SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #848 (16), Tuesday, March 4, 2003
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TITLE: Rydnik Under Fire for Election
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: For the first time in St. Petersburg's history, the City Court has thrown out the results in one of the city's electoral district, ruling that Yury Rydnik, a close political ally of Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, broke federal election laws in winning his seat in December's Legislative Assembly elections.
 
Rydnik, the head of the pro-governor United City bloc, garnered 38 percent of the vote in the 41st district, defeating St. Petersburg Audit Chamber chief Dmitry Burenin and Vyacheslav Makarov, a colonel at the Aerospace Military Academy, who polled 15 and 24 percent of the vote, respectively.
 City Court judge Tatyana Gunko upheld the second part of a complaint filed by Burenin and Makarov.
 Burenin and Makarov said that Rydnik had financed his election campaign not just with money from his own election fund, but had also used money transferred from Balt-Uneximbank. Rydnik is chairperson of the board of directors at the bank.
 According to Burenin, Balt-Uneximbank handles about 60 percent of the city's budget money. The total budget for this year is 75.5 billion rubles ($2.36 billion).
 But Rydnik is not ready to give up his seat just yet.
 "He does not agree with the decision and will definitely appeal to the Supreme Court. He will defend his rights, because he received the majority of the votes," Sergei Nazarov, Rydnik's spokesperson, said in a telephone interview on Monday.
 "The decision is very strange, especially considering that the plaintiffs did not even offer any proof," he said.
 Rydnik has until March 11 to file an appeal, after which he would remain in his seat as a Legislative Assembly deputy until the appeal has been heard.
 Should the ruling be upheld, new elections would be scheduled in the District for four months after the final Supreme Court hearing.
 If and when an appeal is filed, one of the bodies arguing on Rydnik's side may be the city's Election Commission.
 "We'd like to sit down and talk to him and see what we can do," said Alexander Garusov, the head of the St. Petersburg Election Commission, in a telephone interview on Monday, "We had some arguments [at the election commission] while the hearings for the case were going on, but now we have a decision, which we have to respect."
 According to City Election Commission representatives, the City Court ignored their appraisal of the final results and didn't find any to proof that voters of the district had been prevented from casting their votes freely.
 The court based its decision on Article 77.1a of the Russian Federal Elections Code, which says that any winning candidate can be disqualified if the candidate exceeded the spending limit set for the vote by 10 percent or more.
 Burenin and Markov originally filed two complaints. One called into question the activities of a joint-stock company that Rydnik set up last fall to clean staircases in residential buildings in District 41, while the second focused on 115 Balt-Uneximbank bank television-advertisement spots broadcast by Channel 5 between Nov. 28 and Dec. 6.
 The plaintiffs said that Balt-Uneximbank transferred about 2.6 million rubles (about $78,000) to fund the stairwell-cleaning company set up by one of Rydnik's relatives - complete with uniforms with "Rydnik" stenciled on the back - and at least $9,500 to pay for the television advertisements, which, the competitors say, might have influenced voters.
 Gunko's decision was also interesting given that the judge has been accused of pro-governor bias in the past. In 1999, in a controversial decision, she ruled that a plan by Yakovlev to move gubernatorial elections from May 2000 to Dec. 1999 was legal.
 Her decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
 Rydnik's opponents in the Legislative Assembly are lauding the latest decision.
 "This is a victory for legality. St. Petersburg's citizens saw the violations taking place in the district," said Vadim Tyulpanov, the Legislative Assembly speaker, in an interview on Friday. "Rydnik was a leader of the pro-governor opposition, so now it's going to be hard for them to find a new leader. This could lead to a collapse of the bloc."
 But Vladimir Yeryomenko, deputy leader of the United City bloc, said that there is no reason to even talk about a split in the bloc, as nothing has been decided legally yet.
 "I wouldn't say that it is definite that the Supreme Court's decision will be the same," he said.
 Other Yakovlev opponents see the result as yet another significant setback for the governor.
 "The fact that the richest and one of the closest allies of the governor lost shows quite clearly that there are countering forces in the city," said Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, in a telephone interview on Monday. "It looks like [Rydnik] knew from the beginning that he would be able just to buy the election, but he didn't take into account the fact that, if you buy a stolen car, you might end up with no car and no money."
 "I wouldn't rule out the possibility of the governor answering soon by initiating similar cases against lawmakers who jump ship from the pro-governor bloc to the [pro-Kremlin] side," he said.
 For his part, Burenin says that arguments from Rydnik's side would be countered in the Supreme Court and that the missing information was due to Rydnik's actions.
 "Rydnik's representatives can say whatever they want. They planned for it to be this way because, when we approached the district election commission, they wouldn't give us the documents we were asking for," Burenin said on Monday. "We only got them after the city court sent and inquiry."
 "I am going to prove in the Supreme Court that the decision to void the results of the elections should be upheld, including on the grounds of the activities of the Rydnik joint-stock company," he added.

TITLE: Pensioners Charge Police Brutality
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Six elderly St. Petersburg residents have filed a complaint with the Primorsky District Prosecutor's Office asking for a criminal investigation to be opened into what they say was an attack by police officers at a construction site on Tuesday.
 
The complaint charges that the police threw an 80-year-old woman to the ground and handled each of the six roughly while arresting them and taking them to a local police station, after they had asked to be shown documents authorizing the construction of a 24-story residential building across from their own building. The residents maintain that the construction of the building is illegal.
 The site in question, on Dibunovskaya Ulitsa, is the site of a park containing about 40 oak, elm and larch trees that date from the 19th century, as well as a cemetery where those who died defending Komendantsky Airfield from the Germans in 1942 are buried. Residents say that a decree signed by Governor Vladimir Yakovlev giving the go-ahead for the project violates a number of city regulations.
 "The company, Gradstroiconsulting, has begun construction, but no ecological investigation of the project has been carried out, as is required by law," said Dmitry Artamonov, the head of Greenpeace's St. Petersburg office. "The workers put up a fence around the site, and have already cut down a tree."
 A number of area residents have been trying to have the construction halted for months. According to Tatyana Loboda, who received most of the police attention during the confrontation, threats and minor violence have been standard reactions from police and city officials, but the reaction of Mikhail Gusev, the deputy director of the Primorsky District's Interior Ministry Administration (GUVD), and of Dmitry Ionov, the deputy director of the Primorsky District's 25th police station, when she told them that she would not leave the site until her lawyer arrived, was the most severe yet.
 "This made the police officers angry, and they started assaulting an elderly women, throwing one down onto the snow and then taking our camera away," Loboda said Thursday. "When I tried to call our lawyer, Gusev started hitting me with a stick and tried to push me into the police car."
 But Loboda said that the two officers soon forgot about putting her in the car.
 "Then, Gusev and Ionov threw me down onto the snow and kicked me in the arms, legs and back. They also pulled me by the coat and, in doing so, pulled my sweater and T-shirt over my head and arms. I couldn't believe all this was really happening to me," she said, visibly shaken. "I felt horrible, so they let me lie on the snow for a while, and then threw me my clothes."
 According to a medical report from a doctor at the Center for Traumatology and Rehabilitation in the Primorsky District who treated her after the confrontation on Tuesday, Loboda had "contusions and bruises on the left thigh and the right shoulder, as well as cuts and bleeding from both forearms."
 But Loboda had to go to the police station before she was able to get treatment. "Then, they handcuffed me and took me to the police station," she said.
 Loboda said that, at the station, the police said the results would be even harsher if the protesters returned to try to stop the construction.
 "We were told not to go back to the construction site and that, if we did, it would be worse than today," she said. "When I asked whether they would kill us, the officer answered: 'I warned you.'"
 While the group of residents and Greenpeace are asking that charges be filed against the GUVD, police officials say that the officers' behavior was lawful and was a proper response to the aggressive behavior of the residents' group.
 "The construction of the building is being carried out with the [city] administration's agreement so, in that respect, there is nothing to say," said Pavel Rayevsky, the head of the GUVD's press service, in a telephone interview on Monday. "The residents, however, were disrupting the construction process, and this is against the law. The police acted lawfully with the aim of enabling the construction to be carried out."
 "As for the beatings, police officers, as a rule, don't fight. The residents were being very active and attacked the police officers, so they had to take measures," he added. "Their response was severe, but lawful."
 Gusev and Ionov could be reached for comment. But Loboda said that, not only were the protestors not aggressive, but they weren't staging a true demonstration, as they had no permit to do so.
 "We just stood there, asking to see the documents. We didn't have banners or loudspeakers, we didn't insult anybody, or touch anything," she said. "Most people here are elderly, intelligentsia, and would never do such things. Some were even reading Pushkin to the workers."
 The residents said that the City Administration had put a stop to the project earlier and was going back on its own promise.
 "On Nov. 18, 2002, the City Administration's Building and Architecture Committee cancelled the building project, due to violations, although it did not specify what these violations were," Loboda said. "But, now, we are just told out of the blue that a 24-story residential building is going to be constructed 35 meters away from our own home, and the building company is refusing to talk to us and to show us that it has authorization to build."
 But representatives of the City Administration say that the authorization for the construction project is perfectly legal.
 "This just can't be the case. Smolny carries out extensive investigation procedures before taking any decision," Alexander Afanasyev, Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's spokesperson, said on Thursday. "Imagine that somebody wanted to put up a building just outside your home. You would try to find arguments against the construction. This is a normal reaction."
 But Lobodova says that, even if the authorities are dismissing their reaction as "normal," the same can't be said for the other side. She said that, when another elderly woman had asked Mikhail Volk, the head of the Primorsky District's Construction Department, where he thought she would go if her own home collapsed as a result of the new construction, he answered: "To the cemetery."

TITLE: Russia Backing More Weapons Inspections
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A senior Russian official on Monday pointed to Iraq's dismantling of its outlawed al-Samoud 2 missiles as evidence that the UN weapons inspections are working and should be continued.
 
"This speaks to the effectiveness of the work of the international inspectors," Deputy Foreign Ministry Yury Fedotov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.
 Iraq set out Monday to dismantle seven more of the missiles, adding to the 10 already destroyed since Saturday. The United Nations ordered the missiles eliminated because they have a striking distance farther than the range Iraq was allowed after the 1991 Gulf War.
 Fedotov said that Moscow views the destruction "as a graphic example of Iraq's more active cooperation" with its international obligations, ITAR-Tass reported.
 Speaking of the 13-page report delivered to the UN Security Council on Friday by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, Fedotov called it a "balanced document" that confirms progress.
 "Of course, the report also outlines problems, on which Iraq should cooperate with the international community more actively," ITAR-Tass quoted Fedotov as saying. "However, the content of the report on the whole leads to the conclusion that the inspection activity in Iraq should be continued."
 The Foreign Ministry said Monday that Russia will stick to that position at an upcoming Security Council meeting.
 Also Monday, the head of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, said Russia's delegation plans to address the Iraq situation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a human rights body.
 Dmitry Rogozin said the assembly, or PACE, "has not paid proper attention to what people in European nations and Russia think about the explicit preparations for a war in Iraq," the Interfax news agency reported.

TITLE: Chechnya Vote Gets Moscow Backing
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Elections chief Alexander Veshnyakov praised preparations for a constitutional referendum in Chechnya as he visited the region Saturday with a European observer delegation.
 
Veshnyakov, chairperson of the Central Election Commission, said local officials had almost completed preparations for the March 23 plebiscite.
 "We are convinced that, prior to the referendum, the election commission and the Chechen leadership will do all they can to educate people about the drafts and persuade them to go and vote," he was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 Veshnyakov traveled to Grozny with a delegation from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
 The referendum, which will ask voters to approved a constitution that would be subordinate to federal law, is being touted by Moscow as the key to peace in the region. The Kremlin has ruled out negotiations with the separatists.
 On Friday, a Kremlin official suggested that Chechnya might be able to preserve some autonomy after the referendum, according to a news report.
 "The future agreement that the federal authorities and Chechnya will conclude may envision flexible options for Chechnya within the Russian Federation. Acceptable forms can be found for those who do not want to be part of Russia," Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin's deputy chief of staff, was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 Also Friday, Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov repeated a threat to disrupt the constitutional referendum.
 "Everyone must be told that this referendum means war will continue. If they go ahead, there will be kidnapping, murder," Maskhadov said in a taped interview handed out to journalists. "My field commanders are preparing for this day. We will do everything to make sure the referendum does not got ahead."
 Maskhadov called again on Moscow to solve the conflict around the negotiating table. "If we do not solve this now, our descendants will. In 50 years or so, our descendants will rise in arms again," he said.
 
 
q
 Relatives and comrades Saturday mourned the victims of a deadly friendly fire incident between federal units in Chechnya, while an official who faces new charges in the shootout three years ago insisted negligence was not a factor. 
 
Twenty-two service personel were killed and 54 wounded in the March 2, 2000, incident, which the military initially said was a rebel assault.
 Prosecutors later determined that troops had mistakenly opened fire on a unit of police troops from the Moscow region town of Sergiyev Posad.
 Major General Boris Fadeyev, a former top military official in Chechnya who TVS television said created the police unit that came under fire, was one of two officers acquitted of negligent homicide a year ago by a district court in Chechnya.
 But the region's Supreme Court overturned the acquittal and sent the case back for further investigation by prosecutors, who said last month that both officers in question - Fadeyev and Colonel Mikhail Levchenko, a former Interior Ministry official in Chechnya - have been charged with negligence again. 
 
 <i>(AP, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: Budanov Case Set To Go Back to Court
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Supreme Court on Friday ordered a retrial for Colonel Yury Budanov, overturning a much-debated lower-court ruling that Budanov could not be held accountable for killing of an 18-year-old Chechen woman because he was mentally ill.
 
Budanov, the highest-ranking military officer to go on trial for civilian abuses in Chechnya, admits to strangling Elza Kungayeva in March 2000 but says he did so in a fit of rage.
 Kungayeva's family says she was dragged at night from her home in the Chechen village of Tangi, raped and murdered during a drunken rampage by soldiers.
 In response to an appeal from her family and prosecutors, the military chamber of the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a new panel of judges should hear the case at the North Caucasus Military District Court in Rostov-na-Donu.
 The Supreme Court said Budanov, who was ordered confined to a psychiatric hospital by the Rostov court on Dec. 31, should be kept behind bars for the duration of the retrial. Budanov is currently being held in a Rostov jail.
 Presiding Supreme Court Judge Nikolai Petukhov said the Rostov court's panel of judges made numerous errors in reaching its ruling. 
 The three judges, led by Viktor Kostin, failed to take into account that Budanov had behaved &quot;quite adequately&quot; and &quot;successfully commanded&quot; a tank regiment in Chechnya before March 2000, Petukhov said in televised remarks.
 The court also did not consider the fact that police and security officers had no information about whether Kungayeva and other members of her family had ties to Chechen rebels, he said.
 Budanov testified during his trial that he thought Kungayeva was a rebel sniper. 
 The Rostov court ordered Budanov to undergo a total of four psychiatric evaluations. The first two found him sane, while the other two determined he was temporarily insane at the time of the killing.
 Petukhov said the lower court had not explained why it accepted the findings of the final evaluation.
 He said it had committed procedural violations, such as ordering Budanov out of the courtroom during the final phase of the trial, including the announcement of the ruling.
 By that time, the court had determined that Budanov was in no shape to take part in the trial, and that was a grave violation, Petukhov said.
 Kungayeva's family's lawyer, Abdullah Khamzayev, who attended the reading of the verdict, said Petukhov also ruled that the Rostov court had displayed a unfair bias in favor of the defense during the 22-month trial.
 Reached by telephone, a senior Supreme Court official refused to say if a pro-defense bias had been mentioned.
 Khamzayev praised the court's decision as a &quot;triumph of the law.&quot; &quot;I hope the new panel will be objective and will adhere to the law,&quot; he said by telephone.
 Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration also expressed hope that Budanov would be punished.
 &quot;It is very important for the Chechen people that he is punished for the murder of a simple Chechen girl,&quot; Edi Isayev, spokesperson for the administration's Moscow office, was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 The new panel of judges will have the right to order a fifth psychiatric evaluation during the retrial, according to Khamzayev and officials at the Supreme Court and Rostov court.
 Budanov's lawyer, Anatoly Mukhin, said Friday that the previous evaluations were sufficient and that Budanov is now in an &quot;extremely nervous state,&quot; Interfax reported.
 Despite Budanov's current condition, a new team of psychiatrists should be able to discern whether he was temporarily insane when he strangled Kungayeva three years ago, the Supreme Court official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 If tests are ordered, however, the new team of psychiatrists faces a challenge, said Sergei Yenikolopov, a psychiatry expert at the Center for Mental Health. With two evaluations deeming Budanov sane and two deeming him temporarily insane, &quot;lawyers in the case will have a pretext to demand that any new evaluation be rejected,&quot; Yenikolopov said. &quot;It will be a stalemate.&quot;
 The Supreme Court official said Budanov's retrial could start as early as May. If convicted, Budanov faces up to 12 years in prison.

TITLE: Noviye Izvestia 'Closes' After Director Fired
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Noviye Izvestia published what editors said was its last issue Friday after a business shake-up they claim will put their independence at risk.
 
Noviye Izvestia, which has been critical of the Kremlin, suspended publication a week ago after publisher Oleg Mitvol fired Igor Golembiovsky from the post of director, citing discrepancies in the company's financial records. Mitvol said Golembiovsky could remain editor in chief.
 In a front-page editorial Friday, Golembiovsky's team said it was quitting.
 &quot;Obviously, losing control over the newspaper, we are losing the ability to write and publish what we believe is necessary,&quot; the paper said.
 However, the team said it would try to save the paper over the next month. &quot;We are saying, 'Until later,' instead of a hopeless 'Farewell,'&quot; they wrote.
 Other Russian media reported that the editorial team, which controls a 24-percent stake in the paper, was fighting for the right to the newspaper's name and logo in hopes of reviving the publication with new financial backers. Mitvol manages the other 76-percent stake
 The newspaper likened its conflict to a 2001 shake-up at NTV television and last year's closure of Berezovsky's TV6 - both caused by business disputes that journalists said were in fact motivated by the Kremlin's desire to stifle criticism.
 The international media-freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders agreed. &quot;Sidelining the editor in chief of Noviye Izvestia and the temporary shutdown of one of the only newspapers critical of the government - that denounces war in Chechnya and human-rights violations - appears too useful to the Kremlin in the run-up to elections to be a coincidence,&quot; the group's general secretary, Robert Menard, said in a statement Wednesday.
 Parliamentary elections are scheduled for the end of this year, and presidential elections in 2004.

TITLE: Rumors Swirl On New SPS Funds
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Union of Right Forces party, or SPS, met last month with self-exiled tycoon and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky, stirring up rumors that his party was searching for new funding ahead of December's parliamentary elections, Vremya Novostei reported on Friday.
 
Berezovsky gives money to several opposition groups in Moscow, but Nemtsov denied that the London meeting was aimed at fundraising. &quot;I wanted to find out what Berezovsky was planning to do with his media holdings,&quot; the newspaper quoted Nemtsov as saying. He would not say whether SPS was looking for special access to these media outlets for campaigning purposes.
 The report fueled rumors that SPS was having problems with co-founder Anatoly Chubais, chief of Unified Energy Systems. SPS denied that Chubais was distancing himself from the party, the newspaper said. However, earlier this year, during failed merger negotiations with Yabloko, SPS said it was willing to break with Chubais, a long-time foe of Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky.

TITLE: Association's Report Pans Leningrad Zoo
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Although the city government is in the middle of a 250-million-ruble ($8-million) renovation project at the city's zoo, a commission that came to St. Petersburg at the end of January says that conditions at the establishment are poor, and that the renovation may be one of the culprits.
 
According to the report by the commission from the Eurasian Regional Zoo and Aquarium Association (ERZAA), at least 167 birds at the zoo died over the last year, as did all of its amphibians and nine of its 130 mammals.
 The commission described the situation at the zoo as &quot;extremely alarming&quot; and &quot;a discredit to zoos as organizations in charge of caring for animals.&quot;
 The report went as far as to recommend that zoos that are members of ERZAA take back rare species sent to the Leningrad Zoo, as it is still known, under a loan program designed to breed the animals, saying that conditions there are &quot;not successful.&quot;
 &quot;The zoo has an unhealthy and nervous atmosphere, which is definitely abusive to the animals,&quot; said the commission's report, before going on to describe the adminstration at the zoo as &quot;incompetent&quot; and &quot;ignoring the advice of experienced specialists.&quot;
 The committee's report says that the situation is the result of a number of factors, not least an outflow of enployees in recent years.
 &quot;We were worried that the zoo has lost the majority of its leading specialists recently, and that the new director of the zoo doesn't have a strong background in zoology,&quot; said Vladimir Ostapenko, a scientific specialist at the Moscow Zoo and a member of the commission.
 According to the commission, in the last year, the zoo lost its chief veterinary doctor, who had extensive experience in working with wild animals, and the heads of of a number of major departments, including ornithology, herpetology (concerned with amphibians and reptiles), zoology, nutrition and educational science.
 According to Ivan Korneyev, the zoo's former director, at least 80 of the zoo's former 220 employees were either forced to leave or retired over the last year.
 The commission's report said that the zoo's present director, Vladimir Gubanov, a former soldier who took over the position last May, &quot;has never had any experience of working in zoos,&quot; contradicting a requirement of both international and Russian professional qualifications for zoo directors.
 In its report, it recommended that the City Administration &quot;consider the question of bringing back the zoo's leading specialists, including its former director Ivan Korneyev.&quot;
 The construction work, initiated last fall, also came under fire from the commission.
 According to the commission, the rapid pace and broad range of construction works has worn badly on the nerves of eagles, horses, and other animals living in outside cages.
 The commission pointed out that the zoo has 18 buildings or sites under constructed or being reconstructed simultaneously.
 &quot;The repairs and construction work at the zoo are being carried out without taking into account the needs of the animals,&quot; the report said.
 According to Gubanov, the zoo is presently building two new facilities to house the zoo's camels and rodents, respectively.
 &quot;The rodents definitely need a new building, since the old one was built in 1925,&quot; Gubanov said.
 The construction works also include improvements to the heating, water and electricity networks, as well as work on the pavement at the zoo's main entrance, the surrounding Alexandrovsky Garden and the resumption of construction of new living space for reptiles.
 However, Gubanov said that the effect of the work isn't as serious as the report maintains.
 &quot;The cannon at the Peter and Paul Fortress, which is fired daily at noon, also makes lots of noise,&quot; Gubanov said.
 Korneyev, the former director, said that most of the birds that died, mainly parrots and ducks, were either killed by the cold when their houses didn't have sufficient heating in the winter or injured themselves severely as a result of fright caused by the repair work.
 According to Korneyev, a number of ducks died one night in fall when their artificial swimming pool overflowed. Since the birds did not have space to stand on, and were apparently weak, they drowned.
 &quot;Zoos always have a certain amount of 'dead wood,' for example, aging animals,&quot; he said. &quot;However, this time, over half the birds died of unnatural causes.&quot;
 The zoo has been at the center of a battle for the past couple of years between Korneyev, on the one hand, and the city Culture Committee and the Zoosad charitable fund, patronized by Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's wife, Irina, on the other.
 Zoosad and the Cultural Committee called for Korneyev's resignation in 2001, alleging that he was responsible for financial improprieties at the zoo, and suggested moving the establishment to Dolgoye Ozero, 15 minutes drive from Pionerskaya metro station in the northwest of the city. They also claimed that the zoo's location in the center of the city damaged the animals' health.
 Korneyev claimed that the accusations were unfounded, and that the plans to oust him and relocated the zoo were part of a City Administration plot to free up land that would constitute a real-estate gold mine.
 &quot;I've never been against constructing new zoo space, but I've always been convinced that the old Leningrad Zoo is a part of the city center,&quot; Korneyev said.
 The zoo, founded in 1865, is one of Russia's oldest, and has long been a favorite place for the city's children to visit. In June 2001, the City Administration's relocation plans brought protests near the zoo from city residents who said that the proposed new location would limit their access to it.
 Korneyev quit in December 2001 after 11 years as director. After two interim directors, Gubanov - who inspected the zoo under Korneyev's direction and claimed to have found financial improprieties - took over in May 2002.
 Gubanov said he focuses more &quot;on the economic side of the zoo,&quot; which has changed its legal status from a state enterprise to a state unitary enterprise under his tenure. He said the change has allowed staff wages to be raised by 30 to 40 percent, and that there is now enough money to hire new staff.
 He also said that, while there are plans to build a new nursery at Dolgoye Ozero, it has no plans to move the whole zoo from its historical home.
 &quot;The seven hectares that the zoo occupies are not enough to house its roughly 2000 animals,&quot; he said. &quot;When we have the nursery, we'll still leave some of the animals here.&quot;
 According to Gubanov, the zoo is planning to bring an elephant to the zoo this summer, and that building an elephant house is a project in the pipeline.
 Korneyev, however, said the elephant idea &quot;doesn't make any sense,&quot; as the zoo has no facilities to house the animals, which demand a shelter even in summer.

TITLE: Chemical Arms Plant Shut Down
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Natural Resources Ministry said Monday that it has ordered a halt to operations at Russia's only chemical-weapons destruction facility, saying that the plant that opened in December lacks a license and citing concerns about its control over emissions.
 
The ministry issued an instruction ordering the Gorny plant, a former chemical-weapons construction site, to stop working until it reverses violations it said were found during an inspection late last month.
 The inspection revealed &quot;a series of violations of environmental legislation,&quot; Denis Kiselyov, the head of ministry's department of state control in the sphere of nature management and environmental protection, said in comments broadcast on Rossia television.
 Kiselyov said the violations included the absence of the proper license for work with chemical waste, loose control over emissions of waste into the atmosphere and violations of rules for storage of liquid waste obtained after processing the mustard-gas-like yperite.
 The surprising order is a blow to Russia's slow-moving efforts to destroy it chemical weapons, a process that is being closely watched - and significantly aided - by the United States and other countries with proliferation concerns.
 Itar-Tass said the Gorny plant was built with the help of 17 countries that are signatories of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Russia signed in 1997. Russia initially pledged to destroy its stockpile by 2007, but it has requested a five-year extension.
 Sergei Kiriyenko, chairperson of the State Commission on Chemical Disarmament, said last month that 100 metric tons of mustard gas had been destroyed at Gorny since it opened in December.
 Two more facilities are planned in the coming years to aid in the destruction of Russia's chemical-weapons arsenal, which, at nearly 40,000 tons, is the largest in the world.
 In June, Russia's partners in the Group of Eight pledged up to $20 billion over 10 years to help dispose of its weapons-of-mass-destruction arsenals. However, the U.S. Congress has suspended some of its promised funding amid concerns about Moscow's commitment.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Pasko's New Job
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Grigory Pasko, a navy journalist and environmental whistle-blower who was released in January after serving more than two-thirds of his four-year prison sentence, became an aide to the liberal lawmaker Sergei Yushenkov, Interfax reported Monday.
 Pasko will work in the State Duma as an expert in ecology, media, military and judicial reform, Yushenkov told Interfax.
 His first assignment will be a bill on amendments to the Law on State Secrets, which was used to prosecute the journalist, Yushenkov said.
 Pasko has not joined Yushenkov's Liberal Russia party, the report said.
 
 
<b>Space Warning
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The space chief warned Monday that time is running out for Washington to finance construction of extra Russian spacecraft needed to run the International Space Station during a break in U.S. shuttle flights.
 "The problem has be resolved within a month," Aerospace Agency director Yuri Koptev said during a seminar with Italian-government officials and aerospace executives in Moscow.
 Koptev said Russia is ready to build extra spacecraft, but needs funding from other partners in the 16-country space-station project. If an agreement isn't reached soon, he said, new ships won't be ready in time. "We can build a ship in a minimum of 1 1/2 years," he said.
 Soyuz capsules and Progress cargo ships remain the only link to the space station following the Columbia shuttle disaster and the suspension of U.S. shuttle flights pending an investigation.
 But NASA says potential funding is constrained by U.S. legislation barring additional payments to Russia's space agency unless the United States confirms Russia has not transferred missile technology or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to Iran in the previous year.
 
 
<b> Kasyanov Back at Work
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov returned to work Monday after being hospitalized with the flu, Interfax reported.
 Kasyanov became sick last week and was hospitalized on Thursday.
 Kasyanov plans to meet Belarussian Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky on Wednesday, Interfax reported, citing the department of government information.
 
<b>Chechnya Concern
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Two top European human-rights bodies expressed concern Monday over the upcoming constitutional referendum in Chechnya, saying Russian authorities need to do more to ensure a fair and accurate ballot in the republic.
 The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe sent a joint mission to Chechnya to assess conditions ahead of the March 23 vote, in which Chechens will be asked to vote on a new constitution subordinate to Russian law.
 In a statement, the groups noted the continuing violence in Chechnya and urged Russian officials to make it easier for thousands of Chechen refugees living outside the republic to cast ballots. "Kidnappings, assassinations, and other physical assaults against local government officials and ordinary citizens continue," they said, adding that many refugees may be "disenfranchised" because they are reluctant to return home to vote.
 The groups also noted the "deep skepticism" among some parts of Chechen society about the referendum, including about the accuracy of voter lists. 



TITLE: Skydivers Saved by Parachutes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A small plane carrying skydivers crashed Saturday in the Tver region, killing 11 people. But 14 other people survived - many thanks to their parachutes.
 
The L-410 was flying at an altitude of 3,000 meters when it began to break up, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Twenty-five people were on board.
 NTV television said investigators were considering the possibility that the plane had been overloaded. The station said the L-410 was meant to carry only up to 19.
 The plane belonged to a local aviation club and was carrying parachute jumpers. Russian media said the plane's tail fell off, followed by the left wing. It then dove into a field near the village of Barki, about 180 kilometers north of Moscow.
 Many of the sky divers survived because they were swept out of the plane by a current of air, officials said. They managed to open their parachutes on time and land successfully.
 &quot;They had about a minute and a half before they planned to jump when it started to fall,&quot; Alexander Parfyonov, deputy head of the Tver region's emergency department, told Rossia television. &quot;Ten people by a miracle were pulled out by a stream of air and they landed [safely].&quot;
 Emergency Situations Ministry spokesperson Viktor Beltsov told Channel One television that two of the survivors were hospitalized.
 Investigators on Sunday found the plane's flight-data recorder, said Valery Garazha, a duty officer at the Tver emergency department.
 The twin-propeller L-410 was produced in former Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union was the biggest buyer of the planes, which were used for short passenger trips and mail delivery, according to Rossia. The planes remain popular among amateur pilots.
 &quot;Anyone who flew these could tell you it was much more reliable than anything else in its class,&quot; Dmitry Sukharyov, a pilot at an aviation club in the Moscow region, told Rossia.

TITLE: Prof-Media Gets Chunk of Independent Media Stock
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two of Russia's major publishing companies - Prof-Media, part of Vladimir Potanin's Interros holding, and The St. Petersburg Times' Dutch-controlled parent company, Independent Media - announced on Monday that they have formed a &quot;strategic partnership,&quot; with Prof-Media buying a 35-percent stake in Independent Media. The price of the deal was not disclosed.
 
The deal, which is likely to be in the tens of millions of dollars, is a significant development for the still relatively small print-media market, analysts said. 
 It appears to bolster the position of Prof-Media, which announced plans last month to re-align its diverse holdings into a single-share Western-type publishing house, by offering it access to Independent Media's magazine-publishing expertise and giving it another foreign-owned strategic partner. Norwegian publishing group A-pressen owns blocking stakes in the Prof-Media-controlled Komsomolskaya Pravda and Sovietsky Sport dailies and holds majority stakes in four printing presses founded by Prof-Media. Prof-Media also controls the national newspaper Izvestia.
 At the same time, as long as Prof-Media remains a minority shareholder in Independent Media, the alliance does not pose a direct threat to the editorial integrity of the Vedomosti business daily, which is one-third owned by Independent Media, or The St. Petersburg Times or Moscow Times, which are fully owned by Independent Media, analysts said.
 Prior to the sale, Independent Media had bought back a 35-percent stake from Dutch communication group VNU, which has been for sale since 2001, and a 10-percent stake from Menatep SA - a Swiss company related to Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos holding.
 As a result of the deal, Independent Media CEO Derk Sauer, together with his Dutch partners, have increased their stake in Independent Media from 55 percent to 65 percent, with Prof-Media controlling the remaining 35 percent.
 &quot;The strategic partnership between our companies should act as a stimulus for both of our businesses and create additional competitive advantages,&quot; Prof-Media CEO Vadim Goryainov said. &quot;Independent Media is a recognized leader on the Russian magazine market, while Prof-Media has leading positions on the market of national daily and weekly newspapers. Together, we cover a broad segment of the market.&quot;
 Goryainov said the purchase of a stake in Independent Media increases Prof-Media's capitalization and should make it easier to attract a major outside investor. &quot;Since the print-media market is relatively small, the company has to be big in order to attract investment,&quot; he said.
 Sauer said the alliance with Prof-Media is good for his company because Prof-Media, which he said has worked hard to establish a reputation as the Russian print industry's most transparent company, serves as both a strategic partner and a Russian partner - the roles previously played by VNU and Menatep.
 &quot;It gives us economy of scale,&quot; he said. &quot;It gives us a good opportunity to cooperate in various areas - distribution, marketing, printing, regional expansion, etc.&quot;
 Sauer stressed that, under Dutch law, under whose jurisdiction Independent Media Holding BV is registered, there is no concept of a blocking stake. With its 35 percent stake, Prof-Media will be protected in the same way as Menatep was with 10 percent. Prof-Media will have three representatives on Independent Media's nine-member non-executive board, which rules on major decisions such as a share issue and appoints the CEO, but has little say over the appointment of other top management and no say over the appointment of editors and publishers of newspapers and magazines, whose hiring and firing is entirely within the CEO's prerogative.
 In addition to Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Sovietsky Sport, Prof-Media also controls tabloid Express-Gazeta, the Antenna television guide and FM radio stations Avtoradio, Energia and Novosti Online. It owns stakes in a distribution company, Segodnya-Press, and a printing company, Prof-Media-Print, which is majority held by A-pressen. Prof-Media also has minority stakes in Expert magazine and the Prime-Tass business news agency, which it said it planned to sell.
 The company has a proclaimed goal of making a profit in publishing rather than using its media holdings to serve its owner's other business or political interests, as has been the typical approach of Russia's oligarchs. 
 It also has championed the transparency cause in the publishing industry by having its print runs independently audited and pushing for a fixed retail price.
 Last month, Prof-Media said it planned to build a single publishing house over the course of two years. The new structure will oversee all financial, production and distribution issues, while each media outlet will retain control over its editorial and advertising departments. 
 Although it was not clear how the talks with shareholders will develop, Goryainov said that A-pressen is asking for 25 percent plus one share of the new holding. LUKoil, which holds 49 percent of Izvestia, would like 10 percent, and individual shareholders who own stakes in Komsomolskaya Pravda and Segodnya-Press are looking for 5 percent to 10 percent.
 Goryainov said that in 2002, Prof-Media had a turnover of $90 milion and a net profit of $13.5 million.
 Sauer said that Independent Media had a turnover of $70 million and a $16 million profit before taxes.
 With the parties keeping their mouths shut about the size of the deal, analysts were reluctant to guess. Alexei Moiseyev, an economist with Renaissance Capital investment bank, said that, based on the figures cited by Sauer, Independent Media could be valued anywhere from $50 million to $150 million, but more likely from $100 million to $150 million. That would put the price of the 35 percent stake in tens of millions of dollars.
 Konstantin Isakov, co-owner of Mediamark media consulting company, said the acquisition of a stake in Independent Media further improves Prof-Media's already good position on the market and increases its chances of raising capital.
 &quot;For Prof-Media, it is first and foremost an entrance into the magazine market, which has been their only soft spot,&quot; Isakov said in a telephone interview. &quot;Thus the sum of its assets makes Prof-Media the largest publishing house in Russia. Such a player will be able to enter the financial markets.&quot;
 Isakov said the new alliance of Prof-Media with both A-pressen and Independent Media is good news for Russia's media business and a tribute to Prof-Media's transparency drive. &quot;It is the first time international media assets are united in Russia under the aegis of a Russian company,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Foreigners Get Another Barrier To Climb
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Another hurdle to hiring foreign staff has surfaced in regulations on the new law on foreigners - employers might be asked to provide a copy of a diploma showing that the employee is qualified to do the job.
 
Some companies are already collecting employees' diplomas to be on the safe side.
 &quot;This has only just begun, so we don't yet know how it will be executed,&quot; said a personnel-department official at one large company. &quot;We are worried that we may not be able to take on some people who are experienced but have no formal qualifications in a specialty.&quot;
 &quot;We might want to bring in someone as a manager, but their qualification is, say, in the Russian language,&quot; she said on condition of anonymity.
 Decree No. 941 - which concerns issuing work permits to foreigners and is dated Dec. 30 - states that, for certain jobs, applications for work permits must include a diploma or an attestation by a specialist that the worker is suitably qualified.
 Sergei Stefanishin, a senior lawyer with Bech-Bruun Dragsted, said that, while there is no single list of professions where some proof of professional training is required, the general categories include detectives, doctors and pharmaceutical makers. &quot;People should not worry a lot about these requirements but should take them into consideration while thinking about the position for which they are hiring someone,&quot; he said. &quot;You won't be granted a permit for someone to be a surgeon whose professional training is as an oil expert.&quot;

TITLE: Russia No. 4 on Billionaire List
AUTHOR: By Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's per capita GDP may be dragging behind Costa Rica's, but its head count of billionaires is the fourth highest in the world, according to Forbes magazine's annual rating of the super rich, released late last week.
 
The list of the country's billionaires burgeoned to 17 over the past year - 10 more than in 2002 - thanks to high oil prices, a growing stock market and greater corporate transparency.
 For a second year in a row, Russia's richest men have managed to buck the trend of shrinking fortunes. Worldwide, the number of billionaires year on year fell from 497 to 476 and their combined wealth from $1.54 trillion to $1.4 trillion. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, steadily No. 1 on the Forbes list since 1998, ended up $12.1 billion poorer than the year before, his worth dropping to $40.7 billion.
 All but five of Russia's billionaires are heavily involved in the oil sector.
 The strongest showing was by Yukos, whose top executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky retained his title as Russia's richest man and shot up from his No. 101 spot last year to No. 26. Khodorkovsky's estimated worth more than doubled - from $3.7 billion to $8 billion.
 Of the 10 new tycoons on this year's list, five earned their riches at Yukos or affiliated banking and insurance conglomerate Menatep.
 Khodorkovsky, who says that he owns 6 percent to 7 percent of the company, attributed the jump in his fortune to Yukos' growing capitalization.
 &quot;These are the same shares of the same company,&quot; Interfax quoted him as saying.
 &quot;The fact that it is becoming worth more means that our work has been a success. The fact that a lot of oil executives made it onto the list means that our oil sector is the most public and open. I think that my fellow businessmen from other sectors still have the journey toward financial transparency ahead of them.&quot;
 Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United Financial Group, said that one big reason for the rising number of Russian billionaires is greater disclosure.
 &quot;Most people have taken the view that Mr. Khodorkovsky owns Yukos and now we know that he does. But many other people have large stakes as well,&quot; O'Sullivan said Friday. &quot;People we didn't know about last year, we now know about.&quot;
 Another factor was Russia's growing stock market, which was up 35 percent to 40 percent last year, driving the value of the billionaires' industrial holdings.
 &quot;Clearly, a large part of their wealth is not sitting in the bank in cash,&quot; said O'Sullivan. &quot;It's sitting in the form of shareholdings in the companies that they now own, control and manage.&quot;
 Russia's top trio of billionaires remained unchanged.
 The second richest after Khodorkovsky was Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich, whose Millhouse Capital holding controls oil major Sibneft and half of metals giant Russian Aluminum. Abramovich's fortune swelled from $3 billion to $5.7 billion, boosting him from No. 127 to No. 49.
 Russia's No. 3 for a second year in a row was Alfa Group chairperson Mikhail Fridman, whose company's prize holding, the Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, signed a landmark $6.75-billion deal last month with BP.
 Fridman's worth nearly doubled over the past year, up from $2.2 billion to $4.3 billion, hoisting him from No. 191 to No. 68.
 The top newcomer to the list was major TNK shareholder Viktor Vekselberg, who entered as Russia's fourth richest man with $2.5 billion.
 Russia's youngest billionaire was Oleg Deripaska, 34, whose Base Element holding co-owns Russian Aluminum together with Millhouse.
 Deripaska's worth edged up from $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion, propelling him from No. 413 to No. 278. He overtook LUKoil's Vagit Alekperov and Surgutneftegaz head Vladimir Bogdanov - the only two Russian billionaires who saw their fortunes get smaller over the past year.
 Conspicuously absent from the list was one-time Kremlin power broker Boris Berezovsky - ostensibly because the self-exiled oligarch, who recently estimated his own fortune at $3 billion, has been loath to disclose his holdings in Russia and abroad.
 Berezovsky was declared the country's richest man in 1997, the first year Russians made it onto the Forbes list. The only billionaire the following year was Interros chairperson Vladimir Potanin, who was ranked Russia's fifth richest man in the latest rating.
 In 1999 and 2000, still reeling from its August 1998 financial crash, the country registered no billionaires at all.
 But Russia popped back onto the billionaire scene in 2001 with eight names on the list, and held on to seven spots in 2002.
 The 17 billionaires on this year's list put Russia behind only the United States, Germany and Japan.
 Aside from dry statistics, the Forbes list reveals some entertaining personal details about the world's richest people.
 Khodorkovsky, who is only 39, has four children.
 The only Russian billionaire who is a bachelor, says Forbes, is Norilsk Nickel CEO Mikhail Prokhorov, who &quot;is often featured in gossip columns about blow-out parties on the French Riviera.&quot;
 Prokhorov drew chuckles from the business community last week when, under pressure from striking workers, he announced that his official monthly salary was only some 450 rubles (about $14).
 Bogdanov's bio calls him &quot;exceptionally private: Dubbed the Hermit of Siberia, Bogdanov rarely leaves his remote oil town, never grants interviews and shuns the trappings of wealth; often walks to work and does his own grocery shopping.&quot;
 Deripaska is married to the daughter of former President Boris Yeltsin's chief of staff, Valentin Yumashev, who in turn married Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Dyachenko -&quot; which means that Deripaska is now Yeltsin's grandson by marriage,&quot; says Forbes.
 The list also reminds readers of the close ties between big money and big politics.
 Besides Abramovich's governorship and Deripaska's familial proximity to the Kremlin, three of the Yukos debutants have shuttled between corporate suites and public office.
 Khodorkovsky's long-time partner Leonid Nevzlin is a Federation Council senator, appointed in 2001 from the Volga region of Mordovia.
 Vladimir Dubov, identified as a major Yukos shareholder, made it into the State Duma in 1999 on the Fatherland-All Russia ticket.
 Dubov is now a member of the budget and taxes committee and the commission on production-sharing agreements.
 Another shareholder of Yukos and Menatep, Vasily Shakhnovsky, served in the 1990s as chief of staff to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and was one of the top managers of Yeltsin's hair-raising re-election campaign in 1996.

TITLE: Local Banks Left Behind In Private-Lending Stakes
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The volume of consumer credit transactions in St. Petersburg's banking sector shot up by 45 percent in 2002, but market analysts are predicting that the sector's development still has a long way to go. 
 
A group of the city's leading bankers met on Monday to discuss the sector's prospects at a roundtable organized by the Association of Northwest Banks, and though they agreed that advances had been made, they admitted that, in the consumer-credit sector, two Moscow-based banks - Russky Standart and First OVK - were leading the way. 
 Vladimir Dzhikovich, president of the Association, said that the vast increase in the number of consumer-credit transactions was a result of the conditions for obtaining credit having been simplified and relaxed. Many banks no longer demand official confirmation of income levels and, with salaries often being paid &quot;under the table,&quot; the need to provide proof of income has long been an obstacle in the sector.
 Sergei Brovko, spokesperson for the St. Petersburg Bank for Reconstruction and Development (SPBRD), said that the gradual decline in interest rates charged by banks, following the lead given by the Central Bank, which has now reduced its interest rate to 18 percent, has also attracted customers.
 On a less optimistic note, Oleg Luchinin, deputy head of the St. Petersburg branch of Moskomprivat Bank, said that, so far, the need for guaranties for loans has meant that, to a large extent, the consumer-credit sector has been restricted to loans for cars, rather than apartments. Their relative liquidity was cited as the underlying factor.
 &quot;If you accept an apartment as the guarantee for a loan, they're fairly difficult to sell, as the legislation on real estate is too strict. That's one of the main factors holding back mortgage schemes.&quot;
 Nevertheless, some banks have launched new loan products onto the market. MDM-St. Petersburg has begun a short-term 60-day lending program for pensioners, providing them with up to 9,000 rubles ($285) at a rate of 21 percent, said Andrei Surovtsev, head of the bank's credit department. 
 &quot;As we have a large number of pension accounts, we also have statistics that we can rely on&quot;, Surovtsev said. &quot;This service is becoming incredibly popular - pensioners take loans for different reasons: some want to use the money to buy a television set, others want to buy a birthday present for a grandchild.&quot; 
 Sberbank has begun giving loans for education with terms of up to 11 years with interest rates of 19 percent, Karpenko said. &quot;We've only given 42 education loans, while, in comparison, we've given about 10,000 short-term loans during the same period. The main problems are low levels of income, along with high costs in education,&quot; she said. 
 Another serious obstacle to the development of the consumer-loans market in St. Petersburg is the absence of credit-rating agencies, participants in the discussion said. 
 &quot;It's mainly the fault of the State Duma that the law on credit-rating agencies is held up. They have been dealing with the draft law on deposit guarantees for nine years now. They haven't been dealing with the draft law on credit-rating agencies for that long, so they've got a long way to go yet,&quot; said Dzhikovich.
 Another tendency in the market that drew attention at the discussion was the growth in express loans for domestic appliances, furniture and computers, with the entire procedure for receiving such loans taking less than an hour. As yet, only two banks offer such services on the St. Petersburg market, both them of them being Moscow-based - First OVK and Russky Standart, both of which began operating in St. Petersburg in the middle of 2002. 
 Representatives of local banks admitted that they are unable to compete in the sector, as they lack the necessary technology, with Moscow banks already having invested in the sector several years ago. 
 Eduard Ilyasov, head of the client-operations department at the St. Petersburg branch of First OVK, said that the bank is currently operating express-loan schemes with about 100 stores in the city. 
 &quot;You have to take into account that we've only been operating in full since the fall, but we've given over 30 million rubles [$950 thousand] in loans,&quot; Ilyasov said. 
 &quot;We estimate the total market capacity [in St. Petersburg] at several hundred million dollars.&quot;

TITLE: City Plans To Take Transport Overground
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Canada-based company Bombardier on Friday presented a feasibility study for a rapid-transit system to St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev at a press conference held at the Astoria Hotel. Yakovlev said that the construction of the $527-million, fully-automated elevated-train system could begin as early as this year. 
 
Financing is the only snag holding up the plans, according to Patrice Pelletier, president of Bombardier.
 The transit system, which will be erected at third-floor level, is intended for the southwestern neighborhoods of St. Petersburg that are already served by metro lines 1, 2 and 3. 
 The new line will connect Prospect Veteranov, Kupchino and Obukhovo, passing through the Krasnoselsky, Kirovsky, Moskovsky, Frunzensky and Nevsky districts, according to the ambitious plans. 
 By 2015, the length of the rapid transit system will be extended by another 50 kilometers. Bombardier claimed that the system will cater to 263,000 passengers per day in its first year, with the fare currently being estimated at 15 rubles per trip. 
 The system will be fully automated, with no drivers operating the trains. 
 Bombardier has proposed that the system begin with rolling stock of 46 vehicles, each comprising two passenger carriages. 
 Each vehicle will have 41 seats and will be able to carry 220 passengers at an average speed of 45 kilometers per hour - about three times faster than the current average speed of surface transport in St. Petersburg. 
 Pelletier was positive about the chances of finding investment financing for the project. &quot;We are going to set up a public-private partnership, with Bombardier as one of the major sponsors and shareholders. We have also already talked to a number of potential investors who are willing to participate in the rapid-transit system,&quot; he said on Friday.
 Bombardier is planning to invest $310 million in the form of an electronic-technical package, according to Pelletier. St. Petersburg Deputy Governor Konstantin Kondakov, however, said that the city will not be providing funds for the project, though it intends to provide construction sites. 
 Pelletier said that it will take another 48 months to work out the schedule for the construction of the transit system.
 &quot;We would like to launch the project this year, so that, having been conceived during the 300th anniversary, it will appear like a child in nine months' time. It's likely to take longer, though,&quot; Yakovlev said. 
 Also speaking at the press conference, Legislative Assembly Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov said that the assembly had been working on the project for three years. &quot;I am strongly for this project, as there are currently 400,000 people living in the Krasnoselsky district who find it difficult to get to the center of town, and it's highly unlikely that any metro line will be built any time soon,&quot; he said. He added that the proposed system would be several times cheaper than building new metro facilities. 
 Tyupalnov did, however, express reservations. &quot;Many people living in the vicinity of the proposed route are concerned about possible negative effects of the rapid-transit system, so we'll have to carry out research into sound levels and the ecological effects,&quot; he said.
 Yakovlev said that there was a need to link up the end stations of the different metro lines, in order to widen the coverage provided by the city's transport system.
 &quot;If you look at the two types of public transport on offer - the tram and the metro - there's a zone between them that should be serving about 10,000 passengers per hour,&quot; Pelletier said. &quot;The technology we're proposing fits right into that niche.&quot; 
 Bombardier is one of the world's leading companies in the rail-technology manufacturing and servicing industries, with rapid transit systems in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Canada, as well as having built the automated AirTrain JFK System at JFK International Airport, New York.
 The company entered the Russian market in 1997, acquiring a major stake in OEZ, one of the country's largest railway-carriage-repair plants. 
 Also in 1997, the company signed a contract with the Transport Ministry, under which Bombardier is due to supply railroad hardware.

TITLE: Gref Pitches Competion As Answer In Housing
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref proposed Friday that apartment building residents collectively choose contractors to provide utility and building maintenance services, saying that competition would help revitalize the crumbling housing sector.
 
His remarks came as key government officials overseeing housing and communal services met Friday at the Federation Council to grapple with housing reform - a dynamite issue in an election year.
 Gref said that the subsidy money currently spread thinly among everyone in the country should be concentrated among the neediest.
 &quot;We don't deny that, by switching to subsidies earmarked for specific individuals, the majority of citizens will stop receiving any kind of compensation for housing services,&quot; Gref said.
 Together with this gradual shift, Gref proposed to introduce a free-market, competitive system.
 &quot;This is a good ground for opening a small business,&quot; Gref said.
 As it stands now, residents are given no choice as to which firm provides them with services ranging from heating, water and electricity to garbage disposal, entry-way cleaning and repairs. Competition would also help to invigorate the neighborhood-based state service providers currently in place, Gref said.
 With residential and utility infrastructure crumbling before their eyes, it is a problem that can no longer be ignored, speakers agreed at the Federation Council hearing.
 Sixty percent of heating infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. The same dilapidation is true for 70 percent of the electricity-supply network, 55 percent of water-supply pipes and 30 percent of sewer lines, Gosstroi head Nikolai Koshman said.
 Faced with these numbers, and spurred by President Vladimir Putin's January urging to make housing reform a priority, the officials set up a working group to unify proposals from various camps into one viable solution.
 Progress on reform has stalled, and a new concept is needed, they said.
 Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko said last month that this winter's serious heating problems, which left swaths of the country shivering, were not caused by fuel shortages, but by buildings' decay.
 Khristenko attributed one third of those heating breakdowns to deteriorating infrastructure, and 12 percent to accidents. He chalked up half the cases to local housing officials' incompetence.
 Sweeping reform has raised the specter of social upheaval in the run-up to elections in a country where over 30 percent of citizens live below subsistence levels. Reform is seen as the equivalent of political dynamite in an election year.
 And, since everyone in the country receives housing subsidies in some form or another, everyone will be affected by the future changes.
 Labor Minister Alexander Pochinok said that the federal budget allocates about 110 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) every year for the sector, and even that leaves the sector underfinanced by 20 percent.
 Housing reform and administrative reform must go hand in hand, he said.

TITLE: UES Board Votes For More Say Over Assets
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - The board of power utility Unified Energy Systems on Friday decided to liquidate RenTV and approved proposed changes to the company charter that would expand the board's competence to approve or reject sales of UES assets and those of its subsidiaries.
 
Asset sales are a hot issue, as the utility will be broken up in a massive sector restructuring over the coming years, but the board said that the proposed charter change is meant to give shareholders control over restructuring through their board representatives.
 The amendments will go to a vote at the company's annual meeting, tentatively scheduled for late May.
 Portfolio investors, worried about the security of their holdings, are anxious for the amendments to get through, especially since they believe that the board's powers were weakened by amendments last year.
 But CEO Anatoly Chubais drew criticism in a conference call after the board meeting when he said that the amendments would not fix a maximum value of transactions that do not require board approval.
 He said that a fixed plank would be too arbitrary.
 A fund manager on the call protested that that would give the board the right to determine its own powers.
 &quot;This is a decision that will be put to the annual shareholder meeting for the shareholders to make themselves,&quot; Chubais responded.
 The board was to discuss shares currently held by foreigners as American Depositary Receipts.
 The underlying shares are to be distributed proportionally among their current owners when UES is split into 10 federal generating companies, a system operator and the Federal Grid Co., which will receive capital valued at 10 billion rubles ($312 million). UES's 72 regional utilities, or energos, will also be broken up and reorganized under the plan.
 Investors have expressed concerns about prospective liquidity in the share, since the government has said that it wants to keep the free float below 25 percent.
 Chubais said that the ADR programs must be changed to mirror the structure of the new companies to emerge from the former power monopoly.
 He said that a program of transition for ADR holders would be spelt out in a strategy paper known as the 3+3 program, the outlines of which are to come up for board approval in late March.
 The board also approved the sale of its 70-percent stake in second-tier RenTV, which some investors said was a poor fit and tied to Chubais' political activities.
 UES said, in a statement its board approved, that the sale was motivated by the fact that the government, which owns 53 percent of the massive utility, was not interested in making the long-term investments needed to develop the minor channel.
 UES reportedly paid $33 million for a 70-percent stake in the station three years ago, but it was not clear how much it would sell it for.
 Chubais, a former deputy prime minister who headed the 1996 election campaign for then-President Boris Yeltsin, is also a prominent figure in the free-market-oriented Union of Right Forces political party.
 
 <i>(Reuters, SPT) </i>

TITLE: Fiat Reports Net Loss of $4.68 Bln For 2002
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MILAN, Italy - Italian automaker Fiat SpA reported on Friday a wider loss of 4.3 billion euros in 2002, citing one-time charges mainly for the restructuring of its troubled auto unit.
 
The results were announced after a board meeting Friday, at which the Fiat management underwent a previously announced shakeup.
 Umberto Agnelli replaced Paolo Fresco as Fiat's chairperson, while Giuseppe Morchio, a former executive at the Milan tiremaker Pirelli, was named chief executive.
 Fiat also said that the board had examined an offer from Omniainvest, an investment company controlled by entrepreneur Roberto Colaninno, to invest in Fiat SpA or in the auto unit, but took no action.
 Fiat's loss for 2002 was much larger than its loss of 791 million euros in 2001.
 Consolidated sales fell 4 percent to 55.6 billion euros ($59.9 billion), as sales at its Fiat Auto unit contracted by 9.4 percent.
 Fiat said that it planned to pump as much as 5 billion euros ($5.4 bilion) in new capital into Fiat Auto Holdings BV, including an immediate 3-billion-euro capital hike.
 Those funds would come from &quot;internal group resources&quot; including the cancelling of debt that Fiat Auto may owe to other Fiat units, a company spokesperson said.
 &quot;The results for the Fiat Group in 2002 are unquestionably negative,&quot; Fiat said in a statement. 
 &quot;As the financial markets have known for some time, the operating loss was greater than originally anticipated, owing to Fiat Auto's inability to reach breakeven.&quot;
 However, Fiat described 2002 as &quot;a year of profound changes for the company, the beneficial impact of which will become increasingly apparent over time.&quot;
 Fiat also authorized a 2.5-billion-euro capital increase for the auto unit of a similar nature late last year.
 Agnelli is the head of the family that controls 30.4 percent of Fiat through their holding companies Ifi and Ifil, and is the brother of the late Giovanni Agnelli.
 &quot;I'm ready to take on this responsibility, knowing it's a major responsibility, but also with much faith and much hope,&quot; Umberto Agnelli told state TV channel RAI in an interview.
 Also appointed to the board was Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, chairperson of Ferrari, the sports-car maker 56-percent owned by Fiat. Fiat's current CEO, Alessandro Barberis, was chosen as vice president.
 Fresco, former General Electric Co. Chairperson John Welch, and Felix Rohatyn, formerly a Lazard banker and U.S. Ambassador to France, all left the board to make way for Morchio, Barberis and di Montezemolo.
 Fiat said that it deferred action on the offer from Colaninno because it &quot;does not include any distinguishing elements over the plan currently being implemented&quot; and so it can be discussed with General Motors Corp., which has a 20-percent stake in Fiat Auto.
 Barberis told analysts on a conference call Friday that Fiat plans to take a few weeks to digest the board and management shakeup before deciding on key strategy decisions.

TITLE: Top Priority for Reform at UES Must Be Grid
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Levenchuk and Viktor Agroskin
TEXT: WE must move beyond the rhetoric that has surrounded energy-sector reforms. What changes are needed, exactly? And along what path will reforms proceed?
 
Unified Energy Systems, the power monopoly itself, was the first to lay out its vision of what reforms should look like. The proposals from UES management that were endorsed by the government were also the first to wind up dead in the water. Their program fought valiantly through a maze of government red tape but came to nothing, after being picked to shreds last fall by powerful lobbyists and legislators. No one, not even President Vladimir Putin, could have saved it.
 After the first reading of these reform bills in the State Duma last October, the reforms were modified so much that they were no longer recognizable: The reforms are dead, long live the new reforms! The new, second incarnation of the reforms now tops the Duma's agenda, and will surely be reinvented as deputies hash out the legislation.
 This second version of reforms is parallel to the first, only more vague. Key provisions in the original legislation that had outlined a new regulatory system for the sector were taken out. Instead, a universal clause is sprinkled everywhere saying that the government will determine all details at some indefinite point in the future. Timelines, wholesale-market regulations, terms of competition and limits for the restructured companies seem to have been made deliberately abstract. These indirect-effect reforms will be carried out, but how and by whom will become clear only after the elections.
 In effect, the first reform initiative was a reform of the UES holding, not the sector. Hopefully, the second reform effort, put forward by the government, will answer the unanswered questions - chief among them, how to create a competitive market in the country's energy sector.
 Both the first and second incarnations of reform were planned as multi-shock reforms, in other words a series of small changes to the wholesale-energy market both in terms of volume and territory. A corresponding trading model will be put in place.
 Support for the government's model for UES was traded away by parties with vested interests in the future shape of the sector before the implementation phase could even start.
 Big energy consumers are frightened by the prospect of steep growth in prices. Energy companies are frightened by the heightened competition that will drive prices down and cut into their profit margins. Government officials, for their part, are afraid that they will lose their levers of influence on the sector. And the population and the politicians who represent them have difficulty grasping the reforms' complexity and tend to be terrified of shake-up and change.
 Despite this, all parties - even the state - agreed unexpectedly that long-term agreements between energy consumers and producers are desirable. This kind of agreement on a free-pricing system would curtail officials' arbitrary power on tariff regulation, and would, simultaneously, protect the country from short-term fluctuations on the market.
 Neither the first nor the second reforms respond to the weak development of the country's grid network. As the reform bills now stand, companies that agree to supply energy throughout the country at a profit will in effect be able to rob the remaining producers and consumers.
 Both the first and second set of reform proposals are thus inadequate, and a third way is needed. Ideal reforms would first liberalize supply - rather than demand - creating market conditions for the sector's grid foundation, before moving on to energy generation and sales.
 If the grid's status as a natural monopoly is taken away and market rights are introduced for transferring electricity, then the consumer will be able to buy energy from the generating station that offers the lowest rate, regardless of how distant it is. The possibility of an imbalance in supply and demand will thus disappear.
 But the main thing is that investors will be given a powerful stimulus to invest in the network. This is a country with a loss-making generation system and an insufficiently developed grid, so the creation of a market for the right to transfer energy is a far more logical first step than working to develop the energy market itself. Investment and growth must be stimulated wherever the assets are few, rather than where there is a glut.
 By including the market for grid capacity, this third version of reform would remove the problem of needing to reform the energos. An entirely competitive market will solve the issue of &quot;true-valued&quot; and &quot;undervalued&quot; energy companies. Companies could be merged and split by shareholders based on a market assessment - not according to the whims of managers, minority shareholders or officials.
 This third path of reform could be realized by restructuring and fully privatizing the companies within the UES holding, without accusations of selling off and stripping property. UES could transform itself from being a quasi-ministerial monopoly responsible for conducting reforms into a financial holding company focused on boosting the profits of its subsidiaries. Adapting the leaner, meaner UES daughter energos to the market should be done by shareholders. Up to this point, they have been shuffling along as subdivisions of a big ministry.
 Nothing - neither the government nor UES - stands in the way of pursuing this third path of reform, because the second version under discussion and now in the Duma is unworkably ambiguous.
 
 <i>
Anatoly Levenchuk and Viktor Agroskin are partners with the consulting company TechInvestLab.co They contributed this comment to Vedomosti. </i>

TITLE: Enron: Under Cover of Dark and Threat of War
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The Enron scandal has all but disappeared from view. Let's check in on it, shall we?
 
You remember Enron: It claimed to be making and holding onto lots more money than it really was; it suckered people, including its own employees, into believing it was a success; its top executives paid themselves lavishly and then, when the pyramid shuddered, cashed out early.
 That's the usual chronology, but the 400-kilogram gorilla it omits is the summer of 2001 in California - when &quot;energy traders&quot; like Enron created a phony &quot;energy crisis&quot; in which, for the third summer in a row, they could ransom their energy for eye-poppingly outrageous sums.
 There's not much doubt left today that the California energy crisis was an Enronesque game. Just 10 days ago, a fifth former Enron exec entered a federal guilty plea. He admits he and his colleagues intentionally defrauded Californians - intentionally brought about those lucrative power outages.
 Enron, of course, wasn't alone. Traders over at Reliant Energy (just renamed Centerpoint) have been caught on tape laughing about being the cause of power failures across the West Coast, and then, under cover of dark, sneaking away with the public's hard-earned money - it was &quot;cool&quot; and &quot;fun.&quot;
 So, game over, right? There's a consensus that 55 million Californians were ripped off by the Fraudster 500; now it's just a matter of doling out the jail time and the public shame, collecting what money can be recovered, and ordering regulators to prevent it recurring, right?
 Uh, no. For starters, Americans have forgotten Enron. We're too busy duct-taping our windows shut against the possibility of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. The press derides the new government civil-defense advice as &quot;duct and cover&quot; - a joking reference to the old &quot;duck-and-cover&quot; Cold War drills, in which school kids would hide under their desks from Comrade Stalin - but that hasn't stopped hoarders from buying up all the flashlights and bottled water in my hometown.
 With no one watching, it's back to business as usual and the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is eager to do the bidding of the oligarchy - sorry, wrong country, of its favorite &quot;campaign contributors.&quot; So those Reliant traders who thought themselves so &quot;cool&quot; earned their company a playful wrist slap: Their $13.8- million fine equals 0.03 percent of Reliant's (rape-of-California) 2001 revenues of $40.8 billion. If Reliant had jacked a Mercedes, this would be equivalent to a judge ordering it to keep the car but return any change found behind the seat.
 The fine was set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC - and for anyone who missed the point, the White House just appointed a new FERC commissioner: Joseph Kelliher, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Kelliher was the Enron go-to guy - he was once handed Enron's &quot;dream list&quot; of government policies and dutifully relayed it to Boss Cheney.
 Meanwhile, the man who used to run Enron's corrupt energy-trading division is not only not in trouble, he's secretary of the U.S. Army - which, incredibly, makes him the man in charge of the Army budget. Ken Lay, the former Enron chief, is also doing well. He's having a day in court soon because he's suing the U.S. government. He and his wife think the U.S. tax authorities owe them $130,000 from the mid-1980s.
 So this is why they say the first casualty of war is truth.
 
 <i>
Matt Bivens, a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, writes The Daily Outrage at www.thenation.com </i>

TITLE: Nazdratenko Sinking, but Remains Afloat
TEXT: PRIME Minister Mikhail Kasyanov last month suspended the head of the State Fisheries Committee, Yevgeny Nazdratenko. The official reason was the committee's prolonged failure to approve 2003 fishing-quota allocations proposed by Nazdratenko's successor as governor of Primorye, Sergei Darkin.
 
This is hardly the first dispute over fishing quotas in Primorye. The first occurred a year ago, when Darkin took over as governor. Among his first acts was to allocate the entire regional pollock quota to a trio of friendly firms. When the proposed quota was sent to the State Fisheries Committee for approval, Nazdratenko rejected it and gave the pollock quota to companies that, shall we say, had flourished during his time as governor.
 It's not hard to understand Nazdratenko. Who is Darkin, after all? Just some entrepreneur. After the death of a local crime boss called Baul, Darkin was caught up in the middle between two criminal bosses nicknamed Karp and Vinni-Pukh. They even unloaded a machine gun right under his nose. Nazdratenko is in a different league. No one leaned on him after Baul's death. Quite the opposite: Local legend in Vladivostok has it that Baul drowned shortly after his relationship with Nazdratenko took a turn for the worse. Something about missing campaign funds.
 Governor Darkin, however, went running to Kasyanov with his problem. Nazdratenko had no authority to reject the proposed quota allocations, after all. State Fisheries Committee approval was supposed to be a mere technicality. Kasyanov became indignant, all the more so as he wanted to put his own man in charge of the committee. Nazdratenko promised to put things right, and he did - about a month after the year's pollock quota had been filled.
 What is at stake in the Russian fishing business? Insiders say that, for every dollar you invest, you clear $12 in profit. This is poaching, of course, conducted under the protection of gangsters, border guards and bureaucrats, who divide up quotas for bribes. According to rumors that have been making the rounds, the murder of the late Magadan Governor Valentin Tsvetkov was more than a little fishy.
 Fish like peace and quiet, however, and Nazdratenko was notorious for stirring things up. No sooner had rumors about his removal begun to circulate than he launched an international battle to review the Baker-Shevardnadze line, the Russian-U.S. border in the Bering and Chukotka seas, claiming that Russia loses a minimum of 200,000 tons of pollock each year to the Americans. When Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref wanted to auction off fishing quotas to reduce the potential for bribery, fishermen in Primorye immediately took to the streets. In the White House, they suspected that Nazdratenko had been rather more than just an innocent bystander.
 This might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Bureaucrats can do almost anything in Russia: take bribes, exceed their authority, feud openly with other bureaucrats and even conduct their own foreign policy. But rocking the social boat by stoking popular passions in an attempt to defend one's turf is, apparently, taboo.
 Nazdratenko was made head of the State Fisheries Committee in exchange for voluntarily vacating the governor's office in Vladivostok. President Vladimir Putin wanted to set a precedent: When a governor resigns his post peacefully, he receives a plum consolation prize. Nazdratenko was not appointed to the fisheries job for life, however, and he did nothing to merit an extension.
 Nazdratenko won't disappear. He could run for the governor's post in Kamchatka, where he has already made inroads. During Nazdratenko's tenure at the State Fisheries Committee, many companies in Kamchatka lost their licenses - which were subsequently bought up for pennies on the dollar by companies connected to Primorye Senator Oleg Kozhemyako. And it just so happens that the senator is considered a close ally of Nazdratenko.
 
 <i>
Yulia Latynina is host of &quot;Yest Mneniye&quot; (&quot;Some Might Say&quot;) on TVS. </i>

TITLE: U.S. Policy, Fingers, Skinhead Violence
TEXT: Editor,
 </i>More than a century ago, when the young and vigorous United States attacked the decrepit Spanish empire, Lev Tolstoy compared the attack to a young boxer knocking down an old man. Theodore Roosevelt angrily responded by calling Tolstoy a moral and a sexual pervert.
 
This time around, the power differential between the two countries is even more enormous. Tariq Ali (no doubt yet another &quot;pervert&quot;) has compared the situation to a Bengal tiger pouncing on an emaciated mouse.
 No amount of brilliant public relations can disguise the fact, increasingly obvious to the entire world, that the United States is behaving in the manner of a greedy, cowardly bully. Those opposing the power-mad U.S. policies are not being &quot;anti-American,&quot; but simply clear-sighted.
 Imperialists have never been popular, for obvious reasons. The attack on Iraq is intended as part of a series of imperial wars that will consolidate plutocratic control over people both within and outside the U.S. borders. It is correctly perceived by many as a profoundly insidious assault against freedom and democracy. Not only will it kill great numbers of innocents and make the U.S. seriously detested, it may also launch the country and the world into a downward spiral of violence the ultimate end of which may be too cataclysmic to contemplate.
 Today is a very good day to pull back from the descent into disaster. Let us stop this hideous imperialist bloodbath by every peaceful means at our command.
 <i>Dr. Zeljko Cipris 
 University of the Pacific
 Stockton, California
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>Everybody around the world knows that President George W. Bush and his acolytes are committed to starting a war against Iraq. Everybody also knows that, as much as Bush proclaims that his country is one of laws, when it comes to the international arena, he dismisses the United Nations, NATO, &quot;old Europe&quot; and all leaders opposed to his genocidal thoughts as irrelevant and road-blocking.
 
He accuses Iraq of everything he can come up with. He offers no proof but an insatiable appetite for oil and revenge against &quot;the man that tried to kill my daddy,&quot; as he said not long ago. He dismisses public opinion as faint and the certainty of mass murder as &quot;collateral damage.&quot;
 Bush is, after all, no better than Saddam Hussein, although a lot more powerful. He entertains the idea of using a nuclear bomb against Baghdad. The mere thought of this is like revisiting the genocide at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, carried out by the United States.
 But, if France, Germany, China and Russia, among others, form their own &quot;coalition of the willing&quot; to stop Bush, he may think twice before invading a country that is not even remotely as dangerous to the United States as the American press has portrayed it to be.
 Even with all its military might, the United States cannot possibly confront an alliance between these four countries.
 <i>Manuel Gutierrez
 Phoenix, Arizona
 </i>
 
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>The United States, regardless of the reasons why, has become the de facto policeman of the world. Certainly, no country desires to spend blood and money to meddle in the affairs of another country. However, the situation is that we face a well-entrenched megalomaniac with weapons of great power, who has no reservations about using those weapons to advance his agenda.
 
France seems to want to solve the problem by having lots of meetings in European hotels and attempting to exhibit leadership by producing petitions and resolutions. U.S. perceptions of Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union is that of great countries that were bankrupted for generations under communism and that are weary of war and reluctant to support a conflict.
 With or without the support of the UN Security Council, the United States will act in Iraq. Given the current situation, where the UN continues to make resolutions and not act upon them, what would be the best course of action? More debate, more time to fool inspectors and hide weapons? Let's just get this done, with the minimum loss of life, and move on. Anything else is just rhetoric.
 <i>John E. McIntyre
 Irvine, California
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Customs Loss
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Pianist Looks for Justice After Losing Finger,&quot; on Feb. 21. 
 
 Editor,
 </i>I am an American citizen who has lived in St. Petersburg for the last nine years.
 
Dealing with Russian customs is simply a matter of being smarter than the custom officals who randomly pick their victims. You must stay one step ahead of them. Always be prepared for the worse. Assume that you will be a victim.
 If you are leaving the country through the international airport with a near-expired visa, you are a prime target (you figure out why).
 So, carry no large amounts of cash, declared or not. You are just setting yourself up. In my opinion, the customs declarations are not worth the paper they are printed on. If you have been targeted by customs to be ripped off, then even a stamped document may not help you. They have their strategy and, if they deem you to be gullible, any non-existent rules and regulations may be applied.
 The international airport is the best place for a scam where competence and professionalism are only camouflage to hide a den of thieves. There are other ways legally to get your cash out of the country. Take the time and learn those ways. Or you can always leave by bus to the Estonian border.
 There the customs officals not only refuse to stamp your declarations form, but many times do not even bother checking your bag through the metal detector. Believe me! I have a passport full of stamps that say Ivangorod with the little car next to them.
 <i>Daniel Martinez
 St. Petersburg
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Unwelcome Welcome
 </strong><i></b>
Editor,
 </i>I have read of the determination of President Vladimir Putin to rid the police of corrupt officers. I can not but reflect that this may be rather a challenge in the light of a robbery I was the victim of at 7:00 p.m. on Nevsky Prospekt outside the Grand Hotel Europe on Feb. 20.
 
Two men in MVD police uniforms examined my passport, questioned and then searched me and, while doing so, stole my mobile telephone.
 The thieves, police or men posing as police officers, should have rich pickings from the number of visitors expected for the St. Petersburg birthday celebrations.
 <i>Frederick Furber
 London, United Kingdom
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Good as Gold
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Following the Trail Of Magadan Gold,&quot; on Feb. 25. 
 
 Editor,
 </i>The Russian government has not only held on to its gold reserves, but very wisely built them up. This policy has flown in the face of prevailing Western anti-gold policy.
 
Across the West in recent years, governments have been selling and lending gold on the belief that it is an &quot;outdated&quot; asset with no place in the so-called &quot;New Economy.&quot; This high-level folly was best demonstrated by the Bank of England, which sold a large part of its gold at the lowest prices in 20 years.
 Now that the New Economy has been shown to be a repeat of the &quot;Roaring 20s&quot; speculative bubble, gold is back in favour. Russia is sitting, as it were, on a gold mine.
 I hope the authorities have the wisdom to clean up the gold industry in order to maximize on the emerging 20-year gold bull run.
 <i>Mel Cameron
 Gold Coast, Australia
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Skinhead Problem</strong>
 <i></b>
In Response to &quot;Skinheads Arrested Over Racist Attack&quot; on Feb. 18.
 </i>
 <i>Editor,
 </i>I am an American student now living in Dallas, Texas. I lived in St. Petersburg for about a year, studying the Russian language. I also married a Russian citizen while I was there.
 
I think this article is only the tip of the iceberg in regard to these types of problems. Not surprisingly, I heard many stories about racism in St. Petersburg and Moscow from students and residents, and my wife was actually attacked by skinheads herself. One evening, my wife and I were walking on Nevsky Prospect, not far from the Grand Hotel Europe, coming out of the underpass. I was walking a little bit behind her, so I believe that the skinheads thought she was alone. She suddenly heard racial slurs and felt her hair being pulled. I saw all of this and I immediately pushed one of the three guys away, and flicked my cigerette into his face. They realized I was foreign, and they began cursing at me in English and telling me to follow them. I did not, of course, but my wife became hysterical. It is hard for her because she is a Yakut, and has an Asian appearance.
 There are growing problems such as these happening all of the time. The Russian youth seem to have forgotten that Siberia is a part of Russia as well ,and these skinheads have begun attacking even their own Russian citizens. It is quite amazing.
 Many of my wife's friends have had similar things happen to them in much the same way and there is little to no response from the media or the police to these problems. Much of this has to do with the general mentality of the Russians with regard to their Siberian neighbors. They do not recognize that these people are just as Russian as themselves and should be acknowledged as such.
 This was not the only incident though, not by half. In Moscow, American students witnessed one man beaten on the metro by a handful of skinheads. Some Columbian friends were chased through the metro all the way to their apartment. One night, skinheads broke into our university dorm and attacked an African male. These accounts are incredible, but quite true and are happening all of the time.
 I do not want to put any bad light on the Russian people. I love Russia and I met many wonderful people while living there and enjoyed many great friendships. But, given this, the growing number of these occurences is alarming and must be handled immediately and effectively.
 <i>Brad Reynolds
 Dallas, Texas
 
 </i><strong>
<b>Why War Is Wrong</strong>
 <i></b>
In response to &quot;Iraq the Most Righteous War of Them All,&quot; a column by Pavel Felgenhauer on Feb. 18.
 
 Editor,
 </i>It is indeed hard to argue with Pavel Felgenhauer's argument that the people of Iraq should be free. Also, there is no doubt about the fact that cynical European (and American!) politicians have caused immeasurable hardship by agreeing to such dubious deals as giving weapons of mass destruction to Saddam.
 
What I question, however, is calling the looming military intervention the incarnation of a &quot;just war.&quot; Yes, under ideal circumstances, it would be: if the UN Security Council wholeheartedly (or at least a majority of it) and the peoples of the world agree to such an undertaking. Things being the way they are, however, it is far from just. The credibility of the US hawks is not in any way greater than that of Europe's doves, considering past history. There is no contingency plan for this war, aside from a miraculous rebuilding of Iraq under a the &quot;benevolent&quot; dictatorship of a military administration imposed by the U.S.
 The only way this war can truly be just is if it takes into account the interests of the Iraqi people first. And, from all I can tell, no current actor is anywhere close to this. Claiming oil fields, wanting to test new toys, building a new strategic partnership (or breaking an old one) and looking at popularity polls does not count!
 <i>Juhani Grossmann
 Moscow
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Pope Speaks Out</strong>
 <i></b>
In Response to &quot;Babkin Convicted and Then Set Free,&quot; on Frb. 21.
 
 Editors,
 </i>I have just become aware of your recent article concerning the proposed eight-year prison sentence for Professor Babkin. I am most disturbed by the persecution to which he is being subjected, as well as the continuing epidemic of &quot;spymania&quot; that erupted on the Russian scene on March 26, 2000 and that is having a negative impact on many aspects of a developing democracy in Russia. Whether a party to this resurrected aggressiveness on the part of the FSB or not, it was President Putin's electoral victory that precipitated many changes in Russia, most of them detrimental to the people of Russia.
 
Since my &quot;pardon&quot; and release on Dec. 14, 2000, I have learned a great deal of disturbing facts concerning the case made against me - on top of the absurd trial staged by the FSB, which fabricated testimony, witnessed several &quot;heart attacks,&quot; refusal by the court to accept open materials and, in fact, open brutality and threats from the FSB, and other travesties of justice. I have written a book about my experience. However, my short book contains only a superficial overview of my experience. It does not document many of the more outrageous events that transpired during my experience three years ago. It certainly doesn't contain the more condemning aspects concerning other individuals' experiences with the FSB that I have learned of and documented subsequent to the publication of my book. My innocence and that of numerous others who have managed to escape relatively unharmed from the FSB is not the subject of this letter.
 I knew Professor Babkin only on a professional/business basis. However, this was sufficient to understand his character. Throughout the time we had worked together, always with the oversight and supervision of higher authorities, Professor Babkin was at all times sensitive to avoiding any infraction of rules or classification authority. At no time in my presence did he ever intimate or otherwise offer any classified information. Indeed, on several occasions he became angry when one of my colleagues would ask him for technical detail that he considered too sensitive. During those incidents, we would always accept his decision and avoid the topic. The very last time I saw him, April 3, 2000, we had just made the decision to once again confer with Ministry of Defense officials who were coordinating our activities. He was always careful to protect what he thought would not be authorized, despite the fact that almost all of the technical information we were working with had originated from open documents that had been obtained from the United States and other Western countries in the 1960s and 1970s.
 During my incarceration, the FSB did inform me that they had confiscated &quot;classified&quot; information from Babkin that, they contended, he was intent upon selling to us. I was never shown any such material by Babkin or the FSB and it is my firm belief that this claim was fabricated by the FSB, like so many other events that I observed the FSB to fabricate, twist, or otherwise mis-state so as to fit their script. Many in Russia, especially in the scientific community, are suffering under repression of the old/new FSB. Anatoly Babkin is a sick, old man. He and his family have suffered greatly from the rebirth of brutality that the FSB has exhibited since March 26, 2000. Where is the compassion and ray of light that was the Pardons Commission? The injustice and cruelty openly thrust on Anatoly Babkin and his family is merely a reflection of what is happening in today's Russia. Russia has a broken system in many regards, like all democracies do. Far too often, a system will blame and take revenge on its citizens. There are plenty in your midst who perhaps should be persecuted; Anatoly Babkin is not one of them.
 <i>Edmond Pope
 State College, Pennsylvania </i>

TITLE: Trans-Atlantic Putin
AUTHOR: By Nikolas Gvosdev and Ray Takeyh
TEXT: EVER since the end of World War II, Britain has played a special role within the Euro-Atlantic community - the trusted mediator between Washington and continental Europe. This was always a challenging balancing act for London. To maintain its position as the vice chair of the Western alliance effectively, the British had to enjoy the confidence of the United States, yet be able to parley with the other members of the coalition.
 
However, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's uncritical embrace of the war with Iraq has dissipated much of the confidence that Britain enjoyed among the key continental powers, especially France and Germany. It is this diminution of Britain's influence that has created unique opportunities for Russia to usher in a momentous geopolitical shift.
 It is significant that Russia's public opposition to war with Iraq - down to Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's very public statement in Beijing that Russia would veto a resolution authorizing military action - has received scant attention and even less criticism from Washington. To the extent that Americans proffer an explanation for the Russian position, it is usually couched in economic terms - oil contracts and the repayment of Soviet-era debt.
 However, such a simplistic analysis fails to account for Russia's essential motives. President Vladimir Putin has sensed in the current trans-Atlantic crisis an opportunity to displace Britain as the mediating power within the West. In turn, Washington is increasingly viewing Moscow - not London - as its principal liaison to France and Germany as a vote in the Security Council draws near. And it is willing to excuse Russia's public diplomacy (e. g. Ivanov's statements) in return for private action (Presidential Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin's hush-hush visit this past week to Washington being a prime example).
 When Ivanov recently declared, &quot;The preservation of a unified Euro-Atlantic community, with Russia now part of it, is of immense importance,&quot; the critical phrase was the assertion of Russia's membership of the Western world. As the first Russian leader unburdened by imperial pretensions, Putin has identified his mission as modernizing Russia's economic institutions as the first step to a restoration of its great power status. This requires a greater degree of integration into Western institutions. To achieve this goal, Russia requires both the benevolence of the continental powers and the trust of the U.S. colossus.
 The adroit Russian diplomacy since Sept. 11, 2001, as well as its tempered opposition to a war on Iraq, has garnered it ample benefits from both sides of the Atlantic divide. Indeed, as Blair becomes more discredited on the continent, Putin could emerge as a leader trusted by all parties, in a position to arbitrate conflicts and ease tensions.
 Russia has made itself indispensable to the United States by rendering full support for the prosecution of the war on terrorism and Islamic militancy - to the point of countenancing a robust U.S. military presence in its Central Asian periphery. However, Washington's war on Iraq will provide proof beyond doubt of Putin's pragmatic diplomacy.
 Moscow can be counted on to endorse Franco-German opposition to the war and their efforts to block Washington from obtaining a second UN Security Council resolution.
 Russia appreciates that providing such diplomatic cover for France and Germany will expedite its attempt to gain full integration into the European economy. Yet Russia will not suffer any lasting U.S. retribution for its opposition, since Moscow was never expected to provide personnel or funding for a U.S.-led war against Baghdad (especially since the Russians have already quietly signaled that, no matter what their public statements may be, they will undertake no efforts to actively oppose U.S. military action against Iraq).
 Indeed, such a diplomatic balancing act is increasingly placing Putin in the enviable position of having favorable relations with all the contending countries and acting as a potential bridge between them.
 No one should be surprised that Putin has borrowed a page from the Nixon-Kissinger triangular diplomacy playbook that enabled the United States to improve relations with both Moscow and Beijing during the 1970s. In a similar manner, by cementing ties with both the United States and the continental European powers, Putin hopes to replace Blair as the &quot;indispensable European&quot; to whom all powers turn for the mediation of trans-Atlantic conflicts.
 After all, the goal of Russian foreign policy, as Ivanov observed, is the &quot;development of a constructive partnership between my country, Europe and the United States&quot; that is &quot;united by a common responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the vast Euro-Atlantic area.&quot; In such an arrangement, Putin hopes that Moscow, not London, would become the vice chairperson of the board.
 Putin's triangular diplomacy offers the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, an excellent opportunity to reshape trans-Atlantic relations in the 21st century. NATO's big tent can no longer hold all of its members in lockstep unison now that the Soviet threat has evaporated. London is well poised to remain America's military wingman. But the United States also needs an interlocutor for the other major powers within Europe that have grown increasingly skeptical about America's intentions.
 Putin's Russia is poised to step into this role. The groundwork is being laid in quiet negotiations for a &quot;reluctant&quot; acquiescence to the United States' plans for regime change in Iraq.
 
 <i>Ray Takeyh is a fellow in international security studies at Yale University and Nikolas Gvosdev a senior fellow in strategic studies at the Nixon Center. They contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Lame-Duck Phenomenon Taking Effect
TEXT: WHAT a difference six months can make. In August, the hot political topic in all of the city's newspapers was Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's plans to have the City Charter ammended so that he could run for a third term and the methods he was going to use to see that this happened. On Saturday, the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta published a story saying Yakovlev is interested in becoming governor of the Leningrad Oblast when his term in St. Petersburg ends in May 2004.
 
It seems unlikely that Yakovlev has much of a chance to land the oblast job. For one thing, he would have to leave his present office early to campaign for the elections that are scheduled there for September, but may be moved back to December to coincide with elections to the State Duma. More importantly, it is unlikely that Yakovlev would be able to unseat the incumbent governor, Valery Serdyukov. Like Yakovlev, Serdyukov is very popular with the electorate. Unlike Yakovlev, Serdyukov appears also to be fairly popular with the Presidential Administration - a source of support that some argue is more important. Serduyukov was one of the group of Russian officials and politicians accompanying President Vladimir Putin to Bulgaria this weekend. Yakovlev stayed at home.
 But, while the suggestion in the article is unlikely to come true, the theme indicates that we have come all the way from talking about extending Yakovlev's stay at Smolny to acting as if his present term has already effectively come to an end. He now fits perfectly the political definition of a lame duck. The latest blow came Friday, when the city court found Yuri Rydnik guilty of election-law violations in December's vote. Rydnik, a close Yakovlev ally and, as the chairperson of the board at Balt-Uneximbank, the governor's favorite banker, still has an appeal process at his disposal but, unless a higher court overturns the ruling, it appears that the governor is about to lose the head of the bloc that supports him in the assembly and most hope of being able to get his way there.
 This begs a question: With his ability to control what is going on in the city during his last year in office apparently whittled down, why does Yakovlev really have to stay? Preparing for the city's 300th-anniversary celebrations has been his occupation over the last year or so but, after the party is over, there's nothing left to keep him here. Given his less-than-warm relations with the Kremlin, it seems likely that Moscow would be interested in seeing Yakovlev bow out early as well. Deals offering soft landings for those who are willing to leave gubernatorial posts are nothing new. Former Primorye Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko ended up as fisheries minister. Perhaps they'll offer Yakovlev something in the state construction agency.

TITLE: Media Stoking Fires for Future Investments
TEXT: FORBES magazine has given Russian journalists something else to be proud of this year as they celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Russian press. The majority of Russians included in Forbes' list of the world's richest people are media moguls.
 
Judge for yourself. Mikhail Khodorkovsky owns a share of Independent Media, the Tomsk-based TV2 television station, the Tomsky Vestnik newspaper and the Sibir radio station. Roman Abramovich is a shareholder in Channel One and TVS. Mikhail Fridman has a stake in RTC. Vladimir Potanin's Prof-Media holding controls the newspapers Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Sovietsky Sport and Express-Gazeta as well as Avtoradio, Novosti Online, etc. Vladimir Yevtushenkov is part owner of the TV Center television station and runs the SMM holding, which controls the newspapers Literaturnaya Gazeta, Rossia and St. Petersburg-based Smena, as well as the Maxima advertising agency, the Nasha Pressa distribution company, the Govorit Moskva radio station, etc. Oleg Deripaska has a stake in TVS and the Rospechat distribution company. Vagit Alekperov owns 48 percent of Izvestia.
 As the Forbes list makes clear, the most profitable media companies in Russia are located outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The handful of Siberian media outlets belonging to Yukos not only put Khodorkovsky atop the list of Russia's richest men, it also allowed five more Yukos executives to make the Forbes list. The names dropped from this year's Forbes list tell an equally compelling story. Just think of Rem Vyakhirev, who lost control of Gazprom's enormous media holdings. Boris Berezovsky also fell from the rankings this year, perhaps in part because, in recent years, he has gradually lost control of the ORT and TV6 television networks and the Noviye Izvestia newspaper.
 What does the Forbes ranking foretell for Russia? If the list is interpreted properly, I think it predicts fundamental changes in the Russian media market and the Russian consciousness. Most importantly, Russia's national pride will get a shot in the arm. Admit it. It hasn't been easy to see our country reduced to a supplier of raw materials for the world economy. Now we can take heart in the fact that Russia's richest men are media moguls - that is, people involved in creating wealth and adding value. It should be very clear by now that Russia's mass media are extremely profitable. The only thing that has obscured this fact up to now has been our constant complaining about so-called attacks on freedom of the press in Russia, about poor economic conditions and the constant bellyaching about the shortage of qualified specialists.
 An investment boom is just around the corner. Today's media moguls aren't going to be content with what they've already acquired. Two or three more of Russia's billionaires will take the plunge into media ownership as well. Our up-and-coming multimillionaries won't want to get left out, either, once they realize that the media business is the key to raising their profile. UES CEO Anatoly Chubais must surely be rueing his decision to sell the company's &quot;non-core asset&quot; REN-TV. No doubt, serious foreign investors like BP are rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of investing their capital in the Russian media. How oilmen and workers in the metals sector will envy journalists then. So stay tuned!
 
 <i>Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals. [www.sreda-mag.ru] </i>

TITLE: Global Eye
TEXT: <b>Swing Blades</b>It's a well-known fact - oft detailed in these pages - that the boys in the Bush Regime swing both ways. At issue here, of course, is their proclivity - their apparently uncontrollable craving - for stuffing their trousers with loot from both sides of whatever war or military crisis is going at the moment.
 
That's why it came as no surprise to read last week that, just before he joined the Regime's crusade against evildoers everywhere (especially rogue states that pursue the development of terrorist-ready weapons of mass destruction), Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld was trousering the proceeds from a $200-million deal to send the latest nuclear technology - including plenty of terrorist-ready &quot;dirty-bomb&quot; material - to the rogue state of North Korea, Neue Zurcher Zeitung reports.
 In 1998, Rumsfeld was citizen chairperson of the Congressional Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, charged with reducing nuclear proliferation. Rumsfeld and the Republican-heavy commission came down hard on the deal Bill Clinton had brokered with North Korea to avert a war in 1994: Pyongyang would give up its nuclear-weapons program in exchange for normalized relations with the United States, plus the construction of two non-weaponized nuclear plants to generate electricity. The plants were to be built by an international consortium of government-backed business interests called KEDO.
 Rum deal, said Rummy: Those nasty Northies would surely turn the peaceful nukes to nefarious ends. What's more, even the most innocuous nuclear plant generates mounds of radioactive waste that could be made into &quot;dirty bombs&quot; - hand-carried weapons capable of killing thousands of people. The agreement was big bad juju that threatened the whole world, Rumsfeld declared.
 Of course, that didn't prevent him from trying to <i>profit </i>from it. Even while chairing commission meetings on the &quot;dire threat&quot; posed by the Korean program, Rumsfeld was junketing to Zurich for board meetings of the Swiss-based energy technology giant, ABB, where he was a top director. And what was ABB doing at the time? Why, negotiating that $200-million deal with North Korea to provide equipment and services for the KEDO nuclear reactors, of course!
 Yes, nuclear proliferation is ugly stuff - but you might as well squeeze a few dollars from it, right? A smart guy always plays the angles - and, as the hero-worshiping American media never stops telling us, Rumsfeld is one smart guy.
 In fact, he's so smart that he's now playing dumb. A Pentagon spokesperson says Rumsfeld &quot;can't recall&quot; discussing the Korean deal at ABB board meetings. And his erstwhile ABB corporate colleagues say that it's possible the subject never came up. Of course it didn't; going into the nuclear business with a Communist tyranny that very nearly launched a nuclear war against the West just four years before, in a deal that involved high-level negotiations with the governments of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union - that's certainly the kind of thing that would be handled by a couple of junior executives in a branch office somewhere. Nothing for the bigwigs - especially hard-wired government players like Rumsfeld - to trouble their pretty heads about. A perfectly reasonable explanation.
 So Rumsfeld joins the roster of Bush Regime multimillionaires who once trumpeted their &quot;business savvy&quot; as selling points for their right to national leadership, but now claim to have been &quot;hands-off&quot; figureheads who had no idea what their companies were up to. Bush, in his sinkhole of insider trading and stockholder scamming at Harken; Cheney, making fat deals with Saddam Hussein (yes, <i>after </i>the Gulf War) and muddying up the corporate books at Halliburton; Army Secretary Thomas White, gaming the power grid and stealing millions for Enron in the manufactured California &quot;energy crisis&quot; - all went from mighty moguls to mere &quot;front men&quot; the instant their corruption was brought to light. None of it was their fault; nothing ever is.
 Whatever happened to Bush's much-trumpeted &quot;era of responsibility?&quot; These guys are not only chiselers, hustlers, hypocrites and war profiteers - they're a bunch of gutless wonders as well. So you'll pardon us if we are just the tiniest bit cynical about the &quot;moral arguments for war&quot; and other such buckets of warm spit this gang is now forcing down the world's throat.
 
 
<b>Postscript
 </b>
And what became of that 1994 pact with North Korea? UN inspectors entered the country to make sure the weapons program was put on ice. Pyongyang signed a number of lucrative deals with various politically-connected Western firms, like ABB, to build the promised energy plants, while waiting for the normalization of relations with the U.S. to begin - a move that most observers thought would set North Korea on a course toward China-style &quot;moderation&quot; of its monolithic regime.
 
But normalization never came. Clinton, pressured by rightwing forces (such as Rumsfeld's commission) who opposed any truck whatsoever with godless commies, did his usual folding number, with much windy suspiration of forced breath - and no action. The KEDO companies pocketed Pyongyang's cash but dithered about the actual construction. Pyongyang - while not exactly a font of smiling cooperation itself - concluded that the pact was being deep-sixed. This suspicion was confirmed when Bush took office, calling Korean leader Kim Jong Il a &quot;pygmy&quot; and declaring the county part of the &quot;Axis of Evil.&quot;
 Pyongyang then re-started its weapons program, kicked out the UN inspectors, and is now threatening to unleash a nuclear war if Bush, a la his stance on Iraq, makes a &quot;pre-emptive strike.&quot;
 A dicey situation, sure - but at least Don Rumsfeld made some money out of it.
 
 <i>
For annotational references, see the &quot;Opinion&quot; section at www.sptimesrussia.com </i>

TITLE: The Hidden Petersburg, Up Close and Personal
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg, striving to live up to its self-proclaimed title of Russia's cultural capital, is abundant with guides wanting to sell you on the city.
 
Make your way to the center and they are everywhere, but when you actually start listening, their stories and routes tend toward the traditional tourist fare: the State Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum, Nevsky Prospekt.
 More adventurous tourists - or curious locals - have an alternative to standard tours, however, in Peter's Walking Tours, which was officially established last month. What the company's five guides offer is not quite an excursion, but more of an experience.
 The driving force behind the project is Peter Kozyrev, a traveler whose globe-trotting backpacking experiences have taken him to Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Central Asia and most of Europe, to name a few of his destinations. The other guides have comparable experience under their belts.
 Kozyrev believes that, with standard tours, travelers don't get a full psychological portrait of the city, which is more complex than a stroll through the center of town might suggest.
 &quot;It is amazing how few tourists actually manage to step away from Nevsky Prospect. It's as if St. Petersburg is a village where nothing but the main street is interesting,&quot; Kozyrev said.
 &quot;We see ourselves as conductors between cultures, and we speak the same language as travelers - not just English, but 'backpackers' language,&quot; he added.
 Kozyrev, 29, spent several years giving informal tours of the city. He prides himself that he was the only guide to run a rooftop tour route. His activities were somewhat secret, however, because he didn't have a license to be a guide. Even applying for the license would have been pointless, because walking on roofs is considered hooliganism by the city authorities, and certainly not an activity to be officially encouraged with guided tours. 
 Then, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, city officials boarded up most of the attics and lofts, and most roofs are no longer accessible. Residents carefully watch those that are.
 &quot;If they see us [on the roof], they yell and get angry, and sometimes call the police,&quot; Kozyrev said.
 So, instead of what he calls &quot;urban rooftop mountaineering,&quot; Kozyrev and his colleagues developed several original walking routes. Then they registered the business so all profits and taxes are above-board. The tours, which are priced from 320 rubles (about $10) per person, focus on popular themes like the Bolshevik Revolution, the Blockade of Leningrad, Dostoevsky's novels and Rasputin.
 &quot;'Lover of the Russian queen' and 'Russia's greatest love machine' is how Grigory Rasputin is most frequently perceived [outside of Russia],&quot; Kozyrev said. &quot;Lots of people have heard that [disco band] Boney M song, yet very few have a reasonable idea who it is about - not to mention the fact that Russia never had a queen.&quot;
 Kozyrev blends history, gossip, rumors and myth to draw a more detailed portrait of the mysterious and powerful monk who gained enough influence to manipulate the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II.
 The Rasputin tour takes walkers to &quot;Father Grigory's&quot; last apartment on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, Rasputin's murder site and many other sites related to the monk's life. 
 &quot;I saw one of the apartment's current inhabitants once, but I resisted the temptation to talk to her,&quot; Kozyrev said. &quot;I thought she'd probably already been asked too many questions.&quot;
 The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was one of the most popular tour themes of the official Soviet tourist agency, Intourist. Guides proudly talked about Leningrad as the &quot;cradle of three revolutions.&quot; Kozyrev's Revolution tour also plunges walkers into the world of the revolution, but on a more critical, ironic note than the Intourist tours of old.
 Sights include revolutionary symbols like the battleship Avrora, from which a shot supposedly rang out to start the revolution, the Winter Palace, the Smolny Institute, which served as the Bolsheviks' headquarters, and the armored train at the Finland Station, where Lenin first pronounced his April Thesis upon his return from exile in Europe. 
 Communist rule ended over a decade ago, but elements of the past can still be found in the city's architecture and observed in its citizens' mentality, so the group runs a Communist Legacy tour. The tour visits the metro, the world's deepest, where many of the oldest stations are decorated with Soviet symbols and mosaics depicting communist heroes or labor. 
 Dozens of statues of Lenin and other communist leaders have been removed, but many others still stand on St. Petersburg's streets, as well as inside many factories and public institutions. Tour guides point out hammers and sickles on the walls of buildings, Soviet-themed restaurants and former &quot;palaces of culture&quot; now turned into casinos. Though not a formal part of the tour, most Communist Legacy walks are enlivened by the Soviet-style attitudes and manners of shopkeepers and passersby along the way. 
 &quot;I can tell from the questions from people on the tours that they are shocked by the level of Soviet mentality in Russian people, something they didn't expect to see, something they thought had long been dead and buried,&quot; Kozyrev said.
 Those less interested in the city's political history and more interested in snacks can opt for Peter's Food Tour, which visits local markets and eateries. The cost of the food is not included in the price of the tour, but most dishes are inexpensive. For example, at most cafes where the tour stops, a portion of bliny costs in the neighborhood of 30 rubles, a bowl of soup 40 rubles and a shot of vodka 20 rubles.
 In addition to traditional Russian fare, the tour can be an opportunity to discover Siberian pelmeni, Ukrainian borshch, Georgian sulguni cheese, Armenian lavash and other dishes from around the Soviet Union that have become beloved staples in post-Soviet Russian cuisine. Kozyrev deliberately changes the cafes and restaurants he visits on each tour to make it clear that he isn't involved in any kick-back schemes with the owners.
 Kozyrev said the most popular tour is the Original Walking Tour, or the &quot;hey-guide-show-us-something.&quot; Tourists show up and help develop the route on the spot right before the walk starts. 
 From years of walking tours - both taking them and leading them - Kozyrev has learned that the excursion is not so much about what is shown but how it is shown. 
 &quot;I quite agree with what they say at [British company] London Walks: It all comes down to the guiding,&quot; Kozyrev said.
 One of the Dostoevsky-related tours, the Dostoevsky Murder Route Pub Crawl, starts at the doorstep of Raskolnikov's house and ends at the doorway of pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna's home. On the way, as the group hits six or seven pubs, they plunge deeper and deeper into the spirit of &quot;Crime and Punishment.&quot; 
 &quot;Nothing has changed: You can touch the sticky tables, bump the clumsy drunkards trying to reach for another glass, step into stairways that reek of urine,&quot; Kozyrev said. &quot;Perhaps it would have been better for Raskolnikov to make his way to the old lady through all the pubs,&quot; Kozyrev said. &quot;If he didn't go directly to her, maybe the bars would have stopped him short of the murder.&quot;
 Eventually, Kozyrev is planning to expand the pub crawl selection by adding Revolution and Lenin crawls, which may appear in late spring or early summer.
 &quot;I am a backpacker myself, and I know what backpackers want: They want good value for the little money they pay,&quot; Kozyrev said. &quot;What we are doing is what I would want for myself when I am abroad.&quot; 
 
 <i>
Tours do not need to be booked in advance. Just check out the schedule at www.peterswalk.com and then show up at the meeting point a few minutes before the walk is scheduled to start. </i>

TITLE: Britain, Ireland Hold Negotiations on Future of N. Ireland
AUTHOR: By Shawn Pogatchnik
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BELFAST, Northern Ireland - The prime ministers of Britain and Ireland led negotiations Monday to push for more Irish Republican Army disarmament and a new start for Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant government.
 
Working side by side at Hillsborough Castle outside Belfast, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern planned to spend the day - and possibly the night - cajoling the key local British Protestant and Irish Catholic parties that back the province's peace accord into making more concessions.
 The landmark 1998 pact proposed that the IRA disarm and the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party have a share of power in Northern Ireland alongside Protestants and moderate Catholics. But the unwieldy coalition repeatedly has faltered over Protestant doubts that the IRA's 1997 cease-fire is genuine.
 &quot;In order to get people working together again, we have to get guarantees from each party to the other party,&quot; said Britain's governor for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy.
 Efforts to restore trust face an immediate practical deadline.
 The Northern Ireland legislature, from which the Protestant-Catholic administration is drawn, faces re-election May 1. British law requires the election to be called or canceled by March 21. Many key Northern Ireland politicians plan to be in Washington the week of St. Patrick's Day, March 17, making a deal now essential, all sides have agreed.
 The local government had been the most hard-won achievement of the 1998 deal, which led to a Nobel Peace Prize shared by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and Catholic moderate leader John Hume.
 But Britain stripped power from local hands in October after police uncovered evidence of an IRA spying operation inside the power-sharing government. Sinn Fein's top legislative aide was among four people charged with espionage-related activities.
 Protestants insisted they wouldn't resume work with Sinn Fein unless the IRA completed the disarmament it began in October 2001 and halted all other hostile activities, such as importing new weapons and planning potential attacks.
 Sinn Fein rejected weekend reports in Belfast newspapers claiming that the IRA had decided to get rid of the vast bulk of its stockpiled arsenal, which police say includes 100 tons of weapons, including Semtex plastic explosives, mortars, rockets and more than 1,000 firearms.
 Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said he believed Monday's talks would advance the goal of taking &quot;all of the weapons, including the IRA weapons, out of the political equation permanently.&quot;
 In return, Sinn Fein wants Britain to publish a detailed list of military cutbacks, to toughen the already substantial program for reshaping the province's mostly Protestant police and to transfer power over Northern Ireland security to local hands.
 The major Protestant party, the Ulster Unionist Party, is seeking new powers that would allow Sinn Fein to be expelled from government posts if the IRA is implicated in renewed truce violations.

TITLE: Israel Arrests Hamas Founder
AUTHOR: By Ibrahim Barzak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops raided a Gaza refugee camp and arrested a Hamas founder on Monday, targeting the political leadership of the Islamic militant group for the first time in 29 months of fighting.
 
Eight Palestinians, including a pregnant woman, were killed in clashes in the camp.
 Troops also blew up four homes in the Bureij camp, including that of Hamas co-founder Mohammed Taha, 65, who was wounded in clashes with soldiers, the army said. Several adjacent houses and a mosque were damaged by the blasts.
 Taha's five sons - all senior Hamas activists - were also arrested. One son, Ayman, who was also wounded Monday, is the assistant of top Hamas bombmaker Mohammed Deif, the No. 1 on Israel's wanted list, the army said.
 The arrests signaled a turning point in Israel's dealings with Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in shootings and bombings. Since the outbreak of fighting in September 2000, Israel has killed scores of Hamas militants and rounded up hundreds of activists, but left the political leadership in Gaza alone.
 Mohammed Taha, a reclusive ideologue, founded Hamas in 1987, along with the group's spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and three other senior clerics. Since then, Hamas has emerged as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's biggest rival.
 Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday the military would step up strikes against Hamas. &quot;We want to arrive at a situation where the terror organizations invest more and more [effort] defending themselves,&quot; he said.
 Monday's incursion began at about 2 a.m. local time, when jeeps and tanks backed by helicopters rolled into Bureij in central Gaza. Fierce fighting erupted, and hospital doctors said eight Palestinians were killed. Doctors said five were gunmen and three were civilians - two boys, aged 14 and 16, and a 33-year-old woman who was in her ninth month of pregnancy.
 The woman was killed when her house collapsed on her during the demolition of a nearby building, doctors and her family said. Six other family members were injured, including the woman's husband and two of her sons.
 Palestinian witnesses said soldiers prevented ambulances from evacuating the wounded from Bureij for several hours. Assaf Liberati, an army spokesperson, confirmed that ambulances were denied access. He said the first priority was to protect soldiers, and that there was concern that some of the ambulances were booby-trapped. &quot;In the end, the wounded were treated,&quot; Liberati said.
 The army said it demolished four houses of militants, including the two-story Taha family home and the home of a suicide bomber. Hand grenades were thrown from the Taha house at soldiers, who returned fire, wounding Mohammed and Ayman Taha before arresting them, the army said. In blowing up the house, troops damaged the outer wall of an adjacent mosque at which Mohammed Taha was a preacher.
 The demolition of the four homes severely damaged another 11 houses, rendering them uninhabitable and leaving about 150 people homeless, said the mayor of Bureij, Kamal Baghdadi.
 Hamas said Taha's arrest was a serious blow, but that the group would continue attacking Israelis. &quot;Israel will pay a high price for its crimes,&quot; said a spokesperson, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
 Israeli commentators said targeting Hamas leaders will have little effect. &quot;I have not yet seen a Hamas leader who is irreplacable,&quot; said Shlomo Gazit of Tel Aviv's Jaffee Center for Stategic Studies.

TITLE: North Korea Defends Its Missile-Making Program
AUTHOR: By Soo-Jeong Lee
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEOUL, South Korea - A week after test-firing a missile, North Korea said Monday that it had the right to develop and deploy missiles for self-defense and called its confrontation with the United States &quot;extremely acute.&quot;
 
North Korea also criticized U.S.-South Korean military exercises scheduled to begin Tuesday, saying they were a preparation for war.
 North Korea routinely makes such accusations whenever military drills are held in South Korea, but the rhetoric has been more bellicose recently because of tension over the North's nuclear development.
 South Korea and its chief ally plan to hold an annual training exercise called FOAL EAGLE for a month. The United States keeps 37,000 soldiers in the South, a legacy of the Korean War of 1950 to 1953.
 Washington says the nuclear issue is not bilateral and involves all countries concerned about nuclear proliferation. The UN Security Council is expected to debate the issue.
 North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency accused the United States and Japan, which is within range of North Korean missiles, of using the alleged threat from North Korea as a pretext to plot war against the communist country.
 The U.S.-Japanese strategy comes &quot;at a time when the DPRK-U.S. confrontation is getting extremely acute and a touch-and-go military situation is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula,&quot; KCNA said.
 DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
 North Korea said its missiles &quot;can never be a threat to other countries,&quot; and that Washington and Tokyo were using its missile program as an excuse to plan missile-defense systems.
 &quot;The DPRK's production and deployment of missiles are a matter pertaining to its sovereignty in every respect and they are intended to increase its self-defensive military capability,&quot; KCNA said.
 Missile exports are a major source of hard currency for impoverished North Korea.
 U.S. officials have said they have no plans to invade North Korea, but are growing increasingly concerned about North Korea's reactivation of a nuclear reactor that is part of a suspected weapons program. Washington believes Pyongyang already has one or two nuclear weapons.
 North Korea launched an anti-ship missile into the sea off its east coast on the eve of the inauguration of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Feb. 24.
 U.S. and South Korean officials played down the launch, saying the missile was small and conventional. However, there are fears that North Korea could test the long-range Taepodong-2 rocket, a more advanced rocket than the one it fired over Japan and into the Pacific in 1998.
 U.S. defense experts believe that the missile, if deployed, could deliver a payload of several hundred kilograms as far as Alaska or Hawaii, and a lighter payload to the western half of the continental United States.
 In Seoul, a South Korean Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity that the international construction of two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea had slowed because of the nuclear standoff with North Korea.
 It was the first South Korean acknowledgment since the nuclear dispute began in October that construction of the reactors was in jeopardy.

TITLE: Amid Tight Security, Carnival Gets Going
AUTHOR: By Michael Astor
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Thousands of feather-and-sequin-clad dancers of the Academicos de Santa Cruz samba school kicked off Brazil's Carnival with a glittering tribute to actors and the theater.
 
There was a heavy police presence around the Sambadrome stadium Sunday to prevent trouble from drugs gangs which were behind a week of violent clashes that left four people dead and saw dozens of buses and cars burned and buildings strafed with gunfire.
 The start of this year's Carnival, however, was relatively calm in Rio, with the usual high level of thefts but few reports of serious violence, Cayres said.
 Academicos de Santa Cruz led the first of seven schools, each featuring 4,000 or more dancers, luxurious floats and 300-piece percussion sections, past 100,000 spectators packed into the Sambadrome.
 The parade continued Monday night with the last seven schools. They were to be judged on best music, costumes, originality, floats, percussion and enthusiasm, and the winner earns bragging rights until next year.
 In Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city and financial capital, the two-night samba parade closed Sunday with just one incident: a court stepped in to prevent a couple from performing a live sex show on the opening float of the Leandro de Itaquera school, which was celebrating &quot;quality of life&quot; as its theme.
 The northeastern city of Salvador lays claim to the title of &quot;Brazil's best Carnival,&quot; with dozens of huge sound trucks known as electric trios leading mobs of dancers through the streets, where roaming gangs of men and women plant kisses on unsuspecting revelers.
 Throughout Sunday, more than a million people followed 140 sounds wagons around Salvador, dancing on relentlessly despite cloud and even a little rain that sent some musicians with electric equipment running for cover but couldn't dampen the spirits of the dancers.
 On Sunday evening, culture minister Gilberto Gil - who is also a pop-music star - joined the Expresso 2222 wagon on the streets of Salvador, where he was joined by fellow cabinet member and finance minister Antonio Palocci.

TITLE: Tiger Completes Personal Silverware Set
AUTHOR: By Doug Ferguson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARLSBAD, Califonia - The idea behind the World Golf Championships was to bring together the best players from every tour on every continent.
 
Tiger Woods remains in a world all his own. The final trophy in his collection of world titles came Sunday at La Costa when Woods captured the Match Play Championship with some dramatic moments that he could have done without.
 Woods expected a gutsy comeback from David Toms. What he never imagined was a bee landing in front of the hole and knocking a pivotal birdie putt off line. Equally surprising were his own mistakes under pressure, which made him toil longer that he wanted.
 &quot;This was one tough week,&quot; Woods said.
 He finished off Toms on the 35th hole, hitting a 7-iron 178 meters - it was only supposed to go 171 meters - and saving par from the bunker to win 2 and 1.
 Woods never trailed the entire day.
 He played 112 holes over six rounds, the fewest among any winner in the five-year history of the Accenture Match Play Championship.
 That didn't make it any easier.
 Woods built a 4-up lead after the morning round, increased it to as many as five holes - and then had to grind as hard as ever to claim his first match-play title as a professional.
 &quot;This is the hardest to win,&quot; Woods said. &quot;Yeah, it's physically grueling, but I think it's more mentally grueling because of the ebb and flow of match play. If we had to do this every week, every pro's playing career would be about 10 years.&quot;
 Toms, a former PGA champion who squeezes everything from his game until it's time to stop playing, gave Woods a battle that no one expected.
 Woods was relentless from the start, belting his drives long and straight to apply enormous pressure on Toms. Woods frequently drove the ball 20 meters past Toms, and his approach to within 2 meters for birdie on No. 1 - the 19th hole of the match - put him 5 up.
 &quot;I'm not going to quit,&quot; Toms said. &quot;That's not my nature. We're on national TV, and I wanted to last a long time. I didn't want to be embarrassed. When he got 5 up, I just had to dig deep and not give in.&quot;
 Woods promptly hit to within 3 meters for a birdie chance on the next hole, and it looked as though the rout was on.
 Instead, Toms rolled in a birdie putt from 10 1/2 meters to win the hole, then won the next with a 3-meter birdie as Woods took three putts for par from 12 meters.
 Woods must have figured the odds were stacked against him. Trying to make a 5-meter birdie putt to win the fourth hole in the afternoon and regain momentum, he looked up after his putt and saw a bee land in front of the cup.
 The ball rolled over the bee and hopped slightly, just enough to throw it off line. Woods settled for par, and spared the bee.
 &quot;I didn't kill it. I sure thought about it, though,&quot; he said. &quot;I'm sure the animal-rights society would have gotten on me.&quot;
 It couldn't have done more harm than Woods wanted to inflict on himself. Having played 102 holes with only two bogeys, he promptly bogeyed two in a row.
 The first was a 1 1/2-meter par putt that rimmed around the cup. The second was a 4-iron that sailed right of the ninth green (27th hole) into deep rough.
 &quot;Giving him those holes back-to-back like that with bogeys ... you just can't do that in match play,&quot; Woods said.
 Having badly missed a 6-meter birdie putt on No. 11 - his lead down to 1 up - Woods realized his shoulders were not aligned properly. He hit a few practice putts, then faced a 4-meter birdie putt on the 13th hole.
 &quot;I said, 'You did the work two holes ago, go ahead and trust it.' And I poured it right in the middle,&quot; Woods said.
 Another birdie by Toms on the 15th brought him within one hole, but he came up short on the par-3 16th and had to scramble for par, then lost any hope with a drive into rough and an approach shot that was buried in deep grass left of the green.
 &quot;When he plays good, he wins. We all know that,&quot; Toms said.
 Woods won for the 36th time on the PGA Tour and earned $1,050,000. He took two months off because of knee surgery, and in the three weeks Woods has been back he's won twice and tied for fifth.
 He also became the first player to win all four World Golf Championships since their inception in 1999 - three times the NEC Invitational at Firestone, twice the American Express Championship and the 2000 World Cup with David Duval.
 &quot;They're all different in their own right,&quot; Woods said. &quot;But I'm extremely happy to win this one. It's pretty cool.&quot;

TITLE: Cohen, Plushenko the Stars At Skating's Grand Prix Final
AUTHOR: By Olga Derveneva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Although Russia grabbed three of the four top spots on offer at the figure-skating Grand Prix Final at the Ice Palace over the weekend, the results were less predictable than they might have seemed beforehand.
 
Sasha Cohen, the only U.S. skater taking part in the competition - which ranks second only to the World Championships - produced a surprising, if not sensational, win in the women's event on Saturday over defending world champion and five-time European champion Irina Slutskaya of Russia.
 &quot;I knew it would be close, but I hoped to win,&quot; Cohen said. &quot;I struggled with myself&quot;
 Even though Cohen led after Friday's short program, her victory was far from assured, as Slutskaya's Olympic silver-medal-winning free program, to music from Puccini's opera &quot;Tosca,&quot; was flawless, while the American teenager made some noticeable mistakes, including a fall on an attempted triple loop.
 Nevertheless, the judges favored the routine created by Cohen and her new coach, Tatyana Tarasova, over Slutskaya's &quot;La Traviata,&quot; to music from Verdi's opera of the same name.
 &quot;I just felt that figure skating was the lesser part of my life,&quot; Slutskaya said. &quot;I just lost, but I'm not defeated.&quot;
 Another Russian skater, Viktoria Volchkova, fourth after the second free program, took third place overall.
 The marks awarded to Yevgeny Plushenko in the men's event provided another sort of surprise. The home favorite's new &quot;St. Petersburg 300&quot; program, to music specially composed by Igor Kornilyuk, garnered four 5.9s and six perfect 6.0s for presentation - and a standing ovation from the roughly 12,000 spectators present.
 &quot;Yes, this is a record for me,&quot; Plushenko said of his marks. &quot;But I'll try to get the same marks for the technical merit.&quot;
 Plushenko needn't have worried. His technical marks comprised one 5.8 and nine 5.9s, as he started out by landing a quad-triple-triple combination, and carried on in similar fashion.
 &quot;It's a great pleasure to skate at home,&quot; Plushenko said &quot;I dedicate my victory to St. Petersburg.&quot;
 Ilya Klimkin of Russia held off Brian Joubert for second place, pushing the 18-year-old French skater into third, ahead of another Russian, Alexander Abt.
 &quot;I'm quite happy with my program tonight. It's not bad for my first Grand Prix Final&quot;, said Joubert, who took the silver medal at this year's European Championships. &quot;I'm glad with the final standings, glad that Klimkin's second and I'm behind him.&quot;
 In the pairs competition, defending world champions Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China struggle to hold down second place. Their troubles began in Friday's short program, when they fell out of sync attempting a side-by-side spin. In the free program later that evening, Zhao failed his triple-toe jump and lift, while the pair's main rivals, Russia's Tatyana Totmyanina and Maxim Marinin characterized their own free program A, skated to music from Leonard Bernstein's &quot;West Side Story,&quot; as their &quot;best performance in the last two years.&quot;
 &quot;We had some mistakes today. We felt really worn out,&quot; Shen said after performing their free program B on Saturday. &quot;After I fell on a triple toe, I tried not to think about it and to focus on the rest of the program. I'm a bit disappointed. But I tried my best.&quot;
 Totmyanina and Marinin skated their &quot;Cotton Club&quot; free program B cleanly and emotionally enough to get straight 5.9s for the presentation and seal the win.
 &quot;I'm utterly tired, but I'm so satisfied and happy,&quot; Marinin said on Saturday. &quot;We worked so hard.&quot;
 Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov, world and European champions in 2000, took third place.
 In the ice dance, there was no pair really capable of giving Russia's Irina Lobachyova and Ilya Averbukh a run for their money. The pair, a couple both on and off the ice, lead from the start, winding up with a very energetic and impressive free program B, &quot;Rock 'n' Roll Medley.&quot; Their only problem was connected with bringing their Olympic silver-medal-winnig program onto the ice again on Friday.
 &quot;It was very difficult emotionally to perform this program but, when I put on the costume, it was like a flashback to the Olympics,&quot; Lobachyova said on Friday.
 Lobachyova and Averbukh are turning professional this year, so there is only one more competition left for them to win - the World Championships in Washington later this month.
 Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov, for whom this Grand Prix Final was the first in their career, skated to second place, while Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviiski, also newcomers, finished third.

TITLE: Spurs Streak Continues With Win Over Rockets
AUTHOR: By Michael A. Lutz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HOUSTON - Emanuel Ginobili scored a career-high 20 points as the Spurs held off the Houston Rockets for a 97-88 victory on Sunday.
 
The Spurs won for the 13th time in 14 games and improved to 22-4 in 2003. Tim Duncan had 17 points, Tony Parker and Malik Rose each had 16, and David Robinson had 14.
 &quot;We played real well togethe,&quot; Ginobili said. &quot;We have to keep doing the same thing. Twenty points just happened today. I don't know if it will happen again. I don't care if it does.&quot;
 &quot;It's just one of 82 games. With our scoring team, it's not easy to do. It just happened. I don't give it much importance. I'm happy to help the team but it's not the most important thing,&quot; he said.
 The Spurs never trailed, and were up 87-70 with 6:04 to play when the Rockets pulled within 94-88 with 0:52 left. Glen Rice scored 11 of his 19 points in the final 5:43.
 &quot;He's becoming more and more important to this team,&quot; Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of Ginobili. &quot;He plays defense, he gets steals, he gets loose balls. He's just an outstanding player. The league is beginning to see there's more there than they thought.&quot;
 Steve Francis led the Rockets with 21 points, and Yao Ming had 14 points and nine rebounds.
 &quot;We've got to do something about our slow starts defensively,&quot; Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. &quot;We got into a comfort zone and then when it got to the embarrassing stage we picked it up later on.&quot;
 The Spurs used a 12-4 run to build on their 51-39 advantage at halftime. Even an 11-1 run by the Rockets couldn't get their deficit under 10 points, as San Antonio kept Houston at bay and led 74-59 going into the fourth quarter.
 Duncan and Parker peppered the Rockets defense in the first quarter and Ginobili scored nine points early in the second as the Spurs kept their big lead at halftime despite a late second-quarter 11-2 spurt by the Rockets.
 &quot;He's a fiery guy, very talented,&quot; Tomjanovich said of Ginobili. &quot;He's an intense guy who attacks the game with a passion. He has a lot of tools that you don't see a lot early because of the injuries.&quot;
 Parker had 10 points in the first quarter and Duncan scored eight to give the Spurs a 30-18 lead.
 Robinson, retiring after this season, likely played his final game at Compaq Center. He chatted briefly with Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich and Rockets broadcaster and Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy.
 &quot;I have great memories here,&quot; Robinson said. &quot;Playing against Hakeem [Olajuwon] was one of the motivating factors for me early in my career. He was tough, him and Patrick Ewing were the guys I wanted to be like when I first gotin the league.&quot;
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard.) </i>

TITLE: Jones Jr. Moves Up With Style
AUTHOR: By Tim Dahlberg
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LAS VEGAS - Roy Jones Jr. not only made history on Saturday by becoming the second light heavyweight champion to win a piece of the heavyweight title, he did it with seeming ease against a man who outweighed him by 15 kilograms.
 
&quot;This means that I am the baddest,&quot; Jones said. &quot;Only Ali can shock the world like I did.&quot;
 In a fight that had moments of action and long lulls between punches, Jones won a unanimous - and lopsided - 12-round decision to take the WBA title against a bigger man who was never able to use his size to his advantage.
 Jones stood in the middle of the ring and outpunched Ruiz, though neither fighter was very busy in a fight that drew occasional boos from a crowd eager for action.
 &quot;Everybody said I was going to run. I knew I wasn't going to run,&quot; Jones said.
 Jones not only didn't run, but he stood and mocked Ruiz, finally smiling and laughing at him as the final minute ticked down.
 It wasn't always spectacular, but it was good enough to give him a piece of the fractured title.
 &quot;I did this fight to make history,&quot; Jones said. &quot;I said I wasn't going to change my style. Roy Jones doesn't change his style until he loses.&quot;
 By the middle rounds, Jones (48-1) was taunting Ruiz (38-5-1) and standing in front of him, daring him to trade punches. When Ruiz did manage to land anything, Jones usually got out of the way quickly before returning for another flurry.
 Ruiz complained that referee Jay Nady told him he couldn't hit on the break and didn't allow him to fight his kind of fight.
 &quot;How can I give him [Jones] any credit when the referee wouldn't let me fight my fight?&quot; Ruiz said. &quot;Everytime I went in, the referee was accusing me of holding.&quot;
 Jones became the first light heavyweight champion to win the heavyweight title since Michael Spinks did it in 1985 against Larry Holmes.
 But he said he doubted he would remain champion long. Jones, who weighed 90 1/2 kilograms before the fight, said his move to the heavyweight ranks was likely a one-time deal.
 &quot;I didn't want to be a heavyweight,&quot; Jones said. &quot;I just wanted one fight. I have to see what's on the table for me.&quot;
 Spinks watched from ringside as the fight unfolded in a predictable pattern with Jones landing easily with his left hand and Ruiz unable to do much except push him in the ropes.
 One ringside judge had Jones winning 118-110, while a second had it 117-111 and a third 116-112.