TITLE: City Business Finds Life Better
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With the year already pretty much in the bank, so to speak, officials at the St. Petersburg city and Leningrad Oblast administrations are painting a picture of an economic scene that has made great progress, and businesspeople and analysts, while a little more conservative in their pronouncements, are also being positive.
While official statistics for the year will not be released by the city's Economic, Industrial Development and Trade Committee until the end of January, officials at Smolny are praising the year's results.
Vladimir Gaidei, the deputy head of the city administration's Finance Committee, said that the city had made progress in reducing its debt, with the level falling to just over 11 billion rubles ($370 million) at the beginning of December, a year-on-year drop of 2 billion rubles ($67 million).
The city was able to reduce its external debt even further, reducing the total by 4 billion rubles ($134 million), by converting 2 billion rubles to internal borrowing.
International ratings agencies reacted positively to the reduction in debt and the continued stability in the economic situation both in St. Petersburg and Russia as a whole.
At the beginning of December, Standard & Poor's said that it had raised its long-term issuer credit ratings for the city to a "stable" outlook.
The city has continued to benefit form the overall improvement in Russia and is experiencing sustained economic growth, boosting its liquidity and tax revenues.
"The city's debt burdens are low by international standards, at less than 30 percent of all operating revenues," Yelena Okorotchenko, a Standard & Poor's credit analyst, said in an official statement at the time of the announcement. "The performance will, nonetheless, continue to be affected by the ongoing intergovernmental reform within Russia, which, among other things, has led to significant changes in the structure of tax revenues and equalization mechanisms, and limits revenue predictability and flexibility."
"The stable outlook reflects Standard & Poor's expectation that the city will continue to show sound financial performance, manageable debt, and improvement in its management and control systems", Okorotchenko added.
Next door to the city, in the Leningrad Oblast, administration officials are also trumpeting the economic accomplishments of the past year.
Valentin Sidorin, the spokesperson for Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov, labeled 2002 "the most successful in ten years," in a telephone interview on Friday.
"The industrial growth rate was 37.4 percent - the highest in Russia. The average figure for Russia is about 5 or 6 percent," Sidorin said. "Ford, Swedwood and two glass companies opened factories in the Leningrad Oblast, and the unemployment level has fallen to 1.5 percent."
"The Leningrad Oblast has also become the leader in poultry breeding and dairy-cow breeding, with the average production per cow reaching 5,400 kilograms per animal, which is even higher than during the Soviet period," he added.
Banking officials say that the situation in their sector also showed a marked improvement for the year. Vladimir Dzhikovich, the president of the Northwest Banking Association, said that basic capitalization improvements had led to a much stronger situation in the sector.
"The banks showed dynamic development - the number of additional share issues and capital figures have increased significantly, while we also witnessed the growth of trust in the banking system by private individuals," Dzhikovich said on Friday. "The banks have begun dispensing more loans, while no bankruptcies or the failure to fulfill obligations ended up causing losses for clients."
In particular, Dzhikovich says that banks' shift in focus toward their retail activities is a positive step.
"Banks have realized that the population is the most attractive investor, and that providing loans to individuals may be even more important than providing them for industry, as it is consumption that ultimately stimulates industrial development," he added.
Dzhikovich also said that the performance of Russian markets was a highlight in 2002, and that local companies were looking to markets increasingly as a source for funds.
"The stock market has begun to revive, and most experts are making favorable prognoses for continued market growth," he said. "A number of local firms issued corporate bonds for the first time, including [local bread producer] Pekar and [construction holding] RBI. On one hand, these stock-market instruments are in demand, but corporate bonds remain among the most risky, as they stipulate less responsibility for the issuer."
But Dzhikovich's view of developments in the banking industry wasn't entirely rosy.
"The major drawback in 2002 is that the laws for bank-deposit insurance and for credit bureaux weren't passed," he said. "Finally, development in the real economic sector is still lagging behind that in the economy as a whole, which is limiting potential to a certain extent."
Another financial industry on the upswing in 2002 was insurance sector, with the advent of mandatory third-party automobile insurance the main incentive to market development, and consumer interest in insurance in general on the rise.
But Konstantin Baykov, the head of the Northwest department of the Russian Insurance Union says that local legislators fell behind on the issue, and no local legislation on insurance was passed.
Perhaps one of the most noticeable developments over the year was the continued growth in attention to marketing and public relations, both for individual companies and for the city itself.
Olga Chernyshova, the director of Boyden Consulting, says that companies have become much more advanced in their approaches to distinguishing between these different concepts.
"Companies have really begun to invest more in people, as they realized that economic development takes place in the intellectual sphere first," Chernyshova said. "A friend of mine from the United States who was here said that it seemed to her that everyone working here was engaged either in public relations or employee training."
Most of all, says Alexei Chernushevich, the director of Troika Dialog's St. Petersburg branch office, outside companies are turning their eyes to the city as a market with greater potential.
"We've seen a great number of branches and representative offices opened by Moscow-based and international firms here and the way that commercial real-estate rates have soared as a result," Chernushevich said. "The appearance of new retail space, supermarkets and retail complexes has been noticeable."
But he warns that barriers that hinder further development of the trend remain.
"There are still some obstacles preventing the city from becoming completely public or 'open,'" he said, citing "the absence of a sufficient number of hotels and transport difficulties created by a lack of overpasses and poor-quality service at airports and railway stations."
TITLE: For Both Bulls and Bears, 2002 Was Year To Toast
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - To hear the bulls tell it, 2002 was a winner, but the bears say it was a toss-up at best.
Both have a point, economists say, and either way it's OK to pop the champagne, as long as the toasts are worded carefully.
The bulls can raise their glasses to a fourth consecutive year of solid economic growth; sound budget management that produced another surplus; a stable currency; reasonable inflation; a world-leading stock market; recognition (at last) from the world's two largest powerhouses as a market economy; and, of course, a booming oil sector, which is cranking out 8 million barrels per day for the first time in a decade, meaning Russia's most important industry is back where it started.
Once the backslapping is over and the bottle half emptied, however, the bears tell a different story: The oligarchs have increased their hold on the economy; corruption is still widespread; foreign investment remains laughably low; the banking sector, as always, is acutely anemic; no end is in sight for restructuring the natural monopolies; World Trade Organization membership looks an increasingly distant dream; and the year's two biggest privatization projects were blotted by failure and farce.
"If you were looking for one word to sum up Russia today it would have to be 'frustration,'" says Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank.
"Just when we thought we had it figured out and everything seemed to be sliding nicely into place, a series of unconnected events occurs over a few hours and sends us off scratching our heads again."
If for no other reason, 2002 could be considered a success for putting the financial crisis of August 1998 12 months further away, but much more had been hoped for.
In fact, in many ways, economists say, it seems as if nothing much has changed at all - Russia remains a country of contradictions, high risks and good intentions, with a government that is at times unwilling and at times unable to push through reforms that virtually everyone agrees are needed.
One case in point is last week's decision by the agenda-setting council of the State Duma to postpone indefinitely the second, crucial reading of a raft of bills needed to begin the breakup of the national power monopoly. Without the bills, there will be no competition and investment in the sector and the government will continue to set electricity prices artificially low, which is a main hurdle to joining the WTO.
It is widely believed that a small number of very powerful businesspeople opposed to the reform has managed to trump the liberal-minded government and the predominantly pro-Kremlin parliament. Delaying such reforms, economists say, jeopardizes current and future economic growth and makes the country, already considered overdependent on oil, even more so.
The same group, which is uninterested in competition of any kind, therefore naturally opposes joining the WTO.
Just 11 months ago, outgoing WTO chief Mike Moore said he was confident that Russia could become a member of the organization within 12 months. But though both sides expressed readiness, most recently last week, to intensify negotiations, Russia's membership seems no closer today than it did a year ago.
In fact, there has been no progress to speak of on any of the major sticking points, which center on protectionist policies on energy prices, agriculture, financial services and telecommunications. The general consensus now is that it could take Russia, the last major economy outside the WTO, as long as five years to join the global trade body.
Protecting domestic producers has certain immediate advantages but in the long term is seen as detrimental to the economy, as it discourages investment and removes the incentive to become more efficient.
In June, for example, the government, in an effort to support the auto industry, decided to increase tariffs on seven-year-old used cars by 30 percent beginning in October. The government's view was that it had to do something to protect AvtoVAZ and GAZ, whose new cars were losing market share to foreign cars made in the mid-1990s.
Not surprisingly, Russians rushed to buy the used cars before the price hike. That, combined with growing demand for new foreign cars, forced AvtoVAZ and GAZ either to shut down or curtail production and lay off workers for the first time in four decades.
Government efforts to protect the devastated aviation industry - once the world's most prolific - didn't help either. The sector produced just a handful of civil craft this year and is on the verge of total collapse.
Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref has said he feels a sense of "hopelessness" about it. "Today we don't have answers for problems in several key areas," Gref said last Tuesday, in summing up his ministry's work this year, singling out aviation. "Before it is too late, we need to take measures to revive our potential in the sector," Gref was quoted by Interfax as saying. "Russia with aviation and Russia without aviation are two different countries."
In a feud that would last for months, the Agriculture Ministry in March took the bold step of banning U.S. poultry imports, ostensibly over health concerns, but the move came at about the same time that Washington erected barriers to steel imports, including those from Russia.
The trade scuffle, which eventually drew in both presidents, didn't end until August. Nor did it prevent the United States from officially declaring Russia a market economy in June. The European Union followed with an upgrade of its own in November, but these moves were considered more of a political payback for Russia's support for the war on terror than for any substantial economic achievement.
The growing coziness with the West had its benefits, but it also came at a price, paid most recently by LUKoil, the nation's largest crude producer. Earlier this month, Iraq, citing Russia's support for the UN campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime, unexpectedly announced that it had canceled LUKoil's multibillion-dollar contract to develop its massive West Qurna oil field.
But while the Kremlin demonstrated its political strength on international economic issues, the story was different at home. Most notably, the government failed, despite its political will, to make major headway on major reforms, including Gazprom, Unified Energy Systems and the banking sector, all of which will remain focal points for domestic and foreign investors who have seen the Kremlin's political power tested and found wanting.
The wait could be a long one. With parliamentary elections slated for December, followed by presidential elections three months later, many economists fear few, if any, major reforms will be undertaken in the next 18 months.
Even the two largest sell-offs of the year, which were supposed to showcase President Vladimir Putin's cleaner, leaner Russia, were not without scandal.
The government tried and failed to sell 5.9 percent of LUKoil in London in August, although it succeeded earlier this month, fetching a not insubstantial $775 million.
And last week's sale of 75 percent of Slavneft was far from the open auction advertised, as just two bidders, TNK and Sibneft, ended up in the competition and they had agreed beforehand to split the stake 50-50, paying a collective $1.86 billion, just 10 percent above the starting price and a far cry from the $3 billion many in the government felt was deserved.
"Had Slavneft been sold in the good old days of Yeltsin-era privatizations, it would have fetched maybe $150 million, with half of even that paid in overdue veksels and old shoes," says Eric Kraus, head of research at investment bank Sovlink.
"Basically, we have gone from discounts of over 95 percent to 'only' 20 to 25 percent, which is quite a substantial improvement, but not quite what we had hoped for."
Even seemingly trivial issues important to foreign investors failed to get resolved.
In January, for example, the European Business Club, the American Chamber of Commerce and the German Business Association, which represent some 2,000 companies doing business in Russia, sent a letter to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov with two simple complaints that they hoped would be resolved in 2002.
The first was for Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport to be cleaned up, and the second was to end the annoying rule for foreigners that requires them to get special permission from the Central Bank to leave the country with any amount of hard currency.
In July, Sheremetyevo's board of directors postponed for another year a $20 million plan to spruce up its international terminal, and in November the director of the airport was fired for failing to make any progress on a new, third terminal that has been in the works for years.
It appeared that a ray of light had shone on the currency issue last week when the Duma passed amendments that would have scrapped the Central Bank requirement for foreigners and raise from $1,500 to $10,000 the limit everyone can legally take out of the country without special permission - but Putin's representative in the Duma said it would be vetoed.
The government took its time fulfilling other promises, too.
More than year ago, in a move eagerly awaited by the foreign investment community, Kasyanov said the government would privatize its second-largest bank, Vneshtorgbank, and attract the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as a strategic partner. To do that, the government needed to first buy out the Central Bank's 99 percent stake, which it did not do until November, and no deal has yet been struck with the EBRD.
The government has, however, handled its external-debt problem - which was due to balloon to more than $17 billion next year - well. Over the course of the year, it managed to reduce next year's load to $15 billion, which, buffered by privatization revenues, is not now seen as a problem.
The conservative debt policy paid off. Two of the three major international credit agencies - Moody's and Standard & Poor's - boosted their ratings for Russia to just two notches below investment grade, which is great for the country's image and will make future borrowing cheaper.
The positive debt news also helped boost the stock market. The benchmark RTS index, which has been one of the world's best-performing stock markets over the last several years, continued the trend in 2002, rising 30 percent in dollar terms.
Oil major Sibneft and state savings bank Sberbank led the way, rising 195 percent and 154 percent, respectively, while the biggest losers of the blue chips were UES and its subsidiary Mosenergo, which lost 22 percent and 28.4 percent on concerns over the pace and shape of sector reforms.
For those who have neither the time nor the patience to figure out how Russia ranks in the world, 2002, like every year, offered a plethora of rankings, reports and studies to do it for them.
Russia remains one of the world's most unfriendly places, for example, if measured by the World Economic Freedom Index. It also remains one of the most uncompetitive countries, if the World Economic Forum's competitiveness study is to be believed.
Russia rises to the top, however, when it is judged by how effective its companies are at bribing officials in other countries. According to Transparency International's Bribe-Payers Index, Russian firms are second to none among the 21 leading exporting countries. Several studies done by Russian think tanks this year seem to back up that claim: One study says Russian citizens and corporations pass $36 billion under the table each year, or about 12 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
Most important, at least to some, Russia is No. 2 in the two areas that really count - oil and arms exports - after Saudi Arabia and the United States, respectively.
TITLE: LUKoil Is Thrown to the Dogs
TEXT: LAST week, Iraq announced that it would welcome any Russian oil company other than LUKoil into the consortium hired to develop its West Qurna field. Iraq broke its $3.7 billion contract with Russia's largest crude producer in mid-December. The announcement was just the latest in LUKoil's long list of mishaps in Iraq. Saddam Hussein seems to have realized that Russia is on the brink of a new industrial war and that the grand prize will be LUKoil. The company is weak and is in no position to promote Iraq's interests in Russia.
Everything has been going wrong for LUKoil.
In July last year, Ryazan resident Irina Yegorova, the owner of five shares in LUKoil, an investment currently worth about $75, successfully filed a petition in a Ryazan court to have any export-related orders issued by LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov declared null and void. As a result, pipeline monopoly Transneft halted LUKoil exports for two days, costing the company $1 million.
This summer, LUKoil got into a fight with Vladimir Butov, governor of the oil-rich Nenets autonomous district in the Far North. Butov, obviously with approval from on high, welshed on commitments he had made to LUKoil. At one point, the governor was at the center of six criminal investigations. Butov blamed everything on LUKoil, and the company was cast as a troublemaker encroaching on the federal government's turf.
Then LUKoil's chief financial officer, Sergei Kukura, went missing. The consensus is that he was kidnapped with the aim of pumping him for his vast knowledge of the company. This couldn't have been carried out without permission from the highest levels.
At the time, LUKoil was building a new oil-product terminal on Vysotsky Island, near St. Petersburg. Earlier this month construction was forbidden, ostensibly on ecological grounds, but only after LUKoil had already sunk huge sums into the project.
And, a week ago, LUKoil announced that it will sell its 10 percent stake in Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field to Japan's unlisted Inpex for $1.375 billion. But Alekperov is more than just a Baku native. It's well known that he was being considered by the Kremlin and in Azerbaijan as a possible successor to President Heidar Aliyev. The sale of LUKoil's share in the Azeri oil field was as much a political as a commercial retreat.
Any Russian industrial war has three components: a weak target company, deadly enemies and a blessing from on high.
LUKoil is the worst-run oil company in Russia. The rest - Yukos, Sibneft, TNK - centralized their operations long ago. Oil-industry insiders say that only at LUKoil will you find private wells drilled by mid-level managers with money stolen from the company. At Yukos they'd rip your head off for something like that. Alekperov has no shortage of enemies, mostly former executives who helped build the company and were later squeezed out. These people were useless as managers and therefore harmless as enemies.
But the LUKoil chief does face more serious opposition in the person of Semyon Vainshtok, current head of Transneft. Vainshtok was a founder of LUKoil and was responsible for boosting LUKoil's production. He once headed Kogalymneftegaz, and there were no private wells on his watch. Vainshtok's success in Kogalym turned out to be so dangerous that he was summoned to Moscow and charged with unifying LUKoil's production structure in western Siberia. The task was practically impossible, but Vainshtok pulled it off. As a result, he was forced out of LUKoil and quickly found himself - thanks to the good graces of oligarch Roman Abramovich - in charge of Transneft.
Last but not least - sanction from on high. Everything that has happened with LUKoil to this point is just reconnaissance in force. Will an attack follow? If there's an attacker - in the form of the Yeltsin-era "family" - then defenders are not far behind: the St. Petersburg chekists. So LUKoil isn't necessarily bound for the chopping block. But its revenues are sure to be redistributed - between the aggressors and the defenders.
Yulia Latynina is author and host of "Yest Mneniye" ("Some Believe") on TVS.
TITLE: Computers and Internet Have a High-Speed Year
AUTHOR: By John Moran
TEXT: A PROMISING New Year for technology beckons. But before we bid adieu to this one, let's take a few moments to revisit some of the highlights in computing and the Internet for 2002.
Online retailing: A bright spot in the Internet economy has been the record-breaking performance of virtual stores during the holiday season, giving hope that the long slide in Internet-related business may be nearing an end.
Technology and telecom bust: The flip side is that the grueling decline for businesses in technology and telecommunications continued for the third straight year. Internet users have seen fewer services and fewer advances than they might otherwise have enjoyed.
The dot-carnage extends even to Internet companies still in business. New fees are cropping up for many services that were once free. The one upside is that those tech companies that have managed to survive so far should be well positioned for a strong rebound when the economy improves.
Microsoft settlement: Microsoft was found guilty of antitrust violations, but it still managed to cut a deal that many observers found to be relatively lenient. As it turns out, Microsoft's biggest victory may not have been in court, but rather at the ballot box. The Justice Department under U.S. President George W. Bush proved far more open to a favorable settlement than its predecessor, paving the way toward the eventual conclusion of this long-running lawsuit.
Copyright battles: Napster's gone, and the movie and recording industries are pursuing new ways to limit the ways music and video clips can be copied. Information may want to be free, but the people who sell it still want the price tag firmly attached.
Moore's Law: Although it technically applies only to computer chips, the notion that all things digital get better, cheaper and faster held true in 2002.
As of now, Intel's latest Pentium 4 processors have crossed the 3 gigahertz threshold. Hard-drive prices have fallen toward the $1 per gigabyte range.
Wi-Fi and wireless: Wireless Internet access had its ups and downs in 2002. On the downside, wireless telephone companies struggled to make their vaunted 3G or "third generation" networks available. Web-ready cell phones are still expensive.
The good news is that an alternative form of wireless access known as Wi-Fi made strong advances. Coffee shops, hotel lobbies, airport waiting rooms and other sites increasingly offer free Net access to anyone in the vicinity with a wireless networking card in their laptop.
John Moran is a columnist with The Hartford Courant, where this comment first appeared
TITLE: A Few Highlights From Our Favorite Players
AUTHOR: By Gretchen Morgenson
TEXT: HARVEY Pitt, Dennis Kozlowski, Bernard Ebbers, Jack Grubman. Their crashing falls from grace helped make 2002 a year for U.S. business scandals that may never be topped. In fact, had a novelist like Anthony Trollope, the 19th-century chronicler of English society at its best and worst, invented these characters, his readers would have rejected them as caricatures. Too improbable. Too grasping. Too contemptible.
But genuine they were, as investors found out this year. Although their struts across the stage were spectacles, others earned a part in this year's unforgettable bear-market pageant.
In honor of their performances, it is again time to hand out the Augustus Melmotte Memorial Prizes, named for the swindler and schemer central to Trollope's novel "The Way We Live Now." Melmotte rose to the heights of London society on wealth he had raised ostensibly to build a railroad in North America but which instead went into his own pockets. He was found out, of course. But by that time, much of the money was gone.
Following are the prizes and the winners.
The Somebody Else's Fault Award: To Alan Greenspan, the chairperson of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, who is busily ducking any blame for failing to prevent the stock market bubble and its awful aftermath. His latest attempt came this month during a speech at the Economic Club of New York. In his inimitable prose, Greenspan said: "Whether incipient bubbles can be detected in real time and whether, once detected, they can be defused without inadvertently precipitating still greater adverse consequences for the economy remain in doubt."
Translation: Don't blame me for watching blithely as the bubble grew and grew. It was so very pretty, and how was I to know it would blow investors away when it popped?
Clearly, Greenspan is worried about his legacy and how history will view his inaction in the face of an obvious stock-market mania. But he seems to have forgotten that, when he points his finger elsewhere in blame, three fingers remain pointed at himself.
The Truth In Advertising Award: To the Charles Schwab Corporation, for showing investors how stocks are really sold in the famous cinema verite television commercial entitled "Pep Talk." Talking up a stock to a roomful of brokers, a Wall Street executive says, "Don't mention the fundamentals; they stink." After promising courtside playoff tickets for the broker who sells the most stock, the executive says, "Now let's put some lipstick on this pig."
Bullseye.
The Denial Is Potent Award: Bernard Ebbers, founder and former chief executive of WorldCom, whose creation crashed to earth in the country's largest bankruptcy filing last July. Although his shareholders lost everything and thousands of his workers lost their jobs, Ebbers told Congress last summer that he was proud of his work at WorldCom.
Ebbers still owes WorldCom $408 million, which he borrowed to meet margin calls at his brokerage firm when WorldCom shares started their slide. For those WorldCom creditors worried that Ebbers will never be able to repay his loan, look on the bright side. The man has all kinds of experience in other industries. After all, before he built WorldCom he had been a milk deliverer, a bouncer and a car salesperson. But it might take a while to get the money back.
The What Scandals? Award: To Hardwick Simmons, the chief executive of the NASDAQ stock market, which has lost 31 percent of its value this year, who kept asking throughout 2002 what all the scandal talk was about. Simmons, who is against accounting for stock options as an employee cost, told a reporter at The Globe and Mail of Toronto that chief executives had recently grown too preoccupied with director independence. "All the academic literature I've ever seen - and I mean there is none on the other side - shows there is absolutely no correlation between the independence of one's board and the performance of one's company," he was quoted as saying. "In fact, it works exactly the opposite."
And finally, a tip of the hat this year to Colin Devine, the Salomon Smith Barney analyst who warned investors away from Conseco stock in January 1999 and took a lot of heat for it. His focus on the company's numbers kept Devine from buying into the company's spin. Even as investors cheered the arrival of Wendt - a savior to some - Devine kept his feet on the ground, proving that top-flight, skeptical analysis can indeed come out of a big Wall Street firm.
Gretchen Morgenson is a columnist for the New York Times, where this comment first appeared.
TITLE: World Scene Nothing New for Markets
AUTHOR: By Nicole Maestri
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK - U.S. investors, already weighing possible war with Iraq, enter the last week of 2002 with fresh concerns about North Korea's nuclear ambitions, a sign of the global instability that has stifled a year-end stock rally.
Investors' nerves were jangled by North Korea's statement on Friday that it is expelling UN monitors who have been inspecting the country's nuclear facilities. The report came as oil prices hit new two-year highs, driven by a strike that has crippled Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter.
The North Korean announcement sent major stock gauges lower for the week and reminded investors that events abroad could slam a market suffering its third down year in a row.
"The problem with 2002 is that investors focused on scandals," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at First Albany Corp. "The problem as we start 2003 is investors are starting to focus on the geopolitical situation."
Last week, the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 2.44 percent while the broad Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 2.27 percent. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite index declined 1.07 percent.
For the year, the Dow Jones is down 17 percent, and the NASDAQ is off 31 percent.
The S&P 500 is down for three consecutive years, the first time that occurred since 1939 to 1941, according to Standard & Poor's.
This week marks the last two trading sessions in 2002. U.S. markets will be closed on Wednesday, Jan. 1 - New Year's Day.
"We're likely to see some fairly weak volumes as many people are on vacation," Tobias Levkovich, institutional-equity strategist for Salomon Smith Barney, said about next week. "News can get exaggerated one way or the other because of that. Generally speaking, it's going to be very hard to get much of a read out of the markets."
But investors will no doubt try to do just that, many of them believing that market action during the first five trading days of January often serves as an early indicator for the whole year.
"There's an old saying: 'So goes the first week of the New Year, so goes the month, so goes the year,'" said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James Financial.
Early January gains since 1950, excluding 1994, have been matched by whole-year gains with only three war-related exceptions, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.
Asked if anything could derail a traditional uptick at the end of the year this week, Saut said:
"You could have North Korea explode a nuke somewhere, you could have another terrorist event. There's a whole myriad of issues that could derail that ... but, barring anything like that, I would think that the seasonality would at least tilt us to the upside [this] week."
"Every day, we focus more and more about the geopolitical situation," First Albany's Johnson said. "Now, it's not just Iraq, it's North Korea and things are clearly getting tense."
Such a situation could see investors seek refuge in bonds rather than stocks, Johnson said.
Some market pundits contend the possibility of a dual war is already priced into the market.
"These are not new in terms of weighing on the market," Levkovich said. "They've been weighing on the market for a while - the market always deals with uncertainty."
TITLE: Putin's Western Kudos Not Counting at Home
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: A YEAR ago, at the end 2001, Russia and its president were extremely popular in the West. Vladimir Putin unequivocally supported the United States after 9/11: Moscow promptly joined the anti-terror coalition and provided bases, weapons and, in some instances, direct military support to the forces of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Without the support of Russia and its traditional allies in Central Asia, the Taliban regime would not have collapsed as swiftly as it did.
Putin was considered cool in the West - intelligent, reserved, well dressed, with full command of German and also some understanding of English. Putin was seen as the long-awaited true reformer of Russia, a Western-style leader, an intelligent patriot, not a drunk like many other Russians. In short, a person who could swiftly turn Russia around.
A year later, Putin is still called a loyal friend by the leaders of Britain, the United States and other Western countries. Putin is still very popular with the Russian masses. But many in the local and foreign elite are beginning to see him as more of a problem - not a solution for Russia's woes.
The Russian military is visibly disintegrating, with constant mass defections of solders caused by intolerable conditions, while a program of military reform that Putin officially proclaimed to be a national priority is failing to improve the situation. At the same time within the upper ranks there is growing discontent and disappointment with Putin's defense and foreign policies.
After the conflict over Kosovo in 1999, the Russian military temporarily froze all relations with NATO. At the same time, military and diplomatic chiefs ecstatically reinstated a Soviet-style defense doctrine (signed by Putin in 2000) that reinstated the West as Russia's main potential enemy.
After 9/11, Russian generals were alarmed by Putin's sudden westward turn. To silence the opposition, the Kremlin appeased the military. At meetings with generals, Putin and his defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, explained time and again that the closeness with the West was not a full-time policy shift. Russia's participation in the anti-terror coalition was portrayed as a clever temporary tactical move that would benefit Russia, give it access to Western markets for capital and technology, while American solders and bombers would be deployed to destroy the Taliban army of religious extremists. The Kremlin insisted that, after 9/11, the West would better understand Russian policies in Chechnya and help cut financial support for the rebels.
The Kremlin can be persuasive when it wants to be and, anyway, the careers of top generals depend on the benevolence of the president and the chiefs of his administration. The Russian military accepted the presence of U.S. bases on former Soviet territory, accepted an eastward expansion of NATO to include the three Baltic states and accepted without much fuss Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty and plans to begin building an ABM shield, a system that may one day nullify the Russian strategic nuclear deterrent that is the backbone of all Russian defense plans.
The Russian military was forced to accept all of this, but they did not like what they were forced to swallow. There is today no open protest movement in the ranks of our top brass, but one can overhear a lot of very angry grumbling, especially since Putin has given almost nothing to the military in return for their loyalty.
Russian officers did get a pay hike that sounded grand if measured in percentages, but with the pay hike many benefits were withdrawn, such as special rates for utilities and housing.
A lieutenant will now receive just over $100 a month, a colonel about $160 - hardly an incentive for an able, ambitious young man to choose a military career. But the government cannot pay more to its outsized, unreformed military. In the coming year some 70 percent of the defense budget will be spent on salaries, military pensions and feeding the men, leaving even less money than this year for the procurement and development of new weapons.
Most generals angrily reject the argument that there's no money to keep the grand Soviet-style military machine in good shape. The generals argue that Russia is a rich country with lots of oil, gas, metals and other natural resources. But all these national riches were unjustly privatized by a group of unscrupulous oligarchs.
Many in the military expected that Putin would, as he hinted in the beginning of his presidential term, destroy the oligarchs, confiscate their wealth and hand it over to the military. The generals expected a two to four-fold increase in defense spending, but Putin failed to deliver. The oligarchy continues to rule and prosper, while the military counts pennies.
There are intelligent generals (some of them occupy high decision-making positions in the Defense Ministry) who are prepared to face a real world in which the Russian military has a modest role and to build a reformed armed force on a realistic budget. But such military "realists" are a slim minority.
Putin mostly tends to tell people what they want to hear: While meeting Western leaders he talks of partnership and liberal reforms, and in Beijing he repeats anti-Western "multipolar world" slogans. What Putin says and what he does are often wide apart.
This tactic has made Putin everybody's darling for the time being, but the cloak of professional deceptiveness is visibly beginning to wear thin, internationally and internally. While foreign leaders will most likely continue to give Putin the benefit of the doubt, the Kremlin should not take the loyalty of its military for granted anymore. Only speedy and effective reforms can turn the Russian military around, and such reforms are becoming a prerequisite of Putin's political survival. Who knows? Maybe necessity will actually make things begin to happen.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst and St. Petersburg Times columnist.
TITLE: 'The Dog That Didn't Bark' Betrays Russia's Lack of Hope
TEXT: THE last part of 2002 witnessed two major political events in Europe that have been widely portrayed there as historic milestones, but have generated remarkably low levels of attention and reaction in Russia.
At the end of a summit held in Prague in November, the heads of state and government of the NATO-member countries announced their a long-awaited decision to continue the enlargement process that started a few years earlier with the entry of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The alliance's "big-bang" approach took the place of what had been a more cautious and limited approach and, now, seven countries from Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States, have been formally invited to join and will soon become full NATO members.
This means that Washington and its European allies have effectively crossed the line Moscow drew in the sand earlier in a seemingly desperate attempt to halt the uncontrolled Eastern expansion of its old adversary. This also means that the oft-declared open-ended character of the process from the NATO side is not just mere rhetoric, but practical policy. Those who still remain outside the organization are there because they are either unprepared or unwilling to join, but not due to discrimination on political grounds.
In December, European Union leaders announced in Copenhagen, Denmark that a lengthy and cumbersome process of accession talks had been completed successfully. An impressive number of countries, equal to one fourth of the current EU population - Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak republic and Slovenia - is expected to join the group by May 1, 2004.
Turkey continues to knock at the EU door and, although Europe is not fully comfortable with the idea, the prospect of the Turkish membership seems to be not a question of whether it will happens but, increasingly, one of "how and when." An immensely large and integrated Europe is emerging.
The Kremlin and the Russian population remain strikingly quiet about these developments.
It's no surprise that Moscow has had little to say about NATO extension. Although it did earlier try to draw a line, threatening an asymmetric response if Washington and its European allies dared not to respect Russia's concerns, it soon became clear that Russia has little or no resources at hand to defend such a position.
The Kremlin's political imagination could not expand beyond the vague idea of a NATO-Russia dialogue "at twenty" and, under the circumstances, it became a better option to downplay the Prague summit - to treat it as insignificant.
What ultimately helped soothe the injured Russian ego was a particularly polite diplomatic move on the part of U.S. President George W. Bush, who paid a special visit to meet President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg following the Prague summit, coupled with the cynical sense of satisfaction at the fact that NATO is not the cherished American institution it once was. In the unfolding international war on terror, Washington has relied on its close allies (such as Great Britain), made some efforts to receive UN backing for its plans, and found a number of points of common interest with Russia, while finding NATO nearly useless. It's understandable why Russian doesn't feel so threatened.
But it is more difficult to understand why Russia remains unimpressed by EU enlargement.
Moscow has never been particularly happy with the idea, but it was never portrayed as being as big a threat or opposed as vigorously as was NATO expansion. The importance of NATO enlargement can be downgraded by the notion that it came after the associated risks and challenges had been redressed. This is clearly not the case with the European Union.
Upon coming to power, Putin made the simple argument that speedy economic development should be Russia's priority. Otherwise, the country would soon find itself not just among second-rank, but third-world countries. If the economy and business are the real priorities, how can Russia can afford not to pay attention to what is happening in the EU, which is the country's major economic partner, being the source of investment and technology, and its chief hope for economic recovery?
The only explanation I can think of is that the Russian government is not be able to justify its remaining reluctance in relations with the EU in any way that could be taken seriously. Putin once used Portugal's level of economic development as a metaphorical ceiling that Russia needs to reach quickly. Otherwise, the point went, we could never hope to be treated as a country deserving of respect and attention. Troika Dialog recently published a study stating that - at current growth rates (4 percent) - Russia would be able to reach Portugal's level of economic development by 2065.
In other words, if today's economic policy and results continue, the country has no chance. Even the spectacularly high oil prices do not help.
In light of this, to talk about economic issues in relation to the EU for the government is even less politically attractive than talking about security in relation NATO.
I wonder if the Kremlin will be more willing to talk if Turkey is invited to join?
Igor Leshukov is the director of the Institute of International Affairs, St. Petersburg, a private think tank. He contributerd this comment to the St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Global Eye
TEXT: Death Merchants
Each day, one turns to the latest news from the bowels of the Bush Regime with Dorothy Parker's immortal words sounding in the mind like a tocsin: "What fresh hell is this?"
Last week, the news was particularly shameful - and the "hell," though fresh indeed, was in no way metaphorical. For last week saw two new examples of the Regime's most egregious ongoing crime against humanity - its cold, calculated, covert war against the world's poor.
Although it's being waged with words and policies - and not the flesh-devouring hardware now massing on Iraq's borders - make no mistake: Bush's war on the poor is a real war, with real casualties, and death tolls in the tens of thousands. It's war on a global scale, on many fronts, but it's being fought for two reasons only: personal political ambition and financial profit.
Ever since he assumed office, Bush has taken every opportunity to derail or destroy UN efforts to provide reproductive health services to the world's poorest women. He has filled American delegations to policy-setting conferences on these issues with religious extremists from his devoted "Christian Right" political base. He has arbitrarily cut off funding to the UN's family-planning program for developing countries - money that health experts say could have prevented 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths in the past year alone.
But this Herodian slaughter means nothing to Bush; what's important is that he secures his "base" for the 2004 election. And so last week he launched a fresh assault on the poor and vulnerable. His fundamentalist minions sought to kneecap a UN conference on family planning in Asia, standing adamant - and alone - against the final resolution of a plan to guide policy and determine funding for a range of international health programs for women, Salon.com reports.
Not even the mullahs of Iran joined Bush in this fundamentalist diatribe against the document. And what was Bush's objection? The inclusion of the phrase "reproductive health" in the proposal. This demonic language, saith the Lord's Anointed, is just a code word for "abortion." And although abortion is, of course, legal in the United States - for example, Bush's nubile daughters could freely and safely avail themselves of the practice if need arose - it is obviously not to be permitted for the lesser breeds who dwell in darkness.
But the Bush blockade was not just an outburst of religious zealotry; it was something far more cynical, far more wicked than that. For the objection was based on a lie - and the Bush team knew it was a lie. The UN's 1994 Cairo Agreement on family planning and health rights for women - which was the foundational document of the Asia conference - clearly states: "In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning." Therefore, phrases such as "reproductive health" or "reproductive rights" could not possibly refer to the promotion of abortion in UN family planning documents.
Bush knows this. The bogus abortion issue is just a smokescreen; in fact, his funding cuts to UN programs have actually led to far more abortions (an estimated 800,000, the UN says), as poor women are left without contraception or family-planning advice. No, what his hard-right base really objects to is the overall aim of the UN programs: the emancipation of women from ignorance, repression and poverty. A woman in charge of her own reproductive health, outside the control of others, poses a mortal danger to the fundamentalists' draconian mythology of "The Family" - in which man rules as the vice-regent of God and woman humbly submits.
Whether Bush personally believes this or not is irrelevant. What matters is that he plays on this belief, for his own aggrandizement - and thousands of women and children die for it.
And the war goes on. Just a few days after the Asian assault, Bush's own vice regent, Dick Cheney, torpedoed an international agreement that would have allowed the world's poorest countries to import a wide range of life-saving drugs at low cost. Cheney's intervention has thus consigned thousands of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America to needless agony and early death.
The 140 countries of the World Trade Organization were on the brink of signing a deal that would have relaxed some of the patent laws that protect the gargantuan profits of America's politically connected drug corporations, The Guardian reports. Poor countries can't afford the medicines that the drug lords develop for the favored denizens of the West (those with insurance, that is). The new WTO deal - part of a much broader package of development aid agreed upon at last year's landmark Doha conference - would have given developing countries affordable access to treatments for such ravages as cancer, asthma, pneumonia and many others.
But the druglords called in their campaign chips; they haven't stuffed Republican coffers for nothing. Cheney got on the horn to American delegates at the Geneva conference and lowered the boom: no deal - despite the fierce opposition of every other country in the WTO. Negotiators say the entire Doha agreement - with AIDs prevention as its centerpiece - may now collapse. If so, the death toll in Africa alone could reach millions.
These are acts of war by the Bush Regime, the acts of despicable moral cretins - slithering, slathering and lusting for power, willing to kill the weakest on Earth to maintain themselves and their loathsome kind in comfort, pomp and privilege. With callous deliberation, sugared hypocrisy and criminal indifference, they are creating a hell on Earth.
For annotational references, see the "Opinion" section at www.sptimesrussia.com
TITLE: Iraq Gives UN List Of WMD Scientists
AUTHOR: By Nadia Abou El Magd
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Baghdad complied with a key United Nations demand Saturday by delivering a list to weapons inspectors naming over 500 scientists linked to Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs, a UN official said.
UN weapons sleuths hope that the list, written in Arabic, will open new avenues to learning more about Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction programs.
In the world body's tough new sanctions regime, UN inspectors are allowed to speak to Iraqi scientists in private - an option Washington hopes will prompt scientists to reveal hidden arms programs.
So far, inspectors have interviewed two key scientists - both in the past week. Both, however, refused to talk alone with UN officials, and Iraqi officials remained present.
"We have received from the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate a list of names of personnel associated with Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programs," Hiro Ueki, the spokesperson for the UN office in Baghdad, told reporters Saturday. The list contained more than 500 names, he said.
The handover marks Baghdad's latest show of cooperation with the weapons inspections. While strenuously denying it possesses arms of mass destruction, Iraq has so far complied with most Security Council requirements, including allowing the initial return of inspectors, giving access to sites the experts want to search and delivering its Dec. 7 declaration on the state of its weapons programs.
If Iraq convinces inspectors it is not hiding weapons of mass destruction, it might avoid a U.S. strike. But inspectors have said Iraq's weapons declaration is wanting, and America has dismissed it as a lie.
Security Council Resolution 1441 allows inspectors to take willing scientists out of Iraq to interview them. Iraqi officials have said they don't think that is necessary, but will allow it if a scientist consents. Since arriving in Baghdad on Nov. 27, inspectors have been speaking to engineers and experts at sites they have searched. But there have only been two reported interviews with Iraqi scientists, with the first occurring Tuesday.
On Friday, Ueki said Mojbal had given UN officials details about an unidentified Iraqi military program that "has attracted considerable attention as a possible prelude to a clandestine nuclear program." But, on Saturday, he clarified the statement, saying the UN knew that the scientist interviewed was not involved in Iraq's past nuclear program, and that he had not made a judgment about Iraq having a clandestine nuclear program.
Thousands of U.S. troops, two aircraft carrier battle groups and scores of combat aircraft have received orders since Christmas to ready themselves to head to the Gulf region in January and February, American defense officials said Friday. Military personnel will go to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, among other locations.
The Iraqi government scoffed Saturday at the plans to deploy. "The beating of war drums, the noise of weapons, sending warships and mobilizing armies will neither frighten nor terrorize the Iraqis," the official Iraqi army newspaper, Al-Qadissiya, said in an editorial.
TITLE: Chilling Out in Switzerland's Thermal Baths
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Snow melts on my face as I luxuriate in warm, gentle bubbles. I take a deep breath, and plunge even deeper into the water. The silhouette of the Gemmistock mountains is fading, and night is falling on Leukerbad. It's by far the most relaxing sunset I've had in ages.
Leukerbad, once home to an ancient Roman bathhouse and a traditional destination for Christians in search of healing, boasts 60 hot springs. The picturesque Swiss Alp village, just over 200 kilometers northeast of Geneva, houses Europe's largest thermal-spring resort - 3.9 million liters of water flow into its 22 pools every day. The water comes out of the ground at 51 degrees Celsius, and has to be cooled to body temperature before it enters the pools. Remarkably enough, it takes 40 years from the moment the water falls onto the mountains as rain and snow until it comes out of the springs, enriched with essential minerals.
At first sight, thermal bathing would appear somewhat old fashioned, practiced mainly by elderly people suffering from conditions such as chronic arthritis. Indeed, a decade ago, Leukerbad was a popular destination for athletes, who came on rehabilitation programs, and the elderly. Since then, the situation has changed, with the appearance of the idea of "wellness," a concept of nourishment and relaxation for both the body and the soul. Today, Leukerbad is flourishing as a wellness resort more than anything else, and some 920,000 nights are booked in its hotels every year. Not bad for a village of 1,500 inhabitants.
The baths in Leukerbad were known for as long ago as 1544. Back then, the baths had no roof, were dug out very close to the actual springs, and were segregated according to gender. A visit to thermal bath required a strict enough dress code: each guest had to wear a wide, long-tailed shirt, made of wool or a similar fabric. If the shirt was a few inches too short, the bather incurred a fine of 2 Swiss francs. In those days, public morale was strictly controlled: One pool attendant had a watching brief to make sure that a person of the wrong gender didn't "get lost" in an inappropriate place.
Leukerbad's wellness temple today is the newly built Alpentherme, a huge complex that offers a whole range of medical, beauty and wellness services. One of the most enjoyable - and a proven anti-stress tool - are the Roman-Irish baths. The idea, based on a concept introduced 120 years ago by a certain Dr. Frech at the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden, Germany, combines elements of Roman steam baths with the Irish idea of relaxation in warm, dry air. During the ritual, which lasts two hours, bathers visit saunas, Turkish baths, hydromassage and mineral and thermal pools, plus a soap-and-brush massage on the way. The effect is as though you have not only recharged your batteries, but replaced them with triple-strength ones. At each stage, instructions on the wall tell bathers how much time to spend in each location, but most people seem to follow these guidelines quite liberally. For example, when I was there, a number of women tended to skip the recommended minute in the 10th pool, which is maintained at just 12 degrees Celsius. After touching the water with their fingers, they headed directly to the rest room.
Over 1,400 meters above sea level in the Valais Alps, Leukerbad is also a hikers' paradise. One favorite is the historic Gemmipass, which is accessible year-round. Cable cars run up Gemmi mountain, from where you make your way through the pass, which connects Valais with its neighboring canton, Bern. Along the way are breathtaking mountain views, lakes, vineyards, and a hotel that, over the years, has welcomed guests as diverse as Mark Twain, Guy de Maupassant, Pablo Picasso and Lenin. The area offers over 50 kilometers of pistes for Alpine skiers during the winter season.
Valais is also home to Switzerland's most famous vineyards, and it is worth trying a local wine-tasting tour. Early risers should also not miss the chance to watch the sunrise from the top of Torrent mountain. You can even have breakfast there!
PUT A SPRING IN YOUR STEP
Switzerland's oldest thermal resort, Bad Ragaz, lies a little over 500 meters above sea level in the Rhine valley in the canton of St. Gallen. The local hot spring, which gushes from the Tamina gorge at a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, was discovered by hunters from a nearby Benedictine monastery in 1038, and remained the monks' property for several hundred years. Paracelsus practiced here in the 16th century, using the healing powers of the thermal waters to cure rheumatic and circulatory problems.
Tamina Therme, the resort's largest public thermal pool, is open year-round. In summer, it used to be possible to visit the site of the original baths, at Bad Pfafers, although this option was not for the faint hearted. Visitors without a vertigo problem secured a rope around their waist, and descended some 50 meters to the bottom of the historic gorge. Now, the ropes are no longer in use, but you can drive or walk to Bad Pfafers and see the Tamine gorge, the monastery museum, its chapel, old kitchen and a memorial to Paracelsus.
Bad Ragaz is part of the so-called "Heidiland," the part of the Graubunden Alps that inspired Johanna Spyri to write her famous tale about the adventures of the young Swiss girl Heidi. Guides along the "Heidi path" tell visitors the story, and show the magnificent landscapes that Spyri describes in her book.
Bad Ragaz also has a tiny airport, where you can hire a single-engine plane, with a pilot, for 300 to 400 Swiss Francs per hour.
St. Petersburgers may feel closer to the resort than other Russians because, in 1868, the resort was purchased, and then developed, by Swiss architect Bernhard Simon - who was responsible for such jewels of St. Petersburg architecture as the interiors of the Shuvalov Palace and the Yusupov Palace.
BRIG OVER TROUBLED WATER
For Switzerland's biggest outdoor thermal pool, which covers nearly 1 square kilometer, you have to head to Brig, a charming little town in the Valais canton in the heart of the Alps. The pool is open from May through September, but Brig is worth visiting at any time of year. The town is famous for the sumptuous Stockalper Castle, a gorgeous example of early Baroque palatial architecture. The biggest castle in Switzerland, it was built in 1535 by Peter Stockalper, and later extended by the merchant Kaspar Jodok Stockalper and his father
However, the wonders of nature surpass the beauty of the area's architectural treasures. Just 10 kilometers from Brig lies Europe's longest glacier, the 24-kilometer Aletsch Glacier, which is listed as a World Nature Heritage Site by UNESCO. Looking at the beautiful, stately fir woods from the cable car on the way to the glacier is a mesmerizing sight, and the trees look even more impressive when you learn that they are the oldest in the country. A hike through the forest - with the possibility of an encounter with a charming little marmot - or a flight over the glacier on a paraglider are experiences never to be forgotten.
Brig is a convenient base for making day trips by train to ski resorts such as Zermatt or Saas-Fe, but it is also the starting point of "the slowest train in Europe," the king of Switzerland's panoramic trains - the Glacier Express. The train links Zermatt and St. Moritz and, during the 7 1/2-hour journey, the landscapes change as though you are crossing whole countries in just hours. This is one of Switzerland's great marvels: What you can see just before entering a mountain tunnel and what you see in the next pass are, quite simply, poles apart.
AROSA BY ANY OTHER NAME
When the Glacier Express reaches Chur, it divides into two routes, one of which heads to St. Moritz, and the other to Davos. This presents a tough choice for Russian travelers, with whom the resorts are very popular (every fourth visitor to St. Moritz is Russian). However, if enough Russians knew about Arosa, a fairy-tale ski resort 15 kilometers from Davos, the choice would be even harder.
Arosa spoils you rotten. In summer, it has over 200 kilometers of hiking trails and, in winter, over 60 kilometers of skiing and hiking routes. Also on offer are horse riding, sledding by moonlight, and day trips in hot-air balloons. The 2,653-meter Weisshorn dominates the landscape, and is a starting point for paragliders. Every day, there are excursions to watch the dawn and the sunset.
When in Arosa, take a night ride in the woods on a horse-drawn sleigh. The only light will be from the moon and the stars, and the only sounds the horses hooves and the tintinnabulation of sleighbells.
Every month, skiers assemble for skiing by moonlight on the Weisshorn; this winter's races are scheduled for Jan. 16, Feb. 16, March 18 and April 16. Visitors between Feb. 3 and Feb. 8 will witness the annual Alpine hot-air-balloon week.
Arosa offers another small privilege. In neighboring Davos, celebrity guests are normally afforded little privacy; everyone knows immediately who they are, where they are staying, and how long for. In contrast, Arosa is proud of the privacy that its guests enjoy. Local newspaper Aroser Zeitung reports on celebrities visiting the resort - but only after the star has gone.
TRAVEL TIPS
. How To Get There Swiss International Airlines fly daily from Moscow to Geneva and twice daily from Moscow to Zurich. Check out www.swissairlines.ch.
. Within Switzerland Switzerland's public transport system is legendarily efficient, and provides an amazingly easy way to get around the country. For train travel within the country, you can save up to 70 percent with a Swiss Pass, which provide unlimited rail transport for 4, 8, 15 or 22 days, or 1 month. The passes are valid on all of Switzerland's fabled scenic routes, and also good for the public-transport systems of 35 Swiss cities. Swiss Pass holders also receive many discounts on mountain excursions and other services.
Another option is the Swiss Flexi Pass, which is ideal for anyone not planning to travel every day. It is valid for a certain number of days within one month (3, 4, 5, 6 or 8 days, which do not have to be consecutive). On travel days, Swiss Flexi Pass holders enjoy the same advantages as Swiss Pass holders. Trains between Switzerland's main towns depart every 30 minutes. All the schedules and other information are on the Web site www.rail.ch.
To get to Bad Ragaz, take a train from Zurich to Chur, then change onto a regional train to Bad Ragaz. For Arosa, change at Chur onto the Arosa Express.
To get to Brig, take a train from Zurich to Bern, then change to a train for Brig. For Leukerbad, change at Brig onto a train for Leuk. Buses run frequently to Leukerbad from Leuk.
. Where To Stay
Leukerbad
Badehotel Bristol*****
51 Rathau sstras se. Tel.: +41-027-472-75-00. www.zghotels.ch
Maison Blanche****
8 Dorfplatz. Tel.: +41-027-472-10-00. www.lindnerhotels.ch
Hotel de France***
1 Dorfplatz. Tel.: +41-027-472-10-00. www.lindnerhotels.ch
Astoria Hotel***
Tel.: +41-027-470-14-15.
Bad Ragaz
Grand Hotel Quellenhof*****
Tel.: +41-81-303-30-30.
Grand Hotel Hof Ragaz*****
Tel.: +41-81-303-30-30. www.resortragaz.ch
Brig
Stadthotel Simplon***
Tel.: +41-027-922-26-00. www.hotelsimplon.ch
Arosa
Tschuggen Grand Hotel*****
Tel.: +41-81-378-99-99. www.tschug gen.ch Hotel Orelli**
Tel.: +41-81-377-12-08.
Links: www.myswitzerland.com, www.leukerbad.ch, www.badragaz-tourismus.ch, www.brig. ch, www.brigerbad.ch, www.aletsch.ch, www.brig-tourismus.ch, www.arosa.ch, www. glacierexpress.ch
With thanks to Switzerland Tourism
TITLE: Bryant Clinches Giants' Wild Card Berth
AUTHOR: By Tom Canavan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - After spending four quarters trying to give away a wild-card berth, the New York Giants got one anyway - courtesy of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Matt Bryant kicked a 39-yard field goal 5:10 into overtime, and the Giants capped a late-season run to the postseason by beating the Eagles 10-7 Saturday.
"This was a reflection of our whole season," said Giants safety Shaun Williams, whose interception set up the game-winning kick. "A lot of bad things happened but we just kept fighting."
The Giants (10-6) overcame four turnovers, including three lost fumbles by Tiki Barber, and a missed field goal in winning their fourth straight. Barber ran for a career-high 203 yards in helping the Giants return to the playoffs for the first time since 2000.
Coach Jim Fassel's team also was very lucky on a day it also lost two touchdowns because of holding penalties.
Eagles Pro Bowl kicker David Akers missed a potential game-winning 35-yard field goal attempt with 1:16 left in the fourth quarter, a try set up by Barber's third fumble.
It not only cost Philadelphia (12-4) the game, it may end up costing the NFC East champions home-field advantage for the playoffs.
"We can take this game and get rid of it and look to the playoffs," said Eagles linebacker Levon Kirkland. "I think you need to take care of your own business. Wherever the NFC title game is, we'll go down there and take care of business."
The Giants tied the game on a 7-yard fourth-quarter TD catch by Jeremy Shockey and then won in overtime.
Turnover aside, the Giants may have played their best game of the season in beating the Eagles.
New York outgained Philadelphia 461 yards to 209 and held the ball for 39:06.
Barber carried 32 times in setting a career high for rushing yards. Collins completed 25 of 35 passes for 256 yards against a defense that came in ranked second overall. Shockey finished with 10 catches for 98 yards, and he provided the emotional lift the Giants have lacked for years.
Shockey tied the game at 7 midway through the fourth quarter when he outleaped Pro Bowl safety Brian Dawkins on a 7-yard fade pattern.
The Eagles won the toss in overtime and took the ball.
On the third play, A.J. Feeley's pass was tipped and intercepted by Williams at the Giants 37 with 13:43 left.
New York took over and Barber ran around right end for 7 yards. At the end of the play there was a late hit by Troy Vincent, and the 15-yard penalty moved the ball to the Eagles 41.
Barber had a 10-yard run, then another heart-stopping fumble at the Philadelphia 23, but he recovered it himself.
Two plays later, Bryant, who had bounced a PAT off the right upright after the Shockey TD, kicked the game-winner, sending the sellout crowd into a frenzy.
"I told myself just relax, trust yourself," Bryant said. "I caught a big chunk of turf and I hit it good."
Still without Donovan McNabb, Philadelphia did little on offense after Thrash scored on the first drive. Feeley was 13 of 25 for 150 yards and that one big interception, on a play in which the officials seemed to miss a holding penalty against Giants linebacker Brandon Short.
The Eagles had 65 yards rushing, compared with the 295 yards they gained in a 17-3 win over the Giants in late October.
Shockey almost single-handedly tied the game with three big catches during New York's 13-play, 80-yard drive that consumed nearly seven minutes.
The last two catches were highlight-film material. He caught a 20-yard pass over the middle and was immediately leveled by Eagles safety Michael Lewis. Shockey simply jumped up and windmilled the ball to the ground.
A 19-yard pass from Collins to Barber and a 10-yard run by Barber helped move the ball to the Eagles 7. On second-and-goal, Collins lobbed a pass to the left corner, and Shockey outjumped Dawkins for the touchdown.
The Giants had squandered their first three trips into the red zone with Collins throwing an interception on the first and Barber losing a fumble on the second. Bryant missed a field goal on the third.
(For other results, see Scorecard)
TITLE: Lakers Take Comfort From Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER - A lopsided victory over one of the league's worst teams shouldn't cause much excitement for a team that has won three straight championships.
But with the way this season has gone, the Los Angeles Lakers will take any victory they can get.
Kobe Bryant scored 19 of his 39 points in the first quarter, and Shaquille O'Neal added 22 as the Lakers beat the struggling Denver Nuggets 112-93 on Saturday night.
"We're not down about it, we're not holding our heads down about it, we're actually starting to get excited about accepting this challenge," said Bryant, who added six assists and six rebounds. "Our competitive juices are starting to flow because of the challenge that we've been presented."
It wasn't perfect, but it was a step in the right direction for Los Angeles after losing four of its previous five.
The Lakers had 18 turnovers and allowed Denver to climb most of the way back from an 18-point deficit in the first half, but still found a way to tie a season high in points and assists (36).
O'Neal, in his first game since getting married Thursday, added 13 rebounds and blocked three shots as the Lakers won for the fourth time in 14 road games.
"Outside of turnovers tonight, I was pleased with the way we played basketball," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We had two or three turnovers that hampered a terrific effort, but we were ready to play the game."
Bryant was a big reason.
Irritated after hitting just 7-of-24 shots in a 105-99 loss to Sacramento on Christmas, Bryant seemed to have a gleam in his eyes when the Nuggets opened with rookie Vincent Yarbrough on him. He didn't blink when Ryan Bowen and White took over, either.
Bryant opened with a long jump shot, then hit a fadeaway and another long jumper. He followed with a tough reverse, a three-point play in the lane and a left-handed reverse in traffic.
Bryant ended it with another reverse and a fadeaway with 8.2 seconds left to finish the quarter 9-for-9.
"He truly is one of the great superstars in this league and he showed it tonight," said Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik, whose team has lost nine straight and 14 of 15.
But Bryant wasn't finished.
Denver closed the first half with a 15-6 run to cut the Lakers' lead to eight at halftime, then got it to 62-59 with eight minutes left in the third when Juwan Howard flipped a pass behind his back to Mark Blount for a dunk.
Bryant took over from there, scoring nine points as the Lakers started to pull away. He hit a turnaround with 1:51 left, then followed with a near-impossible fadeaway over Rodney White.
Bryant ended the quarter by stepping back for a 3-pointer with 2.2 seconds left, hopping on one foot for emphasis as the ball fell through for an 82-69 lead.
"I had a tough shooting night against Sacramento and I wanted to come out shooting better," said Bryant, who was 15-for-26.
Dallas 107, New York 82. After sloshing their way through four games, the Dallas Mavericks finally got back to their style of basketball on Saturday night.
Steve Nash and Nick Van Exel helped the Mavericks revive their inside-outside attack, pushing Dallas to a 107-82 victory over the New York Knicks.
The Mavs had gone four straight games without breaking 100 points.
The league's highest-scoring team averaged 84 during the drought, hitting only 36.3 percent of their shots, yet still managed to win three times. They showed they were back to form by hitting 10 of their first 13 shots and finished at 54.2 percent shooting. Dallas never trailed, leading by at least 11 after 5:31 of the second quarter.
"It's way more fun when our team gets up and down the court, spreads the floor and makes people pay," said Nash, who was 6-of-9 for 19 points in 21 minutes. "People tell me all the time that we're their favorite team to watch. A lot of people call it 'old school.' That's when we're at our best."
The Mavericks couldn't have had a better start to their longest homestand of the season - five games, four against sub-.500 foes.
With a 27-point lead after three quarters, coach Don Nelson sent his Big Three of Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley to the bench for the entire final period. The pine time was especially nice for Nowitzki, who played all but one minute of the previous three games.
Nowitzki had 19 points on 9-of-18 shooting. He also had nine rebounds and matched his season-high with seven assists. Finley was 6-of-13 for 14 points in 33 minutes.
TITLE: Pittsburgh Skates to Fourth Straight Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PITTSBURGH - Sometimes, the biggest plays in a hockey game aren't those that score goals, but those that prevent them. Marc Bergevin made one of each to keep Pittsburgh's winning streak going, and there was no question which one was more important.
Martin Straka scored two of Pittsburgh's three goals during a second period in which an apparent Montreal goal was waved off, and the Penguins ran their winning streak to four with a 3-2 victory Saturday night.
Milan Kraft and Straka scored 1:17 apart early in the period as the Penguins rebounded from a 1-0 deficit and ended an eight-game winless streak against the Canadiens.
Montreal initially appeared to have closed within 3-2 when Richard Zednik steered the puck past Jean-Sebastien Aubin at 15:39 of the second, just as the net was being dislodged by Bergevin, a 19-year NHL defenseman.
Referees Stephen Walkom and Kevin Pollock could have awarded the goal or called Bergevin for delay of game. Instead, the play was reviewed by video replay judge Dale Ruth, who is allowed only to determine whether the net was off its moorings, not who dislodged it.
"It was an accident," Bergevin said, and not all that convincingly. "I slipped and I kind of pushed the net off."
That lost goal proved big when the Canadiens finally scored again late in the third period, with Craig Rivet sliding the puck between Aubin's pads with just over two minutes remaining.
"Obviously, it should have been a penalty (on Bergevin)," Rivet said. "Sometimes you get that call and sometimes you don't. But that's not the reason why we lost the game."
But it might have been the reason Pittsburgh won. No wonder owner-player Mario Lemieux felt fortunate to have caught the kind of break the Penguins never seemed to get during a recent 10-game losing streak.
"It was big," Lemieux said. "If it's a goal, it's 3-2 with a lot of time left. It was a good break for us ... . It's what we talked about [during the losing streak], we just needed to win a game and get some confidence and get some breaks."
Detroit 4, Nashville 2. The Nashville Predators were the latest victim of Detroit's penalty-killing unit, going scoreless on six power plays Saturday night in a 4-2 loss to the Red Wings.
"There are certain guys who kill penalties and they take a lot of pride in it," Detroit coach Dave Lewis said. "That's what you want. For some of them it is almost the same as scoring a goal or being the go-to guy on the power play.
"Team defense is not the group of defensemen. It is not the goaltender. It is all 20 guys doing the things that aren't always noticed. We are protecting the slot better. Players aren't getting as many second chances on rebounds around our net."
Sean Avery, Kris Draper, Boyd Devereaux, and Sergei Fedorov had goals for the defending Stanley Cup champions.
Nashville outshot the Red Wings 13-7 in the first period and appeared to have the upper hand, despite trailing by a goal.
"In the first period, I thought they weathered our storm," Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. "We had some great chances. We were all over them. We had lots of energy. We came out the way we wanted to come out at home and set the tone but we ended up down a puck."