SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #813 (78), Friday, October 18, 2002
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TITLE: U.S. Bows to Pressure In UN
AUTHOR: By Edith M. Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - Facing strong opposition from dozens of countries, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new UN resolution must authorize military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors, diplomats said on Thursday.
 
Instead, the United States is now floating a compromise that would give inspectors a chance to test Iraq's will to cooperate on the ground. If Iraq then failed to disarm, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush would agree to return to the Security Council for further debate and possibly another resolution authorizing action.
 Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that he believes there are now "favorable conditions" for council agreement on a resolution that will lead to the quick return of inspectors.
 The new compromise also drops tough wording explicitly threatening Iraq upfront, although the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a threat of consequences will be implied.
 The diplomats said France, which has been the main stumbling block for the United States, was studying the new offer amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at solving an impasse among the Security Council powers on Iraq.
 During an open Security Council debate on Iraq, which started Wednesday and continued Thursday, more than two dozen countries - including Iraq's closest neighbors and key U.S. allies - refused to endorse the Bush administration's demand for the authorization of military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with UN weapons inspections.
 They said Iraq must be given a chance to disarm completely, without the imminent threat of military action.
 Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, whose country is supporting the U.S. position, said the emphasis was on reaching a deal that all sides could accept.
 "We're looking for unity in the council," he said.
 Many UN members favor the two-resolution approach proposed by France and backed by Russia and China.
 Ivanov said Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told him the new U.S. and British proposals will take Russia's opinion into account, and will be submitted in the next day or two.
 "We believe that there are favorable conditions now to preserve the unity of the global community and ensure the return of international inspectors and their efficient work in Iraq," he said. "We are looking forward to seeing this document."
 He said Powell "underlined that the United States is interested in reaching a consensus among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in order to implement all UN Security Council resolution on Iraq."
 Ivanov said he told Powell that Russia is "ready for the most constructive cooperation to find common understanding so that a new resolution would become an important element supporting international inspectors, who should leave for Iraq as quickly as possible."
 Under the French approach, the first resolution would toughen UN inspections and warn Iraq that it will face consequences, including the possible use of force, if it doesn't comply with inspections. The second would authorize action against Iraq if it failed to cooperate.
 In speech after speech, ambassadors from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America called Iraq's decision last month to allow UN inspectors to return an important first step - and said the council should send the inspectors back quickly and test Baghdad's commitment.
 The council meeting was held at the behest of the Nonaligned Movement, comprising 115 mainly developing countries that favor a peaceful solution in Iraq, and it was open to all 191 UN member states. Some 50 countries that aren't on the council took up the opportunity, and they were speaking ahead of the 15 council members who will wrap up the debate on Thursday.
 Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri was pleased at the opposition to military action and support for the return of inspectors in Wednesday's speeches. He said he expected to hear more of the same on Thursday.
 Reiterating that Iraq would cooperate with the UN inspectors "in every possible way," al-Douri told the council that the United States was attempting "to hamper and delay the return of inspectors" to adopt a new resolution which would serve as "a pretext to cover aggression against Iraq."
 Since the 1980s, Iraq has gone to war with two of its neighbors - Iran and Kuwait - but neither supported an immediate authorization to use force. Both urged Iraq to comply strictly with all UN resolutions to avert war.
 "Any use of force must be a last resort and within the United Nations framework and only after all other available means have been exhausted," said Kuwait's Ambassador Mohammad Abulhasan.
 Several U.S. allies - the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - backed the U.S. view that, after 11 years of failing to comply with UN resolutions, Iraq should be given a tough new mandate spelling out that inspectors must have unrestricted access to all sites.
 However, none of the allies called for a new resolution to include a green light for military action.

TITLE: Transfer Putting Visas on Hold
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Foreign Ministry has stopped issuing invitations for multi-entry visas as it transfers part of its visa duties to the Interior Ministry, in a move that threatens to create a headache for foreigners over the next few months.
 
The Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday that it had stopped issuing invitations for multi-entry visas Tuesday. The Interior Ministry is to take over the job starting Nov. 1.
 The change is ordered in a law on foreigners signed by President Vladimir Putin this summer. It directs the Interior Ministry's passport and visa department, or PVU, to start issuing invitations for all categories of visas at the start of November. Visas will continue to be issued by the Foreign Ministry.
 Invitations for single-entry tourist and business visas are still being issued.
 Foreigners who received invitations for multi-entry visas before Oct. 15 will not affected by the change.
 However, the shift is already creating a hassle for a number of businesses, and officials warned that delays could be expected when the Interior Ministry starts issuing invitations.
 "We have already lost some of our business," said an official at the visa section of a major Moscow travel agency. She, like other people familiar with the visa issue, would only speak on condition of anonymity.
 "What we expect is complete chaos and long lines in November," the official said. "But this is normal for any change in this country, and we know that at some stage things will settle down."
 A source at the Russian Chamber of Trade and Commerce, which invites up to 10,000 foreigners to Russia each year, echoed fears of a looming visa problem.
 The problem is that the Foreign Ministry needed 21 days to issue an invitation, so, even if the Interior Ministry works at the same pace, the first invitations might only be issued near the end of November.
 "What is happening is not yet a problem," said an executive at a large Moscow-based consulting company. "The real problem will start in November, when we will face a snowballing backlog of applications the PVU won't be able to process. They do not have enough staff, training and equipment."
 An Interior Ministry official declined to comment Thursday, saying his ministry and the Foreign Ministry planned to hold a news conference in a few days to address the issue.
 It was unclear Thursday what changes if any would be introduced to visa invitation procedures under the Interior Ministry. The Foreign Ministry charged 1,800 rubles ($60) for an invitation for multi-entry visas and 200 rubles to 800 rubles for single-entry visas.
 The source at the Russian Chamber of Trade and Commerce said Interior Ministry officials had told him they would slash the prices for all invitations to 200 rubles and simplify the application forms.
 "In other countries such services are performed by the police, and it is good that we are moving toward the international standard," he said. "I believe things will be more orderly now."
 But the official at the travel agency said his experience with the Interior Ministry, which previously issued some private invitations, suggested that process might become more complicated.
 "It took them a month, while the Foreign Ministry issued invitations in three to 21 days," he said.
 "We all preferred to work with the Foreign Ministry," he said. "I am not too happy with the change."

TITLE: Cell Phone Lands Exec in Jail
AUTHOR: By Sol Buckner
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MANCHESTER, England - The deputy commercial director of Russia's largest steel plant is in a British jail after being arrested for refusing to switch off his mobile phone during a packed commuter flight from London to Manchester.
 
Sergei Lebedev, 49, of the Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, or MMK, has pleaded guilty and now faces up to two years behind bars. Sentencing is set for Nov. 7.
 Lebedev was taken into custody at Manchester Airport on Monday night after his behavior forced the pilot to abort his landing.
 Cabin crew on British Airways Flight 1408 from Heathrow were so busy trying to force Lebedev to turn off his mobile phone that they had not properly prepared the plane and passengers for landing, prosecutor Jo Palmiro said in presenting the case before Trafford magistrates on Tuesday.
 As a result, the pilot touched down briefly on approach at Manchester but had to take off straight away for a second attempt when it was discovered a luggage compartment had not been secured.
 Bizarrely, the brief touchdown caused Lebedev - who was on fact-finding mission for MMK - to phone his family back home in Russia claiming he feared the Boeing 737 was being hijacked by terrorists, Palmiro said.
 Cabin crew made at least six requests to Lebedev to switch off his phone during the 45-minute flight, she said. "Despite numerous requests from various cabin crew, Lebedev refused to show that it was switched off," Palmiro told the magistrates in the Trafford town of Sale. "At one stage, a Polish cabin-crew member, who spoke Russian, asked him to turn it off. He took out the phone from his pocket but it was still switched on."
 In a desperate attempt to retrieve the phone before landing, stewards even tried to wrestle it out of Lebedev's hands, but he resisted at every attempt, according to the prosecutor.
 Lebedev, who had a Russian interpreter by his side for Tuesday's 90-minute hearing, was represented by defense lawyer John Potter, who told magistrates that the defendant was not aware of British aviation laws.
 "Mr. Lebedev is an experienced air traveler who has flown around the world," Potter said. "In his experience, the warnings given in Russia are that phones are not to be used during the flight. They may be switched on."
 "He understood he was completely within the law. He does not speak English and he did not understand what they were saying to him," he said.
 After the Polish attendant spoke to him, Lebedev insists he showed her his phone was switched off, although he admits to turning the phone on again when the plane started to land, Potter said.
 "He was concerned as to his safety at that point because of the aircraft's maneuver," the lawyer said.
 Lebedev, who appeared in court wearing a brown suit and glasses, pleaded guilty to endangering an aircraft and refusing to comply with the captain's orders.
 After 10 minutes of deliberation, chair of the bench Ray Jolly returned with the decision to pass the case on to the Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester.
 He remanded Lebedev to custody and refused bail. "We refuse bail for reasons that you would be able to return to Russian and the chances of you returning could be very slight," Jolly said.
 Lebedev, who had flown from Moscow with two colleagues, was due to visit the Sheffield Forgemasters company in Sheffield during a weeklong trip on business.
 Speaking outside the court, a representative from Sheffield Forgemasters, who did not give his name, said: "It's a ridiculous situation and I'm totally disgusted with the magistrates' decision. This man spoke no English - what was he meant to do?"
 A spokesperson for British Airways said the airline welcomed the magistrates' decision.
 "Thankfully the plane landed safely but it did cause unnecessary concern for other passengers and crew," said the spokesperson, who asked that she not be identified by name. "Hopefully passengers will now get the message that they face severe consequences if they even attempt to use their phones."
 Alexander Proskurov, a spokesperson for MMK in Magnitogorsk, located in the Chelyabinsk region, said Lebedev's behavior was a mistake.
 "He's a good guy, responsible," Proskurov said Thursday by telephone. "It was a mistake, not related to ignoring international regulations and rules of behavior. We respect those rules.
 "It shouldn't be said that Russians are reckless and don't care about their own and other people's safety," he said.
 
 <i>
Sol Bruckner is deputy news editor of Cavendish Press, a British news agency based in Manchester. St. Petersburg Times staff writer Torrey Clark contributed to this report from Moscow. </i>

TITLE: Crew Member Killed in Crash
AUTHOR: By Sergei Venyavsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia - A helicopter crashed in a river in Chechnya on Friday, killing one of the 24 people on board and leaving one other missing, emergency officials said. The survivors were evacuated and two of them were hospitalized with injuries.
 
The Mi-8 lost contact with controllers on the ground shortly after noon and went down in the Terek River, where it was found about seven kilometers from the city of Gudermes in eastern Chechnya later in the afternoon, said Yury Miroshnichenko, a duty officer at the Emergency Situations Ministry in the North Caucasus region.
 The helicopter was carrying 21 police officers and a crew of three, Miroshnichenko said. He said one crew member was killed and one of the police officers was missing. 
 News reports about the casualties differed wildly. Itar-Tass, citing unnamed law enforcement officials in Chechnya, said 11 people were killed and 12 injured, while Interfax quoted the deputy commander of federal forces in the region, Boris Podoprigora, as saying preliminary information indicated only that one person was injured.
 Podoprigora characterized the crash as a rough landing on the river's flood plain in bad weather. There was no information about a cause.
 The helicopter was carrying police from Mozdok in the neighboring republic of North Ossetia to the headquarters of Russia's military operation in Chechnya at Khankala, outside Grozny, Interfax reported. It said the police were from a unit based in far eastern Russia.
 An overcrowded Russian military helicopter was shot down by Chechen rebels near Khankala in August, killing at least 119 people.
 In other news, soldiers shot and killed three 13-year-old boys after they drove through a Grozny checkpoint without stopping, an official said Thursday.
 The boys were driving a car belonging to one of their fathers Wednesday when they failed to stop at a checkpoint in the Oktyabrsky district. The troops followed them in an armored personnel carrier and fired at them, said an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration.
 The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave no further details about the incident.

TITLE: Campaigners Take Case to Washington
AUTHOR: By Matt Bivens
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: WASHINGTON - When Russian security agents arrived, they saw danger lurking in the 15 newspapers piled on the scientist's desk.
 
The year was 1999, and the Russian and foreign publications before them were available across Moscow at news kiosks. But the investigators from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, demanded answers.
 &quot;They said, 'Why do you need 15 newspapers? Who gave you permission? Who gave you the right?'&quot; said Vyacheslav Sutyagin of the first encounter between the FSB and his son, Igor Sutyagin, a physicist and arms-control analyst.
 The younger Sutyagin, 38, is now in Moscow's Lefortovo Prison, awaiting trial on charges he has spied for the U.S. government. The elder Sutyagin, 64, was in Washington this week to plead his son's case.
 On Wednesday, Sutyagin was to meet with U.S. State Department officials - along with relatives of two other men targeted as spies by the FSB: Vladivostok naval officer Grigory Pasko and Russian diplomat Valentin Moiseyev.
 The tactics used and cases built by the FSB against the three men - Sutyagin, Pasko and Moiseyev - have been sharply criticized by rights advocates and legal experts in Russia and abroad.
 Before Sept. 11, the United States government would speak out against Russian espionage and treason cases it thought flimsy or politically motivated - like the case against Alexander Nikitin, an environmentalist who criticized the Russian navy's handling of nuclear waste it generates, and who for his pains was prosecuted by the FSB under then-director Vladimir Putin.
 These days, however, the situation is reversed: Governments and rights advocates worldwide have been criticizing the U.S. government, which has detained unspecified hundreds of people on suspicion of terrorism. Many of those detained have been held for more than a year; fewer than 20 have faced relevant charges; most of have not been named or allowed to speak to the public; and there is no timetable for releasing them.
 Nikitin - acquitted in 1999 by the Supreme Court after a torturous four-year process that included 11 months in jail - benefited from pressure exerted by the United States and other foreign governments on his behalf. He now lives in St. Petersburg.
 Pasko was less lucky. He was convicted of treason last December and given a four-year sentence. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction this summer. (He and Nikitin are often compared: Both were navy captains who asserted that the navy has been reckless with nuclear waste. Nikitin was arrested in 1996 in St. Petersburg, Pasko in 1997 in Vladivostok. But Nikitin was a retired officer, and so tried in a civilian court and eventually freed; Pasko, an active duty officer, was tried in military court.)
 Moiseyev was an expert at the Foreign Ministry on the Korean peninsula. He was arrested in 1998 and accused of spying for South Korea. 
 The evidence for that has been picked apart methodically by Moiseyev's defense: For example, the FSB asserts Moiseyev met a South Korean agent in Moscow on a date when Moiseyev was in North Korea with a diplomatic delegation; while a purportedly &quot;secret document&quot; Moiseyev gave to a South Korean colleague was actually a copy of a speech Moiseyev gave at a symposium. 
 After many twists and turns, Moiseyev, 56, was convicted in August and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison. He is now in Lefortovo Prison hospital (he has an ulcer), and his daughter hopes for an early release, perhaps even by New Year's.
 The government's case has also been criticized as weak with regard to Sutyagin, the physicist and arms analyst, who worked at the prestigious U.S.A. and Canada Institute. Sutyagin never had access to top secret materials, and he says his writings about military matters drew solely upon open sources - sources like those 15 newspapers.
 Though Sutyagin is still awaiting trial, he has already been in jail for three years. His father said prosecutors argue his fluency in English makes it too risky to let him out on bail - he could flee abroad.

TITLE: Deadline For Census Extended To Monday
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The country's first census in 13 years has been extended until Monday, in an attempt to include those who were unavailable during the weeklong campaign, which was to have ended Wednesday.
 
Sergei Kolesnikov, the deputy head of the State Statistics Committee, said the extension was also needed to verify about 10 percent of the responses, Interfax reported.
 Although the final results of the census will not be available until the end of March, some preliminary figures were released Thursday.
 Census takers counted 1,088,816 people in Chechnya, with 205,000 living in the capital, Grozny. The census was conducted in Chechnya last Saturday and Sunday.
 Observers said Chechnya's population was higher than expected, given the two military campaigns waged since the previous census was taken in 1989 and the thousands of refugees who have fled for other parts of Russia.
 The prison population was tallied at 919,000 inmates, of whom 130,000 were being held in pre-trial detention centers, Justice Ministry official Ilya Kolubelov told Interfax.
 Kolesnikov said that 72 percent of the population had participated in the census as of Monday.
 He said 83.3 percent of the people in Moscow took part, as well as 81 percent in the Voronezh region and about 80 percent in the regions of Adygea, Kalmykia, Tuva, Evenkia and Aginsk-Buryat.
 Almost 100 percent of the rural population participated in the head count, Kolesnikov said.
 Irina Zbarskaya, head of the Statistics Committee's demography and census department, said people in closed cities had been more willing to participate in the count than those residing in big cities, Izvestia reported Thursday.
 In the Moscow region, census-takers encountered numerous refusals from residents in elite areas, where guards would not let them past the gates and the residents largely ignored telephone calls requesting that they appear in person at census offices, according to news reports.
 Zbarskaya called for new legislation to be passed before the next census to ensure that anyone ignoring the head count faced fines.
 Meanwhile, about 200 of the country's 600,000 census takers were injured on the job, news agencies reported. Dog attacks accounted for 70 percent of the attacks.
 Five attacks, including two rapes, were reported in the region of Primorye, in Russia's Far East, said an official at the regional office of the Military Insurance Co., which insured the census takers.
 A 54-year-old female census taker was beaten and raped by a 19-year-old man in the village of Preobrazheniye in Primorye, he said.
 The man faces up to six years in jail if convicted.
 In the Magadan region, a female census taker was asked by the residents of a dormitory in the capital Magadan to come back one more time to interview another resident, who was out at the time of the initial visit, the Web site polit.ru reported.
 The woman was raped when she returned.
 Police have opened an investigation, but no suspects have been detained.

TITLE: Vatican Sees Red Over Brothel in Moscow
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - It started with a simple rental agreement. But the leasing of two innocuous apartments in downtown Moscow drew the Vatican, Channel One, the nation's biggest tabloid newspaper and the Franciscan brothers into a drama filled with allegations of prostitution and anti-Catholicism.
 
The dispute started last week, when Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that apartments owned by the Franciscan brothers had been turned into a brothel. The story, which hinted that the order itself was behind the house of ill repute, had the headline &quot;Moscow Monastery is a Bordello&quot; and was accompanied by photographs of a scantily clad nun.
 Channel One aired a report on &quot;Chelovek i Zakon&quot; (&quot;The Individual and the Law&quot;) on Friday that directly linked the Franciscans with operating a brothel in apartments 1 and 2 at 10 Sredny Tishinsky Pereulok, said the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, which arrived in Russia in 1995, in a statement.
 The media reports are &quot;a blow not only to the Franciscan community but to the whole Franciscan movement, which counts more than a million people as its members in the world&quot; and &quot;a continuation of the discriminative action against Catholics in Russia,&quot; the statement said.
 Pope John Paul II's spokesperson, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, on Monday called the incident a &quot;despicable operation designed to discredit the ... brothers ... and, through them, the Catholic Church.&quot;
 The head of the Catholic Church in Russia, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, said last month that the rights of Catholics were being violated in Russia. Five priests have been expelled from Russia in the past seven months.
 The Catholic Church and Komsomlskaya Pravda do agree on one thing - that the apartments are being used as a brothel.
 Located at the end of Sredny Tishinsky Pereulok, building No. 10 resembles a typical inner-city project. However, apartments 1 and 2 have a separate entrance of their own at the back of the building, an entrance that Komsomolskaya Pravda said made it easier for clients. The building also has video cameras hidden in a light and an air conditioner, which look down over the front and back entrances to the apartments.
 A woman who identified herself as Alexandra answered at the back entrance Tuesday. She denied that the apartments were being used for sex and said she lived there with her family. She said journalists will be allowed to visit the apartments soon.
 The Order of Friars Minor Conventual said it leased the apartments to Maria Tikhonova in February after moving to a different building. The order said Tikhonova promised that the residence would be used for a charitable project. But within a few months, the rent payments stopped and neighbors started complaining that the apartments were being used as a brothel.
 In April, Father Grigory Tserokh, the head of the order in Moscow and the registered owner of apartment No. 1, tried to get the tenants removed by complaining to the police.
 &quot;The tenants said that they were not going to pay the owner any money and would live there as long as they wanted,&quot; the Catholic order said in the statement.
 The tenants also changed the locks for the apartments, the order said.
 The police declined to comment Tuesday.
 In early October, Tserokh received a phone call from people claiming to represent the prosecutor's office, asking him to meet them at the apartments, the order said, adding it was a ploy to film him near the house and thus associate him with the brothel.
 Tserokh has now gone into hiding.

TITLE: Racist Attacks on the Increase, Says Human-Rights Group
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - More dark-skinned people are being harassed by the police and refused residency permits, jobs and health care in a sign that ethnic and religious intolerance are on the rise across Russia, said a human-rights report presented Tuesday in Washington.
 
The 400-page report by the Moscow Helsinki Group puts the blame for the growth of xenophobia squarely on the shoulders of the authorities.
 &quot;They actually refuse to recognize the growing problem of nationalism and xenophobia in the country,&quot; said the report, which was presented at a meeting of the United States Helsinki Commission.
 The report comes just months after President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill to crack down on hate crimes. There has been no significant decline in the number of reports of racist and anti-Semitic attacks in recent months.
 Jozsef Gyorke, the representative of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner in Russia, raised the issue at a recent news conference. &quot;I am seeing more and more examples of xenophobia and intolerance in Russia, and it surprises me,&quot; he said. &quot;I cannot understand how, in the country where over 20 million people died of fascism, skinhead youths could march chanting fascist slogans.
 &quot;What sort of a country is it where people are divided into second and third-rate citizens?&quot; he said. &quot;I see such examples every day wherever I go.&quot;
 The report, released in Moscow last month, explores themes such as xenophobia and the law, xenophobia in law enforcement, and xenophobia in media reports and everyday life.
 The report said that the most vulnerable ethnic groups are Chechens, Gypsies, Meschetian Turks and Jews, and that the problem was exacerbated by the campaign of 1994 to 1996 in Chechnya.
 &quot;The first Chechen war triggered the trend of labeling people 'a person of Caucasian nationality,' 'Chechen' and 'bandit,'&quot; the report said. &quot;Widespread cruelty against noncombatant Chechens, practiced from the start of the first Chechen war, has graphically shown that the federal military has made no distinction between peaceful local residents and the 'notorious' bandits, so the conflict was perceived [by the population] as one between Chechnya and Russia.&quot;
 The report describes instances of abuse. Although Chechens are the most targeted ethnic group, other groups from the Caucasus region are also abused, it said. For example, page 179 of the English-language version describes the case of an Azeri national, Ramin Gusseinov, 25, who was severely beaten by the police after being detained a day after his Moscow residency permit expired in October 2000. The police &quot;took the detained Azeri over to the police station, brought him into a briefing room, ordered him to face the wall, and launched an interrogation procedure,&quot; the report said. &quot;As the rookie Y. Adanyayev [a police sergeant] slugged the Azeri in the kidneys, liver, and legs - all the while trying not to leave any visible traces - the more experienced A. Yevdokimov [a police major] just looked on.&quot;
 In court, where both officers were sentenced to six months' probation, Yevdokimov said that &quot;blacks&quot; - a word many Russians use for dark-skinned people - deserved to be treated more roughly, said the report. &quot;The blacks have some nerve,&quot; he was quoted as saying. &quot;Look, they have spread out across Moscow now. We, the honest cops, work like dogs, and they try to prosecute us.&quot;
 As the police officers left the court house they were welcomed as national heroes by a group of skinheads. They saluted the officer and shouted, &quot;Heil Hitler! Glory to Russia!&quot;

TITLE: Local Fast-Food Chains Ring Up Changes
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg fast-food market is going through a period of dramatic change. A new chain of restaurants - BlinDonalts - has appeared in the city, while another chain, Grillmaster, has left. McDonald's, in turn, is planning to open three more restaurants by the end of the year, and eight to ten next year.
 
Last weekend, Concord Management and Consulting, a catering company which owns and runs a number of restaurants in the city, such as the Old Custom's House, Russian Kitsch and the Stroganoff Yard, opened its first fast-food restaurant in what it plans to be a chain called &quot;Blin!Donalt's,&quot; (<i>blin</i> meas pancake). The company plans to open another three restaurants in the chain by the end of 2002, and another ten in 2003, said Maria Sobolyevskaya, a spokesperson for the company. Concord plans to have a total of 30 restaurants in the chain by the end of 2004, she added.
 The new chain intends to open its restaurants on the outskirts of the city, the first one being located on Svetlanovsky Pr. in the north of the city.
 An average lunch will cost 60 to 70 rubles ($2 to $2.50) and Concord claims that each restaurant can cater for 3,000 to 5,000 people per day. 
 Another chain, Grillmaster, announced in the last month that it had closed its four restaurants in the city. The chain had been operating in the city since 1996, with a total of four restaurants. Experts in the industry believe that it was closed due to the high levels of competition in the fast-food sector and difficulties with paying customs duties on pre-cooked meals which are reheated prior to being served. 
 McDonald's, however, is confident about its prospects in the St. Petersburg market. 
 At a press conference held in Moscow on Monday, McDonald's Russia President Khamzat Khasbulatov denied that Blin!Donalt's would provide a threat to the company's name and market segment. &quot;It will not influence our business in Russia, and there's no problem with the law,&quot; Khasbulatov said. 
 McDonald's is planning to open another three restaurants in St. Petersburg by the end of 2002, at a cost of over $4 million. This will give the chain a total of 11 restaurants in the city, with 30,000 people visiting them daily, according to Svetlana Polyakova, spokesperson for the company. 
 McDonald's will open another two to three restaurants in 2003, with restaurants also planned for the Northwest Region in Vyborg, the Leningrad Oblast, Pskov and Veliky Novgorod.
 &quot;We have already invested $20 million in St. Petersburg, and are going to invest another $10 million next year,&quot; Khasbulatov said.
 The fast-food industry is one of the fastest developing sectors in St. Petersburg, according to Tamara Solovyova, head of the catering sector at the city administration's Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade Department. 
 Solovyova said that the vast majority of catering enterprises opened each year are fast-food restaurants or cafes. 
 &quot;That's the biggest difference between the St. Petersburg and the Moscow catering industries,&quot; she said. &quot;Most of the restaurants being opened in Moscow are posh and expensive. The bistro chains in Moscow are mainly for the middle classes, while, in St. Petersburg, they are also for the lower classes.&quot;

TITLE: Russian Investment Up, Capital Flight Falls
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Finance Ministry said Wednesday that capital flight plummeted 80 percent to $2.1 billion in the first half of the year, in a sign that entrepreneurs are finding Russia's investment climate more attractive and putting their money to work at home.
 
Although the ministry cautioned that capital flight might surge in the second half, it said that the year-end total would still be lower than the $9 billion previously forecast for 2002.
 The ministry puts capital flight in the first half of 2001 at $10.5 billion.
 &quot;We plan to reduce capital flight this year, and the money will work in Russia,&quot; said Anton Saluanov, the head of the ministry's macroeconomics and banking policies department, Interfax reported.
 He said that the forecasted jump in capital flight in the second half of this year will be triggered in part by a higher seasonal demand for foreign currency. Although many of these funds never leave Russia, they affect the balance sheets.
 Capital flight - the large-scale removal of individual and corporate-investment capital and income from a country - has been steadily declining over the past three years, according to government figures. The amount of money spirited abroad in 2001 came to $16 billion, compared to $24 billion the previous year.
 A long-running government fight to keep money at home got a shot in the arm in June when President Vladimir Putin made capital flight a priority. He urged entrepreneurs and individuals to keep their money in Russia and bring back the billions of dollars funneled abroad during the chaotic 1990s.
 No one knows how much money fled the country over the past decade. Various government agencies and observers put the amount at anywhere from $50 billion to $400 billion.
 Alexei Moiseyev, a vice president at Renaissance Capital investment bank, said that he has tracked a decline in capital flight over the past year, although on a smaller scale than that declared by the Finance Ministry.
 &quot;But, the figures aside, the tendency is a good one,&quot; Moiseyev said.
 He estimated that capital flight fell to $8.5 billion in the first half of 2002 from $12 billion in the same period last year.
 The decrease was most likely based on an improvement of the investment climate coupled with lower profit margins in a number of industries, he said.
 Central Bank deputy head Oleg Vyugin also has his own figures. He said last week that capital flight would fall to $11 billion this year from $16 billion in 2001, Interfax reported.
 He said that companies have been showing a stronger interest in investing domestically because they are realizing that it is more profitable to spend their money at home than abroad.
 Vyugin added, however, that a large amount of money was continuing to leave the country in the form of state debt payments, which are reaching a peak in 2002-2003.
 Commercial banks are also helping curtail capital flight, said Oksana Dynnikova, an economist at the Economic Expert Group think tank. She said that banks, over the past year, have been diverting more funds into assets.

TITLE: TNK, Sibneft Establish Strategic Partnership in Oil Sector
AUTHOR: By Yulia Bushuyeva and Alexander Tutushkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - Once cut-throat competitors, oil majors Tyumen Oil Co. and Sibneft have revealed themselves in a new guise - strategic partners.
 
By the end of the year, Sibneft is to receive an 8.6-percent equity stake in the offshore company TNK International Ltd., the main shareholder in the TNK and Onako oil holdings. In exchange, TNK is to receive a 40-percent stake in the Orenburgneft drilling company.
 Virgin Islands-registered TNK International Ltd. has a charter capital of $50,000, and is wholly owned by TNK Industrial Holdings Ltd., also an offshore company, which is in turn owned by Alfa Group and Access/ Renova.
 TNK International's main assets include more than 90 percent of Onako, 29 percent of Russia Petroleum and 88.5 percent of the Ukrainian LINOS factory.
 TNK International and Sibneft have been negotiating an exchange of oil assets for the past two years.
 The reason for the drawn-out negotiations was the privatization of Onako in 2000, when Sibneft bought a 42-percent stake in its subsidiary, Orenburgneft, while 85 percent of Onako was auctioned off to TNK's owners, Alfa Group and Renova. The two competitors were forced to negotiate the division of the assets.
 At the beginning of last year, they announced that Onako would be converted into a single share and Sibneft would get a 33.3-percent stake in the consolidated company. But, at the last minute, Sibneft pulled out of the exchange. The company wanted an option to sell its TNK stake at its own price, but TNK did not agree.
 Last week, however, the owners of the two holdings reached a new agreement. On Monday, Alfa Group head Mikhail Fridman said in a statement that Sibneft would agree to trade its stake in Orenburgneft for about 8.6 percent of TNK International. He said that the arrangement could be finalized before the end of the year.
 Sibneft president Yevgeny Shvidler confirmed that the two companies had agreed to exchange assets, but declined to give any details.
 Both parties view the deal as a win-win situation. Sibneft, which made $120 million from its stake in Orenburgneft last year, will now get a stake in the profits of a much larger company, while TNK will not have to spend money on buying out Sibneft shares.
 A source close to the negotiations said that Sibneft would get a seat on the TNK International board of directors in addition to a stake in the company.
 &quot;This will allow the new shareholder to have access to all the necessary information and participate in making important decisions,&quot; said the source.
 In addition, Sibneft will have the opportunity to cash in on the sale of its stake in the holding company in the future because TNK International's owners have said that they plan to float the offshore's shares on international financial markets.
 Nevertheless, some TNK projects will remain outside the reach of Sibneft when it becomes a shareholder in TNK International. Not all of TNK's assets, such as its controlling stake in Sidanco, are held through the company. These assets belong to Sborsare, a Cypriot offshore company representing the interests of Alfa Group and Access/Renova. BP owns another 25 percent of the holding.
 Fridman said that Sidanco will not become part of TNK International for another year or two. TNK is not ready to create a consortium for the privatization of Slavneft with Sibneft either, the head of Alfa Group said.
 &quot;Only a few years ago it was impossible to imagine a Russian company allowing a competitor into its business,&quot; said Aton analyst Steven Dashevsky.
 &quot;We can be happy that oligarchs have learned how to solve their differences in such a civilized manner,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Children Have Toys Taken Away by Ikea
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Swedish retailer Ikea on Thursday called for consumers to return 72,000 stuffed animals purchased at its Russian stores, saying the toys are dangerous to children.
 
No accident has happened yet, Ikea spokesperson Irina Vanenkova said, but the company stopped production and sales of the toy worldwide.
 Ikea recalled the toy - which is designed for toddlers older than one year old - after a consumer outside Russia complained that its seams had come apart and the little balls with which the toy is stuffed popped out.
 &quot;Nothing will happen if a kid swallows a ball, but it could be dangerous if they stick it up their nose,&quot; Vanenkova said.
 The chances of a toy's seam coming apart is 2 percent, she said, implying that, statistically, around 1,400 of the stuffed toys sold in Russia are dangerous.
 Anton Sitnikov, a legal expert at Pepeliaev, Goltsblat &amp; Partners, said that no company in Russia has ever recalled a product due to a technical flaw.
 &quot;According to Russian legislation, we don't have to do it, but we want parents to know about the danger,&quot; Vanenkova said.
 Ikea is to publish warnings in the Monday editions of the widely circulated Moskovsky Komsomolets and Komsomolskaya Pravda dailies.
 This is the second time Ikea has recalled a product. 
 In 1997, before Ikea opened in Russia, the company recalled a range of toys after a child swallowed a plastic eye. Since then, all Ikea toys have had embroidered eyes.

TITLE: Luzhkov, Abramovich Fight Over Oil
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A telephone call between Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and oil magnate Roman Abramovich in early August has done little to subdue the passions swirling around the Moscow Oil Refinery.
 
Since the infamous call prompted by supply cuts, the Moscow refinery, which supplies 55 percent of Moscow's oil products, has been beset with two opposing boards of directors and two general directors. This year alone, five shareholders meetings have been scheduled, though one did not take place because the majority owner did not show up. Another is scheduled for Nov. 18.
 And all this fuss for an oil refinery whose equipment and technology are so old that it would not be allowed to operate in the West.
 The Central Fuel Co., which is 100-percent owned by the Moscow city government, holds 50.66 percent of the refinery's voting shares. Sibneft, the country's fifth-largest oil producer, owns 37 percent to 38 percent, and another oil major, Tatneft, has 8 percent.
 The city government's shares are managed by the Moscow Oil Co., whose president is Shalva Chigirinsky, a real estate developer who entered the oil business in the late 1990s.
 Sibneft, in which Abramovich is the core shareholder, and Tatneft are on one team. Luzhkov and Chigirinsky are on the other.
 A main point of contention between the two camps is a Sept. 27 shareholders' meeting that may or may not have been legal, depending on whom you ask.
 Central Fuel representatives did not attend, as the Moscow Arbitration Court had ruled it illegal, said Nikolai Frolov, a spokesperson for Moscow Oil.
 A bailiff from the court was at the shareholders' meeting to hand the order to a representative from Gregory Trading, a company affiliated with Sibneft that had asked that the Sept. 27 meeting be convened.
 Gregory Trading said that it did not receive the order because its representatives voted on the agenda points via correspondence. In any case, Sibneft and Abramovich's asset management company Millhouse got six representatives on the board. Tatneft, which had signed a partnership agreement three days before the meeting, voted in three. Central Fuel had none.
 In addition, Sibneft says that it was able to convert its privileged shares, which did not include voting rights, into voting shares. In doing so, Sibneft, together with Tatneft, obtained a 55-percent majority of voting shares, while Central Fuel was left with 38 percent.
 Even though the new board of directors voted in its own general director, he has not been allowed onto the grounds of the Moscow refinery.
 &quot;Comparing the efficiency of the Moscow refinery with its peers nationwide, such as our own Omsk refinery, we feel that there is room for improvement,&quot; Sibneft President Eugene Shvidler said last week. &quot;It was Sibneft that encouraged the refinery to sign long-term supply contracts with its partners, which will help to ensure the stability, transparency and profitability of operations.&quot;
 Shvidler also noted that Moscow refinery management was selling polypropylene at below market prices to Inteko, a construction company reportedly owned by Yelena Baturinaya, Luzhkov's wife.
 According to an Inteko representative, however, the company does not buy polypropylene.
 Sibneft is taking such drastic measures to protect its right as minority shareholder in the refinery, said Sibneft spokesperson Alexei Firsov. When it bought its stake, the company knew that it was not just buying into a refinery, it was buying into a strategically unique organization with a tormented past.
 On Jan. 22, 1997, then-President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree transferring 38 percent of the Mosnefteprodukt oil-product distributor and 38 percent of the refinery from the federal government to the city of Moscow. These were to become the core assets of the newly formed Central Fuel, which was created to stabilize the capital's gasoline market.
 Central Fuel was criticized from the very beginning. Russia's oil industry had just undergone rapid transformation, as a handful of oligarchs pieced together vertically integrated oil companies and then acquired controlling stakes through rigged auctions.
 Many doubted the refinery could survive financially without its own guaranteed supply of crude oil. Without its own production capacity, the refinery is forced either to buy crude on Russia's poorly developed spot market or through supply contracts.
 LUKoil, the country's largest oil producer, was the refinery's first suitor, and in March 1998 it signed off on a partnership agreement with Central Fuel. Another pact was signed a month later. The signing ceremony was attended by Luzhkov, LUKoil CEO Vagit Alekperov and Tatar President Mintimer Shaimiyev. As part of the deal, Tatneft and LUKoil were to each acquire a 13-percent stake in Central Fuel.
 The partnership with LUKoil ran into problems, when Central Fuel's management realized that LUKoil's goal was to gain control of the refinery. Luzhkov placed his bets with another partner and in June 1999 signed a decree merging Central Fuel into the newly created Moscow Oil. At the time, it was reported that construction firm S+T Group, owned by Chigirinsky, was to participate. The April 1998 deal fell apart.
 LUKoil, meanwhile, decided that it would give up fighting for the Moscow gasoline market, concentrating on the Volga region instead. At a privatization auction marked by weak competition, LUKoil acquired 85 percent of Norsi Oil, with a 35,000 barrel per day refinery, for $26 million in October 2001.
 Industry observers suspected that LUKoil had struck some kind of deal with Sibneft, the only other viable contender for Norsi. These suspicions were confirmed a few months later, when LUKoil announced that it had sold its Moscow refinery stake to Sibneft.
 Sibneft received the right to supply the refinery when it bought LUKoil's stake, but Chigirinsky and Luzhkov were already planning something bigger.
 Two years in the making, the Moscow Oil and Gas Co. would combine Central Fuel's downstream assets with the upstream production of Sibir Energy, controlled by Chigirinsky and listed on the London Stock Exchange.
 Ironically, Sibneft is Sibir Energy's partner in its western Siberian production venture. It is the crude oil from these fields that is to supply the Moscow refinery in the coming years.
 Sibneft, however, does not think Sibir Energy has any business meddling in the refinery's affairs. Firsov of Sibneft said that the Moscow Oil and Gas Co. is &quot;an empty company&quot; and a &quot;figment of Luzhkov's imagination.&quot;

TITLE: Gref Latest Senior Russian Official To Survive Car Crash
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref escaped unhurt from a car crash Wednesday - the latest in a recent string of road accidents involving Russian officials.
 Gref's chauffeured BMW collided with another vehicle in southwest Moscow as he was riding to work in the early morning. 
 After a brief checkup at the government's Central Clinical Hospital, Gref arrived in his office and worked his regular schedule, said his spokeperson, Konstantin Bogdanov.
 &quot;The minister got off with only a scare,&quot; he said.
 Officials wouldn't comment on the details of the crash, but the woman who was driving the other car, a sport utility vehicle, blamed the minister's driver for the accident.
 &quot;With the green light on, I was crossing the intersection and, while I was already in the middle of it, I saw a car rushing across,&quot; Yekaterina Nikolayeva said on TVS television. &quot;I realized that a collision was inevitable.&quot;
 Wednesday's accident followed a series of crashes involving government vehicles that has prompted some media to assail officials for ignoring other motorists' rights.
 Last month, the chief of the presidential Security Council, Vladimir Rushailo, was injured in a car crash in the far eastern Kamchatka region in which six people were killed. Authorities said that the crash occurred when a sport utility vehicle hit several cars in the official motorcade.
 In Moscow, a driver was killed in May when his car collided with a police vehicle preceding President Vladimir Putin's motorcade in the city center. Officials blamed the collision on the dead driver, saying he made an illegal U-turn in front of a police car. Earlier this month, a security car that was following Putin's motorcade rammed an ambulance on the same street. Several pedestrians were injured.
 Noviye Izvestia on Wednesday blamed the accidents on the Federal Bodyguard Service, which blocks traffic well ahead of official convoys, resulting in huge traffic jams.
 &quot;Russia is a place where motorcades are dangerous for life,&quot; one of the paper's commentators wrote.

TITLE: The Resurgence of Lies and Disinformation
AUTHOR: By Oleg Panfilov
TEXT: AT the end of August, the official government newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, published a sensational article about the bombing of the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia that left one person dead and several wounded. Citing an unnamed source in the Georgian Defense Ministry, the newspaper reported that a Georgian plane piloted by a Lieutenant Georgy Rusteli had dropped the deadly ordnance on his own people.
 
The Rossiiskaya Gazeta article named no sources confirming Georgia's responsibility for the bombing. It included no comment from Russian experts, who could have confirmed or denied the version offered by the anonymous Georgian source.
 The only &quot;proof&quot; offered by the author of the article was that the Georgian plane had supposedly been repainted, adding Russian Air Force markings to the tail and wings. The article does not make clear, however, why the plane needed to be disguised when, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission in Georgia, the bombing was carried out at 5 a.m., when the plane's markings would have been invisible from the ground, much less in the air at high speed.
 As it turned out, Rossiiskaya Gazeta did not exactly break the story. One day earlier, the Web site utro.ru had published an article by political editor Alexander Agamov and military analyst Oleg Petrovsky titled &quot;Dropping Bombs Under a Foreign Flag.&quot; This article included key &quot;details&quot; of the incident. It named the pilot, Lieutenant Georgy Rusteli, the mechanic Vazha Todiya, provided the identification number of the plane and described how it was repainted. Rossiiskaya Gazeta failed to cite Utro.ru, passing its report off as an exclusive.
 A further search for information on the story revealed that the next day, two more newspapers - Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Noviye Izvestia - ran articles on Lieutenant Rusteli that included ironic editorializing and denials from the Georgian side. Articles published in Komsomolskaya Pravda and Trud, as well as two government-owned newspapers, Krasnaya Zvezda and Parlamentskaya Gazeta, gave the impression that reporters from these papers had actually been on the ground in Georgia and had witnessed the early-morning bombing in person.
 Then the other side of the story began to emerge. Noviye Izvestia deputy editor Sergei Agafonov told Ekho Moskvy radio that Rusteli is not even a Georgian name. Teimuraz Gamtsemlidze, a counselor at the Georgian Embassy in Moscow, confirmed this in an interview given to the RIA Novosti news agency. And finally, the OSCE mission in Georgia announced that the planes involved in the bombing had flown in from the north - that is, from Russia.
 This is not the first time that the Russian press has published information calculated to convince the public that Russia bears no blame for its various military conflicts. Actual news outlets are normally employed in this effort: the Itar-Tass, Ria Novosti and Interfax news agencies. The role of &quot;informed source&quot; is often played by presidential assistant Sergei Yastrzhembsky and the spokesperson for Russian forces in Chechnya, FSB Colonel Ilya Shabalkin. Thanks to these informed sources the Russian public learned that Chechen rebels were producing poisoned vodka, and that they were planning to carry out terrorist attacks during President George W. Bush's visit to Russia. On May 14, Shabalkin announced that &quot;Chechen brigadier-generals are prepared to surrender, but they are fearful of revenge attacks.&quot;
 On Feb. 20, Shabalkin accused Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya of writing about Chechnya as a way of paying off her debts to the Soros Foundation. On April 1, the FSB announced that it had thwarted the planned kidnapping of journalists from RenTV. A similar announcement followed on Aug. 27, when &quot;Chechen police officers foiled an attempt by gangsters to abduct a group of televison journalists.&quot; In neither case were the journalists actually named; the second announcement didn't even mention the television station involved.
 The military contends that it is defending journalists from kidnappers, but fails to mention that the last time a Russian journalist was abducted - Andrei Babitsky in January 2000 - the military itself was to blame. More likely, this is a way for the army brass in Chechnya to frighten journalists out of trying to obtain information independently.
 The military prevents journalists from reporting the real story in Chechnya, and in return it offers only its own - often absurd - version of events. When soldiers carry out provocations like the bombing in Georgia, reporters friendly to the Kremlin and the intelligence services are brought in to justify them.
 In late 1999, the Kremlin dealt a blow to the credibility of foreign journalists in Russia when Frank Hoefling, a reporter for German television station N24, was given a videotape showing the burial of Chechen fighters. The tape had been made by Izvestia journalist Oleg Blotsky. I don't know what the exact arrangements were, but Blotsky immediately came out and accused Hoefling of slander. Hoefling was fired as a result, and Blotsky laid low for a while. He turned up a year later as the author of a biography of President Vladimir Putin. This year, he brought out a second book on the president. At a press conference he revealed that the idea for the book had come from Yastrzhembsky.
 During the first Chechen war, the level of disinformation in the Russian press was high, but it varied according to the author's reliance on official sources. Journalists could still travel to Chechnya and do their own reporting. All that changed with Putin's election as president. Kremlin bureaucrats began to talk more and more about the greatness of Russia, about Putin's role and the role of the state. The information-security doctrine, signed in September 2000, became the cornerstone of the government's new information policy. As it turned out, the Kursk tragedy and the censorship that ensued was the beginning of a new era in government-press relations.
 Most news coverage of the Kursk relied on anonymous sources or named military officials who were lying through their teeth. The authorities brought pressure to bear on those newspapers that questioned the official line.
 The old Soviet tradition of serving up softball questions for the president has been revived in Russian journalism. Witness, for example, the recent coverage of Putin's 50th birthday. Furthermore, Russian television has clearly figured out which camera angles most flatter the president.
 Defeat in the Chechen campaign is perceived by the military as more than a personal tragedy. The top brass lives in fear of being sacked and losing prestige and privileges. Lying may only postpone the inevitable, but for now it seems the only way to preserve the image of the &quot;world's greatest army.&quot; The real losers in all this are the journalists. Some believe they have no choice but to bend to the military's will. Most believe that lies are now the only source of information available to them.
 A couple of weeks ago, a group of journalists from Moscow's liberal press flew to Tbilisi to meet with politicians, government officials and Georgian journalists. When Georgian reporters asked why the Russian press publishes so much blatant disinformation, the Russians replied that no other information is available.
 The hardest thing was talking with ordinary people on the street, who were concerned by the news programs on the state-controlled RTR and ORT television stations.
 What they don't know is that the Soviet lie has been revived in the Russian press, and that, just as during the Soviet era, the best way to find out what's really going on is to tune into foreign radio stations. The government hasn't started jamming them yet.
 
 <i>Oleg Panfilov, the director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Friends Can Help in Busting the Sanctions
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: THE United States has accused Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma of flouting UN sanctions by selling a sophisticated radar system to Iraq that could threaten the safety of U.S. and British pilots. As punishment for the alleged deal, Washington has suspended aid to the government in Kiev. Last week, a group of British and U.S. experts arrived in Ukraine to investigate the allegations, which Kuchma and his government have steadfastly denied.
 
The Kolchuga (Russian for &quot;chain mail&quot;) system detects radar signals and other electromagnetic emissions from warplanes flying hundreds of kilometers away. It is a passive system, i.e. it does not emit any signals of its own and pilots do not know they are being tracked.
 A former bodyguard of Kuchma's, Mykola Melnichenko, secretly taped a conversation in July 2000, in which the Ukrainian president apparently approved the sale of four Kolchuga systems to Iraq through a Jordanian intermediary for $100 million. The U.S. authorities have declared the tape authentic and have announced that they have indications that the Kolchuga radar systems have indeed reached Iraq.
 But can a tape - even if authentic - be, in itself, sufficient proof that an illegal transaction went through? Surely the U.S. authorities should have obtained corroborating evidence before openly accusing a previously friendly government of sanction-busting.
 For those who follow the dealings of the shady international-arms market, sanction-busting vis-a-vis Iraq is not news. UN sanctions barring any arms sales to Saddam Hussein were imposed in September 1990. If they had, indeed, been watertight for the past 12 years, there would not be a single Iraqi jet or helicopter flying, tank rolling, or radar and SAM battery operating today, due to the lack of spare parts and adequate maintenance. Hussein's army, and even his Republican guard, would resemble rebel forces from the Congo or Somalia.
 Obviously, the UN arms sanctions are a sham. A Moscow banker, former military officer and professional arms trader, who worked for the state arms export agency in the Middle East, told me in 1997 (when I was investigating sanction-busting) that spare parts for Russian-made Iraqi weaponry have been shipped into Iraq with the help of Bulgarian and Turkish intermediaries, mostly via Jordan. Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland have also been mentioned as black-market arms hubs. The East European black and gray arms-trading network was established in the 1990s to supply arms to warring factions in former Yugoslavia and, later, turned to serve other clients such as Iraq, Ethiopia, and the Congo.
 A retired colonel and former official Russian arms trader, who switched to become a freelancer, told me how the system works. If a client appears with cash up front, an intermediary in Eastern Europe or the Middle East takes the deal and contacts &quot;friends&quot; in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan or Russia - all countries with massive surpluses of modern weapons. A package deal is put together that can easily include mercenary pilots, mechanics and other specialists, if the client wishes. This network is well established and can cut through government red tape in no time by means of bribes. Of course, many government officials and local intelligence services are privy to these illegal deals.
 In 1997, I discovered solid evidence that, in 1996, Iraq illegally acquired some 20 Mi-24 helicopter gunships. A Bulgarian company apparently masterminded the deal, the choppers were shipped from Ukraine or Russia, but it was Russian technicians, an official source told me, who traveled to Baghdad in 1996 to get them into working order.
 A high-ranking Foreign Ministry official involved in arms-export control, whom I asked to investigate, not only confirmed that Russia is breaking the embargo, but that in the UN secretariat in New York and, apparently, in Washington these facts are well known, but they are hushed up.
 Of late, Washington has accused leaders it doesn't like - Kuchma and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko - of smuggling arms to &quot;rogue&quot; states, including Iraq, while &quot;friendly&quot; regimes in Russia and Kazakhstan have been spared. However, if, in the coming days, Moscow vetoes a U.S.-sponsored anti-Saddam resolution in the UN Security Council, some major Western media outlet may come out with an anti-Russian arms-smuggling scoop. If Russia abstains, Kuchma and Lukashenko may remain as the only ones in the dock.
 
 <i>Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. </i>

TITLE: Earlymusic: Creating 'Showers of Harmonies'
AUTHOR: By Lonais Jaillais
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: &quot;New, exciting, surprising, sensual.&quot;
 
These four words almost lay the foundations of a manifesto, and show the essential state of mind of Marc de Mauny, the director of the Earlymusic festival, which wrapped up on Saturday.
 This year's festival, the fifth, reinforced de Mauny's credo of a new approach to music in Russia. The audiences that packed into the warm, intimate atmosphere of the Glinka Philharmonic, where most of the concerts were held over the two weeks of the festival, proved particularly receptive to this message.
 Especially well received were American lutenist Paul O'Dette and the faultless voice of French countertenor Gerard Lesne, with his ensemble, Il Seminario Musicale. The enthralling performance given by Spain's Hesperion XXI, led by viola da gamba player Jordi Savall and soprano Montserrat Figueras was greeted by an unending ovation.
 While the festival contained some other highlights, it would have remained an essentially hollow happening without a strong driving force behind it. To discover the real backbone of the festival, and why it represents a prominent phenomenon in contemporary Russian culture, it is necessary to look away from the concerts. The most important events took place away from all the raptures, in the equally fervent, but more studious, atmosphere of the Nabokov Museum - at the festival's master classes.
 The main character in this backstage act was the colorful Flemish recorder player Peter van Heyghen, who captivated audiences with a two-week series of lectures. A number of young musicians from the Moscow Oblast and Nizhny Novgorod gathered in St. Petersburg specially for the occasion. 
 &quot;Just by looking around, it seems obvious that there is already the potential for Baroque music here,&quot; says van Heyghen. &quot;The architecture is already in tune.&quot;
 Van Heyghen demonstrated, in his master classes, how far cultural matters interconnect. Thus, he says, &quot;Baroque music cannot be played or felt without a deep understanding of Baroque culture as a whole.&quot;
 Van Heyghen kept harping on to his students: &quot;You are already the third generation of a movement that has been going on in the West since the 1960s, but this is not the end of all the questions. You have to check what the new masters say; don't take everything as hard cash.&quot;
 &quot;It's not a matter of playing [the violin] off the chin, or singing without vibrato; these are pregnant artistic gestures,&quot; said French harpsichordist Martin Gester at his master class. &quot;There is a philosophy behind all of this.&quot;
 &quot;The school of playing in Russia nowadays is adapted to play repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries,&quot; says de Mauny. &quot;But, with that technique and those instruments, a piece of Couperin - or even Bach, to be honest - stays very flat and uninteresting. It doesn't bring out its peculiar beauty.&quot;
 &quot;It must be said that Baroque conveys a new vision of the artist,&quot; says van Heyghen. &quot;The artist is a modern conception; back then, [musicians] regarded themselves more as artisans, craftsmen. This may change our perception of music, and of its place in society.&quot;
 The interpreters also had greater responsibilities. &quot;The singer really measured up to the composer,&quot; explained Lesne in his master class. &quot;Singers were not only supposed to perform the written notes - they <i>had </i>to bring about their own added value. The best artists would perform a different <i>da capo, </i>with different ornaments, every night, according to their mood. It's all about keeping things perpetually moving, evolving, free.&quot;
 The concept of freedom was a key issue throughout the festival, and possible the festival's <i>raison d'etre </i>in today's Russia. In Baroque music, the interpreter is primarily an actor - that is, an active person, and not just the passive instrument of the composer's schemes. However, that freedom has to be used with temperance and rigor. In contrast to Romanticism, everything Baroque must remain - even at moments of the most intense emotion - within the borders of a clear mind. The only way to go higher is through a higher artistic mastery.
 In other words, according to Lesne, &quot;The more freedom you want to take, the more you have to excel. [For example], you can't approximate the triplets at whatever speed you choose.&quot;
 As Van Heyghen put it, more luminously, &quot;Baroque is an eternal, vibrating tension between chaos, and a profound belief in the ultimate order of all things.&quot;
 That is an authoritative statement but, at the same time, there is still room for endless discussion. Van Heyghen is ready to expand on the topic next year.
 &quot;It's arranged already. Next year, we will tighten our collaboration with the Hermitage,&quot; he says. &quot;We will go to the museum and search for inspiration in the visual arts - connect the plastic gesture with the musical one.&quot;
 It seems that there is no place more favorable or promising than St. Petersburg to spread Baroque culture. However, there are some major wrong notes. The leaders of the master classes were unanimous in pointing out the &quot;discouraging lack of material&quot; - no reference scores, no original treatises, and few period instruments. 
 It was repeatedly underlined that, without any access to reliable sources, there is a risk of being at sea.
 This may be a reason why the closing concert of the festival, by the festival's own Catherine The Great Orchestra and Academy of Earlymusic, was slightly uneven, as it lacked a solid focus. Apart from the question of whether playing Germanic symphonic works was the best choice for a Russian Baroque ensemble, the basic idea of <i>ensemble </i>- in its French meaning, &quot;together&quot; - did not seem to have been absorbed. This was especially true of the harpsichordist.
 However, de Mauny is resolute in the defense of his parish. &quot;The orchestra has only been in existence for one year - they deserve respect,&quot; he says.
 The other problem is financial. &quot;A festival like Utrecht, [in the Netherlands], for example, can rely on [getting] 65 percent [of its financing from] subsidies, whereas we have none, and we make only 5 percent at the box office,&quot; says de Mauny. &quot;So the rest comes from foreign cultural institutes and the private sector.&quot;
 &quot;What we need is the financial means to maintain an orchestra, with regular salaries, and also to bring other musicians across, but we're moving towards that,&quot; he says. &quot;We're also paving the way for [van Heyghen] to set up a library.&quot;
 The mass of documents that the Belgian brought turned out to be a success with the students, who were obviously eager for further knowledge. Further encouragement came in the form of a spontaneous offer of support from French champagne firm Moet et Chandon.
 So this is just the start. It is to be hoped that the festival's vision remains intact as it keeps growing. Next year's festival will be especially relevant, in the context of the 300th anniversary of Russia's most European city, and St. Petersburgers will rediscover some of the music that was heard in the young capital. Special events await next year's visitors.
 &quot;We'll go on breaking stereotypes,&quot; says de Mauny.
 The festival's supporters simply wish that the rejuvenating &quot;showers of harmonies&quot; - to use English Renaissance composer John Dowland's image - will continue to fall onto Russian soil.

TITLE: Premiere of '42nd Street' Proves Naysayers Wrong
AUTHOR: By Raymond Stults
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - There's no need to fly to New York for the taste of a Broadway musical, when the real thing can be found right here in our own backyard.
 
The 1980s hit &quot;42nd Street&quot; has found its way to Moscow in a joyful, rousing and thoroughly idiomatic English-language version straight from New York.
 The &quot;42nd Street&quot; - billed as &quot;Russia's first musical&quot; - that premiered here last Saturday at MDM (the Moskovsky Dvorets Molodyozhi, or Palace of Youth) is not, as some might expect, the work of a second-class road company making its weary way from city to city. Instead, it's a production especially assembled for Moscow, with principals and production team - including two stars and the director/choreographer of the show's recent award-winning New York revival - chorus line, conductor and key orchestra members all drawn from the elite of North American musical theater.
 A few words are in order here about criticism of Moscow's &quot;42nd Street&quot; in an article by Susan Glasser of The Washington Post, reproduced Tuesday on the front page of The Moscow Times, this publication's sister paper.
 Toward the end of the article, Glasser, who attended a VIP preview - really a final dress rehearsal - of &quot;42nd Street&quot; last Friday, admitted that &quot;the American cast and Russian [sic] orchestra proved to be first-rate.&quot; But her real interest was in an account of certain near-obscenities in a draft Russian translation of the show's dialogue intended to be relayed by headphones to its audience's non-English speakers, quoting the complaints of the American production team and detailing the evening's technical glitches. 
 Anyone familiar with the workings of the theater knows that putting together a piece like &quot;42nd Street&quot; is bound to bring raw nerves and technical problems. Had Glasser been present on opening night, Saturday, she would have discovered quite a different translation from the one she quoted; a confident cast on stage; lights and sound, except for a very occasional glitch, in full working order; and an audience, overwhelmingly Russian, roaring its approval at the final curtain.
 Glasser's piece - the intent of which might have been to produce yet another comment on the primitive, inept behavior of Russians - notwithstanding, the Moscow incarnation of &quot;42nd Street&quot; is a wonderful show, authentic in every respect and splendidly performed, a true celebration of Broadway itself and, in particular, of the glittering spectacles of the 1930s, which were meant to lift the gloom of America's Great Depression.
 Set in spring 1933, &quot;42nd Street&quot; is a classic Broadway success story. Peggy Sawyer, a girl from nowhere - in this case, Allentown, Pennsylvania - makes her way into the chorus line of a new musical called &quot;Pretty Lady.&quot; At a pre-Broadway try-out in Philadelphia, Peggy bumps into the leading lady, who falls and fractures an ankle. The director cancels the show, but the cast urges him to reconsider and give Peggy a chance at the lead. Intercepted at the railway station where she is waiting to catch a train back home, Peggy masters the role in 36 hours and becomes the toast of Broadway.
 Although &quot;42nd Street&quot; first came to the stage in 1980, its songs, by the great Broadway tunesmith Harry Warren, among them the ever-familiar &quot;Lullaby of Broadway,&quot; mostly date back to the 1930s. Its stilted dialogue and decidedly corny jokes evoke the 1930s as well.
 Leading the cast as Peggy Sawyer is Meredith Patterson, who spent a year playing the same role in the show's New York revival. In the process, she herself became the toast of Broadway. And no wonder. She has about her the virtually indescribable quality of a real star, a glowing presence which permeates every note she sings, every step she dances and every line she speaks.
 Alongside Patterson as Billy Lawlor, the leading man of &quot;Pretty Lady,&quot; is Shonn Wiley, another veteran of the current Broadway revival. With a fine clear tenor, superb dance steps and winning good looks, Wiley seems bound to become a leading attraction on Broadway in years to come.
 The rest of the dozen principals all handle their roles with skill and aplomb. And the 40 or so members of the chorus line, put through their routines by Randy Skinner, a member of the original &quot;42nd Street&quot; cast and director/choreographer of the current Broadway revival, give a brilliant demonstration of how a Broadway musical should be sung and danced.
 Backing them up in the pit is a true-sounding 1930s swing band, playing with tremendous verve under the direction of Stephen Bates, whose experience as conductor of &quot;42nd Street&quot; can be traced back two decades to the show's very first road company. At the final curtain, in true Broadway fashion, the band takes up a reprise of the evening's big tunes, a treat well worth lingering to hear rather than making a dash for the cloak room.
 Apart from several of the band members, the only non-American components of Moscow's &quot;42nd Street&quot; are its sets and costumes, the former designed by the show's producer, Boris Krasnov; the latter created by German-based clothing designer Patrick Hellmann. Closely resembling the Broadway originals, Krasnov's clever and colorful sets have to them a basically authentic look. Of special note is the delightfully tilted New York skyline which forms the show's most important backdrop.
 Hellmann gives the &quot;Pretty Lady&quot; scenes a gorgeous array of costumes, but some of his more mundane street clothes lack a 1930s touch. In particular, Timothy Sell's well sung and acted Julian Marsh, &quot;Pretty Lady&quot;'s director, would certainly have greater impact if he were clothed in a suit of the show's own era rather than one which might have come off the rack at a Hellmann Moscow boutique.
 These very minor reservations aside, &quot;42nd Street&quot; can only be called a huge success - and a bright, warm, happy antidote to the early winter blues.
 MDM has been given a thorough sprucing up to host &quot;42nd Street&quot; Whatever incarnations it may have had during its Soviet past, the theater now offers near-perfect viewing and listening conditions, with comfortable seats, a clear view of the stage from every corner of the house and a sophisticated sound system to carry the words and music.
 
 <i>
&quot;42nd Street&quot; plays at 7 p.m. nightly Tuesday through Sunday at MDM, located at 28 Komsomolsky Pr., Moscow. Tel.: (095) 246-2680, (095) 245-8439. Reservations: (095) 755-2242, (095) 784-7787. </i>

TITLE: Video-Art Party-Festival Breaks the Mold
AUTHOR: By Aliona Bocharova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Feature films and documentaries have long been a part of local movie-goers' and art-lovers' cultural menu, yet video art, an eclectic artistic mix, remains largely an exception.
 
For this reason, BLICK, a project to screen &quot;new Nordic films and videos&quot; that takes place at Mirage cinema on Saturday, is being promoted in a party format. The screenings, accompanied by Scandinavian easy-listening music played by local DJs, begin at midnight and run until 4 a.m.
 BLICK started in Sweden in 1999 and aimed to bring together the most recent films and videos created by young artists from across Scandinavia. After a lengthy selection process, undertaken in 2001 and superintended by curators from Stockholm's Modern Museum and Helsinki's Nordic Institute of Contemporary Art, or NIFCA, 40 works were shown to Scandinavian audiences. The first screenings took place at NIFCA and the Modern Museum last October.
 &quot;The response was quite positive, and proved a firm interest in video art in the Nordic countries,&quot; says Thomas Heikkela, the project manager for cultural affairs at the information bureau of the Nordic Council of Ministers. 
 BLICK consists of nearly 50 films and videos by 40 artists from Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. On display is a mix of works that vary in format and duration, and give an overview of current trends on the Nordic arts scene.
 Although, as Heikkela says, &quot;it is hard to name the topics in the works presented,&quot; a few general trends can still be traced. Although narrative is still the most common technique employed, it often carries a hint of an &quot;authentic&quot; documentary, or resembles a home video. New artists tend to focus on structures or models, whether aesthetic or social.
 For example, &quot;Power,&quot; by Finnish artist Salla Tykka, is a study of gender roles, as seen in her parents' relationship, and articulated through a four-minute boxing match between a man and a woman. In &quot;Friedrich Passage,&quot; Swedish artist and composer Tobias Bernstrup offers a short animation inspired by the acclaimed computer game &quot;Half Life.&quot; The audience, as the &quot;hero&quot; of the game, is not yet aware of its mission: it moves forward and finds itself in a huge shopping center; all the stores are closed, there are no people around, and only the escalators are still working.
 BLICK has been on an international tour, with screenings in over 40 countries, including Germany, Norway and Slovenia. This weekend's event in St. Petersburg is not the project's first time in Russia; BLICK traveled to Kaliningrad earlier this year, but met with a cool reception, even being described as &quot;boring.&quot;
 &quot;Video art as such is not yet popular enough in Russia,&quot; says Dmitry Milkov, the deputy director of St. Petersburg's Pro Arte Institute, one of the project's organizers. &quot;It might be quite hard even for a sophisticated Petersburg audience to appreciate a four-hour block of films and videos.&quot;
 Pro Arte is already known for promoting contemporary visual culture in St. Petersburg. It organized &quot;Black Box,&quot; an exhibition of British video art, last year, and, earlier this year, brought Shirin Neshat, the world-renowned Iranian-U.S. queen of video art, to the city in April.
 It seems to have been a smart move on the part of the institute to turn a &quot;boring&quot; video-art presentation into a liberal, all-night party aimed at a general audience, rather than small-scale screenings for the arts &quot;in crowd.&quot;
 &quot;I believe that Mirage is the ideal place for such projects,&quot; says Milkov. &quot;Anyone interested in watching the videos can sit in the movie theater, but there is also a screen in the cafe downstairs where people can enjoy the films and socialize with friends.
 According to Milkov, &quot;If the project is successful, we plan to cooperate with the Mirage Cinema by presenting other projects to promote video art, one of the most perspective and dynamic trends in contemporary art.&quot;

TITLE: INK Club: Helping To Redefine What A Club Should Be
AUTHOR: By Helen Tchepournova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: At first glance, St. Petersburg is hardly short of clubs. Delve a little deeper, however, and a problem becomes apparent - the definition of &quot;club.&quot;
 
In Russian, &quot;club&quot; is used almost exclusively to describe late-night dancing meccas, a definition somewhat narrower than the Western idea (think, for example. of the British concept of a &quot;gentlemen's club,&quot; a genteel establishment whose members, according to the stereotype, gather to drink tea and talk stock-market tips or horse racing).
 Despite the proliferation of clubs - in the Russian sense - in St. Petersburg, the scene geared to a more eclectic, creative crowd from different walks of life is still in its infancy. While a sophisticated structure has yet to be established, the recently established INK Club seems to fit the niche.
 The beauty of INK Club is that it does not confine itself to one single activity but, rather, diversifies across a number of areas, ranging from traditional art exhibitions and musical concerts, to the less obvious fireside philosophy chats, an unorthodox &quot;home magic&quot; club, and enchanting mystery plays.
 The individuality that distinguishes this particular club-cum-gallery from its peers is, undoubtedly, a positive reflection of the multiple personalities of its founder, Igor Kalinauskas.
 Kalinauskas - a.k.a. Igor Silin - is a theater director, actor, writer, publisher, psychologist, artist, singer and - however cryptic this may sound to non-initiates - a &quot;game master.&quot;
 &quot;When life turns into a game, and you turn into a player, you live life, or, rather, it does you,&quot; he offers, intriguingly. &quot;For one plays or is played.&quot;
 Helping to back up this claim, the club's small book shop is well stocked with printed matter on this and similar themes, penned by Kalinauskas and other psychologist-philosophers. All of the books are printed in the club's own publishing house, located above the club proper.
 Everything about INK Club, which is located within a short walking distance of Vasileostrovskaya metro station, seems right from the moment you enter. The welcome is warm, and the crackling fire - all real wood here - is more than a bonus. A poke around the gallery's nooks and crannies reveals a few tables, sofas of different shapes and sizes, colorful lamps and candles. Great effort has obviously been made to create a relaxing, amiable atmosphere. There are other neat touches, such as flowers adorning the piano and the fireplace and apples scattered thoughout the shop. Sipping a strong, steaming coffee - with biscuits gratis - to a soothing background music mix of ethnic and Radio Hermitage is very much in keeping with the place's style.
 Currently on display - although only through Saturday - is a pure artistic delight, &quot;Angels, Roads and Girlfriends' Smiles,&quot; an exhibition of miniature paintings by Lithuanian artist Sigute Ach. Put simply, it is art from the heart, for the heart.
 &quot;If we are here, in this reality, then let's do something beautiful, to warm people's hearts and encourage them to be more creative,&quot; says Ach. &quot;Let's plant a tree of faith and love, and help one more dream come true.&quot;
 Ach was born in Lithuania and graduated from Vilnius Pedagogical University, where she studied chemistry (although her lecture notes often became a collection of fancy drawings and sketches). However, her destiny was always to be an artist, and she has been painting miniatures and exhibiting her work both at home and abroad since 1991. 
 The current exhibition features some 40 works. Carefully arranged on the walls and around the windows, Ach's delicate paintings possess a unique, dream-like quality and a charming, fairy-tale presence.
 &quot;I'm a happy gardener in my own apple garden. That simple,&quot; writes Ach in her notes to the exhibition. Therefore, her focus is on creating a light-filled world, inhabited by a &quot;Lion Poet,&quot; a &quot;Contemplative Dragon Fly,&quot; a &quot;Cautious Mouse,&quot; &quot;Day-Dreaming Snails.&quot; It is an oasis of purity and childish naivete with a &quot;Snail Having Tea Against the Backdrop of Her Dream,&quot; &quot;White Elephants Embarking on a Voyage Across the Endless Green Sea&quot; and &quot;Angels Rock a Bird to Sleep.&quot; It is a world where all kittens are tender, bears are good-natured, dreams and mysteries blossom and even elephants have wings.
 On a more street-wise note, all the works are on sale, with a &quot;Romantic Cat&quot; going for $50 and the &quot;Cautious Mouse&quot; at $15.
 Ach will be followed by another example of INK Club's adventurous direction, opening on Tuesday. The exhibition of one picture, titled &quot;Initiation&quot; and painted by Kalinauskas himself, deals with rather strange subject matter - a group of semi-dressed Cypriot vestal virgins from a Hellenic monastery. Anyone present at the opening will likely witness the destructive act of the painting being cut into pieces and trashed by the artist himself. 
 
 <i>
Ink Club, 8-aya Liniya. See Exhibits for details. Links: www.mastergame.ru </i>

TITLE: the love and madness of war
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Renowned director Andrei Konchalovsky's new film, &quot;Dom Durakov,&quot; (&quot;House of Fools&quot;), premiered in St. Petersburg this week, and its director was in town for the launch.
 
The film, which won the jury's Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival in September, tells the story of the first war in Chechnya, which lasted from 1994 to 1996, through the eyes of the mentally ill patients of a hospital on the Chechen-Russian border. Konchalovsky both wrote the script and directed the film.
 The director of Hollywood hits &quot;Runaway Train&quot; and &quot;Tango and Cash,&quot; Konchalovsky calls his new work an attempt to tell both sides of the story of the Chechen conflict. It is loosely based on real events - the idea first came to the director back in 1995, when he happened to see a television report about a mental hospital on the Chechen border. The clinic's staff escaped from the threatened area, leaving the patients unattended.
 &quot;I was amazed to see that these [mentally disabled] people were able to organize themselves,&quot; Konchalovsky said after the film's St. Petersburg premiere on Wednesday. The film took a good five years to take shape.
 The director points out that, while many Russians and Chechens still see each other as enemies, his film is sending the audiences a simple - yet often unaccepted - message: There is no such thing as an enemy nation.
 &quot;I grew up seeing posters like &quot;Daddy, kill a German!&quot; all over,&quot; recalls the 65-year-old Konchalovsky. &quot;But not every German was an enemy back then; and not every Chechen is a warlord. Not every Arab is a terrorist either.&quot;
 In that sense, &quot;Dom Durakov&quot; sends a warning to the whole world. &quot;The 21st century will be full of religious and tribal wars, unless we start to find a way to tolerate our differences,&quot; the director told reporters after the premiere in Venice.
 The film shows Chechen rebels and Russian soldiers occupying the asylum in relays. The war - with bombs exploding and helicopters crashing - goes on literally around the patients. The conflict recently came back to prominence after the recent deaths of over 100 Russians in two downed helicopters in Chechnya. 
 The film's lead character, the young, mentally-ill Zhanna (Yulia Vysotskaya) is mercy personified. Vysotskaya's delicate take on the subtle, fragile and vulnerable Zhanna is touching. She is always eager to bring peace and reconciliation into immense conflicts around her. In the film, Zhanna falls in love with a Chechen rebel, who proposes to her as a joke - which she takes seriously. &quot;Everyone is loved by someone: love is what gives us the strength to live on and survive,&quot; is the phrase that she utters to her fiance and reveals her philosophy in life. 
 The wedding with the rebel never takes place, as the bride's heart is captured by pop icon Bryan Adams, who makes cameo appearances throughout the movie as Zhanna dreams and fantasizes about him. Zhanna's fantasies, which often come amid conflict and in which the conflict is quickly and peacefully resolved, make a sharp contrast to the story told in the film.
 Adams agreed to participate with the proviso that his girlfriend, the model Cecile Thompson, got an appearance in the movie. &quot;They phoned me up about this just days before the shooting,&quot; Konchalovsky smiled. &quot;This is how the role of Lithuanian sniper emerged.&quot; 
 To plunge herself into the story, Vysotskaya spent two months virtually living in a mental hospital in Moscow. &quot;My camera operator and I would arrive to the hospital at 6 in the morning, spend all day there, and return home at 5 in the evening,&quot; the actress recalls. 
 Vysotskaya wore a bathrobe, ate hospital food, talked to the patients, pretending she was one of them. All the conversations were filmed.
 &quot;I was very touched by the plot from the beginning,&quot; she said. &quot;The most difficult thing for me was to just open my mouth and start talking.&quot;
 Over the preparation period and the filming itself, the group became so involved with the patients - and vice versa - that departure became extremely painful. &quot;We had to just disappear without saying good-bye,&quot; Konchalovsky said. &quot;It was the best solution: a proper good-bye would be unbearable.&quot;
 The film was shot in a Moscow mental hospital and in the Southern Russian town of Gelendzhik. Some of the hospital's patients play themselves in the film.
 &quot;Initially, I wasn't planning to use the patients but, having watched videotapes filmed during the preparatory period, I realized that, without these people, it would be a different movie,&quot; the director added.
 Konchalovsky is apparently using mental patients in the biblical sense of the word blessed. Words of wisdom and reconciliation come from these people in the film. However, one of the clinic's inhabitants, Viktoria (Marina Politseimako) is an obvious parody of politician Valeria Novodvorskaya. Viktoria's physical constitution, her manners and rhetoric all conjure up the image of the Democratic Union leader.
 The director showed his script to both Chechens and an FSB official, and accepted their critical notes. 
 Audiences have criticized the film - some were angered by one of the film's final scenes. Zhanna's fiancee, who has escaped from Russian soldiers, is hiding among the patients, who refuse to betray him to the Russians. The Chechens in the film are far too humane and compassionate, while the Russians are too reckless, carefree and abrupt, the critics charge.
 But Konchalovsky's film, although based on real events, is not a documentary, and the patients' illogical decision not to betray one of guerrillas who occupied their home is quite a vivid illustration of absurdity of war.
 &quot;Everyone can read whatever they want into the symbolism of the film,&quot; said the director. &quot;I never argue with people when they speak about their, sometimes controversial, associations with my films.&quot;
 &quot;Everyone judges from their own experience,&quot; he said.
 
 <i>
&quot;Dom Durakov&quot; is currently showing at the Avrora cinema. </i>

TITLE: living legend on his way to piter
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Damo Suzuki is the closest thing to a living legend the experimental-music world has to offer.
 
The Japan-born Suzuki's fame dates back three decades, to the early 1970s, when he was lead vocalist for the influential Krautrock band Can. Performing Germany's version of progressive rock, Can's influence can be heard in most of Europe and the United States' leading alternative acts of the last few decades, including Sonic Youth and Public Image Limited, the post-punk band fronted by John Lydon (formerly the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten).
 The members of Can - in search of a new singer after Malcom Mooney quit the band because of emotional problems - literally stumbled upon Suzuki on the street. It was Munich in 1970 and he was biding his time as a street poet and musician. Can liked what they saw and heard and asked the 20-year-old immigrant to join the band, a member of which he remained until 1974.
 Although Suzuki may not be as famous as the musicians for whom he blazed a trail, he is widely revered and respected by fans and peers alike. Mark E. Smith, of the legendary post-punk band The Fall, even wrote a song - &quot;I Am Damo Suzuki&quot; - as a tribute to the singer in 1985.
 Suzuki quit Can in its heyday in 1974 to join the Jehovah's Witnesses, disappearing from the music scene for a full decade, but his absence only added to his fame. In the mid-1980s, Suzuki quit the religious denomination and resumed his musical career. He has since referred to the decade of his absence as a time when he &quot;almost died,&quot; also saying that he was lucky to live, and to find music again. 
 Although Can's music ran the gamut from hard rock riffs to non-linear improvisation, Suzuki took the experimentation even further when he went solo. In concert today, he performs what he calls &quot;Instant Composing,&quot; music that is born on stage, as it is played, without the benefit of rehearsal or pre-composed parts.
 Additionally, Suzuki never keeps a regular backup band. Damo Suzuki's Network, which plays in St. Petersburg this weekend, is an ever-changing collection of musicians to whom, in accordance with his unique philosophy of music, Suzuki refers as &quot;sound carriers.&quot;
 When musicians have played a piece before, &quot;there's security ... which I don't like to have. I like adventure. You don't know what will come,&quot; wrote Suzuki in an email interview this week, adding that, for the same reason, he regularly journeys to the Sahara, traveling by foot without a compass and with little water or food.
 &quot;Sound carriers are making sound AT THE MOMENT and never think about theory or systems of music. ... We have freedom when we create sound,&quot; he wrote. &quot;I'm an anarchist ... Every sound carrier is free when they play with me.&quot;
 The unique nature of Suzuki's music, which he also characterizes as &quot;a kind of stone-age music,&quot; has helped to earn him a devoted following all over the world , which is helpful, since he uses his shows to recruit musicians for the Network.
 &quot;If I tour in the United States, I have sound carriers from Los Angeles or a band from Boston,&quot; he wrote. &quot;One day, I'll even go to West Africa and play with domestic sound carriers. ... Network is a project in which sound carriers who like to create music in the moment come together and become friends with the sound we make together.&quot;
 Not surprisingly, Suzuki is opposed to studio work, releasing only live recordings, many of them multi-disc albums. The largest of these was 1998's enormous seven-disc set, &quot;P.R.O.M.I.S.E,&quot; which contains 35 songs and nearly eight hours of music.
 At his show on Sunday, Suzuki will play with a Network that includes American Jonathan LaMaster on bass, Ukraine-born Boris Polonski on synthesizer and Germans Alex Schonert on guitar and Jens Kuchenthal on drums.
 &quot;Of course, we don't rehearse before a show,&quot; Suzuki wrote. &quot;If the audience goes home after our show with smiles on their faces, Network has done a good job. You never know what will happen - we sure don't know either. That's what makes us interesting.&quot;
 Suzuki's current, two-date Russian tour was organized with the help of St. Petersburg rock band Auktsyon, whom Suzuki himself contacted, at the suggestion of a Moscow fan, with a request for help to set up shows here.
 However, the trip is not Suzuki's first to Russia. In 1968, when he was just 18 years old, he left his native Japan for Europe, traveling across the Soviet Union to get there.
 &quot;I came from Japan by ship, then took the trans-Siberian railway,&quot; he wrote. &quot;It was the middle of winter, and for me it was crazy cold. You know, I was just 18 years old. ... Everything was very strange for me. Many things were very new to my teenage eyes.&quot;
 Although Suzuki arrives to play Moscow on Friday with a multi-national Network, he plans to use the weekend to make contacts with local musicians, including the members of Auktsyon, in the hope of arranging future live shows here, possibly as early as next year.
 &quot;When I come to Russia next, I'd like to perform with Russian sound carriers,&quot; he wrote. &quot;My favorite composer is [Sergei] Prokofiev. So, it's very natural to have the idea to play with Russian sound carriers. I'd like to do a trans-Siberian tour.&quot;
 
 <i>
Damo Suzuki's Network performs at Red Club at midnight on Sunday. Links: www.damosuzuki.de </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: One of this week's highlights is <strong>Griboyedov's Sixth Anniversary Concert and Party</strong> on Friday.
 
Griboyedov has announced the lineup of artists who will perform on the night - it includes Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov, Solnechny Udar's Andrei Nuzhdin, Dva Samaliota's Vadim Pokrovsky and Alexei Lazovsky, NOM's Ivan Turist, Petlya Nesterova's Eduard Nesterenko, Caribace's Filipp Nikanorov and La Minor's Slava Shalygin. 
 The live acts will be followed by DJs Redisco, Denis Korablyov and the Do Re Mix Sound System. A documentary and fireworks are also promised.
 According to the club's spokesperson, the event is mainly for those who have invitations; tickets will be also available, but only a few and highly priced - to keep the crowd small.
 Over its history, the club has introduced many new ideas to local clubbing. The latest is &quot;library days,&quot; held at the club on Tuesdays, when visitors are allowed in for free if they bring a book to give the club. According to the rules, the book should be no less 150 pages long, and include at least one picture.
 The club's brand new Web site is at www.griboedovclub.ru. 
 Meanwhile, <strong>Dva Samaliota, </strong>the ska band that defines Griboyedov's artistic policy, appears to have been rejuvenated. With Vadim Pokrovsky, the band's original vocalist and guitarist, who left Dva Samaliota due to drug problems, having quit substances and rejoined, the band is showing a new burst of talent and productivity.
 Over the past six months, the band has recorded two albums. One, strictly limited edition, &quot;Poo!,&quot; is intended &quot;for friends,&quot; and includes a few great songs, such as &quot;Goran Bregovich - kAzel,&quot; while the other is being polished in a Moscow studio and will be released before long.
 Though the band's trademark for many years used to be its imitative &quot;African&quot; language, Dva Samaliota now sings in Russian, mainly using lyrics by its bassist and co-founder. Anton Belyankin.
 More experimental acts will follow the concert by <strong>Damo Suzuki's Network</strong> this Sunday at Red Culb, starting with New York's <strong>Paul Dresher Ensemble, </strong>which will play at the Beloselskikh-Belozerskikh Palace on Nov. 1.
 Paul Dresher is a composer noted for his ability to integrate diverse musical influences into his own coherent and unique style.
 He pursues many forms of musical expression, including experimental opera and music theater, chamber and orchestral composition, live instrumental electro-acoustic chamber-music performances, musical-instrument invention and scores for theater, dance, and film.
 His performance will be part of a two-day &quot;American&quot; festival, which will also include a contemporary opera. 
 
 <i>- by Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: just a little bit of history repeating
AUTHOR: by Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Palkin, the up-market &quot;new&quot; restaurant in the Premier Casino on Nevsky Prospect, is not really new at all. An establishment of the same name was founded in St. Petersburg in 1785 by Anisim Palkin, a merchant from Yaroslavl, and cemented a reputation as one of the city's top eateries. Such cultural luminaries as the composer Tchaikovsky, and the writers Blok, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin, all ate there.
 
The restaurant closed in 1917, but was reopened again 2 1/2 months ago by the casino, on premises that used to be taken up by several communal flats. (The maitre d' told us that, to open the restaurant, the casino had to relocate about 60 people, and completely renovate the interior of the building.)
 Nevertheless, it was with a slight feeling of apprehension that I went to Palkin earlier this week. As a native of France, I have visited other posh, so-called French restaurants that have left me cold, and I was fairly certain that Palkin was unlikely to be either tasty or refined.
 Let me make amends straight away for my hasty judgment. Lovers of fine food and courteous service should not be intimidated by the casino's bright lights and burly security. Palkin is definitely worth a visit; the food is original and well-prepared, and the attentive service will make you feel like a real VIP, even if, like us, you are on a tight budget (not to mention, clearly underdressed).
 We were welcomed by a smiling host, who escorted us to the cloakroom and then the restaurant, where she passed us on to the even-more-smiling maitre d'. We passed through a spacious, yet cozy, bar, followed by a beautifully designed lounge, where black-and-white films were playing on a flat-screen television lodged in a huge classical frame.
 The restaurant proper consists of two dimly lit rooms that seat about 50 diners in total. The classical decor, if a little overdone, is surprisingly subtle and relaxing, and the view onto Nevsky Prospect is partially concealed by heavy drapes. While we were there, an excellent pianist and double-bass player provided a tasteful jazz accompaniment.
 Having overcome the shock induced by passing a bit too rapidly from the trolleybus to Palkin's sparkling luxury, we sank into our seats and enjoyed the keen attentions of our servers (who, by the way, were young, well groomed, and not at all unpleasant to the eye).
 Palkin's menu is not extensive, but every dish seems to be the result of careful culinary research. We had trouble choosing, as everything sounded delicious, (with the possible exceptions of the vol-au-vent of beef brains with wild mushrooms and pate (300 rubles, $9.50).
 The menu offers three fish dishes, all for under 700 rubles ($22.15), and five meat dishes, for between 450 and 1,500 rubles ($14.24 and $47.45). (Surprisingly, the most expensive dish features pigeon - France's least loved feathered creature. The reason for this is that the bird is served with black truffles and foie gras.) There is also a range of soups, hot starters and desserts.
 I only managed a brief glance at the wine list, as the restaurant boasts a sommelier (!) to help pick a suitable wine. We were grateful for his tactful recommendation of the cheapest wine on the list (150 rubles, $4.75 per glass). While not the finest wine ever, it was perfectly satisfactory.
 After ordering, our servers brought appetizers &quot;from the chef,&quot; which consisted of two slices of salmon rolled into a thin pancake.
 We couldn't resist ordering the same starter, a mix of green and red salad leaves, French beans, marinated artichoke hearts, peas and fennel (300 rubles). We found the mix of fresh vegetables to be interesting and aesthetically pleasing, and the classic Italian sauce turned out to be a finger-licking whole-grain-mustard dressing.
 We were then presented with an apple sorbet as a &quot;refresher.&quot; This was simply amazing, and made me sad that I have never found it in any shop here.
 For the main course, my companion ordered the trout with Chablis sauce, potatoes and ceps (600 rubles, $19). The fish came sliced in two, and on a bed of tiny potatoes. After one bite of the fish, my companion fell back in her chair with a sigh, solemnly declaring it to be &quot;divine.&quot; The potatoes and finely chopped ceps met with the same description.
 While my companion raved, I tested my lamb on the bone with vegetables, chicken <i>galantine </i>and thyme and red wine sauce (550 rubles, $17.40), which proved to be one of the most original and tasty dishes I have ever tried. The galantine - a meat or fish stock thickened with gelatin and used as a mold for the meat - covered each chop with a transparent red skin, and hid a slice of zucchini, peeled tomato and eggplant on the meat of every chop. The dish was as artful as it was delicious and the meat was cooked to perfection - usually a telling indication of a restaurant's quality.
 After this, we shared a &quot;Carousel of Dessert,&quot; a bite of each dessert on the menu (300 rubles). It merely confirmed our opinion that, for lovers of good food who want to splash out on a fine meal, Palkin is the word on the street.
 
 <i>
Palkin, 47 Nevsky Pr. Tel.: 103-5371. Open 24 hours. Menu in Russian and English. Credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, with alcohol: 2,510 rubles ($79.50). </i>

TITLE: Philippines Bombing Kills Two
AUTHOR: By Pat Roque
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - Two bombs exploded at around midday local time Thursday in downtown Zamboanga in the violence-wracked southern Philippines, killing six people and injuring at least 144 others, officials said.
 
Police also blew up five suspicious packages, and checked whether they contained bombs that failed to detonate.
 There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks, but a military spokesperson said that the initial suspect in the bombings was the Muslim guerrilla group Abu Sayyaf. The group has previously threatened attacks in retaliation for an ongoing military offensive against it.
 Lieutenant Colonel Danilo Servando also said that there were similarities between Thursday's bombings and an Oct. 2 explosion in Zamboanga which killed four people, including an American Green Beret. Officials blamed the earlier blast on Abu Sayyaf.
 TNT was apparently used in both attacks.
 Servando said that suspicion fell on an Abu Sayyaf faction headed by Khaddafy Janjalani, one of five group leaders indicted by Washington for a mass kidnapping last year that left 18 hostages dead, including a Kansas couple.
 &quot;There is no solid basis to pin the blame on Janjalani's group but it's one of the groups that has been sowing terror in the south,&quot; Servando said.
 Ten people, including two foreigners, were brought in for questioning after Thursday's explosions, police said.
 President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo immediately condemned the latest terrorist strike to hit her impoverished country.
 National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said that officials considered the Zamboanga attack &quot;a local concern&quot; that did not require a state of emergency.
 &quot;The public has nothing to worry about,&quot; Golez said.
 The first blast occurred at 11:30 a.m. local time at the five-story Shop-o-Rama department store, and was followed a half-hour later by a second blast at an adjacent store. Police Chief Mario Yanga said that the bombs were left at counters where shoppers leave packages as they enter.
 Mayor Maria Clara Lobregat said that the Zamboanga City Medical Center received three dead victims and 50 wounded, many of them seriously.
 The usual noontime bustle of Zamboanga's downtown area became a gory scene of scattered debris and chaos.
 &quot;The ground shook and pandemonium broke out. People bathed in blood were all screaming and running away from the smoke,&quot; said Ofelia Fernandez, who was across the street from the Shop-o-Rama.
 Television footage showed victims being hauled out of the bombed buildings' lobbies on stretchers. A bloodied man, with most of his shirt and pants ripped away by a blast, staggered out with the help of a police officers.
 Zamboanga, a mostly Roman Catholic city of about 600,000, is in the heart of the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines.
 Philippine officials have linked the Abu Sayyaf to al-Qaida, citing alleged attempts by Osama bin Laden's lieutenants to provide the guerrillas with training on explosives and weapons handling in past years.

TITLE: U.S. Warns North Korea Over Nuclear Capability
AUTHOR: By George Gedda
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The United States and South Korea, stung by North Korea's admission that it has a secret nuclear weapons program, are calling on Pyongyang to reverse course and abide by promises to renounce development of these armaments.
 
U.S. President George W. Bush characterized the announcement as &quot;troubling, sobering news,&quot; a spokesperson said Thursday.
 The startling disclosure, revealed Wednesday night by the White House, changed the political landscape in East Asia, setting back hopes that North Korea was on the road to becoming a more benign presence in the region.
 Talking to reporters on Thursday, spokesperson Scott McClellan said Thursday that the president planned to bring up the issue in talks here next week with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
 But McClellan drew a clear distinction between Pyongyang and Iraq. &quot;Clearly, North Korea is oppressive, has starved people, but these are different regions, different circumstances,&quot; he said.
 McClellan said that Bush decided to address the issue through diplomatic channels. &quot;We seek a peaceful solution,&quot; he said.
 Privately, White House officials said that Bush and his senior advisers decided to confront the problem in a low-key fashion. Bush, for example, planned no public statements on it Thursday.
 The disclosure adds to the administration's list of foreign-policy headaches, coming on top of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
 A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that North Korea acknowledged having &quot;more powerful&quot; weapons. U.S. officials have interpreted that statement as an acknowledgment that North Korea has other weapons of mass destruction. However, the same officials say that they are unsure whether North Korea actually does possess biological or chemical weapons.
 On Aug. 29, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said: &quot;In regard to chemical weapons, there is little doubt that North Korea has an active program.&quot;
 Any administration inclination to try to confront North Korea, which Bush has labeled as being part of an &quot;axis of evil&quot; with Iraq and Iran, could be tempered by a desire not to become overextended internationally.
 Presidential spokesperson Sean McCormack said that North Korea was guilty of a serious infringement of a 1994 agreement with the United States under which Pyongyang promised to be nuclear-free in return for economic assistance.
 &quot;The United States and our allies call on North Korea to comply with its commitments under the nonproliferation treaty and to eliminate its nuclear-weapons program in a verifiable manner,&quot; McCormack said.
 U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that North Korea told diplomats that it was no longer bound by the anti-nuclear agreement.
 In Seoul, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik, said that South Korea has consistently pursued the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula in line with international agreements. Japan and South Korea are treaty allies of the United States.
 State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said late Wednesday that the United States had been ready to offer North Korea economic and other benefits if Pyongyang agreed to curb missile programs, end threats and change its behavior in other ways.
 &quot;In light of our concerns about the North's nuclear-weapons program, however, we are unable to pursue this approach,&quot; Boucher said.
 For a time, North Korea had seemed ready to shed Bush's &quot;axis of evil&quot; designation. Pyongyang was carrying out capitalist reforms and reaching out to both Japan and South Korea. It also resumed talks with the United States earlier this month.

TITLE: Indian Withdrawal Matched by Pakistan
AUTHOR: By Paul Haven
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan will withdraw hundreds of thousands of troops deployed along its border with India to their &quot;peacetime locations,&quot; the government announced Thursday, matching a similar pledge by India.
 
The moves were the most concrete steps by the two South Asian nuclear rivals to reduce tension since they nearly went to war in May, and were sure to be welcomed by Washington, which counts both countries as allies.
 &quot;The government of Pakistan has decided to withdraw its forces from the Pakistan-India border to their peacetime locations,&quot; the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement. &quot;The pullback will commence shortly.&quot;
 The ministry said that the decision was made after a top-level meeting chaired by President Pervez Musharraf.
 A senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Pakistan would withdraw 90 percent of its troops, including naval and air forces. He said that the pullback would occur in phases, depending on the progress of India's phased withdrawal.
 He said that the army had sent 400,000 to 500,000 troops to the border, &quot;but now we will be withdrawing them.&quot;
 However, a spokesperson for India's Foreign Ministry, Navtej Sarna, said Thursday that Pakistan's decision to match its withdrawal was still not enough to lead to talks.
 &quot;What is needed to start a dialogue with Pakistan is a complete and visible end to cross-border terrorism, and we have seen no change in this,&quot; Sarna said. India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring attacks by Islamic militant groups, a charge Pakistan denies.
 India and Pakistan have a long history of tension along their 1,200 mile-border, especially in the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir. More than 1 million troops are currently deployed on both sides.
 Earlier this month, Pakistan and India conducted tit-for-tat tests of medium-range nuclear-capable missiles, renewing fears of an arms race and highlighting the size of the stakes involved in their dispute.
 India said Wednesday that it would withdraw tens of thousands of its troops from the border with Pakistan, but none from the Line of Control, which separates the disputed region of Kashmir.
 A senior Pakistani defense analyst said that both sides were looking to ease tension, in part because of the difficulty of keeping their armies on high alert for such a long time.
 &quot;I think the Indians were looking for an opportunity to withdraw troops because they have been there for the last 10 months,&quot; said retired General Talat Masood. &quot;It is a good and positive development.&quot;
 No details were immediately available on when the pullback would start. It was also unclear if Pakistan would remove any of its troops from the tense Line of Control, where the two armies frequently shell each other.
 The rival South Asian countries have fought two wars for control of the lush, mountainous province. At least 61,000 people have died in the last 12 years of an insurgency by more than a dozen Islamic groups fighting for Kashmir's secession from India or its merger with Pakistan.
 Tension between India and Pakistan has been very high since a Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic groups and Islamabad's spy agency.

TITLE: Five Killed in Israeli Attacks in Gaza
AUTHOR: By Ibrahim Barzak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Israeli tanks fired artillery shells and machine guns after coming under attack by anti-tank missiles, killing five Palestinians and wounding more than 40 in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israel army and Palestinian witnesses said.
 
The dead Palestinians included two men, two women and a girl, said Dr. Ali Musa, head of Rafah Hospital. Many of the Palestinians were hit by tank fire while inside their homes, Palestinians said.
 The clash erupted as Israeli troops were working on a new lookout tower at a military base in the Gaza town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
 Palestinian militants fired anti-tank missiles at the Israeli forces, who then returned fire, said Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Rafowicz, an Israeli military spokesperson. &quot;Terrorists in the Rafah area operate amid the civilians,&quot; he said.
 Palestinians said that youths threw stones and bottles at the troops, and that mourners at a nearby Palestinian funeral fired shots into the air. But the Palestinians claimed that no guns or missiles were fired at the troops.
 The area is a frequent clash point, and Thursday's funeral was for a man killed in the same area a day earlier. Israeli troops have bulldozed the homes closest to the base, leaving several hundred meters of no-man's land between the two sides.
 At the Rafah Hospital, the emergency room was overflowing.
 &quot;I was cooking for my children, when suddenly there was the sound of a tank shelling and there were explosions all around,&quot; said Naifa Abu Jazzer, a 40-year-old woman whose face and body was covered with blood.
 &quot;One tank shell hit the house. When I started leaving the house, another tank shell hit it and I was injured,&quot; she said.
 Nearby, five children were being treated for wounds.
 Rafah is a stronghold for militants and Palestinians also smuggle weapons into Rafah from tunnels that go under the border into Egypt, the Israeli military says.
 Israeli troops often come under fire in Rafah, the army says.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Molina To Return
 </b>

LA CORUNA, Spain (Reuters) - Deportivo la Coruna goalkeeper Jose Molina, who was recently diagnosed as suffering from testicular cancer, has an excellent chance of playing football again, club doctor Cesar Cobian said on Wednesday.
 "The prognosis is that he will make a full recovery," Cobian told reporters at a news conference in La Coruna. "If that turns out to be the case, he should be able to begin sporting activity after about four months.
 "We are all very pleased, because it will mean he will be able to play football again."
 Cobian said that doctors had decided that Molina would be subjected to a course of chemotherapy over the next four months. They would then review his progress to see if further treatment was necessary.
 
 
<b>Tiger Talks
 </b>

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida (AP) - Without taking sides or offering to be the mediator, Tiger Woods said the best way to resolve the membership debate at Augusta National is to hash it out in private.
 "There's no substitute for looking someone in the eye," he said Wednesday.
 The chances of that happening are remote.
 Martha Burk, head of the National Council of Women's Organizations, sent the club a letter in June asking it to add a female member so its all-male membership does not become an issue at the 2003 Masters.
 Augusta chairperson Hootie Johnson replied in a terse, three-sentence letter that club issues are private and there would be no further discussion. He then sent a three-page statement to the media, saying Augusta would not be bullied into having a female member.
 Woods said he would like to see a female member at Augusta, but that private clubs have a right to set their own policies.
 "Hootie is right, and Martha is right. That's the problem," Woods said after a practice round for the Disney World Golf Classic. "They're both right, but they're going about it the wrong way. If they both sat down and talked about it, it would be resolved a lot better than what's going on right now."
 
 
<b>Courting Piniella
 </b>

NEW YORK (AP) - After releasing manager Lou Piniella from the final year of his contract because he wants to work closer to home, the Seattle Mariners, on Tuesday, fielded calls from other teams interested in talking with their ex-manager.
 If he really wants a short commute from his Florida home, the Tampa Bay job is open. However, it's unlikely the budget-conscious Devil Rays would be able to pay him enough or be able to adequately compensate the Mariners for letting him manage elsewhere. The New York Mets, however, are another story.
 The Mariners said Wednesday that they had failed to reach a deal with any of the suitors for the manager.
 "No agreements were reached," Mariners spokesperson Tim Hevly said.
 Seattle President Chuck Armstrong spoke Wednesday with Mets owner Fred Wilpon and Tampa Bay Managing General Partner Vince Naimoli, but made no deals involving compensation for Piniella.
 Piniella won't come cheap. He was due to make $2.5 million with the Mariners next season and would likely want at least three years at $3 million. That's well beyond the Tampa Bay budget.
 The Mariners said they'd listen to the Mets and Devil Rays and the conversation could be compelling. In its statement releasing Piniella from his last year, Seattle included an important provision.
 "The Mariners will seek to negotiate reasonable compensation from such clubs in exchange for releasing Lou from his employment contract," the team said.
 That means players and/or cash.
 
 
<b>Set for America
 </b>

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) - Yao Ming is closer to joining the Houston Rockets after receiving his visa from the Chinese government and signing allegiance to China's basketball association.
 Now that the document from the China Basketball Association has been signed, Yao just needs to obtain final clearance from FIBA - the international governing body of the sport - to travel to the Rockets' camp, his agent told Houston's KRIV-TV on Wednesday.
 "This is one of the things the CBA needed to issue its clearance to FIBA stating Yao is no longer under contractual obligation to any Chinese team, and is free to sign with the NBA," agent Erik Zhang said.
 Signing allegiance to the CBA allows China to bring back its 7-foot-5 (230-centimeter) star for international tournaments.
 Zhang said Yao has a visa given to Chinese citizens with special talents.
 Yao, the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, had 23 points and 22 rebounds in the Asian Games championship game, but South Korea won the gold medal by defeating China 102-100 in overtime.
 
 
<b>McDyess Out
 </b>

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Knicks power forward Antonio McDyess will miss the entire NBA season after undergoing surgery to repair a broken left kneecap, the team announced on Wednesday.
 During the two-hour procedure, McDyess's knee was put in a cast, which he will wear for four to six weeks before beginning rehabilitation.
 "Although we expect the full rehabilitation process to keep him out the entire season, this is not a career-threatening injury," Knicks team physician Dr. Norman Scott said.
 "He will be able to walk on crutches and put full weight on it later this week."
 McDyess suffered the injury late in Saturday's preseason loss to the Phoenix Suns, one year to the day after he underwent reconstructive surgery on the joint.
 
 
<b>Without Williams'
 </b>

ZURICH, Switzerland (Reuters) - Belgian Justine Henin admitted on Wednesday that the Williams sisters have left the rest of the WTA Tour doubting their own ability.
 The 20-year-old world No. 8 cruised past Israel's Anna Smashnova as she progressed into the quarter-finals of the Swisscom Challenge in Zurich, and later admitted: "If the Williams sisters are not playing a tournament, everyone smells a chance to win it. If they are playing it is different."
 "It is hard to play against any player if Serena and Venus are not in the tournament because every player believes they have a chance," she said.
 Henin, who lost to Swiss hope Myriam Casanova in her opening match at Filderstadt last week, was given a bye into the second round of the Zurich tournament.
 She showed no sign of rustiness, however, demolishing her more experienced opponent 6-3 6-1.