SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #818 (83), Tuesday, November 5, 2002
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TITLE: Media To Get Stricter Guides
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Press Ministry on Monday joined the fuss over media coverage in the aftermath of the hostage crisis and issued its version of proposed guidelines for journalists covering emergency situations.
 
The list of 16 "recommendations," which was posted on the ministry's Web site, covers issues from the conditions under which terrorists can be interviewed to the necessity of being "tactful" in dealing with terrorists' victims and their relatives. It is described as a draft for discussion by the Media Industrial Committee - a group formed by media bosses earlier this year as a lobby group for the media industry, which the ministry wants to assume responsibility for self-regulation.
 Issued just days after the State Duma approved controversial amendments to the media law that make it illegal to air terrorists' statements or disclose the tactics used in anti-terrorist operations, the Press Ministry's draft re-emphasizes the need to abide strictly by the law on mass media and the law on fighting terrorism.
 Some sections copy guidelines that have been developed in the West, either by media companies, such as the BBC, or by research groups or journalists' organizations, including the Union of Journalists of Russia. Others - such as a recommendation to be aware that hostages may "turn into an instrument for putting pressure on the state and on public opinion" - appear to have been inspired specifically by the hostage crisis.
 During the crisis, Russian media aired the statements of hostages pleading for the theater not to be stormed and for their relatives to protest on Red Square against the war in Chechnya.
 Media sources said that NTV's "Svoboda Slova" program on Oct. 25, on which hostages' relatives appeared, was one of the programs that irritated the Kremlin. While media critics largely praised NTV's coverage of the crisis, the company was reportedly singled out for government criticism. Sources in NTV, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that general director Boris Jordan was summoned for meetings at the Press Ministry and the presidential administration last week.
 NTV denied it was under any pressure from the government. "We received no formal, concrete complaints," NTV spokesperson Oleg Sapozhnkov said Monday. "We don't want to discuss rumors."
 In light of Duma and government efforts to restrict news coverage, the Moscow media community was alarmed by a raid on the sensationalist Versia weekly by Federal Security Service investigators Friday night, just hours before an issue that raised unpleasant questions about the theater's storming was to be sent to the printers.
 Versia editor Rustam Arifdzhanov said Monday that he was not convinced there was a connection between the raid, which was officially connected to an article the newspaper published in May, and the crisis. Arifdzhanov said the issue came out unchanged Monday because he was able to delay the confiscation of the newspaper's server by two hours and copy the files onto discs.
 When asked about the new recommendations, Arifdzhanov said they were confusing. "Everything is mixed up - a 'memo to a young reporter,' demagoguery, quite reasonable statements and absolutely naive things," he said. "What does it mean to 'avoid reporting details of the work of specialists involved in saving lives'? During the anti-terrorist operation - maybe, but afterward - I am sorry! Does this mean we should not discuss and raise questions about the secret services' actions? The special forces exist not for the sake of the special forces, but for the sake of society, and it is our duty to discuss their performance."
 Arifdzhanov stressed that the government should make a distinction between events such as a hostage crisis and the war in Chechnya, which is also officially described as an anti-terrorist operation. "If these recommendations apply to the war in Chechnya, they are absolutely unacceptable," he said.
 All media officials interviewed Monday said that, although the Press Ministry's recommendations contained some reasonable and generally accepted standards, it is up to journalists themselves to determine their crisis policies, not the government.
 "Developing the norms of journalists' behavior is a prerogative of the journalistic community," said Mikhail Fedotov, a lawyer and secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia. He said the Media Industrial Committee is a business lobby group, not a journalists' union, and thus is an inappropriate place to discuss the Press Ministry's draft.
 The Union of Journalists drafted its own ethical principles for journalists covering terrorist acts and anti-terrorist operations a year ago.
 "For the ministry to interfere in this issue is at least unethical and at most a political mistake," Fedotov said. "Because if journalists follow the quite reasonable ideas that the Press Ministry's recommendations contain, they will be told they are bowing to government pressure. And if journalists bow to government pressure, they will not be trusted."

TITLE: Local Election Fever Gets Going
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With the registration deadline passing on Friday and the media-campaigning period opening this coming Friday, the elections for the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly are ready to get into full swing.
 
The City Electoral Commission announced on Monday that a total of 423 candidates had been registered to run for the 50 seats in the assembly. The elections are scheduled for Dec. 8.
 The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has yet to release an official list of candidates, as it is still waiting for full documentation of the candidates from the district councils, to which the candidates submit all of their materials for review.
 Commission representatives said that the Union of Right Forces (SPS)/Yabloko bloc; Science, Industry, Education; Development of Enterprise; and United Russia parties and "The Will of St. Petersburg" have all put forward slates of their own candidates, while the Communist Party and the Pensioners' Party say that they will provide campaign support to particular candidates. About 30 of those candidates registered are incumbents.
 "Four hundred and ninety nine people notified the district commissions of their intentions to run in the elections, but we have confirmed only 423," said Rita Malova, the president of the CEC's information department and herself a commission member. "The rest either failed to gather all of the necessary documents and signatures or changed their minds."
 Candidates can also be excluded on the basis of a number of campaign regulations. Three candidates have already initially been turned down on these grounds, with two being cleared later on appeal and one appeal process pending. Prospective candidates are given 10 days to file an appeal of this type with a city court.
 The district commissions initially ruled that Pavel Soltan, who represents the city's 13th district in the present assembly, and Vadim Voitanovsky, from the 31st district, used their current position for pre-election campaign purposes. Soltan was accused of using the car he is given to use as a deputy in the assembly in campaigning, while Voitanovksy was charged with trying to buy votes through the distribution of food packages to the elderly.
 Both decisions, however, were overruled in court, following which the candidates were registered by the CEC. Malova said that accusations of this type are fairly common during the registration process.
 "The deputy for the 31st district was found innocent, as the distribution of the food packages was established to be part of a regular social-assistance program that had been organized by the deputy earlier," said Malova. "The candidates keep an eye on each other, and illegal pre-election activities are usually reported by the candidate's opponents."
 A ruling in the third case, involving Vladimir Yeremenko, a current lawmaker who represents the 49th district, has yet to be handed down.
 "He is being accused of having displayed a report of his professional activities in one of his district's schools," Malova said. "The matter is still in court, and he is has not yet been registered by the CEC."
 According to both federal and local officials, the trading of accusations between candidates has likely only just begun. The president of Russia's Central Electoral Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, who was in St. Petersburg last week to follow the pre-election process, has been a consistent critic of the city's preparations for the elections.
 At a press conference on Friday, he was reported by Interfax as saying that St. Petersburg lacked precise legislation regulating the election campaign, and labeled inconsistencies between local and federal electoral legislation a "chronic disease" in the city.
 Veshnyakov was also reported as saying that "special control" could be required in the vote in St. Petersburg, which he described as "the inventor of dirty techniques during the 1998 elections." He did not elaborate on what the control process might entail.
 The requirements and regulations governing the candidates during the campaign are relatively straightforward.
 Candidates must be at least 21 years old, be registered with the CEC, and are limited to spending 300,000 rubles ($9,450) on their campaigns.
 "If a candidate goes over the limit by only a small margin, they receive a warning. If their spending is more than 5 percent over the limit, then they are disqualified," Malova said.

TITLE: Recommendations on Media Coverage of Emergency Situations That Endanger People's Lives (Draft)
TEXT: Taking into account the mass media's desire to be on top of things in order to ensure public access to reliable information, the journalistic community considers it necessary to create a stable system of necessary steps and principles in covering emergency situations where people's lives are in danger. Recent experience has allowed us to develop the following recommendations:
 
 1. In covering emergency situations, media organizations and journalists should strictly abide by existing legislation on mass media and on fighting terrorism.
 2. Always keep in mind that media reports are accessible to everybody, including those who deliberately create dangerous situations. Their reaction to your reports could be unpredictable.
 3. Avoid reporting details of the work of specialists involved in saving lives.
 4. Considering that one of terrorists' main aims is usually to get access to media with the purpose of voicing their position, journalists must:
 
. not interview terrorists upon their [journalists'] own initiative;
 . not give them the opportunity to speak in live broadcasts without consulting in advance with law enforcement agencies;
 . remember that live broadcasts can be used by terrorists to pass coded signals to accomplices in other locations;
 . be prepared to suspend live on-site broadcasts; 
 . not comment on or analyze terrorists' demands at a dilettante level or without professional consultation;
 . keep in mind that the hostages held by terrorists are also hostages of the situation who sometimes turn into an instrument for putting pressure on the state and on public opinion.
 
5. Do not try to gain access to secret information belonging to special services carrying out counter-terrorism operations. Accidentally letting something slip could not only undermine the operation to free hostages but could also lead to the death of many people, including those trying to help.
 6. Keep in mind that saving lives is more important than the public's right to know. Openly state that some information is off-limits because of security concerns.
 7. Remember that your obligation is to inform the public, not to sow panic. Be mindful not only of what is said but how it is said.
 8. In covering the news, do not impede the work of law enforcement, medical and other officials whose job is to save lives.
 9. Try to quickly assess the importance of particular information and how dangerous it could be in the unfolding situation:
 
. remember that the international community rejects ties between terrorism and factors of race, religion and nationality;
 . do not aim to intentionally insult and humiliate terrorists who hold the lives of hostages in their hands;
 . do not use unverified sources of information.
 
10. Be tactful and sensitive toward the feelings of the relatives and loved ones of victims of terrorism.
 11. Avoid excessive sensationalism and graphic imagery in showing cruelty and violence; be respectful of the moral and religious sensibilities of your audience.
 12. Do not allow a montage of documentary materials that could warp or invert the meaning of what is happening.
 13. Do not ask people involved in the dangerous situation to do anything in order to get "good" photo or video pictures.
 14. Do not attempt to become a participant in a dangerous situation. Do not take on the role of intermediary.
 15. If a journalist happens to be among the negotiators, he or she must withhold any publications until after the crisis is resolved.
 16. Inform official bodies in a timely manner of any plans that you learn of for conducting or furthering terrorist attacks, even if they seem unlikely.


TITLE: Zakayev Mulls Asylum Option
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A Chechen rebel envoy jailed in Denmark pending a Russian extradition request may seek political asylum, a spokesperson said Sunday.
 
Akhmed Zakayev, a top aide to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, was arrested early Wednesday and jailed until Nov. 12, pending an investigation into Russia's request for his extradition.
 "We have discussed seeking [political] asylum" with him and his lawyers, said Osman Ferzaouli, a Copenhagen-based Chechen rebel representative. "As it is now, he cannot return to Russia or to Chechnya."
 Russian lawmakers turned up the pressure Saturday on Denmark, demonstrating outside the Danish Embassy and warning the small Scandinavian country that Moscow will not back down from its demand that Zakayev be extradited.
 The Danish justice minister told Russia on Friday that Copenhagen needed more evidence to extradite Zakayev, a familiar face in Western capitals where he pressed for recognition of Chechnya's independence from Russia. A spokesperson for Russia's Prosecutor General's Office said Saturday that more material was being prepared.
 "We won't leave it alone," said Dmitry Rogozin, the chairperson of the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma, according to Interfax. He warned that Russian-Danish relations will suffer "unless Copenhagen satisfies Russia's request for the extradition."
 "If Denmark adheres to its deaf-and-dumb position, we will take tough steps," he was quoted as saying, without specifying what those steps would be.
 Zakayev was considering seeking asylum in Britain or in Denmark. However, "no decision has been taken yet," Ferzaouli stressed on Sunday.
 Zakayev, 43, may choose Britain because he had entered the European Union with a British visa, Ferzaouli said.
 He also has supporters in Britain, including British actor Vanessa Redgrave, who has been in the Danish capital to support him.
 Zakayev has been able to travel around Europe with a British visa. Under the European Union's Schengen pact, non-EU citizens can travel freely within the 15-member bloc once they hold a time-limited visa from a member state. Ferzaouli said Zakayev's one-year visa had been issued in Britain in July 2002.
 "With asylum status, he can travel freely in Europe ... that allows him to be politically and diplomatically active," Ferzaouli said.
 "The conflict between Chechnya and Russia and Zakayev's activities obviously raises fears about what will happen to him" if he's handed over, the Berlingske Tidende newspaper quoted one of Zakayev's lawyers, Tyge Trier, as saying.
 Neither Trier nor Danish immigration authorities could be immediately reached for comment.
 On Friday, Denmark asked Russia for more evidence before considering Moscow's demand for Zakayev's extradition, saying the evidence already provided was "insufficient to meet international conventions for extraditions."
 He was arrested after Danish police said they had received sufficient proof from Russia that "Zakayev is suspected of a series of terror attacks during the period 1996-1999 and is suspected of taking part in the planning of the hostage-taking crisis in Moscow."
 The Danes have not released details about the charges or evidence received, but Russia has long sought Zakayev's arrest for his alleged participation in several attacks - including a 1999 incursion into Dagestan, a region that neighbors Chechnya.
 
 <i>(AP, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Woodbound
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Law-enforcement agents in St. Petersburg rescued a man on Monday who had been tied to a tree in a wooded park area in the Krasnogvardsky Region, Interfax reported.
 The agents initially believed that burglers had, after robbing the man in his apartment, taken him to the forest, tied him to the tree, and fixed an explosive device around his torso.
 An Interior Ministry explosives unit was called to the scene and, in the subsequent investigation, the device was discovered to have been a fake, according to Interfax.
 
 
<b>Pankisi Operation
 </b>

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said Monday the operation to rid the Pankisi Gorge of rebels and criminals should be completed within two to three weeks.
 "What needed to be done there has basically been done. Just a little bit remains," Shevardnadze said Monday. "I think that in two to three weeks, we will be able to announce officially that no criminals or fighters are in Pankisi."
 
 
<b>U.S. Act "Pedantic" 
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The Foreign Ministry on Monday assailed what it called the "pedantic" tone of the United States' newly enacted Russian Democracy Act of 2002 and said its passage suggested that some U.S. lawmakers were not aware of the changes taking place in the world.
 U.S. President George W. Bush signed the act, which authorizes more than $50 million for democracy-building programs, on Oct. 23.
 "In itself, the concern about mutual humanitarian cooperation could be welcome, if it were not for the pedantic tone, bordering on interference in our internal affairs," the ministry said in a statement.
 The ministry complained U.S. lawmakers did not notice that the two countries' presidents had signed bilateral documents that declared Russia and the United States, "two absolutely equal, great democratic states," to be strategic partners.
 
 
<b>May Bomb Detention
 </b>

VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia (AP) - Police detained a man accused of involvement in an explosion in May that ripped through a military parade in Dagestan, killing 43 people, a spokesperson said Monday.
 Murat Abdurazakov was detained Sunday, said Abdul Musayev, the spokesperson for the Dagestan branch of the Interior Ministry. He was detained along with another man, Suleiman Tsimpayev, who is not a suspect in the bombing.
 Police are searching for more accomplices, Musayev said.
 Authorities have blamed the attack on a Chechen warlord, Rappani Khalilov.
 
 
<b>Kharlamov Killed
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Sergei Kharlamov, the former deputy head of the Security Council, who, with General Alexander Lebed reached the 1996 Chechnya peace accord, was gunned down in downtown Moscow, Interfax reported Friday.
 An unknown gunman fired a single 9-millimeter bullet into the back of Kharlamov's head Thursday evening, Interfax said. Kharlamov, 49, died on the spot. The killer dropped a Makarov pistol with silencer near the body and fled.
 Police have opened an investigation. 



TITLE: GHE Put in Private Ownership
AUTHOR: By Anna Scherbakova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The City Property Committee announced Tuesday that it was selling its 40-percent stake in Europe Hotel, the firm which owns the Grand Hotel Europe. The stake was sold to another major shareholder for around $1 million, on the condition that the company's debt, which amounts to around $60 million, be restructured. 
 
The five-star Grand Hotel Europe, located on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa, reopened in 1991 following major renovations. 
 Europe Hotel, which manages the property, was founded in 1989, with 54.4 percent of the company held by the City Property Committee, 30.5 percent by a Swiss company, GHE Holding, and 15 percent by Intourist Holding Company. Following a share issue in 1995, the largest shareholder became GHE Holding, with 48.5 percent, and the city's stake in the company was reduced to 40.4 percent. 
 According to a source within Europe Hotel, who wished to remain anonymous, the shares were recently redistributed and now GHE Holding owns a 30-percent stake, a Cypriot firm, Mir Hotels Ltd, owns 19 percent and Liechtenstein-based North Western Tours holds 11 percent. At a press conference on Tuesday, Lyudmila Kuleshova, director of the City Property Committee, said that the city's stake in the hotel was offered to shareholders for 33.9 million rubles ($1,070,000). Kuleshova said that the money has already been received, though she refused to name the buyer.
 David Simons, a spokesperson for North Western Tours said that GHE Holding had bought the stake, although the company could not be contacted for comment. 
 Kuleshova said that moving the company entirely into private hands will considerably ease the process of restructuring the hotel's debt. 
 Simons said that the hotel's current debts to Russian and Western banks amount to $60 million. &quot;The shareholders will have more obligations regarding the debt, but they'll also have more business opportunities,&quot; Simons said. 
 &quot;The market price for the stake is over 500 million rubles, but if the buyer takes on the debts, that changes the situation,&quot; said Sergei Kovalyov, executive director of InterConsult consulting firm. 
 Kovalyov said that the debts have been building up since the Soviet era and include the cost of the reconstruction of the hotel, as well as $25 million in fines imposed by the local tax authorities for infringements of currency-exchange legislation in the mid-1990s. 
 &quot;The sale of the stake to one of the shareholders is a good thing,&quot; said Kovalyov, adding that the city has been an inefficient manager. The Nevskij Palace Hotel, which was also co-owned by the city, also had difficulties covering the cost of its reconstruction, which amounted to over $100 million. The City Property Committee sold its stake in the Nevskij Palace to Malta-based Corinthia Hotels International, which took on the obligation of restructuring the hotel's debts.

TITLE: Carriers Fly High Amid World Slump in Sector
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - While the global-aviation industry remains mired in a post-Sept. 11, 2001, slump, Russian carriers continue flying above the fray, enjoying unprecedented operational growth for the third year in a row.
 
Among the top five domestic airlines, which collectively handle more than half of all passengers carried by the country's 200 airlines, only Aeroflot failed to increase traffic significantly in the first nine months of the year. The country's flagship carrier is, however, on track to nearly quadruple its net profit to $75 million this year, a far cry from 1999, when it lost some $60 million.
 Back in 1990, before it was broken up, the old Soviet Aeroflot - then a monopoly - carried 137 million passengers, 90 million of them on domestic routes. But the airline industry went into a tailspin for the rest of the decade.
 In 1998, the year the financial crisis hit, airlines carried just 22.4 million passengers, a figure that dwindled to 21.4 million the next year, according to State Civil Aviation Service statistics.
 The industry, which carried 25 million passengers last year, has grown at an annual rate of nearly 15 percent since 2000.
 &quot;This growth is likely to continue as Russia's economy develops and will be encouraged by attention to improved schedules and frequency and by a mix of consolidations and partnerships between the majors and regional airlines,&quot; said Paul Duffy, an independent, Moscow-based aviation analyst.
 No. 2 carrier Sibir flew 2.1 million passengers in January through September, a 40-percent jump year on year. Sibir spokesperson Mikhail Koshman said that the airline expects to carry 2.7 million passengers in total this year.
 &quot;Sibir has increased its number of flights, connections and transfers. More than 70 percent of our business comes from domestic operations and demand for internal flights has grown significantly,&quot; Koshman said, adding that next year Sibir expects further 15-percent to 20-percent growth.
 St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo carried 1.5 million passengers in the same period, up 7.6 percent for the year - 8.4 percent internationally and 7 percent domestically.
 UTAir, previously known as Tyumenaviatrans, posted the highest growth rate in the industry, carrying 1.23 million passengers, up 42.6 percent over last year.
 UTAir spokesperson Inessa Guseva said that the growth of the company's operational results reflects the overall growth of the economy. And with oil and gas companies providing the bulk of UTAir's business, rising oil production has also boosted the airline's coffers.
 KrasAir's volumes jumped 25 percent in the first nine months to just more than 1 million passengers, which the airline credited to readjusting its schedule, linking passengers from the Far East and eastern Siberia via Krasnoyarsk to Central Asia, southern and western Russia and the CIS. It expects to carry 1.5 million passengers this year.
 Aeroflot, which boosted passenger volumes 14.3 percent to 5.8 million last year, expects to carry 5.5 million passengers this year, according to its CEO, Valery Okulov. In the first nine months of the year, 4.2 million passengers flew with Aeroflot, down from 4.6 million passengers over the same period last year.
 The airline, however, is ready to battle for passengers. In December, the flagship carrier will launch an ambitious program to attract more passengers with improved service. The company plans to spend $1.2 million next year on improving its in-flight catering and entertainment, starting with flights to New York, Tokyo and Paris and later London and Frankfurt.
 But, while suffering a slight dip in passenger numbers, Aeroflot has significantly improved its financials. Its net profit more than doubled to 1.37 billion rubles ($43 million) under Russian accounting standards over the first nine months of the year, which Okulov said was achieved by optimizing the route schedule, focusing on profitable destinations and using a more fuel-efficient fleet. Aeroflot has stopped flying the fuel-guzzling Il-62 and reduced the use of Il-76s and Il-86s, bringing down fuel expenses from 40 percent to 22 percent, Okulov said.

TITLE: Why Separatism Is Not the Same as Terrorism
AUTHOR: By Matt Bivens
TEXT: WHEN terrorists seized 750 hostages in the Theater Center na Dubrovke, the world awoke, bleary-eyed, and struggled to remember the Chechens. Mini-histories of the conflict were hastily assembled to refresh our memories. These tended to emphasize a similar crisis from seven years ago: Guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev led 150 of his men into a Russian village, Budyonnovsk, where they took 1,000 hostages and blockaded themselves in a hospital. In the ensuing stand-off, more than 120 civilians died (most of them killed by Russian gunfire during a bungled raid). Eventually, Basayev's men negotiated safe passage back to rebel lands and freed the hostages.
 
But, a timeline that moves from <i>&quot;Budyonnovsk, June 1995, Chechen terrorists seize hospital, 120 dead&quot; </i>to <i>&quot;Moscow, October 2002, Chechen terrorists seize theater, 117 dead&quot; </i>omits a lot. Consider that, one month before Budyonnovsk, Russian forces strafed a Chechen mountain village, Vedeno, and killed 11 women and children cowering in a shelter - a mundane occurrence, as the carpet bombing had, by then, killed thousands of civilians, except that these particular 11 were all Basayev's relatives. Basayev has said this was when he decided to take the war to Russian territory.
 And, is there room in the timeline of terror for <i>&quot;Samashki, April 1995, more than 100 civilians killed.&quot;? </i>For months in 1995, Russian forces had engaged in a well-documented wave of atrocities, including rapes and murders. Instead of reining in such behavior, the Russian government apparently decided to make it policy. In April 1995, the Sofrino brigade - an Interior Ministry unit that had not yet seen combat in Chechnya, much less lost any men to it, so this was a cold and calculated war crime - was marched into the village of Samashki. Two days of terror followed, in what was officially described as a <i>zachistka </i>- &quot;a cleansing.&quot; Grenades were tossed into occupied homes; village elders were shot at point-blank range.
 We have seen eight years of such horrors. And we seem to have lost all ability to consider the record dispassionately. In discussions of Chechnya, people choose sides based on whether they are predisposed to like or dislike &quot;Russia&quot; (by which they usually seem to mean &quot;the Kremlin&quot;). They then choose from a gruesomely long menu of atrocities in building their side's case - and complain indignantly whenever anyone quotes from the other side's list of horrors. Dare to mention that Russian forces executed a woman who was eight months pregnant? You'll be reviled for <i>not </i>mentioning the three New Zealanders and one Brit whose decapitated heads Chechens lined up on a road side. And so on. It's a never-ending non-discussion. Few who have closely followed the war can even agree anymore on &quot;who started it&quot; - as if that still matters.
 We should all feel sorrow and sympathy for Russians today. No one should ever have to hear their compatriots pleading on cell phones to be saved from execution by masked fanatics; to see their children crying in a theater wrapped in explosives.
 Liberals in the Duma are demanding an inquiry into how so many Chechen rebels could march into downtown Moscow; into what gas the government used, and why it did not see to proper medical preparations before using it. Americans asked similar questions of themselves after Sept. 11 - Why were the police and fire fighters hampered by bad communications? How could a boxcutter bring down an airplane? - because to drag such weaknesses into the light is a step toward defeating them.
 Unlike the attacks on Sept. 11, however, the terrorists in Moscow had a political demand: Stop the war. Open peace talks. American and European officials have long urged the same. Yet Vladimir Putin rejected negotiations, insisting he would not be &quot;blackmailed&quot; by terrorists. One could have sympathy for Putin's rationale, and for his decision to send in gas and troops. That was a tough call, the kind that I would not wish on my worst enemy.
 But Putin's talk now of a massive military response is much harder to find sympathy for. He is about to expand upon an eight-year run of deliberate, horrific, sustained and unpunished war crime - one that has surely manufactured and empowered more terrorists than it has destroyed.
 The Kremlin seems incapable of recognizing this - of remembering the Samashkis alongside the Budyonnovsks. So, it plans to shout &quot;al-Qaida,&quot; and hopes the world will avert its eyes and let the war continue.
 What's ironic is that this hope is fervently shared by the worst elements in Chechnya itself. Recall that the hostage-takers sent videotapes to al Jazeera, the Qatar-based, Arabic-language television station, of veiled women standing before a banner inscribed &quot;God is great&quot; - again in Arabic. Why Arabic? That language is not spoken in Chechnya. Clearly, the intent was to hijack Chechnya's suffering and struggles and put it to work for international terror's recruiting and fundraising videos.
 It's generally agreed that al-Qaida has men, perhaps a few dozen, perhaps a few hundred, in Chechnya. And that Chechen fighters have received support from places like Taliban-era Afghanistan. It also seems likely that the Moscow terror attack was inspired by the needs, not of Chechnya, but of international Islamic terror. (The terrorists demanded peace talks; but they had to know their actions would <i>prolong </i>the war.)
 Chechnya is not al-Qaida; and neither Putin nor al-Qaida should be allowed to pretend otherwise. The real problem in Chechnya is not the Arab fighters - it's Russia's wildly brutal rule. The Russian military has reduced that patch of the Caucasus to the sort of Hobbesian hell we associate with ... well, like Afghanistan. Groups like al-Qaida thrive in such places. They arrive when things are bad, and make them worse; village-by-village &quot;cleansings&quot; only swell their ranks. So, whether judged as <i>realpolitik </i>or on moral grounds, the war in Chechnya has been a failure. It's time for us to honor all victims of terror - whether Moscow 2002, New York and Washington 2001, or Samashki 1995 - in seeking peace negotiations.
 
 <i>Matt Bivens, a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, is a fellow with the Nation Institute in Washington. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: A Pyrrhic Victory for Western Civilization
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin kept his word and wasted the terrorists. Not in the outhouse as promised, it's true, but in the orchestra pit.
 
The West expressed its support.
 The reason for this support was the West's unexpected discovery that it is waging a third world war against Islamic extremism. In that war, just as in World War II, wild and rather uncivilized Russia turns out to be an ally.
 Sometime around the 19th century, the civilized world lived in a state of metaphysical security. People sailed on steamships and wrote operas and, somewhere off on the periphery, there were wild Indians and naked Negroes.
 It would have been impossible to imagine that black terrorists from the Congo would seize the Titanic, or that Chechen bandits, whom valiant Alexei Yermolov was battling somewhere down in the Caucasus, would burst into a St. Petersburg ball and shout &quot;hands up&quot; to the ladies in hoop skirts.
 But, for millenia before that, the scenario was entirely different. Major civilizations were surrounded by barbarian nations and wound up being overrun by them - Egypt by the Hyksos, Rome by the Visigoths and the Han Empire by the Hsiung-nu.
 Ataulphus, the chieftain of the Visigoths who sacked Rome in AD 410, offered probably the best explanation of why major civilizations fall prey to barbarians: &quot;It is not right that the pampered and cowardly wear beautiful clothes and eat splendid dishes while the brave and proud have nowhere to rest their heads.&quot;
 An anti-cyclone of bold marauders full of childish envy for other people's things formed around every civilization. As Rashid ad-Din, 13th-century Persian state leader and author of a universal history, wrote of the Mongols: &quot;Amongst their plunder they found a silver cradle and bedspreads woven of gold, and as such luxury items were rare among the Mongols at this time, the event was considered important and became quite well known.&quot;
 For millenia civilizations perished under pressure from admirers of cradles and bedspreads. This came to an end only with the invention of firearms. A highly developed culture came to mean not luxury but technological might.
 At the end of the 20th century, everything came full circle. The infrastructure of post-industrial society reached such a level of complexity that it became a weapon in itself.
 The weapon of the third world war is not the nuclear bomb, but the civilian airliner and the theater. This is a guerrilla war in which Islamic extremists are using the civilized world's own infrastructure against it.
 The guerrillas believe that Islam should assume a leading position in the world, and that their enemies are enemies of Allah. But the real convictions of the <i>shakhidy</i> are very similar to those laid out by Ataulphus 16 centuries ago: &quot;Why do these pampered cowards in their skyscrapers have everything, while we, who are prepared to die, have nothing?&quot;
 I have no intention of indiscriminately knocking Islam, but for some reason we haven't seen Shintoist terrorists. The snipers captured in Washington had accepted Islam, not Buddhism.
 The paradox of the third world war is that the terrorists cannot win. If they did, there would be no one to produce the weapons they like to use - airplanes and musicals.
 But Western civilization - which in this case includes Russia - could lose. Because the two basic values of Western civilization are democracy and respect for the life and rights of the individual. In time of war, society is forced to ignore these values, as when the Russian special-forces commandos were forced to ignore the possibility that hostages would die as a result of the gas attack.
 The question is not whether or not the West will win the war. The question is rather whether it will still be the West when it does.
 
 <i>Yulia Latynina is author and host of &quot;Yest Mneniye&quot; (&quot;Some Believe&quot;) on TVS. </i>

TITLE: Global Eye
TEXT: <b>Into the Dark
 </b>
<i>&quot;This age: layers of lime harden 
 in the sick son's blood ...
 There's nowhere to run from the 
 tyrant-epoch ...
 Who else will you kill? 
 Who else glorify?
 What other lies will you invent?&quot;</i>
 - Osip Mandelshtam, <br> &quot;January 1, 1924&quot;
 
 
This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, when he warns that there <i>will </i>be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, that this statement is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, be so sure that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large?
 
Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense. 
 This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story which was itself submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times. There - in an article by military analyst William Arkin, detailing the vast expansion of the secret armies being massed by the former Nixon bureaucrat now lording it over the Pentagon - came the revelation of Rumsfeld's plan to create &quot;a super-Intelligence Support Activity&quot; that will &quot;bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception.&quot; 
 According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization - the &quot;Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)&quot; - will carry out secret missions designed to &quot;stimulate reactions&quot; among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to &quot;counterattack&quot; by U.S. forces. 
 In other words - and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan - the United States government is planning to use &quot;cover and deception&quot; and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people - your family, your friends, your lovers, you - in order to further their geopolitical ambitions. 
 For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice - a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by <i>causing </i>it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime's own preferred terminology and just call it &quot;evil&quot;?) No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action - by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with <i>agents provocateurs, </i>perhaps, who infiltrate groups, then plan and direct the attacks themselves? - they can then take measures against the &quot;states/sub-state actors accountable&quot; for &quot;harboring&quot; the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: &quot;Their sovereignty will be at risk.&quot;
 The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant &quot;justification&quot; for whatever level of intervention/conquest/rapine you might desire. And what if the territory you fancy doesn't actually harbor any convenient marauders to use for fun and profit? Well, surely a God-like &quot;super-Intelligence Support Activity&quot; is capable of creation <i>ex nihilo, </i>yes?
 The Rumsfeld-Bush plan to employ murder and terrorism for political, financial and ideological gain does have historical roots (besides al Qaeda, the Stern Gang, the SA, the SS, the KGB, the IRA, the UDF, Eta, Hamas, Shining Path and countless other upholders of Bushian morality, decency and freedom). We refer of course to Operations Northwoods, oft mentioned in these pages: the plan that America's top military brass presented to President John Kennedy in 1963, calling for a phony terrorist campaign - complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans - to provide &quot;justification&quot; for an invasion of Cuba, the Mafia/Corporate fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro.
 Kennedy rejected the plan, and was killed a few months later. Now, Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by those brass of yore, with no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him - and with an ignorant, corrupt president who has shown himself all too eager to embrace any means whatsoever that will augment the wealth and power of his own undemocratic, elitist clique.
 There is <i>prestuplyeniye </i>here, transgression, a stepping-over - deliberately, with open eyes, with forethought, planning, and conscious will - of lines that should never be crossed. Acting in deadly symbiosis with rage-maddened killers, God-crazed ranters and the belched filth of criminal money-grubbers, the Bush Regime is plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of black ops, retribution, blowback, deceit, of murder and terror - wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized; of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us, of all that we've won from the bestiality of our primal nature, all that we've raised above the mindless ravening urges and impulses still boiling in the mud of our monkey brains. 
 It's not a fight for freedom; it's a retreat into darkness. 
 And the day will be a long time coming.
 
 <i>
For annotational references, please see the &quot;Opinion&quot; section at www.sptimesrussia.com </i>

TITLE: remaking classic tunes
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Its title means &quot;Present,&quot; it's wrapped like a present, and it is indeed a long awaited present from the St. Petersburgers behind it. Although founded in 1995, a capella vocal sextet Remake has only just released its first disc, &quot;Podarok,&quot; on local label Bomba-Piter.
 
The group grew out of a students' New Year party at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. The six members-to-be of Remake - all Conservatory students and already good friends at the time - sang their version of Russia's most popular song, &quot;V Lesu Rodilas Yolochka&quot; (&quot;A Christmas Tree Born in a Forest&quot;) to great acclaim. It was then that the idea of regularly performing together as a group first emerged, and, according to Remake's leader Mikhail Serkov, the sextet has remained unchanged ever since, not suffering any departures.
 Olga Stolpovskikh (first soprano), Maria Nikanova (second soprano), Irina Sheina (alto), Fyodor Lednyov (tenor), Serkov (baritone) and Dmitry Byurganovsky (bass) graduated from the Conservatory as choral conductors and now, in addition to their day jobs, teach singing and, of course, sing themselves. The group's repertoire has become much broader than just the Christmas song, and &quot;Remake&quot; has made its name as an original, daring interpreter of popular tunes from virtually all musical fields.
 &quot;Podarok&quot; comprises 18 works from various genres: jazz tunes, spirituals, songs by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Isaak Dunayevsky and Alexander Rozenbaum, plus an arrangement of Bach's &quot;Bist Du Bei Mir.&quot; The pieces are the group's favorites, a factor that, according to Serkov, &quot;probably explains the disc's mixed character, and its fragmented nature. It's our first CD, and we wanted all our best-loved compositions to be there.&quot;
 Remake's members have given one track, listed as Dunayevsky's &quot;Oi, Tsvetyot Kalina&quot; (&quot;Oh, the Snowball-Tree is in Full Blossom&quot;), a shampoo-based nickname. The singers call it &quot;Vidal Sassoon: Two in One,&quot; as it presents an amusing, yet tasteful, interlacing of &quot;Oi, Tsvetyot Kalina&quot; with another song by Dunayevsky, &quot;Kakim Ty Byl, Takim Ostalsya&quot; (&quot;You Haven't Changed&quot;) from the popular Soviet film &quot;Kubanskiye Kazaki&quot; (&quot;Kuban Cossacks&quot;).
 In fact, interlacing is Remake's most popular tool, with most of the tracks being smart juxtapositions of tunes.
 Ironically, the song &quot;Podarok,&quot; although it is in Remake's repertoire, has not been included on the disc. &quot;I can't give any reasonable explanation as to why it is not there,&quot; says Serkov. &quot;But it is definitely going to be on our second CD - which is perhaps going to get its name from a song from our third album.&quot; 
 On the CD, Remake's members sing in five languages. They claim to have no knowledge of four of the tongues -but that is hardly noticeable.
 Interestingly, the sextet has recently drawn the attention of an older, more acclaimed, St. Petersburg group, the Terem Quartet. The internationally famous instrumentalists, who also specialize in reworking pieces, have expressed interest in preparing a joint program. According to the quartet's Andrei Konstantinov, such a program would very well fit into the final act of its Terem Festival, which culminates next November.
 Remake can now also be seen on the theatrical stage. The group makes several appearances during the new production of Gogol's &quot;The Government Inspector,&quot; staged by prominent Moscow director Valery Fokin at the Alexandriinsky Theater. St. Petersburg composer Leonid Desyatnikov wrote the score specifically for the group.
 On top of this, the group has a contract for a series of five concerts throughout the current season at the Glinka Philharmonic. The next concert will be in December.
 
 <i>
Links: www.remake.nm.ru </i>

TITLE: festival produces art out of chaos
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The biggest event on St. Petersburg's alternative-film calendar, the &quot;Deboshir Film Festival - Pure Dreams,&quot; kicks off on Tuesday.
 
For this year's running, the festival's fifth, the four-day event has moved from Dom Kino to the Palace of Youth, or LDM - the venue that hosts the alternative music festival SKIF. 
 There is indeed something in common between the two affairs - poor organization and general chaos - which is justified by an alleged spiritual breakthrough. On the other hand, both festivals present a rare opportunity for young artists to try to attract some attention to their works outside the confines of small clubs and underground art galleries.
 Deboshir (&quot;Brawler&quot;) is a play on the last name of festival founder and chairperson Alexander Bashirov, and, indeed, the festival rotates around the ambiguous personality of Bashirov, who refused to give an interview Monday, despite a previous agreement, sounding noticeably intoxicated on the phone.
 The festival is supposed to screen works &quot;beyond the reach of broad audiences because of commercial, political, censorial reasons,&quot; according to a Deboshir news release, which proceeds to quote Bashirov: &quot;It's an exchange of everything, including metabolism, for the sake of creation of a filmscape of the future in the present.&quot;
 Born in an obscure village near the Western Siberian town of Tyumen in 1955, Bashirov became famous when he appeared in a memorable cameo in &quot;ASSA&quot; in 1988, Sergei Solovyev's Perestroika blockbuster, which featured songs by Akvarium and Kino. 
 Bashirov acted as a drunken petty criminal disguised as a Soviet officer, and the combination of his hilarious acting and the uniform sent audiences into fits of laughter all over the U.S.S.R.
 After that, he appeared in cameos in over 20 films, notably Alexei German's &quot;Khrustalyov, Mashinu!&quot; (&quot;Khrustalyov, Get My Car!&quot;) in 1998, and made his debut as a film director with the full-length &quot;Zheleznaya Pyata Oligarkhii&quot; (&quot;Iron Heel of Oligarchy&quot;) the same year. 
 He started the Deboshir Film Festival in 1998 on the premises of the Spartak film theater, which was also home to a rock club of the same name at that time.
 This year's festival will include a competition, a film program called Kunstkamera, retrospectives by Kira Muratova, Dziga Vertov, Jean-Luc Godard and Lithuanian director Sharunas Bartas, a music program called &quot;Rock Debosh,&quot; or &quot;Rock Debauchery,&quot; as well as a series of special events.
 The competition will judged by a motley crew of a jury. Presided over by Macedonian script writer Dejan Dukovky, it includes a wide range of personalities, from artist Anatoly Belkin to rock musicians Yevgeny Fyodorov of Tequilajazzz and Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov.
 Deboshir's spokesperson said the festival's two highlights will be local premieres of the most recent works by Kira Muratova and Renata Litvinova, in the presence of their makers.
 Litvinova will present &quot;Nebo. Samolyot. Devushka&quot; (&quot;Sky. Plane. Girl&quot;), a film for which she wrote the script, produced and starred, at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, while Muratova will bring her &quot;Chekhovskiye Motivy&quot; (&quot;Chekhov's Motives&quot;) at 3 p.m. on Saturday. (Times and dates are subject to change.)
 This year, the promoters seem to have wished to radicalize the event even more by inviting several odious political figures, such as extreme nationalist activists/writers Alexander Prokhanov and Vladimir Bondarenko, to take part in the round-table discussion &quot;Art as Politics, Politics as Art.&quot;
 Renowned writer Vladimir Sorokin, now persecuted for alleged pornography in his works, was expected to take part in the second panel, called &quot;Political Pornography,&quot; but, as it turned out this week, refused to attend.
 &quot;He said he didn't like the subject of the panel,&quot; explained the festival's spokesperson.
 
 <i>
The Fifth Deboshir Film Festival at LDM, 47 Ul. Professora Popova, M: Petrogradskaya. For more information call 164-3871. Links: www.az.ru/debosh </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Leningrad's </strong>much anticipated show at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium over the weekend never actually happened. Scheduled for Saturday, the sold-out show at the 8,000-capacity venue was canceled at short notice. Press reports have mentioned at least two possible reasons.
 
One says that Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov listened to an album by the notoriously foul-mouthed band and banned the show because of the &quot;explicit vocabulary&quot; used by Leningrad.
 The other says that the concert was just one of a few stadium shows canceled because of the recent hostage crisis at a musical in Moscow.
 The band's frontman Sergei Shnurov subscribes to the former version. &quot;It's a load of rubbish. They're not canceling musicals, are they?&quot; he said by telephone from Moscow on Monday.
 Shurov added that he learned about the cancellation on Friday, the day before the show. There has been no official statement from Luzhkov's office.
 Meanwhile, Shnurov and the band will be performing in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, at the show &quot;Fight Club,&quot; designed as a competition between Leningrad and pop trio Otpetiye Moshenniki. See Gigs for details.
 Shnurov is also on the music program of the <strong>Deboshir Film Festival, </strong>which starts Tuesday. The four-day festival seems to have a bigger music program this year than before.
 Called &quot;Rock Debosh,&quot; or &quot;Rock Debauchery,&quot; it will start with Tequilajazzz playing its own soundtrack to &quot;Stachka&quot; (&quot;Strike&quot;), Sergei Eisentein's 1925 silent film - something the St. Petersburg guitar-driven quartet did at year's festival.
 Also taking part are Markscheider Kunst, P.T.V.P., La Minor and Kolibri, among others. 
 The obvious drawback to the show is Finland's Cleaning Women - a dubious industrial band whose members appear in drag and &quot;play&quot; on vacuum cleaners and other household appliances. Cleaning Women have already played in St. Petersburg a number of times.
 Though they seem to have friends among local promoters, bands like this do harm than good for how their country's music scene is perceived in St. Petersburg.
 More pleasing for the ears might be Helsinki-based <strong>Sputnik Club's </strong>event on Friday - the last of Sputnik's shows at Moloko.
 In cooperation with Finland's Potlatch club, two bands will be coming to the city - Ensemble Touristique, which has been described as a tribute to Boris Vian, and the melodic electronica band O Samuli A.
 Despite the dominance of Finnish bands during the next week, everyone knows that rock music comes from a very different place - and its roots will be demonstrated at the <strong>Efes Pilsener Blues Festival.</strong>
 In effect, the festival is a package tour, traveling through different Russian cities to glorify the Turkish beer brand. 
 This year, Louisiana Red, Lil' Ed and The Blues Imperials and C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band will participate. Yubileiny Sports Palace on Monday.
 <strong>Robert Plant, </strong>whose concert has been announced but canceled at least twice over the past few years, will finally appear with his band, New Sensation, at the Ice Palace on Nov. 12.
 
 <i>- by Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: the silk road to dining pleasure
AUTHOR: By Eric Bruns
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: So... you've eaten borshch and bliny, caviar and vodka, chicken Kiev and solyanka. You are highly familiar with the Russian <i>stolovaya, </i>you've sampled countless <i>shavermy, sosiski </i>and <i>pirozhki </i>from sidewalk vendors, and you've enjoyed fine dining at the city's most exclusive restaurants. You consider yourself something of an expert on ethnic cuisine offered in the city, and believe there is nothing left in St. Petersburg to whet your appetite.
 
Well, think again. Better yet, call a friend, bundle up and venture to &quot;Shyolk&quot; (&quot;Silk&quot;) between Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa and Kanal Griboyedova, a five-minute walk from the Church on the Spilled Blood. Recently opened where (perhaps too?) exclusive Italian &quot;Federico Fellini&quot; used to be. It will certainly be worth your trouble.
 The first thing I noticed when I entered was a sense of detachment from what I had grown accustomed to in St. Petersburg. The maitre d' asked my companion if it was her first time to the restaurant (a considerate gesture aimed to welcome and relax my companion, rather than a more typical bias for the alpha-male). Having responded that it was our first visit, we were taken on a tour of the establishment's five rooms.
 The entire place is ultra-modern and extremely stylish, set in what feels like a skilfully renovated, minimalist wine cellar. The entrance hall features a DJ, who provides an excellent mix of subtle ambient music and electronic jazz and demonstrates the restaurant's commitment to cater to the clientele.
 The rooms are sparsely decorated with only the necessary items - tables, chairs, lamps - but the choice of those items came from someone with obviously extremely good taste. It is both classic and modern at the same time. The overall impression is that of abundant space, the kind that seems to tell you: &quot;Have a seat, relax; there is no line of customers waiting to be served, nor need to hurry.&quot;
 In contrast to the very modern, very Western atmosphere and staff, the menu is entirely traditional Japanese. The dishes are listed in Russian and English with a surprise translation or two, such as the &quot;apitaizer&quot; section, but in distinction to other restaurants in the city, glossy color pictures do not adorn your choices of sushi.
 Settling into the comfortable chair-sofas that allow easy transition between active conversation and reclining moments of contemplation, we sipped green tea from a small pot for 90 rubles ($2.85), while browsing over our choices. After much consideration, we decided to sample items throughout the menu and in the process discovered that there is little for true vegetarians - the options overwhelmingly consist of various forms of fish. That being said, those adverse to seafood and the few land-animal meats offered, do not have to go hungry. My companion tried the &quot;egg sushi&quot; and &quot;avocado sushi&quot; for 50 rubles ($1.55) each, the latter being surprisingly fresh. I ordered the &quot;miso soup&quot; for 130 rubles ($4.10) and found it better than most.
 There were additional vegetarian soups and salads available, but we decided to spend the majority of our time in the same place as the chef - with the fishes. We were not disappointed. The &quot;tuna in plum sauce&quot; for 450 rubles ($14.15) in the appetizer section was an absolute delight, consisting of a full plate of tuna pieces flavored to perfection. The &quot;spice crab sushi&quot; for 120 rubles ($3.80) went down as fast as the half-liter glasses of Japanese Kirin beer, which came in ultra-stylish glasses bearing the beer's logo. The only drinks listed on the menu are tea and coffee, but our final bill told us that the beer costs 150 rubles ($4.70) each.
 The &quot;tuna sashimi&quot; (375 rubles, $11.80) consisted of four pieces and a bit of cucumber and fully lived up to expectations. The seaweed encompassing my companion's selection of hand-rolled sushi, &quot;spice salmon with vegetables&quot; for 300 rubles ($9.45), however, was a bit dry and difficult to eat - a section of the menu perhaps best avoided.
 We finished our selection of sushi with a comparison between the renowned &quot;California sushi maki roll&quot; for 300 rubles and the &quot;St. Petersburg sushi maki roll&quot; for 660 rubles ($20.80). Both come sliced into eight pieces and contain avocado, crab and cucumber, but the Russian version substitutes small red caviar eggs in the place of sesame seeds on the exterior. I am accustomed to seeing California roll served with either finish and was a little surprised at the difference in price.
 With such an extensive list of raw fish, it is understandably difficult to keep a fresh supply available in St. Petersburg. In that respect, Shyolk suffers the same fate as other Japanese restaurants in the city. However, its preparation is unparalleled, making it the best sushi I have tried here.
 They also serve one of the best main courses I have eaten in town - &quot;eel on the rice&quot; for 650 rubles ($20.50). One taste and I collapsed in my chair, unable to talk or think rationally, except to apply myself to take another bite. A wonderful sake for 50 rubles ($1.55) perfectly completed the meal and left me wondering where I was. When I regained my senses, I was happy to have found something quite unexpected in St. Petersburg.
 
 <i>
Shyolk, 4/2 Malaya Konyushennaya. Tel.: 311-5078. Open daily, 1 p.m. to 1 a.m., or until the last guest leaves. Menu in Russian and English. Dinner for two, with alcohol and tip: 3,725 rubles ($117.30). </i>

TITLE: paris finds it's worth the wait(s)
AUTHOR: by Eric Bruns
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The snow accumulating in the city's streets does more than indicate the onset of winter. It also signifies the end of most foreign bands' concerts in St. Petersburg, who usually come to bask in the summers' White Nights. But there is one band well-known in the city that just got its international schedule underway recently, even if it adopted the conventional tendency toward warmer climes.
 
One of St. Petersburg's most popular groups, Billy's Band, is currently playing in Paris. The combo is best known as the Tom Waits cover-version band often featured at Red Club, City Club or the relatively new - and now seasonally appropriate - Purga (&quot;Blizzard&quot;) on Nab. Reki Fontanki. But only about half the band's songs come from the coarse lyric master; the other half maintain the gruff, reflective style, but are either written by the band itself or are drawn from a variety of English-language and Russian artists. The band's performances unfailingly inspire a sense of ease and cheerful camaraderie in the audience - the effect is such that its shows are simultaneously poignant and lively, and everyone has a good time.
 During the last year, these qualities were noticed by visiting foreign producers, who arranged three tours to Germany, one to Austria and the current voyage to France. The band has done well enough that it gave a concert in June to mark the end of its frontman Billy's day job as a pathologist, allowing him to devote more time to music.
 Properly speaking, there is no Billy in the band. Although it may initially seem the band was hijacked by local talent - in the same way as the Minutka sandwich shop - the history is a bit more complicated. &quot;Billy&quot; - real name Dima Novik - was the managing director of an underground club called Bratya Boom (&quot;Boom Brothers&quot;) about three years ago, when he started playing guitar again.
 Novik was joined by his friends Andrey &quot;Rizhik&quot; Reznikov (a consistently energetic embodiment of the red-headed Simpsons' character Sideshow Bob) and Anton &quot;Matezius&quot; Mathesius (often the musical and visual centerpiece on the accordion) on &quot;guitar, howlings&quot; and &quot;bayan, percussion, marimba, howlings,&quot; respectively. Novik switched to &quot;upright bass, vocals, banjo, piano,&quot; and the group named itself &quot;Billy Dilly's Band,&quot; after the unfortunate subjugate in Nick Cave's song &quot;Stagger Lee.&quot;
 After a while, they thought better of the name - it rhymed too easily with &quot;silly&quot; and &quot;willy&quot; - and shortened it to &quot;Billy's Band.&quot; That naturally led interested parties to ask for Billy, whose identity Novik assumed. Bratya Boom was forced to close, after complaints to the police by neighbors, who suspected the presence of a cult and other illicit activities, but you can still hear the band cover &quot;Stagger Lee&quot; on CD - albeit without reference to Billy Dilly.
 The success of Billy's Band is not to say everything has gone perfectly. In an attempt to take the show a bit further abroad, to the U.S. and Canada, Novik applied to the respective consulates for a visa. Despite citing his wife at the time, 6-year-old son and occupation as a Russian medical doctor, both countries concluded there were not enough ties that would guarantee his return to St. Petersburg.
 Also, on the recent bus ride to Paris, the band found out that its four-week, five-nights-per-week contract was canceled. The French producer who invited the group and organized visas is still providing accommodation, but the band members have had to arrange a series of shows from scratch. For a few days, they earned nearly as many euros per hour playing on the Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower as they would in a club but, inevitably, the police quickly interrupted - another (albeit unwanted) attestation to the group's ability and permeating atmosphere. Apparently, a license is required to play in public, and the appropriate paperwork takes three weeks to process. Bureaucracy, it seems, is not a uniquely Russian phenomenon.
 That said, it has only taken a few gigs to convince Parisian clubs that Billy's Band should not be missed. The group arranged a series of shows at The Carrousel, a two-minute walk from the Moulin Rouge in the city's cabaret district, including a headline performance on increasingly popular Halloween. The band booked renowned underground club Symposium and its schedule continues to fill. Its intense, soulful style has attracted attention and a following wherever it goes.
 Local audiences can welcome Billy's Band back from Paris on Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. at Prival Komediantov (1 Nab. Reki Moiki, facing Marsovo Polye), or at Red Club on Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. for the group's third-anniversary party and Thanksgiving celebration.

TITLE: Turkey Faces Painful Tests After Elections
AUTHOR: By Ralph Boulton
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANKARA - Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) began forming a government on Monday after a spectacular election triumph that will raise deep concerns in a secularist establishment wary of the party's Islamist roots.
 
Muslim NATO member Turkey's closest ally, the United States, will be eager to see a new cabinet in office in about two weeks, the minimum time it will take to form a government. Washington would look to Ankara for support in providing air bases and other facilities for any attack on neighboring Iraq.
 The unexpected scale of AKP's victory, routing parties blamed by voters for a grueling economic crisis, will test the fabric of the AKP itself. Founded only a year ago, it has little experience of power, faces a court case to outlaw it and has a leader banned by the courts from taking up any government post.
 The Sabah daily called the AKP victory a revolt by Turkey's increasingly impoverished Anatolian heartland. &quot;Politics has never seen such a widespread liquidation operation,&quot; it said.
 Provisional results gave the party more than 360 seats in the 550-seat assembly. Only one other party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), mustered the 10 percent needed to enter parliament.
 Veteran Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, his fifth term in office drawing to a close, saw his party's vote sink from 22 percent in 1999 to little over 1 percent.
 Former Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, the architect of Turkey's $16-billion rescue program and CHP deputy, said that the result could provide Turkey with much-needed stability.
 &quot;If we can create a constructive, tolerant working environment and if there is respect for the constitution and clear respect for the concept of the secular republic, then I think this election will be useful for Turkey,&quot; he said.
 While many were euphoric over the demise of the old order, there were also misgivings.
 &quot;The AKP isn't ready to govern Turkey alone and I'm not sure even they wanted that,&quot; said Rusen Cakir, author of a book on AKP leader and former Islamist firebrand Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
 &quot;To govern alone, they really need time to prepare and gain legitimacy and stature on the domestic and international stage,&quot; he said.
 But AKP, which vehemently rejects the Islamist label, will not have the luxury of time. Turkey needs to quickly establish market confidence and safeguard the IMF pact. Urgent issues must be tackled in the coming month in pursuit of Turkey's European Union membership ambitions.
 Erdogan was quoted by one daily on Monday as saying that he would send envoys to the EU immediately, before forming a government.
 Party sources say that the AKP was already drawing up a cabinet list to present to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer as soon as possible after he asks them to form a government.
 The Turkish lira, down more than 50 percent against the dollar since a 2001 crisis, sank to all time lows of over 1.7 million per dollar in early trading on Monday, before bouncing back, reassured by comments from AKP officials on the IMF program.
 Ali Coskun, tipped as a possible economy minister, said that an AKP government would complete reforms needed to earn the next $1.6 billion IMF loan payment before discussing possible revisions to the program.
 &quot;Decisions taken earlier with the IMF continue until we reach mutual agreement,&quot; he said.
 The main stock index soared seven percent in the morning session on optimism that a one-party government would be more effective than a string of bickering coalitions in recent years.
 &quot;The issue of confidence is going to be a problem,&quot; said Philip Poole, senior emerging-markets economist at ING Barings investment bank in London. &quot;Bringing down interest rates and attracting investment will be key.&quot;

TITLE: U.S. Voting To Establish Control of Split Senate
AUTHOR: By Larry Margasak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - With control of the U.S. Senate to be determined by several close races, Republicans are counting on voters who worry about the country's security, while Democrats seek to attract those angered by the bad economy.
 
Despite the two parties' best efforts, there appears to be no national issue in Tuesday's election that will decide control of a Senate that now has 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, plus independent James Jeffords of Vermont, who usually sides with the Democrats.
 There is, however, the national suspense of dead-heat contests that make the Senate outcome unpredictable. And there is drama in Minnesota, where former Vice President Walter Mondale, who replaced the late Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, is conducting a one-week campaign - one of the shortest in history.
 Senate races in Colorado, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Georgia and North Carolina are extremely close, late polls indicate. The South Dakota contest between Democratic incumbent Tim Johnson and Republican John Thune has become a proxy fight between Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and President George W. Bush, who recruited Thune.
 Republicans are defending 20 of their 34 seats in Tuesday's election.
 Democratic National Committee Chairperson Terry McAuliffe, appearing with Republican counterpart Mark Racicot Monday on CBS's &quot;Early Show,&quot; predicted that his party will win close Senate races in Colorado, New Hampshire, Missouri and North Carolina.
 Racicot said that he thought that Republican Norm Coleman stood a good chance of beating Mondale in the Minnesota Senate race.
 Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate Republican fund-raising chief, and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, tried on Sunday talk shows to steer voters toward thinking about national problems.
 &quot;I think we do have to look at that larger environment, an environment that has been very much colored by what happened September the 11th a year ago, the subsequent anthrax attacks, the recent sniper shooting here in Washington, D.C.,&quot; Frist said on CBS' &quot;Face The Nation.&quot; &quot;People don't feel very secure today,&quot; he said.
 &quot;But that's not what this election's going to be about,&quot; Murray countered on &quot;Fox News Sunday.&quot; &quot;What this election's going to be about is the insecurity people feel at home today about their jobs and the economy.&quot;
 Republicans portrayed two Democratic candidates, Mondale and former Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, as relics of the past.
 Frist said that Mondale and Lautenberg were voices from the past. Lautenberg, who became a candidate after Senator Robert Torricelli withdrew because of ethics problems, was favored over Republican Douglas Forrester.
 Bush, campaigning in Minnesota on Sunday, paid solemn tribute to Wellstone but added, while campaigning for Coleman: &quot;Believe me when I say, we need fresh air in the United States Senate.&quot;

TITLE: Safin Downs Hewitt for First Title of Year
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Marat Safin won his first title of the year on Sunday, beating Lleyton Hewitt 7-6 (7-4), 6-0, 6-4 to win the Paris Masters for the second time.
 
Safin closed the straight-set victory against the world No. 1 with an ace. Hewitt seemed to show little effort during the second set, in which he failed to win a game.
 &quot;I have to thank the public, it was wonderful today,&quot; said Safin, who clapped his hand against his racket. &quot;But I don't think the French want me to play well in a few weeks.&quot;
 The third-seeded Russian is almost certain to represent his country in the Davis Cup final against defending champion France this month.
 &quot;Safin's been too good for everyone this week,&quot; Hewitt said. &quot;He thoroughly deserves this.&quot;
 Safin was a runner-up at this year's Australian Open and a semifinalist at the French Open. This week, he seemed back to the form he enjoyed in 2000, when he won the U.S. Open and the Paris Masters.
 In the first set, Hewitt lost the tiebreaker by netting a forehand. Safin then blanked the Wimbledon champion in the second set. In the last two games, Hewitt stood still while Safin hit a backhand winner for his third straight break.
 The Aussie snapped Safin's seven-game winning streak by holding serve in the opening game of the third set. But he was broken in the fifth game.
 Serving at 5-3 down, Hewitt survived three match points. He moved ahead 30-0 in the last game, but Safin evened the score and closed the match with two service winners.
 Hewitt made only 42 percent of his first serves to Safin's 58 percent. The Russian also hit 40 winners to Hewitt's 23.
 Both players will take part in the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai, China, this month. At the elite eight-man event, Hewitt will try to extend his lead in the ATP Champions Race. He leads Andre Agassi by 88 points.
 &quot;Lleyton, I think, will finish the year No. 1,&quot; Safin said. &quot;I don't think Andre can catch up.&quot;
 In the Canary Islands town of Maspalomas, Slovakia beat Spain for its first Fed Cup title Sunday, with hobbling Spanish star Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario reduced to tears on the court by a heckler.
 The Slovaks won both singles to take an unbeatable 3-1 lead in the best-of-five competition, the women's version of the Davis Cup. Spain was trying for a sixth Fed Cup title.
 Daniela Hantuchova beat Conchita Martinez 6-7 (10-8), 7-5, 6-4 and Janette Husarova downed Sanchez-Vicario 6-0, 6-2. The doubles match was canceled.
 Sanchez-Vicario played her record 100th Fed Cup match, but was barely able to run after straining her right thigh during Thursday's semifinal. &quot;Before I realized, it I was down 5-0 and it was too late to come back,&quot; she said.
 As the second set began, a Spanish spectator screamed that Sanchez-Vicario should give way to Magui Serna if she was unable to play. The crowd then screamed at the man, telling him to leave. Sanchez-Vicario began to cry, pulling the collar of her shirt over her face to hide her tears.
 She drew a standing ovation and the crowd started chanting her name. Play was delayed for 10 minutes. The spectators in the row with the heckler left him sitting there alone.
 Sanchez-Vicario said she is used to comments from the stands but was sensitive Sunday because her team was trailing and she was injured.
 &quot;I am only human,&quot; she said. &quot;The ovation made up for what that man said.&quot;

TITLE: Mailman Finally Fails To Deliver As Jazz Lose
AUTHOR: By Tim Korte
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEATTLE - For the first time in 18 NBA seasons, the Utah Jazz opened an empty mailbox.
 
Karl Malone, fighting a head cold, got into early foul trouble and went scoreless on 0-for-7 shooting in Seattle's 91-77 victory over Utah on Sunday night.
 It was the first time Malone, second on the NBA's career scoring list, has been shut out in his 18-year career. He couldn't remember ever putting up a goose egg, period.
 &quot;High school or junior high, whatever,&quot; The Mailman said. &quot;If you stay around long enough in this game, you'll have a lot of firsts. Sometimes, things just happen, but you have to give them a lot of credit.&quot;
 Malone, who got his nickname at Louisiana Tech because he always delivered, has averaged 25.6 points per game in his NBA career. He's a two-time league MVP who, along with John Stockton, helped the Jazz reach the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998.
 Malone's previous career low was two points on Dec. 18, 1985, his rookie season, at New Jersey. He also had two points before getting ejected from a game in April 2001 in Phoenix.
 &quot;I don't have any excuses,&quot; Malone said. &quot;When I put my uniform on, I go out there to play.&quot;
 Malone was called for two first-quarter fouls and got his third with 3:53 left before halftime. After shooting 0-for-5 in the first half, he missed the two shots he took in the third quarter.
 He played 3 minutes after the break, then took a seat at the end of the Jazz bench and only got up for timeouts.
 By then, the Sonics' hairy mascot, Squatch, had noticed Malone was off his game. He ran across the court, holding a sign that said: &quot;The Mailman doesn't make deliveries on Sunday.&quot;
 Gary Payton scored 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting to help the SuperSonics to a 3-0 start for the first time in three years.
 In the closing minutes, Payton saw Malone's goose egg on the scoreboard and spread the word down the Seattle bench.
 &quot;When I heard that, it just went through my head that this must be the first time that's ever happened,&quot; said Seattle's Rashard Lewis, who was 6 years old when Malone broke into the league.
 &quot;Every time I've seen him play, he's had at least 10 points,&quot; Lewis said. &quot;I've never even seen him when he's not in double digits. I guess tonight just wasn't his night.&quot;
 
 <strong>L.A. Lakers 98, Portland 95, OT. </strong>In Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant had his second straight triple-double, and Devean George scored six of his career-high 25 points in overtime as the Lakers rallied past Portland.
 Bryant had 33 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists to become the first Lakers player with consecutive triple-doubles since Magic Johnson in March 1991.
 Derek Anderson, who made a 7-meter jumper as time expired to force overtime, scored eight of his 24 points in the extra session for the Trail Blazers.

TITLE: Rice and Bledsoe Suffer Unhappy Returns
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Neither Jerry Rice nor Drew Bledsoe were treated very nicely by their former teams. Rice had a decent game Sunday for the Oakland Raiders, they were edged 23-20 in overtime by the San Francisco 49ers, for whom Rice set nearly every NFL receiving record before leaving in 2001. He had six catches for 74 yards, but watched from the sideline as the 49ers held the ball for the final 15 minutes of the game.
 
&quot;That's the worst feeling,&quot; Rice said. &quot;When you can't get the ball in the second half, what can you say? We were parked on the sideline.&quot;
 &quot;It's a tough one to swallow. You've just got to deal with it and move on. I'm just disappointed, not only for me, but for the whole team.&quot;
 Bledsoe's current team, the Bills, was never in the game against his former employer. The New England Patriots routed Buffalo 38-7, and sacked Bledsoe four times.
 &quot;After the game,&quot; Bledsoe said, &quot;you shake hands and live to fight another day. If you lose, you congratulate them, lick your wounds, and come back again.&quot;
 
 <strong>
San Francisco 23, Oakland 20, OT. </strong>In Oakland, California, Jose Cortez, who missed a 27-yard field goal at the end of regulation, made a 23-yarder 8:41 into overtime. Counting their 6 1/2-minute drive to end the fourth quarter and the overtime, the 49ers (6-2) held the ball for more than a quarter.
 
Jeff Garcia was masterful on the two late drives, completing 17 of his 19 passes after halftime. Terrell Owens had his best game of the season with 12 receptions for 191 yards.
 Oakland's Rich Gannon was 18-of-28 for 164 yards, ending his NFL-record streak of six straight 300-yard games.
 The Raiders have lost four straight following a 4-0 start.
 
 <strong>
New England 38, Buffalo 7. </strong>In New York, Bledsoe's team was never in it, as his replacement in New England, Tom Brady, completed 23 of 27 passes for 310 yards and four touchdowns, helping the defending Super Bowl champion (4-4) end its four-game losing streak.
 
Former Bills running back Antowain Smith ran for 111 yards and a touchdown and caught two TD passes from Brady.
 Bledsoe, playing against his old team for the first time since he was traded to the Bills last April, was 28-of-45 for 302 yards, with a 1-yard TD pass to Peerless Price.
 Buffalo (5-4) had won three straight.
 <strong>
Cincinatti 38, Texas 3. </strong>In Houston, the Bengals won for the first time after seven losses. Jon Kitna threw four touchdown passes and Artrell Hawkins had a 102-yard interception return for a touchdown.
 
Cincinnati (1-7) made good on receiver Chad Johnson's victory &quot;guarantee&quot; by pouring out all its frustrations on the Texans (2-6).
 Kitna completed 22 of 27 passes for 263 yards, with his fourth TD pass going 10 yards to Johnson.
 
 <strong>
Pittsburgh 23, Cleveland 20. </strong>In Cleveland, revitalized Tommy Maddox threw two touchdown passes and Amos Zereoue ran for a career-high 111 yards as Pittsburgh rallied from a 14-3 hole.
 
Todd Peterson kicked field goals of 43, 28 and 42 yards for the Steelers. With their fourth straight win, the Steelers (5-3) took command of the AFC North.
 Dennis Northcutt had an 87-yard TD punt return for the Browns (4-5), but the Cleveland offense produced just 36 yards rushing and 193 total.
 
 <strong>
N.Y. Jets 44, San Diego 13. </strong>In San Diego, the Jets (3-5) got a punt return for a touchdown from Santana Moss for the second straight game. Chad Pennington threw for one touchdown and ran for another, and the Jets kept LaDainian Tomlinson to 60 yards rushing.
 
The Chargers (6-2) wore their powder-blue throwback jerseys and left looking like powder puffs.