SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #772 (38), Tuesday, May 28, 2002
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TITLE: Putin, Bush Hail Succesful Summit
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Neither president could refrain from gushing about the three days they spent together in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
 
"Well, first, the hospitality has been magnificent," U.S. President George W. Bush told reporters at the State Hermitage Museum on Saturday. "Secondly, I think the summit ... met my expectations. I hope it met [Russian President Vladimir Putin's] expectations."
 The Russia-U.S. summit went according to plan, with no glitches or surprises. Even the weather cooperated. So, if predictability and pragmatism are the new buzzwords of the relationship between the two countries, the summit can be called a success.
 "I believe we have every reason to consider this visit a success," Putin told reporters at the Catherine Palace in Pushkin shortly after Bush left on Sunday. "The fact that we have reached agreements and even signed documents I believe is tremendous progress."
 A year ago, the Bush administration did not want to sign any binding treaties on nuclear-arms reduction with Russia, and thus the signing of the treaty Friday, no matter how vague and loose it is, was a feather in Putin's cap.
 Other feathers - such as cancellation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment and the granting of market economy status - have proved harder to obtain. But here, too, there was some progress.
 The divisive issues - Russian nuclear cooperation with Iran and U.S. discussions of a military attack against Iraq - were relegated to the background or downplayed. Bush took every occasion to praise Putin's leadership and uttered not a single word of criticism, including on the painful issue of Chechnya.
 "The main result of the summit is the impression that Bush took home of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Russia in general," said Viktor Kuvaldin, political analyst with the Gorbachev Foundation. "Here Putin and the Russian side overall gave it their absolute best."
 The two presidents, who are on first-name terms, have built a camaraderie that has affected the tone, if not always the substance, of U.S.-Russia relations.
 "There is a great deal of respect and personal affection," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, Reuters reported. "I think the respect between the two leaders, the understanding of each other's position, the understanding of the needs of each other, give us a more solid foundation upon which to build and move forward."
 The summit, and specifically the arms treaty, was proclaimed as bringing an end to the Cold War once and for all. But Kuvaldin said this was missing the point. "The Cold War was buried by the current U.S. president's father and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Malta in 1989," he said in an interview on Sunday. "Now the indefinite post-Cold War period of uncertainty in the development of bilateral relations is over. It turned out that there are many fields in which we have common interests, including the situation in Afghanistan and prospects of war in South Asia."
 Visible proof of these new common interests came when Putin and Bush addressed the issue of Pakistan's missile testing Saturday. Bush urged Pakistani President General Pervez Musharaf, his ally in the counter-terrorism campaign, to exercise restraint, while Putin said he hoped to meet with the Indian and Pakistani leaders next month.
 The U.S. is Russia's most important partner in terms of international stability and security, Putin said. "However, we are not forgetting that we are in Europe," he said. He also mentioned interests in Asia, where Russia has a long border with China, and said relations with Japan "are developing not so badly."
 Russia had something to offer Bush. With a series of political failures in the Middle East and increased opposition to his foreign policy among European allies, Bush needed a positive summit with Putin, said analyst Yevgeny Volk of the Hermitage Foundation.
 For many Russians, however, the summit was of limited interest, and news reports describing Bush's visit as "historic" were met with some ridicule.
 "Unlike the meeting between [Leonid] Brezhnev and [Richard] Nixon [30 years ago], the current date is perceived by society with cool irrelevance, and the summit's intense advertising only highlights this," commentator Maxim Sokolov wrote in the Izvestia newspaper.

TITLE: After Bush, EU Delegates Come to Russia
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Right on the heels of the U.S.-Russia summit in Moscow and the NATO-Russia summit in Rome, top European Union officials are coming to Russia this week for a much less hyped, but arguably no less important, summit.
 
The participation of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar Lopez, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency; European Commission president Romano Prodi; the three commissioners responsible for the key areas of external relations, trade and energy; and the EU's top coordinator of its common foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, gives this EU-Russia summit, the ninth, more weight than any of the past.
 The issues on the agenda, too, reflect the growing importance of Russia for the EU, as well as Russia's increased interests in Europe, both political and economic. 
 Participants in the summit will tackle three major issues, said Richard Wright, head of the EU delegation in Moscow. A common European security and defense policy and EU cooperation in the fight against terrorism will be one, he said, and a second will be the work toward a common economic space, which includes the questions of Russia's accession to the WTO, market-economy status and the ongoing energy dialogue. 
 The hottest issue to be addressed at the summit will be EU enlargement and the consequences this will have for the Baltic states and especially for the Kaliningrad region. Despite the importance of these issues, there has been little progress due to a lack of a coherent EU policy and of political will on both sides. But the six-month Spanish presidency, which ends in June, and good personal relations between Aznar and President Vladimir Putin have helped to move EU-Russia relations to a new stage.
 "The Spanish presidency and the leadership of Prime Minister Aznar is one of the main reasons for putting relations with Russia as one of the priorities of EU foreign relations," Jose Maria Robles Fraga, Spain's ambassador to Russia, said in an interview. According to Spanish diplomats, Aznar and Putin are flying to Moscow from Rome on Tuesday on the same plane, and Aznar will be a guest for the night in Putin's Novo-Ogaryovo residence, where U.S. President George W. Bush also stayed. 
 It was with the political support of Spain that the Kaliningrad issue was put on the summit agenda, "because we think that the Russians were right to ask for it," Robles Fraga said.
 The European Union has insisted that once Poland and Lithuania join the EU, expected in 2004, Russians traveling between Kaliningrad and the rest of the country will have to obtain a transit visa.
 Russian officials say this would infringe on the rights of Russian citizens and limit their ability to travel across their own country. "Some citizens could be refused such a visa, and then they'd basically be unable to leave [Kaliningrad], except by air," Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy, said in an interview. "This worries us greatly, and this is the most crucial, the toughest issue for the upcoming summit."
 Russia has proposed allowing its citizens to cross Lithuania without a visa, for instance to travel nonstop by train, as was done between West Germany and West Berlin.
 The EU has said Russia must do more to prevent unregulated emigration. The Swedish ambassador to Russia, Sven Hirdman, said at a news conference Friday that Russia has not responded adequately to EU requests, specifically the right to expel Russian citizens, the replacement of Soviet identity documents with proper Russian passports and improved border controls between Russia and other former Soviet republics.
 Success in solving these political problems and finding common ground on key economic issues is what European businesspeople in Russia want to see. Although Europe accounts for 35 percent of Russian foreign trade and more than 50 percent of foreign direct investment, these figures do not reflect the real economic potential.
 "If you look at the investment results, America is ahead of Europe in terms of figures," said Irene Commeau, managing director of the European Business Club. "But if you compare the efforts and remember all the TACIS programs that were financed by EU countries in Russia, they were quite big. So the ratio of efforts to results is worse for European companies than for American ones."
 European countries account for about 50 percent of the $38 billion of accumulated foreign investment in Russia. Germany leads in terms of invested money, with more than $6 billion committed to different projects in Russia. France and Britain follow, with about $4 billion invested by each country.
 Commeau said there is no organized political support for business from the European Commission, while companies in Germany and the United States receive political support from their own governments. "We have 15 different countries and each of them supports its own companies, but we lack a single policy, which would be much stronger and would help a lot in such sensitive sectors as oil, gas or aviation," she said.
 Europe could benefit from having its own Chamber of Commerce, as the United States does, Commeau said. "The EBC does not have any political support and no funding, as we were organized by subsidiaries of European companies working in Russia," she said. 
 Seppo Remes, president of Nafta Vostok Investment and chairperson of the board of EBC, agreed that the EU should play a bigger role. "The EU is just learning to find its place in this game and is still considering whether it should be doing this on a centralized basis or not," he said in an interview. "I think it should, because competition is increasing,"
 The EBC has expressed its full support for the EU to grant Russia market economy status, regardless of the U.S. decision. European businesses in Russia also think the EU could be more active in the negotiations with Russia on WTO conditions, Remes said.
 Although business usually reacts faster to new opportunities, there is little chance for it to blossom without political support. 
 "There has to be a political decision made by the EU that Russian accession to a free trade zone is a top priority," Remes said. Europe has other priorities, which are the accession of new members. "But there should another priority, which is Russia. Russia is simply too big to be handled as an issue of secondary importance."
 At this summit Remes said he expects the EU and Russia to face the problems openly and honestly. "The target is the next EU summit in Copenhagen [at the end of year], where we need to see real progress on all the issues, including WTO, the energy dialogue, market-economy status and other new initiatives," he said.
 Robles Fraga said the first step for the EU is to accept that Russia is a European country. "In the end, we are all interested in building a common economic space with common rules, common standards and more integrated economies," the Spanish ambassador said. 
 Loyola de Palacio, the European Commission's vice president responsible for energy and transport issues, said Russia and the European Union complement each other in the energy sphere.
 During her meeting Tuesday with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, de Palacio said she plans to emphasize Europe's readiness to welcome the gas monopoly as an equal partner - on the condition that European companies will be given fair treatment on Russian territory.
 "Gazprom can be a full-fledged actor in the European market," de Palacio told journalists Monday. "It's a question of reciprocity and better integration of our economies."
 Also on her agenda is the Energy Charter Treaty, a document that sets ground rules for transit, investment and market liberalization. Russia and 40 other countries signed the document in 1994, but the Duma has yet to ratify it. 
 
 <i>
Staff writers Anna Raff and Torrey Clark contributed to this report. </i>

TITLE: Booby-Trapped Sign Hospitalizes Woman
AUTHOR: By Robin Munro
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A day after visiting U.S. President George W. Bush stopped at a synagogue and praised religious freedom in Russia, a booby-trapped road sign with an anti-Semitic slogan exploded near Moscow and injured a woman Monday.
 
The woman, Tatyana Sapunova, 28, lost an eye, after she tried to pull the sign out of the ground 32 kilometers southwest of Moscow, local media reported. She was in critical but stable condition at City Hospital No. 1 on Monday night.
 General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov said he would handle the case personally. &quot;All incidents of extremism or racial intolerance will be handled with the maximum strictness allowed by law,&quot; he said, according to Interfax.
 Sapunova and her daughter were driving on Kievskoye Shosse at noon on Monday when she saw the sign near a turnoff to Vnukovo Airport, Interfax reported.
 She stopped her Gazel minibus and got out. The explosion took place as she tugged on the sign. The blast had the force of between 100 and 200 grams of TNT, Interfax said.
 Television footage showed the sign with <i>Smert Zhidam</i>, or &quot;Death to Yids&quot; written in large black paint lying in the trees along the road, where it had been hurled by the blast.
 Berl Lazar, one of Russia's two chief rabbis, called for more effective action against extremism, Interfax said. Lazar was with Bush on Sunday when the president visited St. Petersburg Grand Choral Synagogue and said he was impressed by religious freedom in Russia.
 The synagogue's head rabbi, Menahem-Mendel Pevzner, said at the time that the visit was an endorsement of a revival of the Jewish faith in Russia since Soviet days.
 Meanwhile, Pavel Krashenninikov, chairperson of the legislature committee of the State Duma, said Monday that a bill to crack down on extremism should be passed by parliament before the current session ends at the beginning of July.
 Speaking at a news conference, he said the bill has the support of the presidential administration and the government and would be presented for a first reading June 6.
 &quot;We are behind Europe on this by 50 years,&quot; Krashenninikov said, pointing out that many West European governments enacted laws to stop the spread of Nazi movements after World War II.
 &quot;You can't buy [Adolf Hitler's book] 'Mein Kampf' on the streets of Berlin or Paris, but you can on the streets of Moscow,&quot; he said.
 The bill provides for the shutdown of extremist organizations and will not only target radicals and their leaders but also those who disseminate extremist material, including the mass media, he said.
 Asked if he had a list of extremist organizations, he said, &quot;This law will be able to deal with organizations that are not on any lists.&quot;
 Krashenninikov, a former justice minister, said he was heartened that the bill puts the responsibility of deciding whether a group qualifies as extremist on judges, not bureaucrats.
 The bill is not without its skeptics. 
 &quot;Existing laws are already sufficient to counter the threat,&quot; said Mara Polyakova, director of the Independent Council of Legal Experts. 
 The key to combating extremism is the political will to take action, she said. 
 Peter Schulze, the Russian director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, cautioned that any law must be narrowly defined. &quot;If you do not safeguard the intermediaries within society, such as political parties, [a law on extremism] could become an instrument of misuse,&quot; he said.
 His foundation, which is affiliated to the German Social Democrat party, is taking representatives from the Federal Security Service, the Kremlin, the Duma and the Federation Council to Germany next month to see how the country deals with extremism.
 In Germany, political parties cannot be prosecuted by a ministry or a lower court but only by the Constitutional Court, he said.

TITLE: A Chance To Save Some Face, but Russia Has It Tough
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The 2002 World Cup provides an opportuntity for Russia to salvage some lost pride, following the fiasco that was the Winter Olympic Games earlier this year.
 
Russian sport has been in a state of dramatic decline since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and soccer is no exception. Russia placed 27th in FIFA's May rankings; its clubs have, for the last few years, been lightweights in European competitions; and the domestic league is financially crippled and popularly seen as corrupt
 The team has not had the best buildup to the World Cup. A 0-0 draw with France in Paris last month was its best result since qualification finished in October 2001.
 Its other results have been a string of humiliating defeats against a series of countries that, in theory, should have caused Russia no problem at all, including its Baltic neighbor Estonia.
 And, at the LG Cup, a specially organized tournament in Moscow earlier this month, Russia lost to Belarus and Yugoslavia and finished last out of the four teams competing.
 Worryingly, the team has scored just three goals in its last five games.
 The pressure seems to have got to coach Oleg Romantsev, who has said that he will quit his duties with either the Russian national team or domestic champion Spartak Moscow - where he is head coach and president - after the World Cup.
 Romantsev has been under increasing pressure both at the club level - when the Russian league took a break for the World Cup, Spartak was only in fifth place, having lost four of its opening 12 games - and at the national level.
 Recently, he has also been dogged by accusations of favoritism in picking the national team. CSKA Moscow winger Rolan Gusev has become a focus of anti-Romantsev feeling after the latter dropped him from the national team, which, Gusev claims, was motivated by his off-season move from Lokomotiv Moscow to CSKA, instead of to Spartak.
 Lokomotiv goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov, arguably the best in the Russian league this year, has made similar accusations, and sounded bitter about being left off the national team.
 &quot;I was hoping that common sense would prevail in the end,&quot; Ovchinnikov told the daily newspaper Sovietsky Sport recently.
 &quot;I still feel that you don't deal in such a way at [the World Cup] level, but I guess I was wrong,&quot; he said.
 However, all is not doom and gloom. Russia is at the World Cup - already a better performance than 1998 - and lost only one game in qualifying from its group ahead of both Slovenia and Yugoslavia, both of which were expected to outperform it.
 In theory, Romantsev has a good blend of youth and experience on his squad. Veteran defenders Viktor Onopko, Yury Nikiforov, Yury Kovtun and Igor Chugainov have more than 200 caps between them and should make most teams work hard for any goals. Behind them, goalie Ruslan Nigamatullin, although only the backup choice at Italian club Verona, has been in outstanding form for the national team.
 Russia has strength in depth in midfield, with most of the players now based abroad, largely in Spain.
 The creativity here will come from Celta Vigo's Alexander Mostovoi, assuming he is fit following a recent injury scare, and Spartak veteran Yegor Titov.
 19-year-old Lokomotiv winger Marat Izmailov was the discovery of last year and should get more chances to impress in Korea and Japan. 
 The problems are likely to come up front. Russia has only one proven international goalscorer, Vladimir Beschastnykh, currently enjoying a renaissance following his move back to Spartak.
 Here again, youth could have its day. Beschastnykh's strike partner at Spartak, Dmitry Sychyov, is just 18 and in his first season in the Russian Premier Division, but has caused a sensation and is currently leading the scoring standings.
 Zenit's Alexander Kerzhakov - the only St. Petersburg-based player to make the national squad following Romantsev's decision to cut Andrei Arshavin - has also been playing well recently and impressed at the LG Cup.
 The World Cup is not, however, setting Russian fans alight with expectation. Most seem resigned to mediocrity once again.
 &quot;Russia will play like it always does. ... It will have some moments, but overall there is little chance of having any real success,&quot; said Andrei Udarov, a fan interviewed at a recent Zenit game.
 Another fan at the same game, Mark Eisenstat, predicted: &quot;Russia will get out of its group, and that's all. After that, we will lose to Turkey.&quot;

TITLE: Seleznyov Will Carry On Despite Party's Decision
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Communists on Saturday expelled the State Duma speaker, Gennady Seleznyov, for disobeying a party ruling that he resign his post.
 
The Communist Party last month voted for Seleznyov to quit, after the Duma leadership reshuffled committee chairs, leaving the Communists with just two of the nine posts they had held.
 The party also asked the two remaining Communist heads of committee to resign.
 But Seleznyov, cultural committee chief Nikolai Gubenko and Svetlana Goryacheva, the head of the Duma's committee on women, families and youth, all refused to give up their posts. All three were voted out of the party Saturday at a closed plenum.
 Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov accused the trio of &quot;choosing the path that was proposed to them by the right wing and centrists,&quot; Itar-Tass reported.
 &quot;Our colleagues did not have the sufficient will or responsibility to make the decision that was necessary for the party and the country,&quot; he said at the plenum.
 Seleznyov said he would not join another party - and he showed no intention of stepping down from the speaker's post. President Vladimir Putin has supported that decision, media reported.
 &quot;I considered and I still consider that a big mistake was made, maybe to some extent a tragic one,&quot; Seleznyov said after the party vote on Saturday. &quot;I will be independent now and will continue to help ordinary communists.&quot;
 Zyuganov denied rumors of a looming split.
 &quot;I declare one more time that the party is indivisible. There will be no split,&quot; he told reporters.
 Like other political parties in Russia, the Communists long refrained from criticizing Putin, and they have supported many of the government's initiatives in the legislature. But they have recently stepped up their opposition, casting themselves as champions of a strong Russia.
 Meanwhile, Zyuganov said Saturday that the plenum had adopted a declaration on national security, including the dismissal of the U.S.-Russian arms reduction treaty signed Friday as &quot;a full, unconditional capitulation by Russia,&quot; Itar-Tass reported.
 He said that the document called for preparations for a vote of no-confidence in the government.

TITLE: Law Enforcement Stays Silent
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Regional ombudsmen took law enforcement to task Monday for alleged human-rights abuses - and they got no answers.
 
Ombudsmen told a round table in the office of Russia's top ombudsman Oleg Mironov that citizens' rights are most often violated by the police, prison officials and the courts. But leading law-enforcement officials refused to dig into the concerns, offering only curt retorts.
 &quot;Meeting Western human rights activists' demands to provide better housing for inmates is a luxury at a time when patients are suffering in unbearable conditions in regular Russian hospitals,&quot; said Vyacheslav Ivanov, a high-ranking officer in the Interior Ministry's inspection directorate, parrying a question about jails, where inmates sometimes have to urinate in plastic bottles for lack of a toilet. 
 &quot;And we don't have money for it, after all,&quot; Ivanov said.
 Asked about granting Russian citizenship to CIS natives who have lived in Russia a long time but cannot afford to go home to take care of the paperwork, the Interior Ministry's migration service representative Andrei Blagovidov said simply, &quot;The problem must be solved, and we will solve it.&quot;
 Irina Vershinina, the ombudsman for Kaliningrad, asked Oleg Filimonov of the Justice Ministry's prison directorate about masked riot police raiding prison camps and beating inmates. Filimonov said the last such raid took place in 2000.
 &quot;But we have recent complaints from inmates, and one has already been accepted by the European Court on Human Rights,&quot; Vershinina insisted.
 She appeared to be referring to a complaint of a raid of the Chepets prison camp in the Perm region in April 2001.
 Filimonov told her to send him a copy of the complaint.

TITLE: Vladimir and George See Sights of Piter
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin showed U.S. President George W. Bush his hometown over the weekend, taking him to the State Hermitage Museum, the Mariinsky Theater and St. Petersburg State University for visits that showcased their personal chemistry.
 
The highlight of the visit was a forum on Saturday afternoon at Putin's alma mater, St. Petersburg State University, where the presidents spent an hour fielding questions from students in a repeat of a performance they conducted at a high school in Crawford, Texas, in November.
 By that point, the two men were shedding the &quot;president&quot; formality of public summit protocol and calling each other George and Vladimir. When one student asked the presidents to address a so-called brain drain from Russia, including to the United States, Putin's reply was immediate: &quot;I'll tell you right away,&quot; he said. &quot;He'll say it's good. I'll say it's bad.&quot;
 Said Bush: &quot;I tell Vladimir all the time - I mean, Mr. President, all the time that Russia's most precious resource is the brain power of this country.&quot;
 Bush at one point told the students that he was convinced Russia's future was &quot;incredibly bright.&quot; &quot;First because of the great imagination and intellect of the Russian people, and secondly, because you've got a leader who understands that freedom is going to lift the future of this country,&quot; he said.
 Putin joked self-deprecatingly about his academic record, saying the university had &quot;basically made a gift of my diploma, closing their eyes to all the problems.&quot;
 Both men joked that the students should aim their hardest questions at the other podium. But both fielded tough questions about trade links, with Putin calling on Bush to help lift Cold War-era high technology export controls.
 Putin gave Bush two documents from Russian historical archives covering the years of the American Revolution when, Putin said, Catherine the Great refused England's request to intervene against the rebellious colonies.
 Anna Sakharova, an international relations student, seemed impressed. &quot;They were very, very good. So much better than I expected, both presidents,&quot; she said. &quot;It was such a wonderful atmosphere, it was clear that they are friends.&quot;
 The presidents could have picked no better weekend to display their friendship. Bush's visit coincided with St Petersburg's 299th anniversary celebrations, which culminated with the carnival celebration on Sunday. The streets were shut to traffic and parks were jam-packed for concerts in the bright sunshine.
 On Saturday, Putin first took Bush to the Piskaryovskoye Cemetery, where more than 500,000 people who died in St. Petersburg during the almost 900-day Nazi blockade in World War II are buried. Putin, who is learning English, conversed easily with Bush as they strode solemnly to lay wreaths at the Mother Russia monument.
 Next stop was the Hermitage. Bush had time to see just a fraction of its art pieces but used the opportunity to lavish more praise on his host. &quot;The hospitality has been magnificent. The time we spent last night with the Putins in their beautiful home [in Moscow] was very relaxing. It was a great chance to see how the Putins live and get a sense of their values,&quot; Bush told reporters.
 In the evening, the Bushes and the Putins attended a performance of &quot;The Nutcracker&quot; ballet at the Mariinsky Theater, the same theater where the ballet was first performed in 1892 in the hometown of its composer, Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
 The two presidents sat together in a box once reserved for the tsars at the back of the ornate theater. An animated Putin pointed out sights to first lady Laura Bush, who was seated next to him, while Bush engaged first lady Lyudmila Putina in conversation.
 The couples then headed out for an evening boat cruise on the Neva River.
 On Sunday, the Bushes attended church services at the Kazan Cathedral and saw paintings at the State Russian Museum. The Putins took them on an unscheduled stroll through the Mikhailovsky Garden to the Church on the Spilled Blood, as Bush chatted animatedly by the onion-domed building without going in.
 Tourists and onlookers cheered as the foursome passed by and Bush flashed them a thumbs-up sign.
 Back outside the Russian Museum, Putin bade farewell to Bush with a firm handshake and a broad smile, and kissed Laura Bush on both cheeks. The two first ladies also exchanged kisses.
 The Bushes boarded Air Force One Pulkovo Airport for a flight to Paris, where Bush's agenda for the evening included a meeting and working dinner with newly re-elected French President Jacques Chirac.
 
 <i>(Reuters, NYT, AP, SPT) </i>

TITLE: Officials To Draft New Safeguards
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Worried about the apocalyptic prospect of international terrorists obtaining nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, U.S. and Russian officials and analysts met Monday to help draft possible new safeguards.
 
Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, a U.S. senator from Indiana - who together launched the decade-old U.S. effort to help contain the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union - described the threat of &quot;catastrophic terrorism&quot; as possibly the gravest challenge to global security.
 &quot;We are in a new arms race,&quot; Nunn said at a conference organized by the Nuclear Threat Initiative foundation that he co-chairs with CNN founder Ted Turner. &quot;Terrorists and certain states are racing to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we ought to be racing together to stop them.&quot;
 The Nunn-Lugar program has helped Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus become nuclear-free nations and provided assistance to Russia in costly efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons, secure nuclear and chemical stockpiles and find civilian jobs for ex-weapons scientists. Lugar noted that much remained undone: Only 40 percent of nuclear storage sites in Russia have received U.S. assistance to upgrade security, and only 20 percent had received complete security systems.
 Despite the program's success, Lugar said it faced some opposition in the U.S. Congress because of Russia's failure to provide full information about its activities with chemical and biological weapons - including Moscow's refusal to allow monitors into four biological laboratories run by the Defense Ministry.
 The joint threat-reduction program was launched in December 1991 and has been promoted through more than two dozen projects. About $8.5 billion has been earmarked for the program through 2003.
 Nunn said the threat of weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands &quot;extends well beyond Russia and the former Soviet Union,&quot; pointing at some 20 tons of highly enriched uranium piled up at 345 civilian research facilities in 58 countries. &quot;Some of it is secured by nothing more than an underpaid guard sitting inside a chain-link fence,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Putin Spins Out a Fish Story That Only Bush Will Believe
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - True or false? Russian sturgeons are cut open, their caviar removed, and then sewed up to live another day.
 
President Vladimir Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush over dinner at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence Friday night that Russia has many sturgeons swimming about with surgical stitches. While other dinner guests roared with laughter, Bush said he believed him.
 Whether he knew it or not, Bush was right.
 The conversation took place when the guests were being treated to caviar and Putin announced that some Russian caviar is harvested in a procedure similar to a cesarean section, Putin told reporters Saturday.
 &quot;The experts take the fish and cut it open, take the caviar, then stitch it up and throw it back into the water,&quot; Putin told the dinner guests.
 But, despite Putin's efforts to convince the diners that he was telling the truth, nobody but Bush believed him.
 &quot;The Secretary of State [Colin Powell], the Russian Foreign Minister [Igor Ivanov], Ms. Condoleezza Rice, Mr. [Sergei] Ivanov and also both wives - my wife and Mr. President's wife - all laughed at me,&quot; Putin said.
 &quot;But there was only one person who said, 'I believe probably that's how it is.' It was the president of the United States.&quot;
 It was unclear whether the caviar on the table was indeed harvested by the method described by Putin, but the Russian president was not pulling Bush's leg.
 For more than 70 years scientists and fish farmers have been trying to extract caviar without killing the sturgeon.
 Putin saw with his own eyes how sturgeons are bred while visiting a fish farm near Astrakhan in April.
 Yury Usenko, president of the Akvatron fish farm, said two methods have been developed to extract caviar without killing the fish. One of them involves a small &quot;half-cesarean section,&quot; he said Sunday. &quot;The fish is then stitched up and released. It can reproduce again a year later.&quot;
 The other method was developed in the 1930s and involves injecting hormones from a sexually mature sturgeon into the fish. The injection speeds up the development of the eggs and their release. No surgical procedures are required for this method, Usenko said.
 Both methods are mainly used to replenish stocks at fish farms.
 &quot;We are still behind Japan with this technology, but we could certainly give a serious lesson to the United States and Europe,&quot; Usenko said.
 If anything, Bush's four-day visit proved he still has a fondness for snacks.
 Bush, who bruised his face after choking on a pretzel and falling off a couch earlier this year, could not resist the candies laid out in the Kremlin's St. Catherine's Hall on Friday and quickly popped one into his mouth as the two presidents sat down for talks, Reuters reported.
 But, as Putin began his welcoming remarks, he looked slightly sheepish, spat the boiled pink candy out of his mouth into its wrapper and placed it out of sight.
 Putin seized just about every opportunity to poke fun at uneasy economic relations between Russia and the United States.
 On Friday, he suggested a lifting of U.S. restrictions on Russian steel and aluminum exports would make Boeing planes cheaper.
 &quot;Had the Americans bought our cheap aluminum and steel, then perhaps [Boeings] would be cheaper and more competitive,&quot; Putin said at a Kremlin news conference.
 At a forum with St. Petersburg University students Saturday, Putin teased Bush on the hot issue of Russia joining the World Trade Organization.
 When a student asked Bush which steps Washington would take to ensure Russia's speedy entry into WTO, Putin blurted out, &quot;Good question!&quot;
 Bush then launched into a rambling answer that, among other things, suggested Putin's desire for Russia to join was of paramount importance and that he personally was not against the bid.
 &quot;Oh, if it's that simple and the president has no objections, I'll just vote for it now,&quot; Putin said.

TITLE: Putin and Bush Settle Down to Business
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The signing of the arms treaty may have been hailed abroad as the high point of the summit, but another kind of history was made in St. Petersburg and Moscow over the weekend, one that may prove more profitable to Russia and the United States in the long run.
 
Recent trade tensions over chicken and steel aside, the U.S.-Russia summit marked a milestone in economic relations, as business representatives from both countries played a key role in their respective delegations for the first time.
 In addition to conferences on aerospace, information technology and media entrepreneurship, initiated by the presidents and attended by delegation members, U.S. President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin signed a declaration on cooperating in the energy sector, which Bush described as a &quot;major new energy partnership.&quot;
 Although no breakthroughs were announced concerning two of the most burning issues for Russia - the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment that ties emigration policies to trade and official U.S. recognition as a market economy - Bush said he would lobby Congress on Russia's behalf regarding Jackson-Vanik and that a decision on market economy status was coming soon.
 &quot;I am determined to work with Congress to remove Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment,&quot; Bush said Friday. As for market-economy status, a key step toward entering the World Trade Organization on standard terms, Bush said it was a &quot;regulatory matter&quot; that the Commerce Department would decide by June 14 and that he had discussed the matter with Commerce Secretary Donald Evans.
 Putin, speaking after Bush's departure from St. Petersburg on Sunday, said that although Russia &quot;was not thrilled&quot; over the lack of movement on Jackson-Vanik, &quot;we have the right to consider this visit a success.&quot;
 &quot;We are holding talks to resolve misunderstandings or the results of misunderstandings,&quot; Putin said in televised remarks Friday. &quot;We are focusing on building new economic relations,&quot; he said, adding that the two countries &quot;need to remove barriers left over from the past.&quot;
 Members of the business community shared Putin's bullish assessment of the summit.
 &quot;This is the first summit that involved the actual participation of the business community, which is a lot more important than the number of pieces of paper signed,&quot; said U.S.-Russia Business Council president Eugene Lawson, a member of the Russian-American Business Dialogue, initiated by Bush and Putin at the G-8 summit in July 2001. The RABD also includes the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, the Russian-American Business Council, and the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, Russia's most powerful business lobby.
 At a special meeting Friday, RABD representatives presented a report to Bush and Putin on target areas for improving the business environment, such as strengthening property rights and developing commercial mediation. The report also called for more transparent and steamlined visa processing on both sides and for better market access for Russian exports to the United States.
 Top bankers also presented the presidents with reform recommendations that were developed with the participation of the Central Bank's first deputy head Andrei Kozlov. The group urged the adoption of the full set of Basel Committee norms, phasing out government ownership of banks and enhancing banks' ability and opportunity to lend. The only point on which members could not reach consensus was whether foreign banks should be allowed to open branch offices, rather than subsidiaries, Kozlov said. Branch offices would allow foreign banks to expand within Russia without having to meet the Central Bank's capital requirements, raising fears that Russian banks would face an uneven playing field.
 &quot;The presidents want the participation of businesspeople, which will have a benign ripple effect,&quot; Lawson said.
 In signing the energy pact on Friday, Bush called on U.S. businesses to &quot;take the lead in developing the vast energy resources of Russia and the Caspian Sea.''
 The agreement could pave the way for increased U.S. investment in production, transportation and refining capacity, as well as higher sales of Russian oil to the United States.
 Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said that although cooperation in the oil and gas sector has &quot;the greatest potential,&quot; he noted that Russia is limited by infrastructure bottlenecks, primarily the lack of deep-water ports that can accommodate the supertankers required for profitable transoceanic shipping.
 The energy agreement also creates a working group that is expected to meet for an energy summit in Texas later this year.
 In addition to protocols and intentions, several important energy deals were signed during the summit. ExxonMobil signed an agreement with the Amur Shipbuilding Plant for a $140- million offshore platform, and Sovcomflot and ChevronTexaco signed a memorandum of understanding for further cooperation in crude oil shipping from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
 In one of the few deals moving the other way, United Heavy Machinery, or OMZ, bought a U.S. oil-rig-design company, Friede and Goldman Ltd., for $15 million. OMZ said the purchase would allow it to tap into the growing demand for oil platforms in the Caspian Sea, the annual demand for which it estimates will be $10 billion by the end of the decade.
 One of the most important outcomes of the summit for the Russian economy could be increased awareness of Russia in the West, said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog. &quot;Russia may achieve greater prominence in the minds of U.S. specialists and businesspeople and that could lead to more interest in coming here to invest or work.&quot;
 According to a source close to the U.S. delegation, the refusal of Congress to repeal Jackson-Vanik, which requires Russia to apply each year for normal trade status and precludes Russia from obtaining most-favored-nation status, was a response to Moscow's temporary ban on American poultry this year.
 &quot;Jackson-Vanik is a political issue, and Congress's decision was tied closely to the issue of U.S. chicken imports,&quot; the source said.
 After banning U.S. poultry for a four-week period beginning March 10, the Agriculture Ministry revoked import licenses and has been slow to reinstate them.
 &quot;The U.S. party wanted to see the issue on the negotiating table,&quot; Reuters quoted Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev as saying Saturday. &quot;The Russian president was quite straightforward in explaining that we see it as a technical issue, linked to veterinary requirements.&quot;

TITLE: Sandwich Shop Makes News Again
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The legendary Minutka sandwich shop on Nevsky Prospect has shut down.
 
Only sandwich lovers would have noticed the closure had the shop on St. Petersburg's main street not been the scene of a battle raging between its owners and the international Subway fast-food chain for the past five years.
 Nevsky's Subway was one of the first restaurant joint ventures in the country. According to the fast-food chain's representatives, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated the project. During a visit to the United States, he is said to have decided that Russia needed the same kinds of eateries he saw there. East-West Invest, owners of the Subway brand in Russia, arrived in Russia on Gorbachev's invitation and decided to set up their business in St. Petersburg. 
 The cafe opened its doors on Nevsky in 1994 under the joint ownership of Subway and Russian company Minutka. By 1995, relations between the two owners had soured, and the St. Petersburgers threw out their U.S. partners. 
 East-West Invest filed suit and, in 1997, a Stockholm arbitration court upheld its claim and ordered Minutka to pay the U.S. company $1.2 million - the total sum of its investment. The ruling was confirmed by the St. Petersburg City Court and later by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the ruling was not carried out. Minutka disappeared without a trace, and the Submarina company was registered in its place.
 In the last few years, the City Property Committee has attempted to review Minutka's lease agreement. Last fall the committee was able to revoke the lease agreement through the courts. However, the sandwich shop did not close down. In the course of one day, Submarina was turned into Kerol, and then Kerol into Proksima. 
 The Property Committee then changed its strategy. Instead of going to court on the grounds of lost profits, it filed criminal charges against the ever-changing heads of Minutka, Submarina, Kerol and Proksima for handing property not belonging to them over to one another without government permission. Outside management was brought in to take control of the companies. Because of the frequent changes, the federal government loses 140,000 rubles ($4,480) a month in rent, according to property committee data. 
 In addition, Minutka is due to appear before the arbitration court May 29.
 Last week, Minutka's management informed the Property Committee that it had shut down the cafe. It sealed the doors in the presence of police and committee representatives. No property inventory was made because the doors had already been locked when they were sealed. 
 Representatives of Subway Russia said they viewed the closure optimistically. According to Gennady Kochetkov, the company's vice president, it will now be possible to develop the brand in St. Petersburg. He said there are already four potential franchisers in the city.

TITLE: City's Supermarkets Set for Development
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Competition among St. Petersburg's supermarket chains is set to thrive, as a new 11,000-square-meter store opened Wednesday and another major company announced plans to enter the market in the near future.
 
Liat-Dixi, which opened the new store in Ozerki, to the north of the city center, is currently leading the field in St. Petersburg. However, Hypercenter, a company headed by Mikhail Bezelyansky, the former board chairperson at Alfa-Group, which developed Moscow's Perekryostok chain, has also begun work on setting up its own chain in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
 Apart from its new store in Ozerki, Liat-Dixi also has three more construction sites in the city, with plans to open another store this year and two more in 2003. The Luxembourg-based company Dorinda Holding, which invested $8 million in the construction of the store in Ozerki, is going to spend up to $90 million on setting up its supermarket chain in the city.
 Hypercenter, meanwhile, is already in the process of building its first supermarket in Moscow, with an opening planned for the beginning of 2003. In St. Petersburg, the company is working on submitting the documentation needed to obtain the necessary construction sites. The openings for its St. Petersburg supermarkets are also planned for the beginning of 2003.
 Each supermarket will cover an area ranging from 17,500 square meters to 30,000 square meters, with the stores being named Mosmart in Moscow and Rosmart in St. Petersburg. The construction of each store will cost from $20 million to $30 million.
 Representatives of Hypercenter declined to give details on their Petersburg projects prior to the official announcement of the plans and also declined to say how the projects will be financed.
 At the beginning of 2001, the company announced plans for construction in the coming spring, intending to open five supermarkets in Moscow over four years, at a total cost of approximately $200 million. Construction, however, began a year late. According to Yelena Ziskind, public relations manager at Hypercenter, the delays were caused by the extensive research and design work necessary for the project's implementation.
 &quot;The plan is that the supermarket chain will become the largest in Russia, and that it will be developed in keeping with Western standards,&quot; she said in a telephone interview last week. &quot;Calculating all the factors involved is even more important than the construction itself.&quot;
 Initially, the idea to set up a company and a new supermarket chain came from Alfa-Group, according to Anton Myshakov, the former general director of Hypercenter.
 &quot;Some of the company's managers, however, didn't agree on the way the idea should be implemented. In 2000, we decided to split from Alfa-Group and to carry out the project ourselves,&quot; Myshakov said in interview with the Vedemosti business daily.
 According to Boris Yushenkov, retail director at the Colliers International real estate-consulting firm, the supermarket sector is underdeveloped in St. Petersburg. In the city center, supermarkets are still a rarity while, in the outlying districts, not all supermarkets have been successful, he said. 
 At present, the largest supermarket chains in St. Petersburg are Pyatyorochka (75 stores), Kopeika (16 stores), Megamart (5 stores), Lenta (2 stores) and Dixi.
 Experts predict that new supermarkets, planned for the next three to five years by domestic and international companies, such as Metro, Ramstore, Sedmoi Kontinent and Perekryostok, will take a significant share of the market and drastically alter its structure.
 &quot;Big supermarkets will grab a certain share of the market but, obviously, they will only become significant in the next few years,&quot; Yushenkov said. &quot;For the time being, the most serious plans for development have been announced by Pyatyorochka. Without major Moscow and Western players on the scene, there will be very little real progress in this market and the leading position in sales will be held by the traditional markets and small retail sites.&quot;
 &quot;The retail market is directly dependant on the purchasing power of the city,&quot; he added. &quot;But the standard of living in St. Petersburg is closer to the provincial markets than to Moscow.&quot;

TITLE: Aeroflot Meeting Sides With The State
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Shareholders of state-controlled Aeroflot voted at their annual meeting Saturday to strengthen the government's control over the flagship airline and curb the powers of management.
 
Candidates put forward by the government, the owner of 51 percent of the company, won seven seats on the board, which shareholders voted to increase from nine to 11 seats.
 Millhouse Capital UK Ltd., which quietly acquired a 26 percent stake in the carrier during the past year, got three seats while employees, who control 13 percent, got one.
 Representing the state on the new board are Economic Development and Trade Minster German Gref, Transportation Minister Sergei Frank and his deputy Alexander Neradko, Deputy Finance Minister Vladimir Chernukhin, First Deputy Property Minister Alexander Braverman, presidential aviation adviser Yevgeny Shaposhnikov and Yury Zaostrovtsev, the deputy director of the Federal Security Service.
 The three board members representing Millhouse, a company that holds assets belonging to core shareholders of metals giant Russian Aluminum and oil major Sibneft, are three of its top executives - David Davidovich, Andrei Osipov and Alexei Tuzhilin.
 Aeroflot General Director Valery Okulov, representing employees, retained his seat. However, the darling of minority investors, Aeroflot chief financial officer Alexander Zurabov, also put forward by employees, lost by a small margin to Millhouse's Osipov. He was widely expected to have been elected.
 Analysts were perplexed by the defeat of Zurabov, a former banker credited with spearheading Aeroflot's strategic development.
 &quot;This is a very unusual outcome,&quot; said Yulia Zhdanova, transportation analyst at United Financial Group.
 After reviewing the balloting, Zhdanova concluded that Millhouse and the government coordinated their votes to maximize each other's presence on the board.
 Yelena Sakhnova, an analyst at Aton brokerage, said the government may have &quot;played safe&quot; to ensure it achieves its goal of controlling seven board seats.
 Transportation Minister Sergei Frank declined to reveal the government's strategy for the meeting, save to say, &quot;We used every possibility we had on our hands to get the maximum result.&quot;
 Shareholders also weakened Okulov's position. According to changes to the company charter, approved Saturday, the general director will no longer have the authority to approve deals worth more than 2.5 percent of the company's assets, or $15 million. Under the previous charter, the limit was 25 percent.
 Another significant change is that the board, not the shareholders, now appoints the general director.
 Frank said Aeroflot senior managers should be pressured to work more effectively and efficiently and that shareholders should have more control over the decisions they make.
 One key decision is whether Aeroflot will favor the U.S. Boeing or Europe's Airbus when it upgrades its fleet of 27 foreign jets. Frank said that although Airbus' proposals were &quot;considerably more attractive&quot; financially, neither company will dominate Aeroflot's fleet.

TITLE: Slavneft Hit With Police Raid
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The latest battle over control of state-owned oil company Slavneft broke out at the company's headquarters on Friday evening, casting an even bigger shadow of doubt over its scheduled privatization this fall.
 
Taking little heed of the U.S.-Russian summit taking place several kilometers away, Slavneft's former acting president, Anatoly Baranovsky, grabbed his lawyers and 24 police officers, forcing his way through to the office of Yury Sukhanov, whom Slavneft shareholders elected company president earlier this month.
 But, before a victor could emerge from the face-off, an anonymous bomb threat was called in and local police ordered everyone to evacuate the building. No bomb was found.
 Slavneft officials said that Sukhanov will continue in his role as president.
 The struggle for Slavneft has become a tragicomedy played out by powerful political groups with the federal budget being the only loser if, in fact, the sale of 20 percent of the company is delayed, as many analysts predict.
 Sukhanov is said to be supported by Sibneft, where he earlier worked in management, and its owner, oligarch-turned-Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich. But it was Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov who decided how the government would vote with its 75-percent stake at the May 13 meeting.
 Sibneft is one of several oil companies that have already expressed interest in buying the Slavneft stake, which has been assessed at more than $500 million.
 The losing candidate, Baranovsky, is a vice president of Rosneft. Behind him stand Rosneft's management and Sergei Pugachev, a Federation Council member and Mezhprombank founder who wants Slavneft to become part of a greater national oil company, according to media reports.
 Since the government ousted Slavneft President Mikhail Gutseriyev last month, these two groups have fought using weapons ranging from criminal investigations to regional court orders.
 Shortly after he invaded Sukhanov's office, Baranovsky tried to call the game before its conclusion.
 &quot;I am fulfilling the duties of Slavneft president in all aspects,&quot; he said in a statement.
 He defended his action with a May 14 district-court ruling made in the city of Ufa. The court ruled in favor of Miniyaz Mingaliyev, a Slavneft shareholder who asked that Sukhanov's election be annulled. According to the shareholder registry, Mingaliyev was not a shareholder at the cut-off date for the shareholders meeting.
 Before Gutseriyev unceremoniously left on vacation last month, he appointed Baranovsky as interim president.
 On Friday night, Slavneft Vice President Andrei Shtorkh described the situation as &quot;tense,&quot; and added that the conflict &quot;could not end in anything good.&quot;
 &quot;All entrances to the building have been blocked, in some cases rather brutally,&quot; Shtorkh told the radio station Ekho Moskvy. &quot;My personal assistant was trying to leave and she nearly got beaten up. There is a list of 26 people who are not, as far as I know, company employees. They are the only ones who are allowed to enter and leave the building.&quot;
 In an attempt to end the escalating conflict, Deputy Property Minister and Slavneft board member Yury Medvedev sent a letter to the Prosecutor General's Office, calling the documents presented by Baranovsky &quot;inappropriate&quot; and &quot;fake.&quot;
 Medvedev noted that a May 20 Moscow District Court ruling prevents anyone from hindering Sukhanov as he goes about his work.
 This is not the first time Sukhanov has run up against well-connected opponents. In the weeks preceding the shareholder meeting, the economic crime department of the Interior Ministry opened a criminal investigation into the conduct of Sukhanov, then Slavneft vice president, and another top manager.
 While an Interior Ministry spokesperson said the investigation is continuing, nothing has yet come out of it.
 The sale of Slavneft will be the first big test of Russia's privatization process under President Vladimir Putin, and at least one analyst says that without Putin's explicit intervention the forces supporting Baranovsky may overwhelm Sukhanov. &quot;But between Rosneft and the Kremlin faction supporting Sibneft, I'm really not sure who's stronger,&quot; said the analyst, who requested anonymity.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: City Gas Inquiry
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov has sent a team of law enforcement officials to St. Petersburg to investigate corruption allegations in the city's gasoline market, the ministry's organized-crime department said Wednesday.
 The investigation was ordered after the Faeton gasoline company complained to both Gryzlov and the Prosecutor General's Office in April. Faeton accused the city's tax police of giving favors to the St. Petersburg Fuel Co., or PTK, Faeton chief Sergei Fetisov said.
 He said the city administration heavily favors PTK and that several former city officials work at the company.
 
 
City Eurobonds
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The St. Petersburg administration is planning to issue Eurobonds worth around $110 million this year in order to refinance its outstanding debt, a senior city official said last week.
 "In 1997 we issued Eurobonds with a 9.5 percent coupon. ... We now want to issue five- or seven-year Eurobonds," St. Petersburg Deputy Governor Viktor Krotov said at a conference on municipal borrowing in Moscow.
 The previous $300-million issue will reach maturity next month and Krotov said that about $110 million of the bonds in that issue remain outstanding.
 
Tax Shortfall
 

MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - The Tax Ministry is experiencing difficulties in meeting the May tax collection target, Tax Minister Gennady Bukayev said last week.
 The ministry is expected to transfer 120.8 billion rubles ($3.86 billion) in taxes to the federal budget this month.
 The Tax Ministry collected 136.9 billion rubles of taxes in April, or 2.1 percent below the monthly target.
 
 
Petersburg No. 2
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - According to the St. Petersburg governor's press service, the results of a 2001 credit-rating survey of Russian Federation subjects, carried out by the AK&amp;M center, have placed St. Petersburg in second place after Moscow.
 The survey assessed the capability of each subject to meet debts incurred, taking into account the relationship between debt and budgetary income and other factors. Internally generated income for St. Petersburg amounted to 47.66 million rubles ($1.6 billion) accounting for 95.2% of the total income.
 
 
U.S. Chicken En Route
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Cargoes of U.S. poultry will arrive in June, over a month after the lifting of the import ban that strained relations with Washington ahead of the U.S.-Russian summit.
 "Currently, three ships carrying around 20,000 tons of poultry are on their way to Russia," Albert Davleyev, the head of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Export Council office in Moscow, said Thursday.
 



TITLE: Continuing Slavneft Conflict Boils Over
TEXT: THE latest battle has kicked off - this time over the Slavneft oil company. Roman Abramovich's Sibneft and Sergei Pugachyov's Mezhprombank - i.e. the Family and the St. Petersburgers - are competing for control of Slavneft's finances. You see, the banker Pugachyov is positioning himself as a close friend of President Vladimir Putin's and the &quot;financial brain&quot; behind the St. Petersburg-chekist group.
 
Neither side has a controlling stake in Slavneft, so both rely on their administrative resources alone - those parts of the state that they have privatized.
 Slavneft sales, prior to recent events, had been controlled by structures close to Sibneft, as demonstrated by the criminal suit filed against its current president, Yury Sukhanov, for selling oil to a Sibneft trading firm at below-market prices.
 Mezhprombank had no link to Slavneft, so the St. Petersburg team could behave in characteristic fashion, accusing their opponents of diverting funds and so on. Such allegations may be true, but are largely irrelevant when the individuals behind them only dream of doing exactly the same thing.
 What has happened with Slavneft is a classic example of a Chekist ploy gone wrong.
 To recap: Mikhail Gutseriyev, head and founder of the Ingush offshore zone, or BIN, was the previous head of Slavneft. Slavneft's oil was exported through Sibneft-affiliated traders and the profits divided - so they say - between Gutseriyev, Sibneft, former head honchos at the Interior Ministry and a criminal group close to them.
 After the death of the criminal group's leader, the other two weakened partners were removed from the equation. Shopping your partners, regardless of who they are, always weakens the one who is doing the betraying. The weakened Gutseriyev became the perfect target for a Chekist scheme.
 The recent election in Ingushetia was crucial. After the departure of Ingush President Ruslan Aushev, Gutseriyev needed to get his man in as successor. Otherwise, the money that passed through the BIN offshore zone (allegedly used by Chechen criminal groups), might become a source of major unpleasantness for Gutseriyev.
 Gutseriyev's man was to have been his brother Khamzat. One group of Chekists removed Gutseriyev's brother from the election while another promised Gutseriyev protection. A frightened Gutseriyev was then forced to appoint Alexander Gnusaryev, a Mezhprombank top manager, to one of the top positions in Slavneft and send his vice president, Yury Sukhanov, who represented Sibneft's interests, on vacation.
 It looked like everything was sorted out. Gutseriyev quit his post. His replacement was to have been Anatoly Baranovsky, who previously worked in Rosneft (controlled by the security services).
 However, instead, at an extraordinary shareholder meeting held May 13, the state voted for Sibneft's man, Yury Sukhanov, after which the main wave of noisy and absolutely pointless attacks against Slavneft was unleashed.
 This week I interviewed Boris Berezovsky, a man who is certainly odious and biased. Nevertheless, a prejudiced but brilliant mind can be more profound than an objective but mediocre one. To my question regarding the prospects of the Chekists triumphing in Russia, Berezovsky replied: &quot;Not a single oligarch has emerged from the Chekists' ranks or ever licked the Chekists' boots. This is because the main thing an oligarch has is freedom. Oligarchs take decisions and bear responsibility for them. Therefore, I would say that the FSB has come to power but is incapable of doing anything, because they have always been servants.&quot; It would seem that the story with Slavneft corroborates Boris Abramovich's diagnosis.
 
 <i>
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT. </i>

TITLE: Currency Contol Code Still Debated
AUTHOR: By Maxim Kalinin and Igor Gorchakov
TEXT: AS a follow-up to our April 9 article, on the adoption of a new Code of Administrative Offenses, which will come into force on July 1, 2002, it makes sense to try to clear up some of the controversy surrounding the currency-control issues that remain.
 The code lists currency-control offenses and their respective penalties. It should be stressed that this list is exhaustive - any new offense or penalty can only be introduced by amending the code itself. Depending on the violoation, violators can be fined an amount which the competent body calculates according to the sum of the illegal transaction (for example, 100 percent of the sum paid for imported goods not delivered in time) or set a fine from a range of fixed penalties denominated in 'minimum monthly wages' (an MMW is 100 rubles, or about $3.20). These amounts vary slightly in their application to officials and legal entities. 
 Anyone accused of a violation will be able to make use of all of the advantages provided by the general procedural rules introduced by the code. The code also establishes a statute period, only allowing state officials to begin proceedings a year from the time the offense was committed. Previously, there was no such limitation. When imposing a penalty, the official must establish the person's guilt, taking into consideration the person's financial status, the nature of the offense and any aggravating and extenuating circumstances. The decision can then be appealed to a higher body or in court. Thus, companies and individuals accused of currency-control violations have legal grounds to minimize the severity of the fine or even to avoid liability entirely.
 It should be noted, however, that, along with the welcome and long-awaited adoption of the code, the law &quot;On Currency Regulation and Currency Control&quot; was also amended. These changes raise serious concerns with regard to the liability that companies and individuals may bear for currency-control violations. In particular, the law provides that sums received by residents, non-residents and authorized banks on the basis of a void transaction, on the basis of a violation of the provisions of the law, or as a result of illegal actions are to be confiscated and handed over to the federal budget. 
 Where the law is less clear is in its definition of the category of the measure. It could be argued that it isn't an administrative penalty for a violation, as the penalties can only be established only by the code. Alternatively, it could be seen as a consequence of a void transaction, which would mean that such an offense would be covered by the Civil Code. If this is the case, the amendments are highly unfavorable for companies and individuals for several reasons. 
 First, they mean that anyone accused of violating Russian currency-control legislation may be punished twice - a fine on the basis of the code and another on the basis of the Russian Civil Code and the Law &quot;On Currency Regulation and Currency Control.&quot;
 Secondly, the limitation period for void transactions is ten years. In practice, this will mean that even if one escapes administrative liability as a result of the expiration of the one-year limitation period, state officials will have another nine years to file claims and confiscate amounts received under any invalid transaction. 
 In the absence of any judicial practice or official interpretations, we can only make rough predictions as to the effect that the regulation will have in the field of currency control, but future court practice will soon clear up the remaining ambiguities.
 
 <i>
Maxim Kalinin and Igor Gorchakov are associates at the Baker &amp; McKenzie la w firm's St. Petersburg Office. </i>

TITLE: Assault on Poverty Aims To Halt Terrorism
AUTHOR: By Sebastian Mallaby
TEXT: SINCE the September 11 attacks, there has been a new assault on poverty. The world's leaders launched trade talks to help poor countries export their way to prosperity; the British government pushed for a doubling in annual aid flows, and U.S. President George W. Bush promised the largest increase in U.S. bilateral assistance in recent memory. Now, along comes Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who says terror and poverty are linked only indirectly, if at all.
 In a joint paper with Jitka Maleckova, a Middle East specialist at Charles University in Prague, Krueger presents a statistical analysis of 129 Hezbollah militants killed during the late 1980s and early 1990s. These fighters, it turns out, were more likely to be above the poverty line or to have secondary or higher education than the average person in Lebanon. Next, the authors analyzed opinion polls in Palestine to see whether the poor and uneducated are particularly likely to support terrorist attacks against Israelis. They found that they were not. Finally, the authors looked at Jewish settlers who carried out attacks on Palestinians. They were overwhelmingly well off.
 These findings are in line with past studies of terror. An analysis of 350 terrorists identified in newspapers between 1966 and 1976 - people who belonged to 18 groups, such as Japan's Red Army and Turkey's People's Liberation Army - found that about two-thirds had been to college. In 1980, an Egyptian social scientist interviewed jailed Islamic extremists and found most were educated and upwardly mobile. In last winter's edition of National Interest magazine, Daniel Pipes cited a stack of evidence showing that Islamic militants are drawn mainly from the region's middle class.
 Does this mean that it is wrong to advocate aid as a response to terrorism? Pipes makes that argument forcefully. But there are nonetheless three reasons to believe that aid may be a useful tool against terror.
 The first is that, even if the Hezbollah fighters were educated, the type of education received is revealing: one fifth had been to Hezbollah's religious colleges. If they had attended secular institutions of the sort funded by Western aid programs, they might not have fallen for Hezbollah's extremism. There is no guarantee here: The Egyptian study found that many of the jailed extremists had studied science or engineering. But the lack of secular schools sometimes does drive children to religious ones that are little more than terror-training colleges. Consider Pakistan.
 Pakistan's terrorist infrastructure, which created the Taliban in the 1990s and still churns out jihadists by the hundred, is based on the religious schools known as <i>madrassas</i>. Poor kids go there because they cost nothing - food and clothes and books are all provided at no cost. If a boy later achieves martyrdom, typically in Kashmir, the madrassa movement showers gifts upon his family. Harvard's Jessica Stern interviewed a couple who did so well out of one son's death that they planned to &quot;donate'' a second one. In this sort of case, the link between poverty and terror is fairly direct.
 Second, aid may combat terror by staving off the mayhem that creates terrorist havens. A World Bank study of post-1960 conflicts found that the danger of civil war and state failure diminishes if growth picks up, if population pressures ease, if teenage boys are enrolled in schools or if the economy is diversified away from extractive industries such as diamonds, which often finance rebels. By promoting any of these conditions, aid may prevent new terrorist havens from emerging. Yes, al-Qaida does have sleeper cells in rich countries. But bin Laden based himself in Sudan and then Afghanistan because dysfunctional countries afforded him maximum freedom.
 Finally, you have to ask what policy prescriptions flow from Krueger's analysis. His chief insight is that, whereas poor people commit most ordinary crime because they have the strongest economic incentive to do so, educated people commit most acts of terrorism because they're sophisticated enough to form political passions. But how do you quell those passions? By reducing social injustice? That means aid programs to fight poverty. By showing that the United States cares about the welfare of people in Islamic countries? That points to aid programs again. Or maybe by promoting fairer, democratic government? Aid is part of the response here also, as aid agencies have focused increasingly on honest and representative governance during the past decade.
 You could argue that it is a mistake to worry about terrorists' motives, because you'll always have bad guys with grudges, no matter how many great aid programs you have. This is true, but also foolish: You could equally argue that we shouldn't defend the United States because you can never protect every train and water system from terrorist attack. All anti-terror tools are imperfect. Aid deserves a place in the tool kit, especially since its side effect - poverty reduction - is more attractive than the side effects of other anti-terror weapons.
 
 <i>
Sebastian Mallaby is a member of the editorial staff of The Washington Post, to which he contributed this comment. </i>

TITLE: A New Era of Cooperation in Cold War Culture
AUTHOR: By Matthew H. Murray
TEXT: AFTER U.S. President George W. Bush signed the Treaty of Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 24 to make the largest reductions ever in nuclear weapons, he hailed the beginning of &quot;an entirely new relationship&quot; between the United States and Russia, based upon cooperation and trust. As with many U.S.-Russia joint ventures, however, after the contract is signed, the real negotiations begin.
 
The Treaty of Moscow sets targets for both countries to reduce warhead levels within 10 years to between 1,700 and 2,200 from the current 6,000 each side is permitted under the 1991 START I Treaty, and beyond the levels set by the 1993 START II Treaty, which never entered into force. The three-page treaty, however, defers key unresolved issues to the implementation phase, including the timetable for decommissioning warheads, how many will be destroyed versus placed in deep storage for optional redeployment, and how to protect the decommissioned warheads' fissile material from terrorists. As negotiators could not agree on how to verify the reductions, the treaty borrows the verification regime of START I and envisages establishing a bilateral commission to ensure compliance and transparency of data exchanges.
 The Treaty of Moscow's lack of specificity poses a challenge to both the United States and Russia to finalize the terms and coordinate steps towards implementation by means that will advance the larger aim of strategic cooperation set forth in a joint declaration that the presidents also signed on May 24. Presently, the new era is defined mainly by the presidential partnership forming between Bush and Putin. In order to include their respective security establishments, the presidents must help engender what the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow, calls a &quot;culture of cooperation&quot;.
 As the Treaty of Moscow's reductions are reversible, Russian officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, are duly concerned that the treaty gives the United States, which is in a better economic position to rearm, a permanent unfair advantage. They will have to face Russian military elites who have not caught up with Putin's policy towards the West and who believe that Russia should rearm in the face of the United States' withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Perhaps this is why Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has described the new treaty as provisional, requiring further negotiations.
 In addition, before being ratified, the Treaty of Moscow requires approval by both the U.S. Senate and Russian State Duma. While U.S. and Russian security officials negotiate with each other over how to implement the treaty, they will have to consult with leaders in the Senate and the Duma over the terms of their consent. They will have to attain an unprecedented level of coordination and consensus-building while the United States proceeds with plans to build anti-missile defense and retains the option to rearm and Russia proceeds with ambiguous policies regarding the transfer to weapons-related technology to Iran.
 Under the U.S. Constitution, approval of the treaty will require a two-thirds vote by the Senate, which means that just 34 senators' votes are needed to defeat it, inflating the value of each individual's vote. While preliminary indications are that the Senate will consent to the treaty, a minority bloc could delay approval, for example, by linking it with Russian progress on stemming nuclear proliferation to Iran.
 The Cold War habit of linking unrelated issues still persists in the Senate. Despite the fact that Russia has consistently met the Jackson-Vanik amendment's requirements for permitting Jewish emigration, Senate Foreign Relation Committee Chairperson Joseph Biden recently withheld support for Russia's graduation from Jackson-Vanik due to concerns over Russian policies on importing US chicken.
 At best, the Senate will scrutinize the unresolved technical implementation and verification issues and, if not satisfied, seek to amend the treaty. Due to the two-thirds requirement, past arms control treaties have been signed but not ratified, with the result that the U.S.-Russian bilateral arms-control regime has operated in a legal vacuum. Though signed in 1993, the START II Treaty's arms reductions have not been fully implemented because the Senate and Duma approved two different versions of the accord, with the result that the countries never exchanged instruments of ratification. The SALT II Treaty of 1979 was withdrawn from the Senate, after it was deemed too vulnerable to withstand a ratification vote. The potential for one third of the Senate to reject the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974 and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976 deterred the executive branch from asking for their approval until the 1990s. In 1999, the Senate rejected a request from the administration of then-U.S. President Bill Clinton Administration's to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
 By adopting a framework treaty, Bush and Putin have initiated a bold approach - arms control by executive fiat. Essentially, the presidents have decreed that nuclear reductions must proceed, their respective security establishments should implement them on a cooperative and transparent basis, and the elected representatives of both countries should ratify the process.
 But, as Putin observed after the United States failed to lift Jackson-Vanik trade restrictions, &quot;People who regard our relations not as U.S.-Russian but U.S.-Soviet still wield a lot of power in the United States.&quot; Though, reportedly, Putin has the majority vote needed in the Duma to pass the treaty, he cannot expect the cooperation of the splintered Russian military in implementation. An empowered minority of U.S. senators and a small, but determined, group of Russian military leaders could insinuate themselves into the process and, de facto, significantly delay or prevent the reductions called for by the Treaty of Moscow.
 The presidents, therefore, must continue to set a pace that demonstrates the practical benefits of a new era in bilateral security relations. Their May 24 joint declaration could lead to cooperation in the development of anti-missile defense, including the transparent testing of systems and some sharing of technology, as well as other nuclear-security programs, such as an improved system of communication regarding early warning of missile launches.
 Despite Bush and Putin's best intentions, however, the real aim of arms control - increased stability at lower levels of nuclear weapons - is still hostage to Cold War habits that preclude relationship-building between security officials. As Yabloko's chief foreign-policy expert, Duma deputy Alexei Arbatov, observed recently, despite the new treaty, powerful members of Russia's security establishment still believe &quot;the West is not responding accordingly to all of Russia's efforts to cooperate.&quot; The zero-sum mentality found in institutions built around threat-assessment does not reward officials who seek compromise and exchange information with a presumption of transparency.
 To follow the Treaty of Moscow, Bush and Putin must take steps to institutionalize transparent relations between the security establishments, such as the &quot;Consultative Group for Strategic Security&quot; envisaged by the joint declaration. Such steps will help leading officials engage in confidence-building with each other and consensus-building with the Senate and the Duma. Otherwise, in the name of cooperation, ideological security officials from both countries will introduce new forms of conflict.
 
 <i>Matthew H. Murray is chairperson of the Center for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance in St. Petersburg and a former legislative assistant to Senator Edward Kennedy for national security issues. He submitted this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: How Deep Does the New Friendship Reach?
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: I WILL soon be taking a leave of absence from this paper to work
 abroad for six months - I won't name my country of destination
 here for fear of appearing biased in this piece - and it occured
 to me over the weekend that, by doing so, I'll be missing out
 on an opportunity to do a little bit of sociological research.</p><p>
The source of this revelation was, as you might have already
 guessed, the summit meeting between U.S. President George W.
 Bush and President Vladimir Putin.</p><p>
I've always been amazed at how flexible people's opinons can
 be, and the next few months here, I suspect, are going to provide
 a great opportunity to discover the degree to which this is true.</p><p>
It was only a few months ago that, whenever Russians got together
 - whether it was around the kitchen table, around the coffee
 pot at work or on the floor of the State Duma - they were united
 in their condemnation of the &quot;evil&quot; United States, which had
 treated thier athletes so unfairly, some even said &quot;criminally,&quot;
 at the Winter Olympics.</p><p>
But now the official word is that the Americans are our partners
 and their president and our president are friends. But will this
 stance filter down to the common people? I think that a couple
 of recent incidents help suggest an answer.</p><p>
A couple of days before Bush's arrival in St. Petersburg, one
 of my colleagues visited a grade school where Putin had been
 a student, long before he even dreamed of being posted somewhere
 where he could really improve his German. My colleague was there
 to lend a hand to an American journalist who was here to report
 on the visit.</p><p>
A teacher showed them a number of paintings that had been done
 by the students. One of the examples portrayed an atomic bomb
 with an American flag and a man in a suit sitting on it. Adolf
 Hitler was shown standing beside the bomb. Above the picture,
 the child had painted the phrase: &quot;Those who come to our land
 with a sword, will die by the sword.&quot;</p><p>
The attitude of the teacher, who had been displaying the works
 with a fair bit of pride, took an immediate turn for the worse
 when the reporter asked who the man seated on the bomb was supposed
 to be.</p><p>
&quot;Oh ...&quot; the teacher began, immediately trailing off into an unintelligible
 stammer. </p><p>
&quot;Perhaps it's Truman?&quot; the reporter said, obviously wanting to
 help the poor woman out of her discomfort.</p><p>
&quot;Oh yes, of course, it's Truman,&quot; she gladly agreed.</p><p>
Everybody was happy. The new era of Russia-U.S. love was not
 betrayed.</p><p>
At the same time, the United States' activities in former Soviet
 republics like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia and so on raises
 the backs of those who still refer to these places as &quot;our territory&quot;..The
 fact that these states are now independent doesn't seem to count
 for much in this case. I wonder if these complaints will begin
 to fade now that the Americans have been annointed our &quot;friends&quot;
 by the Kremlin.</p><p>
I also wonder about the scene I witnessed last week when a bunch
 of self-styled &quot;anti-globalists,&quot; resplendent with their nationalist
 flags and armbands, responded to comments by an American who
 happened to be passing by by trying to beat the hell out of him.
 Granted, it wasn't particularly clever on the American's part
 to bother disagreeing with members of what I can only describe
 as the lunatic fringe.</p><p>
On the other hand, given the fascist character of the group's
 symbols, I had to agree with his comment: &quot;They have a right
 to freedom of speach, of course, but how can people in this city
 be so indifferent to them - a city that lost over 900,000 people
 during the blockade ... .&quot;</p><p>
The reactions in the two different examples are interesting.</p><p>
I understand when Russian politicians change their position to
 match what is happening in the political arena. It's their job
 to wear two or more faces at once, especially over the last few
 years.</p><p>
But what interests me is what the ultimate decision of the teacher
 who became so concerned when she realized that she had been helping
 children maintain the image of the United States as Russia's
 enemy. In this case, she shifted her position pretty quickly.</p><p>
I wonder if she did it because she was afraid of offending the
 American journalist, or if she was afraid of the consequences
 of betraying the official policy of love and brothership coming
 down from above?

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: <b>Prior Engagement</b><br>Last week's outpouring of stories in the mainstream press about the Bush regime's criminal carelessness in safeguarding the citizens of the United States surely came as no surprise to anyone. The facts were always out there, in plain sight. You just had to sift through the sludge - the spin-gobbling, self-serving prose of the corporate media - to find the truth.
 
The Bush regime never had much interest in protecting America from terrorism. Its priorities lay elsewhere - enriching the elite, raping the land, gutting democracy and &quot;projecting dominance&quot; over all the earth.
 That's why Bush ordered federal agents to back off their investigations of Osama bin Laden and his family (which had long-standing business connections with Bush's family). That's why Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the CIA to end its remote monitoring of bin Laden and rejected a request to shift $800 million from &quot;missile defense&quot; to counter-terrorism. That's why Attorney General John Ashcroft told the FBI that he &quot;didn't want to hear it&quot; when they begged for more resources to fight terrorism. That's why Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill fought international efforts to crack down on off-shore money-laundering schemes used by terrorists, mafias - and wealthy backers of the Bush regime.
 And that's why Bush deep-sixed a bipartisan study on enhancing &quot;homeland defense&quot; and ignored a similar expert effort detailing actions to upgrade security on domestic airline flights. These recommendations - many of which were put in place after Sept. 11 - were available to Bush throughout the summer, as reports from around the world pointed urgently, frantically, to an imminent attack on U.S. soil, most likely with airplanes. But he chose to ignore them, to leave them unimplemented.
 And that's why when U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein approached Vice President Dick Cheney - on Sept. 10 - to voice her concerns over the dire situation, she was told that the great man might be able to make time for her little worries - in about six months or so.
 Other priorities, you see: enriching, raping, gutting, projecting. The regime did take the time to negotiate with the Taliban that summer, promising the rabid religious fascists a &quot;carpet of gold&quot; if they'd dump bin Laden and allow Bush's oil pals to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. And when that deal fell through, they did take the time to draw up a plan for attacking Afghanistan and punishing the Taliban for its intransigence. This was, in fact, the very war plan later launched in mid-October. Bush had it in hand on Sept. 10.
 So that's how the nation's &quot;defenders&quot; spent the ominous summer of 2001: whoring with terrorists, trying to get in bed with them, then plotting to kill them when the sordid tryst fell through. Upgrading security, &quot;connecting the dots&quot; of intelligence reports, enhancing homeland defense - this was of secondary importance. It detracted from the main goal. And the Bush regime is justly renowned for its discipline: they keep their eyes on the prize.
 And what is the prize? Dominance of the Central Asian oil fields. Whoever controls them will control the two biggest economies of the 21st century: China and India. The potential wealth is staggering, incalculable. That's why the region has to be nailed down. That's why military bases have to be planted there (built and maintained by Cheney's company Halliburton - a very profitable little sideline). That's why the pipeline has to go through.
 And that's why any international treaties - like Kyoto - that might limit or reduce oil-based energy consumption must be derailed. Those potential oil profits have to be protected. Think how many people have already died to secure them! That's why any institutions - like the International Criminal Court - that might limit the ability of the world's only superpower to impose its will wherever it sees fit must be undermined and ignored.
 That's why safeguards regulating weapons of mass destruction - like the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or the Convention on Chemical Weapons - must be trashed or crippled. Even the treaty signed by Bush and Putin this week is a crude sham, allowing the Bush regime to develop whole new generations of nuclear weapons for &quot;missile defense.&quot; In fact, the regime has already earmarked $30 billion for new nuclear-weapons production over the next five years alone. And anyway, the gossamer-like &quot;restrictions&quot; of the treaty can be dissolved at a mere 90 days' notice, should the Regime need to wave an even larger fasces at the world.
 Absolutely nothing must be allowed to interfere with the achievement of Central Asian dominance: the Holy Grail of the energy elite and its corporate outriders. Nothing - not democracy, not morality and certainly not the safety of the suckers back home - is more important.
 The death of 3,000 innocent people in the United States was an unintended consequence of this ruthless Grail quest. But, like everything else, it was fair game to be exploited. The Bush regime used the terrorist attack as a great leap forward in its dominance strategy. It gave perfect cover for the already-planned assault on Afghanistan, it hastened the plantation of Central Asia, it obscured the regime's systematic abrogation of international treaties, and it abetted Bush's efforts to expand and legitimize his unelected rule and stamp out dissent at home.
 It's all about priorities - not &quot;incompetence.&quot; The regime is very competent in pursuing its priorities. It's just that these priorities don't include the preservation of innocent lives. It's just that these priorities are - what's the word we're looking for, Mr. Bush? - evil.

TITLE: Israeli Troops Roll Back Into Bethlehem
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: BETHLEHEM, West Bank- Israeli tanks and armored personnel-carriers raced under a full moon into Bethlehem early on Monday morning, in what military officials said was likely to be the largest invasion yet of the rolling West Bank police action that Israel began after wrapping up its major ground offensive earlier this month. 
 
Iraeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that, despite continued warnings about plans by Palestinian militants to carry out suicide attacks, Israel was not on the verge of another large-scale military operation on par with the six-week &quot;Defensive Shield'' offensive. 
 Dozens of armored vehicles and jeeps drove into Bethlehem and surrounding towns and refugee camps, imposing a curfew on tens of thousands of Palestinians in the second incursion into the area in two days.
 The city had been under Israeli control for nearly six weeks during the previous offensive.
 In the Dheisheh refugee camp, Israeli troops questioned the relatives of two Palestinian suicide bombers and of the local leader of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. Residents said four people were arrested.
 Troops also remained in the town of Tulkarem and were surrounding another West Bank city, Qalqilya, the army said.
 A 55 year-old Palestinian was killed in Tulkarem when the army entered the city on Sunday, Palestinian witnesses said.
 The incursions are part of a new tactic of quick raids based on intelligence gathered by Israel's security services, said army spokesperson Brigadeer General Ron Kitrey. 
 &quot;The large number of warnings ... is worrying and requires us to be alert everywhere,'' Kitrey told Israel Army Radio, adding that the method would involve targeting &quot;precise locations which we have earmarked.''
 Ben-Eliezer said that, despite the warnings, the level of danger to Israel's security posed by Palestinian militants cannot be compared to what it was before &quot;Defensive Shield.'' That operation was triggered by a suicide bombing in an Israeli hotel that killed 29 people at the start of the Jewish Passo ver holiday.
 &quot;I don't believe that we will ... go back to the territories unless the situation becomes as intolerable as it was then,'' Ben-Eliezer said, referring to the Passover bombing. &quot;Then we had no choice.''
 The defense minister also said that he believed that Arafat no longer had a role to play in negotiating a peace agreement with Israel. &quot;Arafat does not give the impression that he is leading into that direction at all,'' the minister said.
 Meanwhile, Arafat has approved plans to merge the Palestinian Authority's 12 separate security branches into four departments, all of which would come under the control of the Interior Ministry, Palestinian officials said. Arafat heads that ministry.
 <i>
 (NYT, AP) </i>

TITLE: Uribe Wins Vote, Targets Insurgency
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOGOTA, Colombia - A resounding victory in hand, President-elect Alvaro Uribe promised that Colombians from all walks of life will benefit from his crusade to bring law and order to the most insecure and violent country in Latin America.
 
Uribe, a 49-year-old former governor and the mayor of Colombia's second-largest city, Medellin, easily swept the vote Sunday. With 98.9 percent of precincts reporting, Uribe had 53 percent of the vote, compared to 31.7 percent for his closest challenger, former Interior Minister Horacio Serpa. The majority vote gave Uribe an outright victory and averted a runoff next month. More than 11.2 million voters cast ballots - a slightly lower turnout than expected.
 In an acceptance speech at a Bogota hotel, the hard-line independent promised to bring &quot;Security, so [the rebels] don't kidnap the businessman, so they don't kill the labor leader, so they don't extort the rancher, so they don't force the peasant to flee his home.''
 From urban centers to Andean villages and sweltering jungle hamlets, voters expressed frustration over failed peace talks and a belief that their country was on the brink of a wider war. The overwhelming vote was a clear sign that most Colombians support Uribe's tough position on taming the 38-year guerrilla insurgency.
 In his nationally televised speech, the Harvard and Oxford-educated Uribe showed that his agenda goes beyond plans to beef up the military, seek U.S. counterinsurgency aid and recruit 1 million civilians to work as an early warning system for the armed forces.
 Uribe said he would carry out a &quot;revolution'' in education and root out Colombia's rampant political corruption. He also pleaded for international lending agencies to soften loan conditions, so that the government can spend more money on the poor.
 A virulent critic of peace talks during President Andres Pastrana's four-year term, Uribe said that he would seek international mediation and be willing to engage in talks only if the guerrillas agree to tough conditions: a cease-fire and a halt to &quot;terrorist'' actions.
 But few Colombians are expecting peace any time soon.
 Many voted for Uribe knowing that it could unleash even wider fighting before things improve. The hemisphere's longest running conflict already claims at least 3,500 lives a year, has generated a world-leading kidnapping industry and hobbled a once-productive economy.
 &quot;We want a solution to the violence in this country,'' said Ramiro Contreras, a 41-year-old businessperson who voted for Uribe. &quot;We know that he will hit the guerrillas hard, but it must be done.''

TITLE: India and Pakistan Trade Fire
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JAMMU, India - Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged heavy mortar, artillery and machine-gun fire on Monday, along the line that divides Kashmir between them, Indian army officers said. 
 
One officer from India's Border Security Force was killed in Naushara region and five villagers were injured. Pakistan's army issued a statement saying that nine civilians were killed, and that 42 others were injured. 
 Dozens of civilians have been reported killed on both sides of the border in the past two weeks.
 The officers said that the firing of mortar and artillery shells, along with medium and heavy machine guns, lasted several hours on Monday in the mountainous Naushara and Punch sectors, northwest of Jammu, the winter capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.
 The intensity of firing was lower along the international border, where the two sides fired rifles and light and medium machine guns, the officers said.
 The cease-fire line and the border comprise a 2,300-kilometer frontier, from the Arabian Sea to China, along which the two countries have amassed about 1 million troops.
 The state government says about 50,000 villagers have fled their homes.
 Both forces have been on war alert since December, after a deadly attack on the Indian parliament, which India blamed on Pakistan.
 India conducted missile tests in January and Pakistan test-fired a second missile on Saturday, capable of reaching India, as world leaders tried Sunday to contain the rising tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Nepalese PM Expelled
 

KATMANDU, Nepal (NYT) - Nepal was plunged into a fresh political crisis on Monday after the governing party expelled Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba over his move to dissolve Parliament and call early elections.
 Deuba told reporters that the expulsion would have no effect on his ability to remain caretaker prime minister of the poverty-stricken Himalayan kingdom, where security forces are battling an increasingly bloody Maoist insurgency.
 But constitutional experts said it was unclear whether Deuba could remain prime minister until the elections, set for Nov. 13.
 
 
Taiwan Crash Update
 

TAIPEI, Taiwan (WP) - The China Airlines jet that crashed into the Taiwan Strait on Saturday carrying 225 people broke into four pieces while still high in the sky, a sudden and calamitous event of still unknown cause, the lead Taiwanese investigator said on Monday.
 For a second day, rescue crews battled choppy seas northeast of the Penghu Islands, about 50 kilometers west of Taiwan. They had pulled in 83 bodies by nightfall, according to local television reports, but no survivors.
 Most of the passengers were Taiwanese, according to the airline, and nine were from China.
 
 
Rebels' Bodies Found
 

KISANGANI, Congo (AP) - Aid workers on Monday recovered at least 150 mutilated bodies from two rivers in eastern Congo, victims of reprisal killings that followed an uprising of mutinous rebel troops.
 The number of bodies found in the eastern city of Kisangani was far more than the 39 dead confirmed by the rebel forces who have controll the eastern Congolese citysince early in Congo's nearly 4-year-old war.
 Residents said as many as 100 more were shot in their homes or found buried in mass graves.
 
 
Mozambique Disaster
 

APUTO, Mozambique (AP) - A passenger train and a freight train collided in southern Mozambique on Saturday morning, killing at least 196 people and injuring hundreds more.
 President Joachim Chissano declared the accident a national tragedy and called on Mozambicans to donate blood for the injured and support those who had lost their families. It was the worst train disaster in the country's history. 
 The crash occurred at about 5 a.m., when the passenger train, which can hold more than 1,000 people, barreled into the back of the freight train at a station in the town of Moamba, about 55 kilometers north of the capital, Aputo.
 
 
U.S. Bridge Collapses 
 

WEBBERS FALLS, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Rescue workers pulled the bodies of three people from mangled cars on Monday as divers searched for several others feared drowned in vehicles that plunged into the Arkansas River on Sunday when part of a bridge collapsed after being struck by a barge, police said. 
 The Oklahoma Highway Patrol had estimated that six to 11 people were trapped and feared dead in their vehicles, which fell about 30 meters into the water from the Interstate 40 bridge.
 Police estimate that nine vehicles plunged into the water after the captain of an empty oil barge apparently passed out at the controls after suffering a seizure and slammed into an unprotected part of the bridge, causing a 152-meter section to give way. 



TITLE: Zenit Tops Milan In Friendly
AUTHOR: By Christopher Hamilton
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Zenit edged out Italian Serie A giant Milan, 4-3 in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw in normal time, in the Cup of St. Petersburg, an international-club friendly match held specially to celebrate City Day on Monday night at the Petrovsky Stadium.
 
In an indication of the mood of the evening, Milan's penalty specialist, Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevckenko, took an unusual penalty with the last kick of the shootout, tapping the ball straight to Zenit goalie Vyacheslav Malafeyev, who duly made the save to give the home side the victory that the fans wanted.
 Both sides agreed that the game was an excellent show of soccer for the 15,000 fans who turned up.
 &quot;It was a great, fast game between the two teams,&quot; said Milan head coach Carlo Ancelotti.
 &quot;We didn't use any particularly defensive tactics, and what we got was a really fast game along the wings,&quot; Ancelotti said.
 &quot;Zenit played very well defensively,&quot; he added.
 Zenit came out seemingly set on focusing more on defense and playing a more counter-attacking style, but it appeared that both teams were having trouble getting themselves organized at the start.
 The home side's Andrei Arshavin and Maxim Astafyev both had some promising moments in the first 20 minutes, but the moves usually petered out before causing a threat in the penalty box.
 The breakthrough for the St. Petersburg side finally came when its Yugoslav forward, Predrag Randjelovich, scored his first senior goal for the club, beating the Milan goalie, former Italian international Sebastiano Rossi, to a far-post cross in the 23rd minute.
 Randjelovic has had an awkward beginning to his time in St. Petersburg after signing from CSKA Moscow in the off-season. He was signed to replace Gennady Popovich, Zenit's talismanic striker who retired at the end of last year due to health reasons, but failed to impress - or score - in his first few appearances with the club.
 The Italian Serie A season ended just three weeks ago, and Milan appeared to be using the match as an experiment before it enters the qualifying round for next season's UEFA Champions League competition.
 The team looked like it was out to have more fun and mix things up than make it a really tense competition, taking the entire first half before showing its teeth.
 When it finally did, in added time at the end of the first half, Shevchenko crossed the ball to Pier Luigi Orlandini, who easily beat Malefeev at the near corner, locking the game at one each at the half.
 Milan came out strong in the second half and really looked like it was going to run away with the match, but squandered a number of opportunities.
 The most promising came in the 73rd minute, when Georgian Kakha Kaladze picked up a Malefeyev rebound in the penalty box and beat Ovsepyan, only to see his effort come back off the upright.
 However, four minutes later, Catilina Aubameyang finally gave the visitors the lead, beating Malefeev to the far high corner.
 Zenit then threw caution to the wind, abandoning its defense tactics and opting for a third striker in the form of Evgeny Tarasov.
 Tarasov immediately struck an understanding with Arshavin, who in the 84th minute was taken down in the penalty box by two Milan defenders.
 Referee Nikolai Levnikov signaled a penalty kick and was nearly attacked by the Milan defenders and goalkeeper Rossi.
 Eventually, Vladimir Mudrinic scored on the penalty to tie the game at two. Zenit held on to the 2-2 draw at full time setting up the penalty shootout.
 Mudrinic, who, like his compatriot Randjelovic, signed with Zenit in the off-season, was also making his return to the Zenit starting lineup.
 In Mudrinic's case, a leg injury had kept him out since early in the season after some promising performances in his first few games.
 While Zenit's defense, and particularly Sarkis Ovsepyan, played a strong game, the real hero was Malafeyev, who seemed unbeatable for long stretches, leading the crowd to cheer, &quot;Malafeyev for Russia!&quot;
 Malefeev was named the games MVP and won a new Mercedes.
 The other key player for the home team was 19-year-old midfielder Arshavin, who, having just been cut from the national World Cup squad, played as though he had a point to prove to national-team coach Oleg Romantsev.
 The young playmaker generated a number of possibilities on counterattacks, often covering the length of the field.
 &quot;Our season is now officially over,&quot; Ancelotti announced at the post-match press conference.
 He refused to answer any questions regarding player contracts, or how Milan was preparing for the Champions League.
 Zenit management also seemed very pleased with the outcome of the match, stating that it gained much needed experience for its upcoming qualifying matches for the UEFA Cup, which start in August.

TITLE: Castroneves Grabs Indy 500 - Eventually
AUTHOR: By Paul Newberry
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INDIANAPOLIS - Helio Castroneves got to climb the fence twice.
 
The first time, he clung to the chain-link barrier along the main straightaway in front of some 400,000 fans, shortly after taking the checkered flag in the Indianapolis 500. The repeat performance came in the solitude of the garage, with nightfall creeping over the track and Castroneves surrounded only by his team.
 So ended a wacky day at the Indy 500, where it took about three hours to make it through 200 laps Sunday - and more than 5 1/2 hours to announce that Castroneves, indeed, had won the race, giving him a chance to carouse again.
 &quot;I knew what to do,&quot; said Castroneves, known as Spiderman for his fence-climbing exploits. &quot;Let's celebrate.&quot;
 Paul Tracy actually passed Castroneves on the next-to-last lap, then was told to get back behind him because a yellow flag had come out.
 Castroneves took the checkered flag to become the first back-to-back winner of the 500 since Al Unser Sr. in 1970 and 1971, but Tracy insisted that he took the lead a split-second before the caution period began.
 The Indy Racing League spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening trying to figure out just who had won, finally posting the official results at 7:40 p.m. local time: Castroneves first, Tracy second.
 Castroneves popped champagne when he saw the news on TV. The runner-up immediately filed a protest, which was scheduled to be heard Monday at IRL headquarters.
 IRL officials admitted the videotape was inconclusive, but they based their decision on data showing the yellow dashboard lights inside the cars went on while Castroneves was still leading. They also relied on a radio broadcast transmitted to all drivers announcing the caution.
 Castroneves didn't have the fastest car on the track, but a brilliant gamble by car owner Roger Penske gave the owner his 12th Indy 500 victory. The 27-year-old Brazilian went the last 105 miles (168 kilometers) without stopping for fuel and fresh tires, going to the lead for the first time just 23 laps from the finish.
 And what a finish it was.
 Tracy, a fixture in Championship Auto Racing Teams who was competing at Indy for the first time since 1995, made a charge for the lead and got by on the outside - only the second time there was a pass for the lead under green.
 Castroneves insisted that Tracy got by only because the leader was already slowing for the caution period.
 &quot;I was protecting a position. He couldn't just pass me,&quot; Castroneves said. &quot;I'm the one who lifted off because of the yellow.&quot;
 Castroneves had less than four liters of fuel remaining as he crossed the line, prompting him to quickly park his red and white car. He leaped out, sprang across the track and jumped on the catch fence, joined by the 64-year-old Penske.
 Then, it was back to the team motor home to see if they could keep the victory.
 Castroneves might not have gotten the opportunity to repeat if teammate Gil de Ferran hadn't lost his left rear tire leaving the pits, bringing out the caution on lap 176.
 Felipe Giaffone, Tracy and Michael Andretti, all ahead of Castroneves, pitted the next lap, leaving him at the head of the line for the restart on lap 182. Then, it was time for a fuel gamble by Penske team President Tim Cindric.
 &quot;I couldn't believe everybody coming in,&quot; said Castroneves, the first driver ever to win his first two Indy starts. &quot;I said, 'This is the chance I want.' I had 20 gallons in the car and like 22 laps to go.&quot;
 Giaffone, another of the seven Brazilians in the 33-car field, wound up third, followed by surprising Alex Barron, former race winner Eddie Cheever Jr., Richie Hearn and Andretti, who again was denied an Indy victory despite a strong showing.

TITLE: Horry Heroics Knot Series Against Kings
AUTHOR: By Greg Beacham
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - With the Los Angeles Lakers down by two points with a second left, Robert Horry knew his place. What he didn't know was how he was going to get his hands on the ball.
 
Teammates Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal missed their shots, and Sacramento Kings center Vlade Divac tipped a rebound blindly away from the basket.
 Then came something right out of Hollywood: The ball headed straight for Horry, who grabbed it for a three-pointer as time expired and rallied the Lakers from a 24-point deficit to a 100-99 victory on Sunday.
 The win tied the Western Conference finals at two games apiece.
 &quot;I wanted the three all the way,&quot; Horry said. &quot;I stayed right where I could get it. When it came rolling out, it was like, 'Oh, look what I got.'&quot;
 Horry scored 11 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter, as the Lakers willed themselves to an amazing victory in a game they badly needed to keep their championship hopes alive. They made it as dramatic as possible, falling behind as the Kings played an outstanding first half.
 The Kings led by eight points with less than four minutes left, but Horry pulled the Lakers within three with another three-pointer with 1:39 left. O'Neal, who finished with 27 points and 18 rebounds, hit two free throws to make it 98-97 with 0:26.9 left.
 Divac made one of two free throws with 0:11.8 to play. In the final seconds, Bryant missed a layup and O'Neal missed a tip-in, but Divac swatted the rebound out to Horry, who buried the straightaway shot before being mobbed by his teammates.
 Horry hit the final shot, but an outstanding second half of defense kept the Kings from grabbing control of the series. Now, the Kings are wondering what forces beyond the game they must conquer to knock off the Lakers.
 &quot;Just a lucky shot, that's all,&quot; said Divac, who had 23 points. &quot;You don't have concentration. He just threw it up. If it goes in, it goes in.&quot;
 Faced with the prospect of a 3-1 series deficit - which the Lakers haven't rallied to overcome in 31 years - Los Angeles got another dose of the magic that seems to follow this franchise.
 &quot;This one should knock the cobwebs out,&quot; Horry said. &quot;Hopefully we can go [to Sacramento] and get some wins and get back to the old Laker basketball.&quot;
 Sacramento roared to its second spectacular start at Staples Center, scoring 40 points in the first quarter and taking a 14-point lead to halftime. But the Kings fumbled through the second half.
 The victory came one day after New Jersey's unprecedented fourth-quarter playoff collapse against Boston in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
 After taking a 21-point lead into the final quarter, the Nets were outscored 41-16 in the fourth and lost 94-90. The Celtics lead that series 2-1.
 Sacramento, still playing without injured All-Star Peja Stojakovic, had an impressive, free-flowing first half in which they led 50-26 at one point. But the Kings tightened up as Bryant shut down Mike Bibby, who scored 18 points in the first half but just three in the second.
 Bibby hit 8-of-11 shots in the first half, but Samaki Walker's desperation three-pointer - which he released after the buzzer - cut the lead to 65-51 at halftime.

TITLE: Furyk Gets Out of Hole To Take Title
AUTHOR: By Rusty Miller
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DUBLIN, Ohio - Jim Furyk came to the Memorial Tournament tied for 118th place on the tour in sand saves.
 
It was hard to tell. Furyk holed a shot for an eagle from the gaping bunker at No. 15 Sunday, leading him to a two-shot victory over a crowded leaderboard.
 &quot;I probably wouldn't be ranked as one of the top bunker players on tour, but I don't mind knocking those in late in the final round,&quot; he said.
 Furyk closed with a 7-under-par 65 to finish at 14-under 274. David Peoples and John Cook were two shots back.
 Furyk improved his score each round, going from 71 to 70 to 68, before climbing over nine players with the lowest round of the day.
 Tiger Woods, the three-time defending champion, shot a 66 and was at 282. His tie for 22nd marked his 60th tournament in a row with a top-30 finish.
 Furyk already had good feelings about the Memorial and Muirfield Village Golf Club. He met his wife, Tabitha, after a practice round at the 1995 Memorial. They are expecting their first child on July 3.
 Furyk was close to tears as he accepted the trophy from tournament founder Jack Nicklaus.
 &quot;The emotional parts of this week are that I met my wife here and spending time with her family and having a lot of friends and family at the tournament,&quot; Furyk said. &quot;That's a lot of fun.&quot;
 Seven players held at least a share of the lead at one time or another, including a four-way tie.
 Furyk, who started the day five shots behind Bob Tway, pulled into a tie for the lead by chipping in for a birdie on the 12th hole. He then took the lead by himself with his sand shot at the par-5 15th.
 Vijay Singh, his playing partner, hovered at or near the lead all day. He said the entire tournament hinged on Furyk's big swing. &quot;That turned everything around,&quot; he said. &quot;He played well down the stretch and I just didn't keep up.&quot;
 After blasting out of the sand at the 15th, he was so far below the level of the green that he couldn't see the ball go in.
 &quot;I just waited for a reaction and hoped that the fans went nuts,&quot; he said.
 He pushed the lead to three strokes with a birdie at the par-3 16th - putting him 4 under in a span of three holes - to more than offset a bogey coming home.

TITLE: Zidane Aiming To Fire France to Immortality
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: PARIS - As in 1998, two-time FIFA player of the year Zinedine Zidane is the key for defending World Cup champion France.
 
The 29-year-old midfielder enjoyed an excellent season at Real Madrid -which he joined last summer in a world-record $65-million transfer from Juventus - including scoring the winning goal in the European Champions League final. In international games, he remains the inspiration of the French attack.
 Zidane has always preferred to express himself with a ball rather than with words. Even as a child playing on the sunbaked, sandy pitch on the housing estate where he grew up in the rundown la Castellane area of Marseille, Zidane was shy and reticent.
 &quot;There are things I don't like to talk about. Just because I'm a public figure doesn't mean I have to express myself on certain things, on my origins for example. These are personal matters which are not be discussed publicly,&quot; he said, brushing aside questions from journalists before a friendly match against Algeria last year.
 Zidane's parents were born in Algeria and moved to France to settle in Marseille after the country declared independence in 1962.
 Before Zidane was 10 years old, it was obvious that the slim, frail boy had the skills to become a great player.
 Ironically, it was not Olympique Marseille, the pre-eminent French club of the 1990s, that spotted his talent. Zidane was still a teenager when he went to the Cannes youth training centre in 1988, before Girondins Bordeaux offered him his first professional contract when he was just 20.
 Two years later national coach Aime Jacquet, drafted in after France failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, picked Zidane for an international friendly against the Czech Republic in Bordeaux.
 France was down 2-0 when Zidane went on as a substitute and hit two brilliant goals within two minutes to equalize and save his side's pride on home soil.
 From then on, Jacquet always included the player in his plans.
 &quot;I would always have a guy like Zidane at 10 per cent of his game rather than any other player at 100 per cent. Why? Because with just one move, just one pass he can win you a match,&quot; Jacquet once said.
 At this year's World Cup, France will be missing the home-field advantage that greatly helped it to a perfect record in 1998, including beating Brazil in the final.
 France also has seen almost no competitive action in two years because it qualified automatically for the World Cup as defending champion. And one of its key players, attacking midfielder Robert Pires, will miss the event with a knee injury.
 Pessimists might say that France's good fortune is about to run out. Zidane isn't one of them.
 &quot;We realize we have a great team and a great chance of winning a second-straight World Cup,&quot; he says. &quot;We don't fear any opponent.&quot;
 Only Italy and Brazil have successfully defended World Cup titles, in 1938 and 1962, respectively. No country has won the event more than two consecutive times.
 Neither has any country won four titles in a row but, after 1998, the 2000 European Championship and last year's Confederations Cup, Roger Lemerre's players are on the brink of soccer immortality.
 &quot;Records are made to be broken,&quot; says team captain, Marcel Desailly. &quot;If we seize the cup another time, it would be outstanding. Winning four [consecutive] titles is something nobody has ever done before.&quot;
 &quot;It would confirm that our generation has been able to stay at the top much longer than any other side. It would prove that we were capable to deal with more parameters, even with luck.&quot;
 &quot;Nobody knows where our limit is,&quot; said midfielder Emmanuel Petit. &quot;Maybe the sky is the only limit. Actually, it's the only question mark we are facing.
 &quot;Our generation is the <i>grand cru,&quot; </i>said the 32-year-old Chelsea player, using the French phrase usually used to describe the finest champagne.
 &quot;Four years ago, despite the fact that we were playing at home, nobody would have bet a penny on us,&quot; said Petit. &quot;And now look at where we are standing.&quot;
 The French players say the squad is stronger physically and mentally than in 1998, stronger even than in 2000 when it won the European Championship.
 Although <i>les Bleus</i> will be playing far from home, they still have some of the biggest stars from Europe's best clubs. And, despite the lack of competitive pretournament action, the French team is ranked No. 1 in the world and remains one of the most experienced in soccer.
 France's other top players include Manchester United goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, Bayern Munich defender Bixente Lizarazu and the Arsenal trio of Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Sylvain Wiltord. Juventus striker David Trezeguet finished tied for the goalscoring lead in the Italian Serie A this season.
 Years of playing together for France mean that the big names don't crowd each other out when it comes to international matches.
 &quot;If you can't get on with players like Lizarazu and Zidane, you might as well give up,&quot; says Henry, one of France's top strikers.
 Coach Lemerre overcame the loss of Pires by partnering Henry with Trezeguet in France's 5-0 exhibition win against Scotland. The pair combined for three goals.
 &quot;Before Pires became a major player, we played without him,&quot; said Lemerre, who replaced Jacquet as coach after the last World Cup. &quot;So now we'll use other players with different qualities.&quot;
 
 <i>(AP, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: WORLD CUP WATCH
TEXT: France Is the Favorite
 

LONDON (AP) - France is rated as the favorite to retain the World Cup by British bookmakers, with Argentina, Italy and Brazil ranked behind.
 On Friday, Fran ce was rated at 10-3 by William Hill, 4-1 with Coral and 3-1 with Ladbrokes to win the World Cup. Argentina was listed at odds of 9-2, Italy at 5-1 and Brazil at 6-1 by all three bookmakers.
 William Hill ranks Spain as fifth favorite at 13-2, with England at 9-1, Portugal and Germany at 14-1, Cameroon at 33-1 and Russia at 66-1. Saudi Arabia is rated last, at 750-1.
 Coral has installed French striker David Trezeguet as an 8-1 favorite to win the Golden Boot award for the tournament's top scorer, followed by teammate Thierry Henry at 10-1, with Argentines Hernan Crespo and Gabriel Batistuta, England's Michael Owen, Spain's Raul and Italy's Christian Vieiri all ranked at 12-1.
 
 
Rowdy, Watashi?
 

TOKYO (Reuters) -Visiting football fans who get into trouble with Japanese police during the World Cup tournament could face a linguistic nightmare. 
 Several local lawyers' associations say they have been unable to find enough interpreters with 11 days to go before the tournament kicks off, a report in the daily Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said on Monday. 
 The shortage of interpreters is particularly acute for less common languages, the paper said. 
 "It doesn't look as though we will find a Swedish interpreter. To be honest, I don't know how we're going to deal with that," one local lawyer association said. 
 Another association said that it had run into problems finding a Croatian interpreter. 
 In some areas, lawyers are competing against the police and courts for the same linguists. All are required to have their own interpreters. 
 The threat of hooliganism during the World Cup has unnerved tournament organisers across the country. Officials are preparing countermeasures such as tear gas and "net guns."
 
 
Toilet Training
 

TOKYO (AP) - Add another item to World Cup organizers' already long list of concerns - toilets.
 For foreigners, the traditional Japanese toilet is often a source of bewilderment. For one thing, you don't sit on it, you squat over it. If all goes well, contact is made with just the soles of one's feet.
 World Cup officials are worried the local customs might be a problem. About 40 percent of the facilities in the men's restrooms and 47 percent in the women's at the stadiums in Japan will be Japanese style.
 The 10 stadiums in South Korea are equipped only with Western-style toilets.
 
 
Swedes Target Eriksson
 

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish radio station has launched a humorous anti-England campaign, including a boycott of English music and a petition against Sven-Go ran Eriksson, the Swede who coaches England, which is in the same group as Sweden at the World Cup. 
 The pop station is not playing music by English artists between May 22 and June 3. Sweden and England play each other on June 2 in the World Cup's first round. 
 The station also has a petition against Eriksson's "treason" on its Web site, www.rockklassiker.se, accompanied by a photograph of a Volvo - originally a Swedish car - mounting a Morris - an English car. 
 "The idea is to show the Swedish national team our support by making a point against 'Svennis' with 50 percent humour and 50 percent seriousness," 106.7 Rockklassiker programme director Fredrik Bojerud said. "It will be a tough game, but I believe we'll win no matter what Svennis chooses to do." 
 The petition will be handed to the English Football Association on June 1. 
 
 
It's a Washout?
 

TOKYO (Reuters) - Punctuality may be highly regarded in Japan, but soccer fans are hoping for one late arrival this summer - the rainy season.
 "There is a possibility it may be slightly later than usual," said a spokesperson for the Meteorological Agency at a news conference on World Cup weather on Friday.
 For a few weeks each year, Japan becomes one of the wettest places on earth, and the beginning of the rainy season, known as the tsuyu, falls some time during the World Cup, which runs from May 31 to June 30.
 In an average year, the tsuyu hits Yokohama, where the finals are to be held, on June 8 and continues through July 20, bringing around 300 millimeters of precipitation.
 Those who venture briefly out of doors will face a struggle to dry out their clothes and shoes in the humid atmosphere.
 Though government weather forecasters say it is too early to commit themselves to a particular start date, they predict most of the stadiums will stay relatively dry for at least the first week of the tournament.
 "At the moment it looks as though the rainy front will stay just off the coast for the first week," the spokes person said.