by the agreement signed by the CIS governments, which has legislative priority here," he said.
 But the authors of the draft maintain that there is no jurisdictional contradiction.
 "The law is necessary because of the difficult situation that was created in St. Petersburg, one of the biggest cities in the Russian Federation, after the Soviet Union collapsed. [The fact that] the independent but, at the same time, underdeveloped states were also part of the former Soviet Union created a flood of migrant workers to Russia's cities," an official explanation note to the draft says. "The presence of these people creates obstacles for the development of the Russian economy, such as an increase in unemployment, the number of homeless people and beggars and a rise in crime"
 Vitaly Kalinin, a Zakonnost faction lawmaker and one of the authors of the draft, said that the draft will help the local work force as well as those workers coming to the city from other CIS countries.
 "If we can move these people to be legitimately registered, then we can guarantee them the same rights local workers enjoy and put them in a better situation," he said.
 Kalinin said he expects the law to be passed and signed by the governor by December.

TITLE: Mother Still Waiting For Her Son's Body
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Ever since Lyudmila Yerykalova's son was killed in Chechnya last month, all she has wanted is for the military to ship his body home so she can give him a proper funeral. But three weeks after his death, she is still waiting.
 
Soon after she heard the news that her 21-year-old son, Valentin Taktayev, who had been deployed at the Grozny commandant's headquarters, was dead, one of his commanders told her by phone that they would have to wait until they had seven more coffins before transporting his body out of Chechnya.
 "That was exactly what he said: We need to have at least eight coffins to have the plane take off," Yerykalova said from Sorochinsk, a town in the Orenburg region in the Urals.
 However, she did not get the officer's last name, because she was put through to him through a confusing procedure of giving nicknames and passwords, only causing more stress for the grief-stricken mother. "I had to call some code, say: 'I'm Captain Klyuyeva and ask Acacia to connect me with an ABC,'" said Yerykalova, 48.
 Last week, Taktayev's body was finally delivered to the military morgue in Rostov-na-Donu, but further transportation by train was stalled because no officer has been available to accompany the soldier's body home, as required by Defense Ministry regulations.
 "I have been kept in total ignorance and have received just one telegram, while all the ones I sent have been unanswered. On the phone I was told not to call, as apparently they will get back to me when the time comes," Yerykalova said.
 Under Defense Ministry Order No. 500 of 2000, the remains of a serviceman killed in action are to be shipped home accompanied by the higher officer. An attachment to the order details the procedure, but gives no time-frame.
 A Defense Ministry duty officer would not comment, other than to say that everything in Chechnya was being done according to regulations. Officials at the Grozny commandant's headquarters could not be reached.
 Advocates of parents' rights say it is not unusual for the military to balk at sending coffins in order to save on transportation costs or to slight grieving families in other ways.
 Valeria Yerykalova said she does not know how her son died; she was told only that he was killed in action. This lack of information, combined with the delay in receiving his body, has her worried that the military may have something to hide.
 Taktayev was a conscript in Chechnya for eight months last year. Finding no job in his hometown after being demobilized, he returned to Grozny in mid-March for a year of contract service. 
 "There are no jobs for him here in Sorochinsk, so he was hoping to make some money in Chechnya, and said that while in Grozny it would be easier for him to get the money [owed to him for his term as a conscript]," Yerykalova said.
 But in his last letter home, Taktayev wrote that he had not been paid anything and would be back home by August.

TITLE: New Adventures for the Young Pioneers
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Want to be able to identify terrorists, help war veterans, be a good citizen, or just party with friends? A few hundred children who gathered on Red Square on rainy Sunday morning say they know how - become a pioneer.
 
The Pioneers, once a nationwide political machine that incorporated nearly every child from age 10 to 14, celebrated their 80th birthday Sunday. In honor of the occasion, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov met with a few hundred aspiring members in front of the Lenin Mausoleum and inducted them into the organization by tying red scarves around their necks.
 "I dreamed all my life of becoming a pioneer," said Misha Pavlov, 11, from Orekhovo-Zuyevo in the Moscow region. "I will now be helping war veterans and my own family," he said, beaming.
 The Soviet system of well-organized childhood collapsed together with the Soviet regime in 1991. No real replacement has been found, even though various scout-like organizations have sprouted up here and there. But the Pioneers movement, peddled by veterans and school teachers, has managed to survive and, some members and Communist leaders claim, is on the path of recovery.
 There are about 60,000 pioneers in Russia, according to Zyuganov, and party officials said this year's anniversary celebrations in Moscow and elsewhere were the largest in a decade. In addition to the Red Square ceremony, a congress of youth organizations, mostly pioneers from former Soviet republics, was held in the Kremlin Palace over the weekend.
 The Pioneers, while still formally under the wing of the Communist Party, have become noticeably less politicized. Of a couple dozen children questioned, none could really say what communism is. Many of them said they believe in God.
 "I believe in God," Pavlov said. "Why not?"
 The boy was obviously unaware that even as late as the 1980s, such a statement would have resulted in a strict reprimand for him and his parents. But he sounded confident in his knowledge of the life of pioneers in the past.
 "They used to live in tents that they used to make themselves. They also had to find food for themselves," Pavlov said. It was unclear to which period of Soviet history he was referring.
 As times have changed, the slogans have changed, too. Pioneers are no longer called on to build communism or fight for the cause of the working class but to stand up for the motherland, goodness and justice. The standard salute, however, with right hand raised, remains unchanged: "Always ready!" 
 The theme of fighting the enemy, it seems, has not been completely erased from the collective memory of Russian children. According to Pavlov, the young pioneer's main goal is to defend the motherland from the enemy, although he could not identify one.
 Nastya Donnik, 11 and Biana Karasonova, 12, from the village Novoye near Orekhovo-Zuyevo, also said that protecting their country was among their priorities as pioneers. For them, the enemy is terrorists, and they planned to be on the lookout. But what does a terrorist look like?
 "Anyone strange, or suspicious, or unknown could be a terrorist," Donnik said. When prodded, the girls said dark-haired people from the Caucasus, "like Armenians," were probable suspects, but then they quickly agreed that terrorists are just bad people regardless of nationality.
 Even seasoned Communists seem to have eased up on the political education of the country's youth.
 "I mostly talk to them about the history of the war. And there are many who wish to listen," said Zoya Khrabrova, a World War II veteran who organizes the activities of about 150 pioneers in the Moscow region town of Narofominsk. "But I myself believe in communism, I think this is what we all need. I have been a party member for 40 years."
 The Red Square ceremony drew a number of former pioneers, among them Sofia Ruzina, 88, who in 1929 was a delegate to the first Congress of Pioneers. "I was one of just four people representing Siberia," she said. Ruzina still has her ID card from the congress and also her red scarf and badge.
 "Pioneers' organization will live," she said. "Now everyone thinks only about where to get money. Meanwhile we were fighting for good causes." Ruzina said she was taught "to fight for peace, bread, the revival of industry and liquidation of illiteracy."
 Zyuganov seized the opportunity Sunday to talk about his pioneer past. His first assignment as a pioneer, he said, was to plant a garden in front of his school.
 At the end of the relatively short ceremony, all of the guests were invited to pay their respects to Lenin in the Mausoleum. "It's pretty scary. It looked like he could open his eyes any second," said Katya, 11, from a village near Podolsk.
 But apart from a little shock at seeing the embalmed body of the Soviet Union's founder, the children seemed not overly interested in who Lenin was.
 Instead, Katya and her friends were looking forward to organizing parties, going on a trip together and being able to learn more about life.
 Why is it necessary to be a pioneer to do all these things?
 "Because it is more interesting this way," the group of pioneers replied.

TITLE: Charity Boss Facing Bin Laden Link Trial
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The head of a U.S.-based Islamic charity who is suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden is in jail facing a grand jury investigation after the FBI showed he had lied about his support for Chechen rebels.
 
Federal officials accused Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, and his Benevolence International Foundation of perjury last month for claiming they did not provide support to "people or organizations known to engage in violence, terrorist activities or military operations of any nature."
 Arnaout, 39, was arrested April 30. He had been under surveillance for three weeks and was picked up just days before he planned to fly to Saudi Arabia, the Associated Press reported.
 The case against the charity, located in the Chicago area, has focused on its ties to bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist group. But ruling Monday that there was probable cause to take the case to a federal grand jury, Magistrate Judge Ian Levin said evidence that Arnaout's charity had aided Chechen rebels was enough to warrant the perjury charges, the AP reported.
 Federal prosecutors cautioned that this does not imply that the government considers Chechen rebels also to be terrorists. "The Chechens fall under the role of military, not terrorists," Randall Samborn, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, said Wednesday by telephone.
 Benevolence International's assets were frozen in December as part of the terrorist investigations in the United States. The charity sued the government for the release of its assets, and the perjury charges stem from its sworn statement in that civil case that it did not fund terrorism or "military operations of any nature."
 An FBI affidavit in support of the federal complaint, which was provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office, said financial records obtained from Citibank show that during the first four months of 2000, the charity wired $685,000 to its bank accounts in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia and Russia. It is unclear how much if any of this money went to Chechen rebels.
 That same year, however, rebel Web site Qoqaz.net designated Benevolence International a "trustworthy charity with experience working in the Caucasus," through which those wishing to donate money to Chechen fighters should act, according to the affidavit signed by FBI officer Robert Walker.
 In 1995, in the middle of the first war in Chechnya, the charity opened an office in Baku and delivered an X-ray machine there. It was handed to the rebels' representative, who affirmed in writing that "as arranged this unit will be transported to Chechnya for the use of the Chechen mujahedin," the affidavit said.
 Documents recovered from the charity's offices in Palos Hills, Illinois, which were raided by the FBI in December, indicated that the rebel representative, who also asked the charity for anti-mine, steel-soled boots, was additionally provided with $3,200.
 In March of this year, the affidavit said, the FBI met with a senior Georgian law enforcement official, who said the brother of the head of the charity's Tbilisi office was affiliated with Chechen rebels in Georgia. 
 In his ruling, Levin said the charity "did in fact send support to the Chechen mujahedin who were engaged in fighting," the AP reported.
 Benevolence International lawyers could not be reached for comment.

TITLE: Russia Gets the Blame After Chechen Congress No-Show
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Chechen congress failed to take place in Istanbul over the weekend after Turkish authorities asked organizers to call it off, organizers said, blaming pressure from Russia for the cancellation.
 
"The congress to demonstrate the unity of the Chechens despite their different views on the future of the nation would have meant a fiasco to Russia's policy of separating Chechens," chief organizer Deni Teps said Monday by phone from Istanbul. "That's what maddened Russian officialdom."
 Teps said Russia's Ambassador to Turkey, Alexander Lebedev, had urged Turkish officials to outlaw the meeting, in which both pro-Moscow Chechens and rebel representatives had agreed to take part.
 Also, Dmitry Rogozin, head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, asked the Russian Foreign Ministry last week to push Istanbul into banning the meeting.
 "It is a destructive action sponsored by the same sources that finance the rebels," a spokesperson for Rogozin's office said Monday.
 "Moreover, Russia-based Chechen non-governmental organizations are already united under the Consultative Council to Promote Peaceful Settlement in Chechnya, and any alternative initiative will only hinder its work," he said on condition of anonymity.
 The Foreign Ministry refused to comment.
 A Turkish Embassy spokesperson said he had no information about any diplomatic exchange on the issue.
 Teps said the failed weekend meeting was organized by the U.S.-based Congress of Chechen International Organizations, created in 1995 by Mohammed Shashani, a former professor of Pittsburgh University and an ethnic Chechen.
 He said it was sponsored by the Chechen diaspora in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Russia.
 Representatives with several respected international and Russian human-rights organizations had been invited to join hundreds of guests from the Chechen diaspora from all over the world in discussing the conflict in Chechnya, Teps said.
 General Aslanbek Aslakhanov, who represents Chechnya in the Duma and was among the invited guests, said he doubted the congress would have reached any kind of consensus.
 "I really wanted to go to Istanbul to see the rebel representatives," he said. "I would have pointed to them as the guilty party for the bloodshed in Chechnya."

TITLE: Ambassador: Bush Visit About Economy, Society
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said President George W. Bush's visit this week will help develop an allied relationship that will increasingly focus on economic ties and civil society - not arms control.
 
While attention is mostly focused on a landmark arms-control deal to be signed during the visit, "the forthcoming summit may go down in history as the point of transition to a very different agenda, an agenda in which non-security issues become more and more the focal point of our relations with Russia, just as they are in relations with our other allies and partners," Vershbow said.
 "We are increasingly becoming allies in the fullest sense of the word," he said Friday at a conference on U.S.-Russia relations.
 Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said the summit is certain to further improve already warm relations bolstered by President Vladimir Putin's support for the U.S.-led war on terror. "From a generator of global tension, our relations have become an engine of international stability," he said.
 He said Russia expects a declaration signed at the summit to include U.S. assurances that its planned missile shield wouldn't be directed against Russia. That declaration is in addition to the treaty cutting the number of long-range nuclear warheads.
 Despite talk of economic cooperation, Vershbow admitted that U.S. trade with Russia accounts for less than 1 percent of its total trade worldwide.
 The United States has also been frustrated over Russia's ban on imports of U.S. poultry. The month-long ban was lifted April 15 after U.S. officials promised tighter controls on exports, but imports have yet to resume. 
 Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev denied that Russia was dragging its feet.
 He said that Russia's veterinary service had already issued permission for more than 100,000 tons of U.S. poultry imports. But he said that two shiploads of U.S. poultry that have been stranded in St. Petersburg's port for more than a month failed to pass veterinary requirements, according to Interfax.
 On Thursday, the U.S. Embassy forwarded a paper to Russian officials outlining their concerns about how the ban was handled, a U.S. official said. The United States alleges that Russia violated several norms demanded by the World Trade Organization, to which Moscow is currently seeking admission.
 Vershbow, however, voiced confidence that such disputes will "eventually be viewed as nothing more than bumps on the road to a larger and mutually beneficial trade relationship." On a more critical note, Vershbow said the United States is concerned about media freedom in Russia and urged the government to help strengthen media independence. 
 "Promoting tolerance and defending human rights will be prominent on the list of priorities as the United States and Russia develop our new partnership," Vershbow said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Bolton Back in Town
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Top U.S. arms negotiator John Bolton flew in on Monday, three days before Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin sign a deal to slash their strategic nuclear arsenals.
 A U.S. Embassy official said Bolton, undersecretary of state, would "oversee the final details before President George W. Bush's arrival." But she declined to elaborate on Bolton's agenda or say how long he would stay.
 Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday, according to a ministry statement issued Monday.
 It said the two men "expressed satisfaction at the pace of summit preparations. In particular, all the main documents to be approved at the summit have been all but finalized."
 Bolton, who last visited Moscow a week ago when the treaty was clinched, played a key role in persuading Moscow to drop objections to Washington's plans to stockpile rather than destroy hundreds of warheads.
 
 
Maslov Wins Smolensk
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Viktor Maslov, chief of the Smolensk branch of the Federal Security Service, was elected governor of the Smolensk region, officials said.
 Maslov won with 40.5 percent of the vote in the Sunday election, said Sergei Babyuk, secretary of the regional election commission. The incumbent, Alexan der Prokhorov, received 34.4 percent of the vote, while the four other candidates took from 0.5 percent to 8 percent of the vote, he said.
 The campaign was marred by violence when gunmen attacked the car of Prokhorov's deputy Anatoly Ma ka ren ko last week, killing his driver. Ma ka ren ko said Maslov was behind the attack. Maslov has accused Prokhorov, a Communist, of corruption.
 
 
Ex-Fisheries Boss Jailed
 

MOSCOW (MT) - The Moscow City Court on Monday found Mikhail Dementyev, former first deputy head of the State Fisheries Committee, guilty of abuse of office and sentenced him to five years in prison, Interfax reported.
 Dementyev was accused of illegally ordering the committee's Far East branches to give quotas to crab catchers in 2000, an action that cost the government $1.5 million, Interfax said.
 The Prosecutor General's Office charged Dementyev with abuse of office in January 2001 in an investigation of him and his boss, former committee head Yury Sinelnik.
 
 
Korean Visit
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia could help the U.S. to improve its strained ties with communist North Korea, a Russian official said as Mos cow prepared to host a rare official visit from North Korea.
 North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun was flying in later on Monday for a four-day visit, including talks with President Vladimir Putin.
 Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said that, as a go-between with Washington, Russia could encourage dialogue between North and South Korea.
 "A resumption of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington could be of considerable importance in helping activate a Korean settlement," said Lo syu kov, the ministry's top official for Asia. 



TITLE: Sea Port Set for New $400M Investment
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Sea Port and the Severstaltrans company are planning the launch of a major construction project for railroad-container transportation between St. Petersburg, Moscow and Novorossiisk.
 
According to Igor Rusu, the general director of the port, the project will include the construction of a container terminal at one of the Moscow railway stations, the purchasing of locomotives and rolling stock, and the setting up of a new operating company. All stages of the project should be accomplished in a period of about two years.
 Talking to the RosBusinessConsulting information agency last Wednesday, Rusu said that the port of St. Petersburg and Severstaltrans will probably participate in the development of the container terminal in the port of Novorossiisk, whlikely to begin in the next few years.
 The total cost of the project is still being established, as the parties decide its scope and details. That process should be completed in the next few months. 
 The project hopes to meet the targets of the strategic plan for the development of the port's container-handling capacity for the term running until 2010.
 According to that plan, approved by the port's shareholders and board of directors and announced on Wednesday, the container-handling capacity of the port will be increased from 350,000 to 2.5 million containers annually.
 The project is based on a best-case forecast which predicts growth of about 15 percent in the region's container-cargo sector, Seanews.ru Web site reports. The medium- and short-range forecasts predict 11 percent and 8 percent growth in the sector respectively.
 At present, the project comprises the reconstruction of an existing mooring line, construction of a new container terminal and warehouses, installation of new cranes and construction of a new automobile entryway and checkpoint. 
 Total investment in the project will be in the region of $400 million. The port itself is ready to provide around half of this sum, while the other half will be attracted as investment. 
 The operator for the new handling facilities will be the existing First Container Terminal Company (PKT), 19 percent of the stock having been purchased by Severstaltrans from the St. Petersburg Sea Port about a month ago, according to Anna Vostrukhova, head of the press service at Severstaltrans. 
 In May 2001, Severstaltrans, a subsidiary responsible for transport at the Severstal holding company, one of Russia's largest metal producers, received a permit from the Railways Ministry to become an official railway operator. The company then became the largest shareholder in the Kolomensky Locomotive Plant. 
 Having attracted Severstaltrans, PKT became the second largest container terminal, trailing the container terminal at Vostochny Port. The company owns a controlling stake in the Vostochny Port and plans to increase it's share in PKT to 50 percent. This will give the company an opportunity to establish its own transport corridor from Europe to Asia.
 Analysts have tended to positively evaluate Severstal's policies in relation to the ports.
 "If Severstal invests in their development, and doesn't abuse the tariffs, everyone will profit from that," Boris Lukov, deputy head of the International Trans-Siberian Coordination Council told Vedomosti, following the announcement of the purchase of PKT stock.

TITLE: $8 Trillion Pitch Given To Investors
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Eight trillion dollars flew out of Russia on Thursday, after dining with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov the night before.
 
The Russell 20-20 Association, which includes some of the largest asset managers and pension funds, came to Moscow on a three-day exploration trip to meet top political and business leaders.
 Of the more than $8 trillion managed by Russell 20-20 members, several hundred million is already invested here, including the $75 million managed by the Frank Russell Co., said Frank Russell Chairperson and CEO Michael Phillips, who is also Russell 20-20 Chairperson.
 "I think [members] will come away happy and feeling they want to increase their holdings," Phillips said Wednesday. "I think there is real money involved. Probably there already has been ... . In past 20-20 trips, deals have been made."
 The delegates were impressed by the country's economic performance and reform efforts, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit and vision of the politicians and business leaders they met with, Phillips said. "It made us extremely bullish over the long term."
 Many of the participants have dramatically increased their investments here over the past year, said Russell 20-20 director Brian Davis. Investors have turned to Russia where assets are still undervalued, despite market growth.
 Kasyanov offered the group mixed news: They missed getting in at the start, but the government is committed to reform. Significantly, Kasyanov noted that the government would require banks and corporations to move to international accounting standards within two years and would target single-digit inflation next year, said Richard Hainsworth, banking analyst at Renaissance Capital
 "Kasyanov gave a good sales pitch without hype," Hainsworth said.
 Nonetheless, Russell representatives expressed major concerns about ongoing problems with corporate governance, the lack of a strong banking sector and the structure of the stock market. A notable exception on Russell 20-20's agenda was a meeting with Igor Kostikov, chairperson of the Federal Securities Commission, the stock market regulator.
 However, just the fact that the association chose to visit Russia this year is a positive sign. The group's visit was originally scheduled for just after Sept. 11, but the association combined the trip with the next stop, Poland, rather than cancel.
 "It shows Russia is at the top of the list for international investors in terms of finding investment opportunities," said Neil Greer, head of international sales at Aton.
 Of Russell 20-20's 47 members, 37 companies were represented on the trip by 90 delegates, the largest group on any trip so far, Phillips said.
 "From interviews, investors have seen that there has been progress in Russia," said Teresita Heiser, director of EMPulse, which was founded by the Frank Russell Co. to prepare a report on investor perceptions sent to governments ahead of the group's visits.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: U.S. Steel Ruling
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - The U.S. Department of Commerce announced its finding Monday that Russian manufacturers are dumping structural steel on the U.S. market. The case has been running since December.
 "We find that structural steel beams from the Russian Federation are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value," the department said in its ruling.
 
 
Official Acquitted
 

MOSCOW (AP) - A Moscow court on Monday acquitted a Central Bank official who was charged with abuse of office for extending a loan to a troubled bank four years ago, Interfax reported.
 The court ruled that Alexander Alexeyev, deputy head of the Moscow city branch of the Central Bank, released the loan in compliance with orders from his superiors.
 Prosecutors charged that Alexeyev gave the 5.8-billion-ruble ($186-million) loan to SBS-Agro bank in several tranches, in 1998 and 1999, without ensuring that the bank met the Central Bank conditions.
 
 
Big Brother Banking
 

MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - The Central Bank wants to create a system to oversee the activities of the largest Russian banks, First Deputy Central Bank Chairperson Oleg Vyugin told an economic conference Monday. 
 He said the system would eventually be expanded to all commercial banks. 
 The major task of the overseers would be to forestall problems in the banking sector, but not to duplicate the auditors, Vyugin said without elaborating. 
 He also said that the bankruptcy and liquidation procedures for banks should be simplified, so that bank owners would not use them for money laundering. 
 
 
Deposit Rate Cut
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Central Bank cut more of its key deposit rates on Monday by two to three percentage points to make it less attractive for commercial banks to park their loose rubles with the Central Bank. 
 "It seems that the Central Bank wants to reduce volatility in the interbank market and to prevent rates spiking at the moment when taxes are due," said Natalya Orlova, an economist with Alfa Bank. 
 Russian firms must pay VAT around the 20th of each month, generating a higher demand for rubles. 
 
 
Boeing Agreement
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Boeing Co. is set to extend its five-year agreement with Russia's leading titanium producer, a Boeing official said Monday.
 Boeing is expected to sign an agreement Wednesday with the Verkhnesaldinsk metal factory to prolong their partnership until 2007, said Viktor Anoshkin, Boeing's spokesperson. 



TITLE: Russia To Protect Metals Producers
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - The government will introduce duties on steel imports and abolish export duties to support domestic producers who have faced anti-dumping measures from abroad, as part of a plan for the ailing metals industry announced Thursday.
 
"We need to be tougher on imports ... as we often see unfair competition," Industry, Science and Technology Minister Ilya Klebanov said.
 Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Russia's metals production had suffered from anti-dumping measures against Russian steel exports. The United States imposed sanctions on foreign steel in March in a move that angered Russia's steel makers and heightened tensions ahead of a presidential summit this week.
 Russia currently exports about 80 percent of its steel and relies on its metals industry for 8 percent of gross domestic product and 16 percent of total industrial production.
 As a short-term measure, Russia will soon abolish steel export duties and introduce import duties for foreign steel, Klebanov said. Russian steel producers have been lobbying the government to introduce high import duties against steel from Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
 Kasyanov has instructed the Economic Development and Trade Ministry to expedite anti-dumping investigations into steel imports to Russia, Klebanov said.
 He said steel producers have expressed concerns about the unfair competition practices of Ukrainian and Kazakh steel producers supplying their products to the Russian market.
 Producers have repeatedly urged the government to increase steel-import duties to protect the market from cheaper imports from other CIS countries.
 In the long term, Russia will restructure the industry, moving away from exports toward encouraging local demand, Klebanov said.
 The restructuring will demand widespread layoffs and the closure of inefficient factories, Klebanov said. NTV television estimated job losses as high as 350,000. 
 Russia has about 3,500 metals producing plants employing a total of 1.5 million people. About three-quarters of the plants are the only employers in their respective areas.
 The government plan aims for 30 percent growth in the metals industry by 2010. The industry grew 15 percent in 2000, but a year later, nonferrous-metals-output growth slowed to 5 percent and ferrous metallurgy has seen no growth at all, Kasyanov said.
 According to the ministry, ferrous metals rolled stock output is expected to increase to 54 million to 56 million tons by 2010, up 18 percent to 20 percent from 2001.
 Aluminum and nickel output is expected to rise to 7 percent to 9 percent in the same period, and copper output is to rise to 10 percent to 14 percent.
 The main goal of the plan is to bring the quality and quantity of metals production in Russia in line with domestic and international demand, the ministry said.
 Labor productivity in the sector is expected to increase 50 percent from 2000 to 2010. Simultaneously, the number of employees in the sector is seen declining by 100,000 or 7 percent during 2000 to 2005, and by 350,000 by 2010.
 
 <i>(AP, Prime-Tass) </i>

TITLE: Investors Worried By AvtoVAZ
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark and Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After pledging to improve corporate governance and boost its share price, AvtoVAZ management has investors up in arms over a new charter that would strip preferred shareholders of a guaranteed 10-percent dividend.
 
AvtoVAZ, the country's largest automaker, has asked shareholders to approve a new company charter, but has failed to inform them that, by doing so, they would cancel a fixed, 10-percent dividend on preferred shares. The company also failed to announce plans to buy out dissenting shareholders.
 Shareholders are to vote on the new charter - a requirement under recent amendments to the Joint Stock Company Law - at a May 25 annual shareholders' meeting. Changing dividend policy requires the approval of 75 percent of preferred shareholders.
 The proposed charter states only that &quot;part of profits may be used for dividends,&quot; which would make any future dividend payments subject to a shareholder vote. Shareholders and analysts contacted for this article said they had not yet received a copy of the new charter.
 If the preferred shares are stripped of the guaranteed dividend, the price would most likely plummet, said Troika Dialog chief strategist James Fenkner. Troika Dialog, an investment bank that owns AvtoVAZ preferred shares, downgraded AvtoVAZ shares from buy to hold because of the additional corporate-governance risk, with a target price of $35.60 on common shares.
 The company, however, has tried to raise its share price. The price per common share should be between $45 and $50, said AvtoVAZ board chairperson Vladimir Kadinnikov in March.
 The opacity of AvtoVAZ's actions has fueled speculation about the management's intentions. Many investors have seen the move as, at best, an effort to pay out less in the future.
 At worst, it is seen either as an abusive alternative to a share conversion and potential 15 percent dilution of common shareholders' stakes, or as a way to devalue preferred shares, which could make a buyback less expensive.
 AvtoVAZ did not announce any plans for a buyout on the shareholder meeting agenda, which a Troika Dialog report warned may be a violation of the law. According to the new Joint Stock Company Law, preferred shareholders have the option to sell their shares back to the company at no lower than a fair price determined by an independent appraiser if they vote against such a change to the dividend policy.
 &quot;[Canceling the dividend requirement] does not directly violate minority shareholder rights,&quot; said Albert Gavrikov, managing director for domestic sales at Aton Capital, which also owns AvtoVAZ stock. &quot;It does worsen preferred shareholders' positions in that now there is some certainty - the guaranteed 10-percent dividend - and that certainty may be removed. The dividends could be more or they could be less now.&quot;
 Management did not plan the charter to damage the value of preferred shares, Gavrikov said Saturday, after returning from a trip to the company's headquarters in Tolyatti. Gavrikov is the minority-shareholder-representative candidate to the board of directors. He said management wanted more flexibility, including the opportunity to pay out higher dividends.
 &quot;All companies that are trying to increase their capitalization are competing with each other,&quot; Gavrikov said. &quot;The clause was not only imperfect from a legal point of view, but it also requires the company to pay exactly 10 percent. [Management] said they don't want to be limited to that amount. It's not in the company's interests to infringe on the rights of shareholders, particularly employees.&quot;
 Further aggravating investors' fears is an apparent shortfall in profits. In March, AvtoVAZ announced net profits of 2.3 billion rubles ($79 million), lower than Troika's $101-million forecast.
 The company itself has remained defensively tight-lipped on the issue. &quot;Have we broken the law? Why should we discuss and debate this topic a week before the meeting? All these questions will be answered at the AGM,&quot; said Vladimir Artsykov, an AvtoVAZ spokesperson. &quot;I read about analysts who think this and that - who cares what they think? We've got 120,000 workers here and we haven't fired one in the past 10 years,&quot; Artsykov said.

TITLE: Court Ruling Interrupts Election of Slavneft Head
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - On Friday, a bailiff presented managers at the state-controlled Slavneft oil company with a court order invalidating the election of a person under criminal investigation as the new company president, media reported.
 
At an extraordinary shareholder meeting last Monday, the Russian-Belarussian company's shareholders elected Yury Sukhanov as president, ignoring the criminal probe against him. Sukhanov, previously vice president, is currently under investigation on allegations of abuse of power.
 The Ordzhonikidzevsky Court in Ufa, about 1,200 kilometers east of Moscow, immediately ruled the shareholders' decision invalid, Interfax reported. The court order was issued Monday and delivered to the company on Friday. Slavneft's operations are based in Ufa.
 Slavneft is among Russia's top 10 oil producers, with an annual output of about 260,000 barrels per day.
 Sukhanov was nominated by the Russian government and was considered a safe pair of hands to lead the company into a partial privatization later this year, Russian media reported.
 But last week, Sukhanov and another executive, Dmitry Perevalov, were put under investigation for abuse of power, the Interior Ministry said. The investigation was reported to have been requested by some lawmakers in the State Duma.
 The Russian government has said that it plans to sell a 19.68-percent stake in Slavneft this year. That would leave the government with a majority stake of 55.27 percent.

TITLE: U.S. Fowl Is Still Being Held
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia may permit the import of chicken meat currently held on two ships in the St. Petersburg port, but only on the condition that its safety be guaranteed, Interfax reported on Monday.
 
The First Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Sergei Dankvert, said that the chicken does not meet Russian health standards. A major concern is that the meat comes from states where there have been recorded cases of 'chicken flu.' 
 'The American side has provided certain guarantees, but as yet we haven't found a way to solve this issue,&quot; said Dankverst.
 The two vessels, carrying 15.000 tons of American chicken, have been in the St. Petersburg port for over a month. According to the American side, permission for the load to be delivered was issued prior to the ban on the import of poultry from the United States. 
 Following the removal of the ban on April 15, the Russian Veterinary Service is said to be using more stringent criteria in the issuing of new permits.

TITLE: Oligarchic System Continues To Rule
TEXT: IF you watch state-owned RTR television and read state-owned Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, you know that Russia's new leaders have booted impudent insiders like Boris Berezovsky out of the Kremlin and rounded the rest of the oligarchs up into a harem, where they quietly try to outdo one another in the service of the sovereign.
 
Foreign journalists watch RTR and ask me: &quot;Is it true that the era of the oligarchs in Russia has come to an end?&quot;
 A year and a half ago, oligarch Oleg Deripaska bought the Gorky Auto Works, or GAZ.
 A month later, two trucks loaded with stolen spare parts were stopped at the factory gate. The son of the head of GAZ security was riding in one of the trucks. Some 80 percent of spare parts produced at the plant were carted off in exactly this way.
 Then a car dealer showed up at the GAZ plant. The dealer had done time in prison in the early 1990s and become a well-known criminal figure. He produced a document showing that GAZ owed him 140 million rubles ($4.5 million) for prep work contracted out to his dealership's service department.
 GAZ didn't pay the 140 million rubles, because it figured that the dealer had stolen much more than that from the plant over the years. And because the plant was already carrying 15 billion rubles ($50 million) in similarly questionable debt.
 The dealer sued and won, but GAZ still refused to pay.
 Then the dealer went to the office of the presidential plenipotentiary representative, and said: &quot;Help me out, guys! You were the ones who wanted to put pressure on this oligarch to bring him around to your way of thinking.&quot;
 The bureaucrats put the squeeze on GAZ, and GAZ again refused to pay.
 The dealer then went to Moscow and approached federal agencies known to be unhappy with the oligarch. He said: &quot;Guys, you were looking for a way to lean on the oligarchs. This one's openly breaking the law and not paying his debts to the little guy with prison tattoos on his fingers.&quot;
 Honest bureaucrats from Moscow, working hard to restore the executive chain of command, ordered GAZ to pay the debt. And GAZ again refused.
 Instead, the GAZ security department crunched the numbers. They calculated that, with the number of mechanics employed at the dealership in question, it would have taken 389 years to perform 140 million rubles worth of prep work. They explained to the dealer that if he persisted, they would have him arrested for fraud. And no one in Moscow trying to restore the &quot;executive vertical&quot; would be able to save him.
 To repeat: Dealers like this hold 15 billion rubles in GAZ debt. So what's the conclusion?
 Whether Putin likes it or not, only the oligarchs can manage the economy, because they're the only ones capable of restoring something resembling a legal infrastructure on the territory of their factories - an infrastructure that has disappeared everywhere else in Russia.
 It's true that the federal government is trying to build a strong, even authoritarian state. But alongside this, another feudal structure is developing based on one simple principle: It doesn't matter who's right or wrong, it matters who you know. The law is reserved for your enemies.
 
 <i>
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT. </i>

TITLE: Helping Russia Leave Troubled Waters
AUTHOR: By Jean Lemierre
TEXT: Water is the beginning of life, and Russia has the advantage of being one of the world's greatest reservoirs of fresh water. The sad reality, however, is that no more than half of Russia's population drinks water that meets reasonable health standards.
 
At a time when the Russian authorities are voicing growing concern over the country's health standards, Russia's water statistics make for particularly depressing reading.
 In all, 68 percent of the country's water supply is not adequately treated. The level of wastage is alarming. Water-supply losses of 40 percent are common throughout Russia - due to leaking pipes and inefficient infrastructure.
 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has therefore made the improvement of water-related services in Russia a priority through a program of long-term loans that encourage local government bodies to push through reforms vital for improving the quality of life for the population.
 To put the EBRD initiative in context, one has to understand that, at present, no Russian financial institution is prepared to provide the huge amount of long-term funding necessary to start the renewal of water infrastructure.
 The EBRD's program includes water and waste-treatment projects already being implemented in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad. The bank's board of directors has also recently approved projects in Perm, Surgut and Yaroslavl.
 Another important point is the EBRD's ability to provide funding to local authorities in rubles.
 As these local authorities and utilities only generate ruble revenues, it makes sense for them to guard against foreign-exchange risks. The 1998 crisis showed that only too well.
 The main constraint for the EBRD program, however, is how much local currency it can borrow in Russia, and how fast it can do so.
 At the moment, the EBRD raises rubles by issuing promissory notes on the Russian market, but this is not a satisfactory long-term solution. The obvious solution is for it to issue ruble bonds, and the EBRD hopes that the various legal constraints holding this up will soon be overcome.
 One of the most innovative characteristics of these loans is that the EBRD is not asking for sovereign guarantees from the Russian Federation.
 The investment requirements in this sector are very big, and this means the central government should not shoulder the considerable costs alone. Local authorities must play their part.
 And it also means that, once EBRD projects have brought about improvements, local governments can raise financing more easily from commercial banks, thus lessening the financial burden on the central government.
 These municipal borrowers must therefore be able to operate their utility companies free from the political interference that is all too often exercised by local authorities, even though tariffs charged consumers can be a highly sensitive issue.
 Russian families on average spend a mere 0.2 percent of their income on water services. In Eastern Europe, water services can absorb up to 4 percent of the family income.
 But, as tariffs rise, there can be targeted aid for low-income consumer groups - rather than the utilities that have traditionally been subsidized in Russia. This approach, combining market-based tariffs and targeted subsidies, gives service providers a far greater incentive to cut costs by increasing efficiency.
 Some municipalities - such as Yaroslavl, one of the targets of the EBRD loan program - have been raising water tariffs for some time with the aim of eventually securing full cost recovery, in line with the government's reform plan for the sector.
 The EBRD experience is that, although increasing tariffs is always a difficult issue, the only way to ensure public acceptance is to explain how higher tariffs will improve services.
 Similar EBRD-funded programs in Eastern Europe have been highly successful in gaining public support, thanks to such awareness campaigns. So it does work.
 Further, cutting costs at utilities does not always mean laying off staff. Inefficient pumps, for instance, waste energy. Leakages in the system and unmetered consumption are other causes of waste. Repair work and the introduction of water meters help reduce excessive water use.
 The EBRD is not only lending money. It is also putting in place programs to help the borrowers enhance creditworthiness and improve financial management skills. The aim is to enable them to fund additional public investment programs and, eventually, gain access to commercial-bank financing.
 Clearly, it will be those local utilities that have both the political courage and the ability to charge realistic tariffs that will attract the financing needed to make improvements. There is a price to pay for clean water, but it's worth it.
 
 <i>
Jean Lemierre is president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Bush Places Politics Over Principle In Trade
AUTHOR: By David Ignatius
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The administration of U.S. President George D. Bush has had an unpleasant lesson during the past two weeks in the politics of hypocrisy in trade policy. Unless it acts quickly, it's in danger of losing control over trade to a U.S. Congress whose line is, at bottom: If the president can be protectionist, why can't I?
 
The Bush administration set this cycle of hypocrisy in motion in March, when the president chose politics over principle by imposing steel tariffs. Predictably, it has spawned a protectionist-feeding frenzy on Capitol Hill. The latest example of this downward spiral was Tuesday's senate vote to reject fast-track authority for the president to negotiate trade agreements unless congress has the right to veto any dilution of anti-dumping and other trade-remedy laws. 
 The previous week, congress had passed an appalling farm bill that is worse than anything Europe's agricultural protectionists have dared to propose in years. The administration officially disapproved, but its resistance was lame and ineffectual. 
 Bush, sadly, doesn't have anyone to blame for this unraveling of trade policy but himself - and his White House political savant, Karl Rove. You increasingly get the sense that what really matters in Washington these days is the 2004 electoral map in Rove's head. 
 Unfortunately, the politics of hypocrisy is global. It's a godsend for protectionists in Europe and Asia to see the recent antics in Washington, for it allows them to play politics, too. Even communists now feel free to lecture this administration about the free market! 
 I'm told that the steel-lobbying coalition commissioned private polls in key steel states such as West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The polls documented how Bush and the Republicans would gain from the steel tariffs. These numbers were then shown to Rove and other White House aides. The political case was so potent that the president overruled his chief economic advisers, including Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
 The steel story is actually weirder than this last, craven chapter. It begins in the first weeks of the Bush administration, when O'Neill privately warned the president that the steel industry would be a problem. Because of global overcapacity, pressure was building for new protective tariffs, O'Neill advised. He asked the president to let him try to find a creative solution to the steel problem in order to avoid protectionism.
 O'Neill had led a successful effort at Alcoa to reduce excess capacity in the global aluminum industry, largely by buying decrepit plants abroad and closing them. He wanted to try something similar in steel.
 He knew he would need numbers to prove his case, so he commissioned a quick study of the global steel industry from a Boston consulting group. Its report concluded that the world had 35 percent more steel-making capacity than it needed, and that a significant part of that excess capacity was in the United States.
 The treasury secretary's idea was that, instead of protectionism, U.S. steel companies should join with their counterparts around the world and find an orderly way to reduce capacity, perhaps under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The alternative, he suspected, would either be protectionist tariffs or a price war that would shake out the excess capacity the hard way - by driving more steel companies into bankruptcy.
 Rove got the message. The president caved in on his principles and, in my view, fundamentally weakened his administration.
 A born conniver like former presidents Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton might get caught doing a backroom deal - they practically advertised their malleability. But Bush is a moralizer, who uses words like &quot;good'' and &quot;evil'' in policy debates. That makes it especially dangerous for him to play politics on issues that matter.
 If Bush wants to get his trade and economic policy back on track, he must vow never again to do what he did in steel.
 
 <i>
David Ignatius is a columnist for the Washington Post, to whom he submitted this piece. </i>

TITLE: Caspian Pipeline A History of Square Pegs Into Round Holes
AUTHOR: By Christopher Pala
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Just where the western tip of the Caucasus range drops into the Black Sea lies a shining new oil terminal like no other.
 
The four crude-oil tanks overlooking the rocky coast are not the biggest in the world, but they are the biggest in Russia.
 And, because of Russians' fear of lightning, 16 giant lightning towers stand guard over the four tanks, giving what oil workers call &quot;the tank farm&quot; a unique appearance.
 The lightning towers, painted in bright red and white and topped with blinking lights, are more than 70 meters tall and cost $250,000 each.
 &quot;In Texas, we would never have those things,&quot; said Gary Boubel, the project general manager of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, the company that built the terminal and the pipeline.
 &quot;I have never seen a place that, from a regulatory point of view, is so paranoid about lightning,&quot; said CPC's Dennis Stuart, who was responsible for the Kazakh segment of the pipeline.
 For the Westerners who supervised the 6,000 Russians and Kazakhs who built the pipeline that stretches from the giant Tengiz oil field on the Kazakh shore of the Caspian Sea to this high-tech terminal in Russia's deep south, the towers are a symbol of the waste imposed by Russia's rigid and antiquated building codes.
 But for Yevgeny Vlasov, a 27-year-old business person checking his e-mail on a recent afternoon at an Internet cafe in the nearby city of Novorossiisk, the towers make perfect sense.
 &quot;Imagine if lightning struck those tanks,&quot; he said. &quot;There would be a terrible fire. Of course we need those towers.&quot;
 As Vlasov is right - most tank fires do come from lightning - so are the Americans with their Western technology, such as conductive-material domes and floating roofs that eliminate spaces where explosive vapors can accumulate.
 
 <strong>
DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHIES
 </strong>The building of the CPC pipeline, financed mostly by U.S. companies led by ChevronTexaco, has offered a unique prism through which to assess how extraordinarily far apart two philosophies of building oil-related structures evolved in parallel fashion over the 20th century.
 
One is known as the Western way, dating from when the first well drew oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1858. As U.S. and European oil companies grew and spread to Asia, South America and Africa, they brought with them their way of doing things, of building things, of working.
 In Russia, the first oil wells were drilled in 1871 in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, by the Swedish Nobel brothers. By the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the industry was well developed. 
 The Soviet Union eventually rose to be the world's largest producer of oil, drilling thousands of wells and laying 50,000 kilometers of pipelines - with no contact whatsoever with its Western counterparts.
 &quot;The CPC is the first time the two cultures had to work together,&quot; Stuart mused one recent afternoon in Atyrau, a booming oil town complete with Tex-Mex restaurants that is Kazakhstan's answer to Houston.
 The Soviet construction philosophy, heir to a tsarist state that already nurtured an oppressive bureaucracy vividly described in Russian literature, took on a shape of its own.
 The designer bore no responsibility for cost, but was personally responsible for the work and could be sent to jail if the design was to be blamed for an accident.
 This created a tendency to make things bigger and stronger than in the West. Extra bulk was factored in to compensate for the poor workmanship and low-quality materials that were the Soviet norm.
 Much of the technology still in practice today, and the rules it created, date from the 1960s, according to CPC oil workers.
 The Americans were driven crazy with frustration by the delays and cost overruns caused by the building codes, work habits and a uniquely intrusive bureaucracy.
 The Russians and Kazakhs were appalled by what they perceived as the Americans' disorganization and their incomprehensible demands, and were deeply suspicious about their motives.
 With the possible exception of the space program, never had two subspecies of <i>Homo faber</i> - man the maker - evolved so differently and then been forced to work together.
 
 <strong>
A HIGH-VISIBILITY PROJECT
 </strong>CPC isn't just any pipeline. It's large - it will eventually be able to carry 1.5 million barrels per day - and at 1,510 kilometers, it's also quite long. Roughly half had been built in the 1980s but required a major overhaul. The other half was built from scratch.
 
When, after years of negotiations, first with the Soviet Union then with the Kazakh government, Chevron Corp. took over the deep, high-pressure Tengiz field - the world's sixth-largest - on the northeast Caspian Sea shore in 1992, it gambled that it would some day get the oil to an open-sea port.
 Negotiations with the Russians to build a pipeline to the Black Sea dragged on. Russia wanted to keep political control over the new fields of the north Caspian Sea by having them run through its territory, but Transneft, the Soviet-era pipeline monopoly, was horrified at the idea of foreign competition on its own turf. Chevron, meanwhile, refused to spend any money on a pipeline that it would not control.
 Finally, two Russian oil companies, LUKoil and Rosneft, were brought on board, and the project took off in 1997. Russia, Kazakhstan and Oman - which paid for early feasibility studies - own half the shares in CPC and contributed an existing pipeline that ran half the route, part of it in Russia and part in Kazakhstan.
 Eight oil companies, which are paying to build the pipe so they can use it to export their oil, share the other half. Chevron, with 15 percent of CPC and half of the Tengiz field, was the lead company.
 Both Washington and Moscow lent their support: Washington, to back Chevron, and Moscow to prove it would be a reliable transporter of Western-lifted oil in the Caspian region, which is expected to produce 4 million barrels per day in 15 years.
 
 <strong>
THE FIRST PROBLEMS
 </strong>The agreement was that, for the first five years, the general director would be a Russian from LUKoil and the person in charge of building the pipeline would be his deputy, an American from Chevron. The arrangement would be reversed for the second five years in 2002, by which time the pipeline was due to be fully functional.
 
But soon after the first pair began working, the Americans took umbrage at what they saw as the Russians' autocratic ways. Work ground to a halt, and the contractors were sent home.
 Eventually, another pair of managers was brought in, with the proviso that everything had to be signed by both.
 &quot;It's bureaucratic and tedious but that's how we run the business,&quot; said Frederick Nelson, the mild-mannered deputy general director for operations whose diplomatic skills are frequently mentioned within the company as having been essential in pulling the project through. (Nelson moved on to Indonesia when his term ended and was replaced by Sergei Gnachenko, the former general director.)
 
 <strong>
RIGID BUILDING CODES
 </strong>From the start, it was agreed that the pipeline would be built to Russian or Western standards, whichever were higher. The Americans had expected some over-design - just not as much as they found.
 
&quot;If a foundation has to be X by X,&quot; said Dennis Cukr, who managed the Russian stretch for CPC, &quot;the designers would put 2X by 2X, running up the cost four times.&quot;
 In the United States, he said, building codes are guidelines that leave plenty of leeway, with the owner liable for the safety of the structure. In Russia, the codes are highly detailed and have the force of law.
 &quot;So we'd find ourselves continually going back to the designers, saying, 'You've got to be kidding, we would never want to build something like that. Do you know how much that would cost?' And they would say, 'Too bad, that's our design and we're not going to change it.'&quot;
 Because Russian pipelines do not have computer-linked sensors that can detect a leak instantly and close the relevant valve automatically, building codes stipulate that large retention ditches and reservoirs - huge, empty swimming pools - be built near populated areas.
 The codes make no provision for the sensors and the computers that CPC imported. So millions of dollars were spent on ditches that are no longer built anywhere else.
 &quot;In the original design, they had put in a couple of dozen,&quot; said Andrei Novoderezhkin of CPC. &quot;In the end we got them to reduce that to six or seven.&quot;
 Bob Buell, the lead telecommunications engineer who oversaw the laying of a fiber-optics cable along the pipeline, said CPC discovered one way to deal with the building codes and regulations known as snips.
 When CPC engineers were denied permission to do something their way, they were told a snip forbade that.
 &quot;We learned that if you asked for the text, nine times out of 10 the issue just went away. They knew that if they had always done something a particular way, there must be a snip somewhere, but there are so many snips they usually couldn't find the right one,&quot; Buell said.
 &quot;So we had Russians specially employed looking for snips, because there were contradictory snips, and when they found one that said you had to do it this way, we'd have our people find a snip that said do it the other way.&quot;
 
 <strong>
THE GEARS DIDN'T MESH
 </strong>The design of the tank farm and marine terminal was handed to Fluor-Daniel's Houston office and the French company Bouygues, while its construction went to Bouygues' Russian subsidiary, Starstroi. But, according to Nelson, who directed the whole project, CPC decided to have the Russian state design bureaus draw up the new pump stations in a bid to save time.
 
CPC's intention was to build the pipeline in a fast-track mode, where construction starts before the design details are finished. But the Russian system was to first complete the design at a specialized institute, have a ministry do the purchasing, and then turn over the project to a building concern, which would execute the project down to the last detail.
 In the initial planning, said CPC's Stuart, &quot;there was not enough recognition of the gulf between the two cultures. For instance, first we do a basic drawing and we add the details as we go along. They do a detailed design and do the basic drawing at the end. So we were getting the drawings several months late. We had two gears where the teeth weren't meshing.&quot;
 The result was that, of five pump stations to be built or rebuilt in the first phase of the project by last fall, only two had been completed in March and the other three are not expected to be finished before summer.
 &quot;We are going to finish six to nine months late because of the inefficiency of the design institutes, and I don't mind being quoted on that,&quot; Cukr, the manager of the Russian portion, said in his office in Krasnodar.
 He estimated that the pump stations, budgeted at $240 million, will probably end up costing $265 million. And the pipeline, which was scheduled to operate at its inauguration in mid-2001, with five pump stations at 550,000 bpd, came in last October at 200,000 bpd because only two were working.
 By the end of the first phase, the total cost will be $2.65 billion, which CPC executives say is just slightly above the norm.
 Asked why CPC elected to have the pipeline's pumping stations designed by the main Russian pipeline-design-institute Gidrotruboprovod, or GTP, rather than by a Western company, Boubel, the company's No. 3, said on a tour of a much-delayed pumping station in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, &quot;It was an obvious choice. They were the design institute.&quot;
 He added, however, that the institute turned out to have actually been largely inactive for the past decade, having seen its best engineers go to Western companies, and was busy at the time working on a pipeline in the Baltic that drained a lot of talent from CPC's project.
 For Kairgeldy Kabyldin, who runs Kazakhstan's pipeline network, the blame for these delays lie elsewhere.
 &quot;The pipeline is behind schedule because the Americans they sent are bad managers,&quot; he said in an interview given in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital. &quot;They change their minds all the time. They should have just sent a couple of managers and left the construction to local specialists. Here and in Russia we build things much faster.&quot;
 &quot;Besides,&quot; he said, &quot;they have a conflict of interest: Since they make more money here than at home, they're motivated to create delays.&quot; Then he smiled sympathetically, shrugged and added, &quot;I understand, they also have families to feed.&quot;
 Yury Spector, the director of the GTP design institute that drew such ire from the Americans, was more diplomatic. He said he wasn't long on the job, didn't know of any delays, and called the CPC experience beneficial for his institute.
 &quot;We got some idea of Western standards, of American experience,&quot; he said. &quot;For us, it was the first time.
 &quot;However, I think that the design and construction of pipelines in Russia must be carried out by Russians,&quot; he said. &quot;That allows us to reduce costs. This is perfectly exemplified by the fact than the construction of the BTS [Baltic Transport System] cost nearly a tenth less then CPC.&quot;
 
 <strong>
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT
 </strong>At the tank farm just above the marine terminal overlooking the Black Sea, the lightning towers were not the only cost that would not have been imposed anywhere else but Russia.
 
&quot;The fire protection stuff, typically, is about 10 percent of the cost of a tank farm and terminal. Here, it's been 30 percent,&quot; said Rudy Nagel, the burly Dutchman who managed the construction project for Bouygues, the main contractor.
 &quot;The fire brigades were all over,&quot; said Kim la Bauve, who oversaw the marine terminal and tank farm construction for CPC. &quot;Never have I seen outside authorities come in so often and tell us what to do. They made us build a huge dam and giant water towers.&quot; At the site, 216 fire fighters and 10 fire trucks serve on a rotation basis.
 &quot;In the U.S., the strategy for a tank fire is you drain it and let it burn. Here they insisted we must put it out, which meant we had to provide for water and foam for 12 hours,&quot; Nagel said. &quot;We had to build an extra dam and enormous water towers.&quot;
 The U.S. oil workers were also surprised to learn that there were skeletons in the closets of the existing components of the pipeline.
 When Cukr started work on these elements in the Russian portion of the pipeline, &quot;we found out they were designed by the same people we were working with. They were built by the exact same constructors who are doing the work for us and inspected by exactly the same agencies and even the same individuals that we're working with now. But, back then, the party bosses would say, 'We want this thing done now,' so they would take shortcuts.
 &quot;Many, many times, the people who built and inspected it and knew where they had screwed up forced us to dig this stuff all back up and said, 'Look at this, it's screwed up, fix it.' That cost me several million dollars and several months of schedule,&quot; Cukr said.
 One example in which the Russians were less forthcoming, he said, was a pair of crude-oil tanks at the existing Komsomolskaya pump station, which had to be destroyed and rebuilt.
 &quot;We wanted to use those tanks for crude oil but, even though they had never been filled, they told us we couldn't,&quot; Cukr said.
 &quot;We weren't sure why until we found out from the drawings that the foundations of those tanks were supposed to have concrete piles driven underneath to support them. Well, they never drove those piles. They just put concrete ring beams and built the tanks on top of them.
 &quot;If they would have been filled, there would have been a lot of settlement because of the soil type,&quot; he said. &quot;The tanks or the connecting piping could have failed, and you could have had a leak.&quot;
 &quot;Before,&quot; Bouygues' Nagel said, &quot;they violated the norms for political reasons. Now they do it for money. The Russian companies just pay and the inspectors sign. You take one look at the oil terminal in the Novorossiisk port and it's obvious it violates the Russian norms.&quot;
 Stuart, speaking a day before ending his assignment in Kazakhstan and heading home to Houston, gave this assessment of the project.
 &quot;We all know it costs more than if all the bits and pieces had been compatible. Then again, we are operating, the oil is flowing, and we know we'll have finished the first phase this year, even if it's six or nine months later than we expected. It had never been done, we did it, and we proved it could be done, though if we had to do it again, we'd get the Russians more involved much earlier.&quot;

TITLE: What Lies at the Roots of Acts of Terrorism?
TEXT: Editor,
 </i>Any terrorist act - indeed, any exploded bomb - against innocent people is always wrong, whether in New York, Tel Aviv or Dagestan.
 
The May 9 incident, however, raises a few questions.
 After the devastating Sept. 11 terrorist acts in New York and Washington, some mindless people said &quot;America got what is deserved,&quot; although very many victims in the World Trade Center were non-Americans, including Russians, Britons, Pakistanis and Indians. What happened in Dagestan is different.
 The horrible act was targeted, the timing was precise and its location was symbolic. It happened at a Vicory Day parade in Russian-occupied Dagestan, not in Russia proper, nor in a restaurant nor on the street. Its victims were not civilians, but Russian military personnel and children commemorating the Red Army. And the timing - minutes before Vladimir Putin's speech to Red Army veterans, was a message.
 Clearly, this barbaric and criminal act was a message to imperialistic Russia.
 Russians never seem to understand how deeply the Victory Day parades insult the billions of victims of Soviet or Russian imperialism. To us - Finns, people in the Baltic republics, Afghanis, people from the Caucasus, Koreans, Eastern Europeans and Germans - the Victory Day parade is a symbol of the savage acts, aggression, humiliation and occupation by the &quot;false&quot; victor of Stalin's war.
 To Europeans, it means 45 years of horror after 1945, until the Soviet Union - fortunately - lost the Cold War. To Asians, the Victory Day parade symbolizes the hopeless poverty of North Korea - Stalin's creation - or millions of land mines still exploding in Cambodia, killing and injuring innocent children and women almost daily, or 9 million Afghan victims of Soviet aggression since 1979.
 Although any bomb attack on any people is entirely wrong, Russians will have to learn this lesson: Years of imperial arrogance and violence are over. There is no victory from wars. Small nations must have their freedom and Russian troops must pull out of countries that never welcomed them in the first place - including my native Karelia, which is part of independent Finland, as was signed and agreed upon between the Russian and Finnish people in 1920.
 <i>Markus Lehtipuu
 Helsinki, Finland
 </i>
 <strong>
A Valuable Scrap
 </strong><i>
In response to &quot;A Good Deal or a Worthless Scrap of Paper?&quot; May 17.
 
 Editor,
 </i>This letter is in response to Pavel Felgenhauer's opinion piece. Now, while I do not disagree that the new nuclear treaty to be signed by presidents Putin and Bush lacks any specific timetable or definitions, I do think that it is very significant in terms of symbolism. This is a new beginning for former foes - the beginning of a friendship. Felgenhauer even goes as far as to say that &quot;strategic nuclear weapons are increasingly seen as senseless and unusable by many Russian generals.&quot; If this is the case, and I agree, then why can we not appreciate the importance of this worthless piece of paper, instead of dwelling on the &quot;what's and when's&quot;?
 
I am an optimist. What's more, I am trusting. That is why I find it hard to understand all the concern over our missile-defense system. How can a system designed to destroy incoming nuclear missiles be a threat to Russia?
 One more question I have always been curious about: Does the average Russian feel that the United States is a threat? Do you think that we are going to launch an attack?
 Now this is only my opinion, but I feel the American public would never tolerate an aggressive attack by us, unless we or our allies were threatened.
 Russians have nothing to fear from this country if they want to live in peace.
 <i>Bob Hartzog
 Pheonix, Arizona
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>In 1988, at the third special session of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to disarmament, the Soviet Union joined the Warsaw Pact states in a white paper entitled &quot;Security Through Disarmament.&quot; Here they wrote:
 
&quot;The delegations of the States Party to the Warsaw Treaty note with satisfaction that the conviction is becoming universal that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, that all wars, whether nuclear or conventional, must be averted, that the establishment of a secure peace calls for new thinking, a new approach to questions of war and peace, and presupposes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, the renunciation of the concept of nuclear deterrence, and of the policy of force and the threat of force in relations among States.&quot;
 Therefore, they reiterated, &quot;their support for the elaboration and adoption of the Comprehensive Program of Disarmament encompassing all measures thought to be advisable in order to ensure that the goal of general and complete disarmament under effective international control becomes a reality.&quot;
 Russia has rejected the Soviet policy and will sign an agreement with the United States that precludes disarmament.
 <i>Edward Perry
 Palm Springs, California
 </i>
 <strong>
Why Slam Bush?
 </strong><i>
Editor,
 </i>As an American in St. Petersburg, on Sept. 11, I received many calls and expressions of love and sympathy. May I say thank you to the Russian heart of compassion and kindness. I extend my love and sympathy to all my Russian brothers and sisters whose hearts are heavy with sadness from the terrible terrorist attack in Dagestan.
 
The article about Dr. Oleg Shulga and his mother Anna (Breath of Hope Despite Debilitating Illness, May 14) touched my heart. What a courageous duet. Such a beautiful demonstration of a mother's love. Also, the outpouring of real help from the community by strangers was touching and appreciated. It reminded me of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 7:12, known as the Golden Rule, &quot;Do unto others as you would have them do to you.&quot;
 It was disappointing for me to read the comments made by Dale Wooley, my fellow American from the state of Oregon. Freedom of speech and of the press are rights we should always expect in a society free from political oppression. Freedom of speech should be responsible and respectable, as should the press. Wooley's use of insulting, ineffective and derogatory language in opposition to the political policies and persons of the U.S. presidential administration were embarrassing and shameful in my opinion. Though he doesn't respect our president, George W. Bush, he should at least respect the office and use language that dignifies the human race. Also, his accusations of criminality and gangsterism by the &quot;Bushy Boys&quot; was as ludicrous as his last self-incriminating statement, &quot;These thugs are destroying everything that is decent in the world!&quot; I believe the Bush family is decent, conscientious, God and people loving and is sincerely trying to help the world to be a better place for all people to live in peace.
 <i>Bobby Deason
 Saint Petersburg</i>
 
 <strong>
One More Time
 </strong><i>
In response to &quot;Russia, NATO Embarking on a New Era,&quot; May 17.
 
 Dear Editor,
 </i>On May 17, you ran a story entitled &quot;Russia, NATO Embarking on a New Era.&quot;
 
How many times have we heard this tired refrain! When Peter I ruled Russia, a window was to open on the West. Soon, that window was beseiged by German guns, and soon after, Peter's dynasty was no more. When Lenin reigned, Russia was to build a socialist utopia. Instead, gulags rose and in them more Russians died than under German guns. Lenin did not last as long as the fragile Romanovs.
 Now, again, hearts skip a beat and there is dancing in the street and a magnificant metamorphosis is anticipated in Russia. How long will this endure? A month, or perhaps even a year? Truly, those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it.
 <i>Lenard Leeds
 Atlanta, Georgia
 </i>
 <strong>
More Russophobia
 </strong><i>
In response to &quot;Russophobia Still Rampant,&quot; a comment by Sergei Yastrzhembsky on April 26.
 
 Editor,
 </i>Regarding Sergei Yastrzhembsky's despair over the conventional Western perceptions of Russia, I must say that images are often based on facts. Is it not a fact that a bill may be proposed in the State Duma amending the Criminal Code that punishes sodomy with up to five years in jail?
 
Laws Russia implements that are reminiscent of Nazi Germany will certainly give Westerners a clear image of human rights and culture in Russia.
 <i>Ian Grieve
 Toronto, Canada
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>Much to my own surprise, I have became one of these persons who started to be interested in Russia some 15 months ago. As my knowledge until then was limited to Moscow, vodka, caviar, Volga and <i>nyet</i>, there was - and still is - a lot to discover. In the meantime, there are two subjects that are really intriguing me: The regular criticism of the pro-Western policy of President Vladimir Putin and Russophobia.
 
As the present is the direct result of the past, it is perhaps good to realize that never before in history has such a large population shared in economic wealth as at present in the West. So it does not seem illogical that, when you become the president of a country facing such great economic and social problems as Russia is, you would look for solutions were things are better in this field, which is the case at this moment in Western countries. But, given the regular complaints about this approach, it seems that Russia does not share this opinion, so it says no to Western policies.
 As the result of the &quot;all-Russian policy&quot; of the past 80 years (70 years of Communism and 10 years of post-Communism) is a country that seems to be going down the drain in whatever direction you look, I can hardly believe that a return to this &quot;all-Russian policy&quot; is what people want.
 Is it too much to ask for somebody to be so kind as to explain to all those foreigners who are following the developments in Russia with great interest what it is that Russia wants and how it plans to realize it?
 Perhaps it can be set out by the following statement: The world is not suffering from Russophobia, but Russia from worldphobia, and I have the strong feeling that both subjects are linked.
 <i>Anneke van Ingen Schenau
 The Netherlands</i>
 <strong>
A View From Afar
 </strong><i>
Editor,
 </i>I do not know if you have seen the opening scene of David Lean's film version of &quot;Oliver Twist,&quot; where the expectant mother jangles the bell at the workhouse gate pleading to be let in. That vision struck me as I arrived with my Russian wife at Maternity Hospital No. 11 in the Bibkheyevo region of Moscow at 10 p.m. on May 9. After gaining entry, courtesy of the security guard - one of whom was wearing full military uniform - we were taken to a drab, soulless room to register.
 
I was resigned to the fact that I would not be allowed to be present at the birth, unlike in Britain, where the father-to-be is encouraged to attend. I had plenty of money in my wallet but, surprisingly, there were no takers. I went home and returned to the hospital at 7:30 the next morning. It took about 20 minutes of asking and searching just to find out if I had become a father. Fortunately, my wife's labor had been short, and my son had been born at 4:40 a.m. Had there been a telephone call to inform me? No. I found out from a security guard.
 Then the fun and games really started. I was only allowed to contact my wife by telephone or by shouting from the hospital garden to her room on the fifth floor. When I worked with the city police, I was able to get into the prison more easily. As for seeing the child, that was impossible until day five, and even then I had to bribe the gate guard with a bottle of vodka and 60 Rothmans to let me in after hours so that my wife could show me my son from the window - thank goodness I had my binoculars!
 My son came home when he was eight days old, and that was the first time I got to hold him.
 I have no criticisms of the treatment that my wife and son received and would like to thank the hospital for returning to me a healthy wife and son. However, the old-fashioned, archaic system of ignoring the father's needs must be dragged screaming out of the 19th century. I have no wish to endure those particular eight days of my life again and would not wish them on any other British father. My advice is to have your child in Britain or try to find a hospital system with better PR for fathers.
 <i>Chris Weldon
 Moscow </i>

TITLE: The Necessary Agenda
AUTHOR: By Michael McFaul
TEXT: U.S. PRESIDENT George W. Bush is poised to have a terrific trip on his first visit to Russia. He will sign an agreement with President Vladimir Putin that will eliminate thousands of nuclear weapons. He and Putin will celebrate a new, closer relationship between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia, paving the way for an uneventful expansion of the alliance this fall. Bush will proclaim Russia a market economy and urge Russian integration into the West. Finally, Bush and Putin will make joint statements about their shared commitment to the war on terrorism.
 
The summit will be only a partial success, however, if Bush fails to push for greater democracy. Soviet, then Russian, democratization was indispensable in preparing all the achievements of the upcoming summit. Autocratic Russia opposed NATO, resisted arms control and suppressed markets. Democratic Russia has sought to join the West and cooperate with the United States. A return to dictatorship in Russia would quickly undermine all of these achievements.
 Unfortunately, the trend in Russia is going away from democracy. Most worrying has been Putin's disregard for human rights in Chechnya. Russia must defend its borders and respond to terrorist acts, such as the attack, said to have been by Islamic fundamentalists, in Dagestan earlier this month. The conduct of the Russian armed forces and units of the Interior Ministry in Chechnya, however, does not serve these purposes. Russian tactics in Chechnya have been routinely inhumane, especially against civilians. These methods have inspired more fanaticism within Chechnya and made Russia less secure.
 Putin also has silenced many of his critics. He and his surrogates have gone on the offensive against critical independent media outlets, seizing control of NTV - the country's only national opposition network - and threatening others. Through new laws and registration procedures, Putin's government has also limited the freedoms and powers of independent trade unions, political parties and nongovernmental organizations like the Glasnost Defense Foundation, the Socio-Ecological Union and the Russo-Chechen Friendship Society. The state-security service has stepped up harassment of investigative journalists, human rights activists, environmental leaders and academics.
 Putin has even weakened alternative power centers within the state. His so-called reform of the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, has gravely weakened this once-important check on presidential power. Most disturbing, as demonstrated by the recent election in Ingushetia, the Russian federal government has begun to manipulate elections by disqualifying front-running candidates deemed unacceptable. Even Putin's generally positive legal reforms are tainted by the selective application of the law for political purposes.
 In isolation, any one of the anti-democratic trends might not be cause for alarm. Taken as a whole, they cannot be ignored.
 Why should Bush or the American people care? First, the obvious: Democracy is a good system of government and one desired by Russians. In nationwide polls in Russia in 2000, 60 percent of respondents believed democracy was a very good or fairly good system of government for Russia, while only 24 percent portrayed it as fairly bad or very bad. Eighty-seven percent of Russians think it important to elect the country's leaders. Most Russians are not willing to take the trade of more order for less freedom. Nearly 80 percent believe the military should not rule Russia.
 Second, dictatorship is unlikely to help the economy. Russia needs a more effective state to sustain markets. There is no reason to assume, however, that an autocratic regime in Russia would be an effective state. Russia's last autocratic regime - the Soviet Union - produced neither an efficient state nor economic growth. In the post-communist world, the correlation between democracy and economic growth is robust.
 Third, an autocratic Russia will eventually threaten the United States. Such a Russia would depend on the military, the intelligence services and military industries to stay in power. Many in these sectors distrust the United States and seek to reassert Russian influence in Georgia, Ukraine and Central Asia; to sell nuclear technologies to Iran; and to increase weapon sales to Iraq. The negative impact of an antidemocratic Russia on American security interests would be direct.
 On his visit to Moscow, Bush must speak the truth about Russia's democratic backsliding. He needs particularly to speak about Chechnya, acknowledging that terrorists must be stopped but emphasizing that not all Chechens are terrorists and the only road to peace and security in the Caucasus is political, not military. Second, if Bush truly values his relationship with Putin, then he should speak candidly about the democratic criteria for genuine partnership between the two countries. Third, he must make a special effort to meet with those in Russia fighting for democracy and human rights.
 Putin is not a dictator, and he wants Russia to become a thriving capitalist economy fully integrated into the West. Rhetorically, he also has championed democracy. This is why Bush's message in Moscow could have a significant impact. By emphasizing democratization, he could impress on Putin the urgency of moving in the right direction now.
 
 <i>Michael McFaul is a Hoover Institution fellow and professor of political science at Stanford University. He contributed this piece to the New York Times. </i>

TITLE: Sweeping It All Under The Carpet
TEXT: AS is sometimes the case with legislative initiatives, it's difficult to determine just what the target of the draft law on registration fees discussed in Legislative Committee hearings on Monday is targeting.
 
The authors of the prospective legislation say that the goal is to limit the number of illegal aliens living in St. Petersburg and to create better conditions for those foreigners who are working here legally. This very well may be their true intent.
 But the timing of the project - the authors themselves stressed that they have next year's 300th anniversary celebrations in mind - conjures up campaigns that this and other cities have run for image purposes in the past.
 If this assessment is accurate, then there are two groups most likely to be the targets of this holiday-motivated relocation campaign - unregistered immigrants from other former Soviet states, or the city's homeless. The focus really won't matter to those who fall into both groups.
 If the intent of the draft is to get rid of those from other CIS states who live without registration at present in the city, then the city's cosmetic attempt at making itself more attractive to annniversary visitors will come at the cost of the shame that what, in all honesty, will be a reaction that is at least partially motivated by considerations of race.
 If the intent of the draft is to temporarily banish those unfortunate enough to have been driven to living on the street, then the anniversary facelift should bear the price tag of the embarrassment of trying to simply sweep social problems under the carpet - or into the woods for a year - rather than attempting to address them.
 The most cynical part of the law is that the authors themselves don't offer much in the way of an explanation for how the measure will improve the situation of any of the people involved. They simply want to come up with the money that law-enforcement agents here will need to paper over the problem.
 Who knows, they might just pull it off and get all of these &quot;undesireables&quot; cleared out just in time for tourists to come and believe that they never existed. The tourists will not be faced with uncomfortable questions about the plight of the needy here, or the situation of those who are not mambers of the majority natinality. 
 The problem is that the people who live here and will remain long after the anniversary celebrations have ended will know that they were here. And if we're not careful, they might just start to believe that the little vanishing act was the best way to deal with the situation.

TITLE: A Bureaucracy That Cuts Just One Way
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: IT'S hard to believe but, according to state statistics, Russia ends up with a new civil servant every 18 minutes. As I read this in the Izvestiya daily the other day, I was reminded of the time I sat down with the figures from the state budget and worked out that there are about 1.5 million civil servants - about 10 percent of the country's population and 300,000 more people than there are serving in the Russian army. It's no wonder they talk about shrinking the size of the bureaucracy.
 
This week, the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly got into a spat over raising the salaries of deputies and their assistants. These are determined on the basis of multiples of the state-set minimum wage, which was raised from 100 rubles ($3.20) to 300 rubles earlier this year. Sergei Tarasov, the Legislative Assembly speaker said that there was just no way the budget could take the tripling of these salaries.
 I'm not against giving the deputies a raise - the fact that lawmakers responsible for the approval of a $1.9-billion city budget are paid $160 per month strikes me as strange.
 But I think that raises for their assistants are an even more important question. If deputies were allowed to use the salary fund according to their needs, they would likely pay higher salaries to a smaller number of employees.
 But there is little likelihood that this will happen as, although we keep hearing statements from the federal government that shrinking the bureaucracy is a serious goal, the results are the opposite. Last week Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, asked by a State Duma deputy about administrative reform, replied that people should not expect any radical change but, instead, only &quot;minor corrections&quot; to the system.
 In fact, they are headed the wrong way. The appointment of presidential representatives - each with their own administrative staffs - to oversee seven mega-districts in the country just created more seats for bureaucratic pants to polish.
 Novgorod Governor Mikhail Prusak says that the so-called &quot;vertical integration of state power&quot; system just promotes interference with regional economies. In a recent interview with Novaya Gazeta, Prusak said that he now has to call the office of Presidential Representative Viktor Cherkesov just to get an additional load of sand to build a road in his region. I hope that Prusak was exaggerating but, even if he was, he's not too far off.
 Here's a beautiful example:
 Last week I read a report on the Northwest Region that was presented to German businesspeople by Lyubov Sovershayeva, Cherkesov's deputy.
 &quot;[We] conducted an analysis of investment opportunities here with the participation of experts, businesspeople and representatives of political parties and public organizations. ... The work development strategies have allowed us to better estimate the economical, social and human potential [of the region] ... We believe the North West is very attractive for investments&quot; Sovershayeva said.
 Now, that's informative.
 Sovershayeva said the document has been approved as a draft, and is currently in the process of &quot;being fleshed out.&quot;
 In other words &quot;We don't have anything to do at the moment, so we have to pretend.&quot; They might as well, since they seem to just pretending to try to whittle down the civil service anyway.

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: <b>General Principles</b> Quietly, without fanfare, in a bland statement issued by its most &quot;moderate&quot; frontman, the Bush regime crossed another moral Rubicon last week, carrying the once-great republic it has usurped deeper into the blood-soaked mire of international criminality.
 
The move - committing the United States of America to a policy of Hitlerian military aggression - was little noted at the time. A quick soundbite, maybe, on a couple of the more wonky TV news shows, or a brief quote buried somewhere in the thick gray sludge of the &quot;serious&quot; papers. The Regime guaranteed that its poison pill would go down sugarcoated by picking Secretary of State Colin Powell as its mouthpiece.
 It was a masterstroke of propaganda, really. The former general has long been regarded by the &quot;serious&quot; media on both sides of the Atlantic as a &quot;moderate&quot; maverick on Bush's hard-right team. Liberal commentators praise Powell as a &quot;restraining influence&quot; on more bellicose insiders like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and a wise, guiding hand for a president unschooled in the subtleties of world diplomacy.
 It's all a sham, of course. Powell is nothing more than a life-long bag man for powerful interests. His willingness to play ball, to look the other way, has made him a convenient tool for some of the most violent and undemocratic forces ever to pollute American society.
 His first job on the inside was an attempted whitewash of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. It didn't quite work, but he won points for his obfuscatory efforts and went on to a plum job in the crime-ridden, Mob-connected Nixon White House. Then came Iran-Contra, the criminal conspiracy of drug-running and terrorism operated directly out of the Reagan-Bush White House. Powell illicitly sent missiles to the terrorist regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, then helped with the ensuing coverup. For this service, he was made head of the entire U.S. military.
 He then directed the illegal American aggression against Panama, when then President George H.W. Bush killed hundreds of innocent civilians in a hissy fit against his old CIA employee Manuel Noriega. Powell, like Bush, had long known Noriega was a murderous drug dealer, but they found him useful, and plied him with plaudits and cash - until Bush needed to prove his tough-guy <i>cojones </i>to Reaganite critics in the Republican Party.
 Now Powell serves faithfully as a water-carrier for the rabid rightists in Bush Junior's crew. Powell breaks bread with John Ashcroft, who breaks bread with the avowed racists at Southern Partisan magazine, who break bread with extremists who call for concentration camps, expulsions and executions for, among many others, African-Americans. It doesn't bother Powell. He's never taken a public moral stand against any hard-right lunacy advocated by his bosses and their cronies. He just follows orders. He's a General Jodl for the 21st century.
 So what better man to announce George W. Bush's adoption of Adolf Hitler's moral code? Powell sat down with the media sycophants on ABC's &quot;This Week&quot; and calmly - moderately - laid out the new doctrine. The subject, of course, was Iraq. The UN was working on a deal that would allow international inspectors back into the country to verify that Saddam Hussein no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction.
 These inspections were vital because, as George W. never ceases to remind us, Saddam is so evil that he &quot;gassed his own people.&quot; And he most certainly did. But Junior always omits the inconvenient fact that one year after Saddam killed 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, Daddy Bush signed an executive order mandating closer U.S. ties to Saddam's regime. Daddy Bush showered Saddam with endless financial credits and mountains of &quot;dual-use technology&quot; - which the dictator duly used to develop his WMDs - right up until the day before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Needless to say, Powell, as head of Daddy's military, was complicit in this lunatic operation and raised no demur, &quot;moderate&quot; or otherwise.
 Flash forward to the present day. Junior Bush is in the White House now. For months, he has threatened military action against Iraq if Saddam fails to verify the destruction of his WMD capacity. (At the same time, of course, Junior undercuts international treaties that would require monitoring of his own biochemical warfare facilities. There's a good reason for that: The regime is now preparing to develop offensive biochemical weapons, in contravention of international and U.S. law, the Village Voice reports.)
 The world braces for another conflagration in the Mesopotamian sands. But then Saddam blinks. He starts talking with the UN. He renounces aggression. He makes up with Kuwait. Sooner or later, the inspectors will go back in - no cause for war now, right?
 Wrong, Powell told the sycophants last week. The &quot;moderate&quot; secretary said that even if UN inspectors go in and verify compliance, the Bush regime still &quot;reserves its options&quot; to do anything necessary, including military invasion, to effect a &quot;regime change.&quot; Bush himself has already acknowledged that nuclear force is among those &quot;options.&quot;
 So there it is. The United States now openly claims the right to launch an all-out attack on any country in the world whose regime it doesn't like - even if that country is not engaged in active military aggression or terrorism - and even if the mere threat of aggression has been defused by UN monitoring.
 No provocation necessary. No legality required. Just a thuggish elite raining death on the world, for profit and power, sowing hatred for the once-great nation they have hijacked - and ensuring more death and terror for its people.

TITLE: Bush Names Conditions To End Cuba Sanctions
AUTHOR: By Scott Lindlaw
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday he won't heed calls to lift the Cuban trade embargo unless Fidel Castro releases political prisoners, conducts independently monitored elections and accepts a list of tough U.S. conditions for a &quot;new government that is fully democratic.&quot;
 
Seeking to balance his hard-line policy with a sensitivity to Cuba's grinding poverty, the president outlined administration actions designed to make life better for the Cuban people.
 Bush's speech, which aides said has been in the works since January, came a week after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter traveled to Cuba and urged the people to embrace democracy while calling on the United States to lift the 40-year-old trade embargo.
 Carter and other critics argue that the restrictions have failed to end Castro's regime while making life tough on ordinary Cubans. Bush also has been accused of shaping his policy to win support of Cuban-Americans, a force in Florida politics and thus key to his re-election hopes.
 Speaking in Spanish at times, Bush said Cuba's legacy of freedom &quot;has been insulted by a tyrant who uses brutal methods to enforce a bankrupt vision. That legacy has been debased by a relic from another era who has turned a beautiful island into a prison.&quot;
 If all of his conditions are met, Bush will support lifting the congressionally mandated trade ban - even if Castro is still in charge - said two senior White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. But they said Bush does not envision Castro's making the necessary changes, prompting the new policy designed to foment change from within the country.
 &quot;If Mr. Castro refuses our offer, he will be protecting his cronies at the expense of his people and eventually, despite all his tools of oppression, Fidel Castro will need to answer to his people,&quot; Bush said.
 To win his approval of easing restrictions, Bush said Cuba must:
 
. Allow opposition parties to speak freely and organize.
 . Allow independent trade unions.
 . Free all political prisoners.
 . Allow human rights organizations to visit Cuba to ensure that the conditions for free elections are being created.
 . Allow outside observers to monitor 2003 elections.
 . End discriminatory policies against Cuban workers.
 
&quot;Full normalization of relations with Cuba, diplomatic recognition, open trade and a robust aid program will only be possible when Cuba has a new government that is fully democratic, when the rule of law is respected and when the human rights of all Cubans are fully protected,&quot; Bush said.
 Citing the spread of democracy throughout Latin America, Bush said: &quot;With real political and economic reform, trade can benefit the Cuban people and allow them to share in the progress of our times.&quot;
 Bush called for the resumption of mail service and promised assistance to nongovernmental organizations that aid Cubans. He also pledged to create scholarships in the U. S. for Cuban students, family members of political prisoners and professionals trying to build civil institutions in the communist regime.
 Money still needs to be found for the scholarship program, White House officials said. They said the initiatives can be carried out without congressional approval.

TITLE: Carolina Draws Even on Willan OT Goal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RALEIGH, North Carolina - Desperate times can create unlikely heroes in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Carolina defenseman Niclas Wallin has lived the dream twice.
 
Wallin scored 13:42 into overtime Sunday - his second OT game-winner of these playoffs - as the Hurricanes beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 in Game 2 to tie the Eastern Conference final.
 Wallin's OT goal in Game 4 of the semifinals at Montreal capped one of the best comebacks in playoff history and kept Carolina from falling behind 3-1 in that series. Sunday's game-winner helped the Hurricanes avoid a two-game hole heading to Toronto for Games 3 and 4 of the seven-game series.
 &quot;Our secret weapon got one for us again,&quot; captain Ron Francis said of Wallin, a healthy scratch in 29 games during the regular season.
 Wallin's shot from 10 meters, with Bates Battaglia creating traffic in front of Curtis Joseph, sent the Hurricanes off the bench for yet another wild OT celebration. His shot appeared to hit the leg of a Toronto defenseman before it went between the pads of the Toronto goalie.
 Alyn McCauley's game-tying goal with 0:07.4 left in the third deflated the Hurricanes.
 Bret Hedican scored his first goal of the playoffs and second career postseason goal with 12:29 left in the third period to give Carolina a 1-0 lead. He took a pass from Martin Gelinas and faked a shot from the left circle, which drew Joseph out of his net - and out of position.
 Hedican then pulled the puck back and made a move on the Toronto goalie that froze him, and Hedican snapped it in from a sharp angle.
 But Carolina failed to put the game away late. The Hurricanes couldn't score with a two-man advantage of 1:20, and Erik Cole had the puck roll off his stick on a breakaway with 4:37 left.
 
 <strong>
Detroit 5, Colorado 3. </strong>The Detroit Red Wings refuse to stick out their chests with pride or make cocky comments.
 
They know they're good, but they respect Colorado more than any other team in the NHL and they don't expect the Avalanche to be shaken because of a 1-0 deficit in the Western Conference finals.
 &quot;This is an unbelievable team we're playing, and we know it,&quot; said Darren McCarty, who scored three third-period goals in Detroit's win on Saturday. &quot;I've got so much respect for them with their history and the guys they have.
 &quot;This is hockey at its finest. Just to be out there and competing with the world-class players that we are, it's great.&quot;
 Brett Hull said the last word to describe the Red Wings would be &quot;cocky.&quot;
 &quot;That word doesn't scratch any word that even resembles how we feel,&quot; Hull said. &quot;We have so much respect for them because of what they've done and the players they have. Every game is going to be a dog fight.&quot;

TITLE: Giro Still Struggling To Escape Drug-Tainted Reputation
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LIDO DI CAMAIORE, Italy - Rik Verbrugghe won Sunday's seventh stage of the Giro d'Italia, and Jens Heppner retained the overall lead ahead of Stefano Garzelli, who is competing while awaiting the result of a backup drug test.
 
Garzelli fell and had a flat tire in the closing miles but still finished in the main pack Sunday. He lost the overall lead to Heppner on Saturday, the same day Garzelli was told by race organizers he had failed the test.
 Mapei team officials told a news conference the Italian rider, Giro winner in 2000, had tested positive for probenecid, a diuretic and masking agent.
 Garzelli, who had won the second and fifth stages last week, continued in the race despite failing the drug test pending the result of the second analysis of his sample on Tuesday.
 He fell back to second overall after Saturday's sixth stage, won be Giovanni Lombardi, losing his leadership to the German Heppner, who cycles for the Telekom team.
 Cycling has struggled to rid itself of a drug-tainted image since police raids during the 2001 Giro and the scandal that rocked the Tour de France four years ago, when the entire Festina team was disqualified.
 At last year's Giro, 200 Italian police officers raided hotel rooms in San Remo. Riders refused to race the following day in protest and the stage was cancelled, only to resume after hours of negotiations between riders, teams and officials.
 Some 53 cyclists and team staff are still under investigation, including former winner Marco Pantani, who has been allowed to race this year despite being recommended for a four-year ban.
 Garzelli, 28, could be kicked out of the race and suspended if a second test on his urine sample turns up positive Tuesday. He has denied any wrongdoing. &quot;I had a difficult night but I decided to go on,&quot; he said. &quot;I'm aware that Tuesday I could be sent home, but I'm living it day by day.&quot;
 Garzelli, who said he first heard about the test result on the radio, was close to tears at the news conference. &quot;My conscience is clear,&quot; he said. &quot;I have been preparing for the Giro since last year. I would be an idiot to ruin the race, my career and my life for something like this.&quot; 
 Verbrugghe, a Belgian with the Lotto Adecco team, crossed the finish line in this Tuscan resort nearly a minute ahead of Raphael Schweda of Germany.
 Heppner and Garzelli finished in the main group, 1:46 behind Verbrugghe. Heppner leads Garzelli by 3:33 overall.
 Verbrugghe broke away from the pack on a hill near the end of the 155-kilometer ride from Viareggio to Lido Di Camaiore. He finished in 4:03:59.
 Meanwhile, Russian rider Faat Zakirov tested positive on Friday for NESP, a second-generation form of the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO, according to Saturday's Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper, while two of his Panaria team mates have also been arrested.
 
 <i>(AP, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: Tszyu the Undisputed Champ
AUTHOR: By Tim Dahlberg
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LAS VEGAS - The last time Kostya Tszyu fought, he won with a spectacular knockout. Against Ben Tackie on Saturday night, he showed he can win impressively going the distance, too.
 
Fighting for the first time since stopping Zab Judah to win the undisputed 140-pound (74.7-kilogram) title, Tszyu put on a boxing exhibition on his way to a 12-round decision over Tackie to retain his three titles.
 In a fight that grew repetitive as the rounds went on, Tszyu was simply too good a boxer for the game challenger to overcome. At times, Tszyu looked more like he was in a relaxed sparring session against the IBF No. 1-ranked challenger than in a real fight.
 Tszyu (29-1-1) took few chances, content to jab and box and pile up round after round on the scorecards of the ringside judges.
 Tszyu won every round on two of the scorecards, 120-108, and was ahead 119-109 on the third. The Associated Press had Tszyu, a Russian native who lives in Australia, winning 119-109.
 Tackie (24-3) was never knocked down in the fight, and never appeared to be in serious trouble. That was largely because Tszyu never seemed to go all out in making the first defense of his IBF, WBC and WBA 140-pound titles.
 &quot;The key for me in this fight was to be patient,&quot; Tszyu said afterward. &quot;Maybe I should have a new nickname, 'Be Patient.'&quot;
 Tszyu had consolidated the titles Nov. 3 with an upset knockout of Judah, whom he stopped with a savage right hand in the second round. But it became evident early that the defense against Tackie would be an entirely different type of fight.
 Tackie, of Ghana, came into the fight a 5-1 underdog who was known more for his durability than anything else. He showed why as he took jab after jab from Tszyu in a bout that was fought mainly in the center of the ring.
 &quot;This was the type of fight I expected,&quot; Tszyu said. &quot;I had to watch out for his right hand.&quot;
 Tackie was impressed.
 &quot;Pound for pound, Tszyu really is the best fighter,&quot; he said. &quot;I wanted to be more aggressive and pressure him from the get go, but he was just too good.&quot;
 Tszyu, who weighed in at the class limit, was in charge from the opening bell, peppering Tackie with jabs and throwing short combinations to the head. Much of the fight was spent in the center of the ring with Tackie trying hard to catch Tszyu with a good punch but taking a lot of punishment because of it.
 Tszyu, who earned $1 million, posed with two of his three title belts draped from his shoulders after the win, and another strapped around his waist.
 He said he planned to go home to Australia and rest, but would probably fight one more time this year, likely against another mandatory challenger.
 Tackie, 63.4 kilograms, was game and kept after Tszyu, even landing two good right hands in the third round that was his best moment of the fight. But he was not strong enough to overwhelm Tszyu and even with his gloves held high he couldn't stop Tszyu from hitting him in the head all night.

TITLE: Clemens Gets 287th Victory
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - The way Roger Clemens is pitching, Bert Blyleven better begin warming up. Clemens struck out 13 and earned his 287th career win, pitching the New York Yankees past the Minnesota Twins, 3-0, on Sunday.
 
Clemens (7-2) moved past Hall of Famer Robin Roberts and matched Blyleven for 22nd place on baseball's all-time victory list.
 &quot;I spoke with him briefly in Minnesota and again here,&quot; Clemens said of Blyleven, a Twins broadcaster who was at Yankee Stadium working Sunday's game.
 &quot;If I catch him, he's coming back. That's what he said, he's mounting a comeback. I said 'All right, get ready,'&quot; Clemens said.
 Clemens gave up four hits in eight innings and won his sixth straight start. He set a season high for strikeouts and walked two.
 Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth for his 13th save, completing the combined five-hitter and the first shutout against the Twins this season.
 Following last weekend's three-game sweep at the Metrodome, the Yankees finished 6-0 against Minnesota this year. For the first time in their 42-year history, the Twins did not win a game against the Yankees.
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard) </i>

TITLE: SPORT WATCH
TEXT: Russians Get Incentive
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - On Saturday, Russia's world cup team was given an added incentive to win, when an oil firm promised to give players Porsche sports cars as rewards for victories.
 A $100,000 Porsche Boxster is to be presented to the best Russian player in each match the team wins at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan next month, Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) said.
 "Seven is the maximum number of games a team can play in this World Cup. As you can see, we believe Russia can get to the final because we ordered seven Porsches," TNK Vice President Dmitry Ivanov said.
 
 
Newman Grabs Win
 

CONCORD, North Carolina (AP) - Ryan Newman survived everything thrown at him Saturday night to become just the second rookie to win NASCAR's all-star race.
 Newman endured a qualifying race, two elimination rounds, a helmet being thrown at him, two restarts and a furious battle with Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win The Winston - dubbed "Survival of the Fastest" this year - and earn the $750,000 grand prize.
 The 24-year-old Newman joined Earnhardt as the only rookies to win the event, and Michael Waltrip as the only driver to take the title after making it into the field through the qualifying race.
 Earnhardt, the 2000 winner, finished second, Matt Kenseth was third followed by Kurt Busch and rookie Jimmie Johnson.
 Johnson, locked in a serious battle with Newman for Rookie of the Year honors, won the first two segments of the event and earned $100,000 in bonuses.
 Newman had to win a qualifying race to even make the field at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Then he survived two rounds of cuts under the new format and shrugged off Elliott Sadler throwing his helmet at his car in an earlier round.
 
 
Korea in Trouble?
 

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's World Cup enthusiasm took a battering on Monday, as labour unions threatened to launch nationwide strikes and authorities confirmed two fresh cases of foot-and-mouth disease in pigs.
 The country's most militant union said thousands of taxi drivers and hospital workers would go on strike later this week unless the government answered their demands for a shorter working week and a halt to privatization plans for state utilities.
 The agriculture ministry, meanwhile, discovered two new cases of foot-and-mouth in pigs - with the closest just 30 kilometers south of Seoul, where the opening match between titleholder France and Senegal will take place on May 31. The total number of cases now stands at 12.
 The ministry, which has strived to contain the outbreak since early May, intends to kill a further 13,000 cattle as a preventative measure. That would take the total cull target to around 105,000.
 The World Cup finals, co-hosted with Japan, are scheduled to kick off in just over a week.
 
 
 
Official Hangs Himself
 

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese official in charge of liaison for Senegal's World Cup soccer team at their training ground in central Japan committed suicide, leaving a note saying the job was too much for him, officials said on Monday.
 Osamu Okamura, a 52-year-old official of the Fujieda city government in central Shizuoka Prefecture, was found by family members hanging in his barn on Saturday morning, Kyodo news agency quoted local police as saying.
 He left a suicide note at his home, in which he said he could not handle his job, Kyodo quoted police as saying.
 One municipal official quoted the man as having told his colleagues recently: "Things are really awful at work."
 The man was assigned to his new job as liaison between the Fujieda government and the Senegal team's training camp in April ahead of the arrival last Thursday of the Senegal team.
 Senegal was expected to stay in the city until around May 22 before heading to Seoul for the game against France. 
 
 
Run, Frankie, Run
 

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Two-time Olympic silver medalist Frankie Fredericks of Namibia ran the fastest unofficial 100 meters in the world this year, clocking 0:09.85 Saturday at the Nairobi International Permit meet.
 Frederick's time, which would have eclipsed his own African record of 0:09.86, was not official because it was wind assisted, IAAF regional director John Velzian said.
 "I'm really happy to be healthy and running again. I know the guys I was running with were a bit nervous, but I'm sure the youngsters have gained a lot by competing with me," said Fredericks, who has been slowed the past two years by injuries.
 Idrissa Sanon of Burkina Faso was second in 0:10.12, and Andrea Colombo of Italy was third in 0:10.15.
 Olympic 800-meter champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique easily won the 800 meters in 2:03.9. Amina Ait Hamou of Morocco was second and Kenya's Janet Busiene was third.
 Mutola, who holds the African record of 1:55.19, went to the front of the pack at the bell and was unchallenged in the final straight.
 "I feel great running in Kenya for the first time, and I will be here again next year," Mutola said. "I'm now going back to South Africa and will then run a few races in Europe as a build up for the Commonwealth Games."
 
 
Rockets Get No. 1 Pick
 

SECAUCUS, New Jersey (AP) - When the NBA's pingpong lottery produced the combination 13-8- 11-4, Houston was awarded the No. 1 overall pick for the first time since 1984.
 That year, the Rockets picked Hakeem Olajuwon, who helped the team win two NBA titles. The third pick was a certain Michael Jordan, who took the Chicago Bulls to six championships.
 At the June 26 draft in New York, Houston will have a chance to take another big man from abroad, 2.26-meter Chinese center Yao Ming. Other possible top-three picks include a couple of early entries from Duke: Jay Williams and Mike Dunleavy.
 "Hopefully, we can get a player who can come in and help us right away," point guard Steve Francis said. "What we really have to get is some aggression. We won't be looking for a point guard - anything else, I don't know."
 Chicago will pick second and Golden State third. They tied for the league's worst record (21-61) and each had a 22.5 percent chance of winning the lottery. As owner of the NBA's fifth-worst record, Houston had only an 8.9 percent chance. But the team with the best chance of grabbing No. 1 hasn't done so since 1990. 



TITLE: World Cup Warmup Leaves Russia Cold
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia came fourth out of four teams in the LG Cup on Sunday after losing to Yugoslavia on penalties at Dinamo Stadium, in what the country hopes is not be a dress rehearsal of Russia's performance in Group H at the World Cup.
 
Yugoslavia won 6-5 on penalties, after the two teams drew, 1-1, in a game of intermittent moments of skill amid hail, rain and sunshine on a particularly unpredictable afternoon of Moscow weather.
 Far worse than the result for fans was the sight of midfielder Alexander Mostovoi limping off after only a minute of the game. His replacement, Torpedo Moscow's Igor Semshov, impressed, but the possibility that Mostovoi, Russia's most skilled player, won't travel to Japan is a serious blow for the team.
 The aim of the tournament had been for coach Oleg Romantsev to settle on the 23 players he is taking to Japan.
 Romantsev had sent out an experimental team, drawn from his preliminary 27-man squad, against Belarus on Friday, but Russia's Slavic neighbor won, 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.
 &quot;We have a lot of information [from the match] and we can already choose the 23 players who will go to Korea and Japan,&quot; said assistant coach Mikhail Gershkovich after the Belarus match.
 Against Yugoslavia, Russia fielded a full-strength team and, although it controlled much of the match, chances were few and passing often sloppy in the difficult conditions. Yugoslavia went ahead in the 54th minute through Darko Kovacevic and Russia looked unlikely to score, until 18-year-old scoring sensation Dmitry Sychyov popped up to equalize with only three minutes to go.
 Missed penalties from Viktor Onopko and Igor Kovtun meant Russia came last in the tournament.
 The result means that Russia has now lost four of its last five games. Belgium, which Russia will play in World Cup Group H, did little to lighten the mood by beating world champion France 2-1 in Paris.
 Neither Romantsev, notorious for his post-game outbursts, nor Gershkovich showed up at the news conference after the game, but Sergei Pavlov, the next senior trainer on the team, said the tournament had been useful in that enough information had been learned from the two games. The team may be feeling the pressure before the World Cup, he said.
 Romantsev will announce the Russian squad live on ORT on Tuesday before the team flies out to Japan on Saturday.
 
 
q
 In other World Cup warmups, defending World Cup champion France lost for the first time in eight months Saturday, falling to Belgium 2-1 at home in an international friendly, The Associated Press reported.
 
Germany crushed Austria, 6-2, Nigeria beat Jamaica, 1-0, Poland topped Estonia, 1-0, and four-time winner Brazil downed Catalonia, 3-1.
 In Prague, Czech Republic, Vladimir Smicer scored a first-half goal to give the Czech Republic a 1-0 victory over Italy.
 In London, James Obiorah fired World Cup-bound Nigeria to an edgy 1-0 victory over non-qualifier Jamaica. The midfielder, who plays for Lokomotiv Moscow, netted the only goal five minutes into the second half after the Reggae Boyz had threatened an upset victory over the Super Eagles.
 In Warsaw, Poland, Maciej Zurawski scored the only goal of the match in the 57th minute as Poland beat Estonia, 1-0.
 In Barcelona, Spain, Ronaldinho Gaucho hit two brilliant first-half goals to help Brazil beat Catalonia, 3-1, at the Nou Camp stadium. Ronaldo came on as a substitute for Brazil after a half hour and was replaced in the 68th.
 On Sunday, debut international goals from Roy Makaay and Andy van der Mayde helped the Netherlands, which won't travel to the World Cup, to a 2-0 win against the U.S., which will go, and Dutch club side PSV Eindhoven beat the Chinese national team, 2-1.

TITLE: Federer Trounces Safin, Takes Hamburg
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HAMBURG, Germany - Roger Federer played his best tennis to earn his first tournament victory on clay.
 
Federer beat Marat Safin 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 Sunday to win the Hamburg Masters. He lost just one set last week en route to what was his second victory of the season.
 &quot;It's been an unbelievable tournament for me,&quot; said the 11th-seeded Federer. &quot;I played some really good tennis today. It was probably the best match of my career.
 &quot;I never thought I would a win a tournament on clay because I lost my first 11 matches on the tour on clay.&quot;
 Federer, 20, won 11 of the first 13 games of the match.
 Despite the loss, Safin, the 2000 U.S. Open champion, will become the new leader in the Champions Race. Federer will move into the No. 2 position, one point behind Safin's 300.
 Safin, who lost the final here in 2000 to Gustavo Kuerten, has not won a title this year.
 &quot;Roger was the better man on the court, no doubt about it,&quot; Safin said. &quot;It's ridiculous being No. 1 and losing in three sets. It was a good match to see what I have to do better in future.&quot;
 It was not until the end of the second set that Safin had a chance to get back in the match. He broke Federer's serve for the first time to cut the deficit to 5-3 - after Federer had wasted a set point at 5-1.
 But Safin's revival was short-lived. When he had a chance to win the next game as well, Safin hit a weak a volley that Federer turned into a cracking backhand winner for deuce. The Swiss then converted his fourth set point.
 Federer staved off three break points in the opening game of the third, then broke Safin's serve for a 2-0 lead. Safin battled back to 2-2 and went 3-2 up, only to drop his serve again.
 &quot;It was all over then,&quot; Safin said.
 Holding double match point on Safin's serve, Federer netted a backhand. But Safin's next shot, a forehand, veered off the frame of his racket and Federer had his title after just over two hours.
 The sixth-seeded Safin had lost two previous matches against Federer, both on clay.
 
 
q
 Serena Williams proved she can win on clay by taking the Italian Open title in Rome on Sunday.
 
Now it's on to the only Grand Slam tournament played on the slower surface, the French Open, which starts May 27.
 Williams overcame a twisted right ankle and a tough opponent in Sunday's Italian Open final, beating Justine Henin 7-6, 6-4 for her third championship of 2002 and the first on clay in her career.
 &quot;A lot of people insist I'm not a clay-court player, although I am,&quot; Williams said. &quot;So it makes me feel really good, especially going into Roland Garros.&quot;
 The final was a rematch of the final at last week's German Open, which Henin won in a third-set tiebreaker.
 It was an impressive showing by Williams, who beat top-ranked and defending French Open champion Jennifer Capriati in the semifinals at the Foro Italico. Williams rose to a career-high No. 3 in the new rankings released Monday.
 Against Henin, who hadn't lost a set all week before the final and moved up to No. 5 on Monday, Williams was resilient.
 She was undeterred by wasting five set points in the first set, which lasted 1:10, and closed out the victory with two service breaks in the second set.
 With a game reliant on power and pace, Williams hasn't had a lot of success on clay in the past. She had never been beyond the quarterfinals in two previous trips to the Italian Open -that equals her best showing at the French Open.
 &quot;Serena was too strong today,&quot; said Henin, a French Open semifinalist and Wimbledon finalist last year. &quot;She was really aggressive and she didn't make a lot of mistakes. Today she was simply better than me.&quot;
 Neither player appeared to be in top shape.
 Williams had her right thigh and both of her ankles wrapped, while Henin wore a bandage around her left thigh.
 Williams twisted her right ankle in the first set Sunday, and had a quick turnaround after her three-set semifinal victory Saturday over Capriati.
 &quot;I'm too young to be tired,&quot; Williams said.
 &quot;The adrenaline of being in the final again and being so close last week, it didn't bother me at all.&quot;
 Her ankle twist was &quot;identical&quot; to the injury that forced her to miss the Australian Open at the start of the year, Williams said, adding: &quot;It was a good twist. It's going to be really sore tomorrow.&quot;
 Williams' other titles this year were at Scottsdale, Arizona, and Miami. She now trails only Capriati and sister Venus in the rankings.
 &quot;Rome is in my heart,&quot; Williams said in Italian to a round of applause from the crowd, before accepting the winner's check of $182,000.
 Later, she had something other than tennis on her mind.
 &quot;I'm immediately going to have some <i>gelato </i>[ice cream],&quot; Williams said, &quot;it's my favorite thing in Italy.&quot;

TITLE: Nets Down Boston To Take Series Lead, Lakers Get Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - They ran at every opportunity, scored without much difficulty and never once trailed.
 
And with Jason Kidd doing everything he has done all season, the New Jersey Nets showed why they're the No. 1 team in the East.
 Picking apart Boston's vaunted defense with surprising ease, the Nets beat Boston 104-97 on Sunday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
 From shooting percentages to rebounding to the ability to dictate the tempo, the Nets dominated the Celtics in nearly every facet of the game. Most important was the way they produced easy baskets - 19 of them layups or dunks.
 &quot;We didn't even play a lick of defense all night,&quot; Boston's Paul Pierce said. Pierce stated before the series that the Nets had no one who could defend him. What Pierce didn't mention was that something else - foul trouble - could stop him.
 Pierce scored 14 points in the first quarter but was a non-factor offensively the rest of the way. He picked up his third and fourth fouls in a 16-second span early in the third quarter, and the Nets went on an 18-8 run after he went to the bench.
 Kidd finished with 18 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, getting the triple-double with 3:53 left when he fed Keith Van Horn for a jumper that gave the Nets a 97-86 lead.
 Kerry Kittles, Todd MacCulloch and Van Horn scored 14 apiece, and seven Nets reached double figures.
 
 <strong>
Los Angeles Lakers 106, Sacramento 99. </strong>The Los Angeles Lakers' mastery of every playoff opponent they've faced in recent years even impresses their coach, who has seen a few championship teams in his time.
 
&quot;We've showed a lot of maturity and control,&quot; Phil Jackson said on Sunday. &quot;We've been able to control tempo against teams. We've been able to control our droughts. We've executed very well when it mattered the most. I don't have a lot to complain about.&quot;
 The Lakers took early control of yet another playoff series Saturday, beating the Kings in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
 The Kings - trying to dent the &quot;armor of champions,&quot; to use Sacramento coach Rick Adelman's erudite phrase, that covers Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in the postseason, where they've won 24 of their last 26 - weren't successful at the task in the opener - but then again, nobody has done it for nearly two years.
 &quot;We've talked a lot to our team about playing our game and not getting caught up in the excitement of being in the conference finals,&quot; Adelman said on Saturday.
 &quot;We let it get to us in the first quarter [of Game 1]. We came back hard in three quarters, but against the Lakers, you're still going to have a hard time winning. They're way too good for you to slip up.&quot;