SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #852 (20), Tuesday, March 18, 2003
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TITLE: U.S. Strike on Iraq a Matter of Hours
AUTHOR: By Edith M. Lederer and Dafna Linzer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered UN employees on Monday to leave Iraq, after the United States, Britain and Spain abandoned efforts to win UN backing for military action. President George W. Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to get out of his country or face a U.S.-led war.
The dramatic announcements, on the same day as the Security Council members met to address the Iraq crisis, coincided with countries closing their embassies there and some foreign journalists pulling out.
"We will withdraw the UNMOVIC and atomic-agency inspectors. We will withdraw the UN humanitarian workers," Annan said. Journalists outside the Canal Hotel, the Baghdad headquarters of the inspectors, saw Iraqi UN employees leaving with boxes of personal belongings.
The suspension of the UN humanitarian program will cut off food and medicine to about 60 percent of Iraq's 20 million people.
There are 156 UN inspectors and support staff in Iraq from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is in charge of nuclear inspections, and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, which is responsible for inspecting chemical, biological and long-range missiles.
The decision by the United States, Britain and Spain not to call for a vote on their resolution seeking authorization for military force represented a crushing diplomatic failure for America and the United Nations on the eve of what looks like war.
Even in the face of imminent military action, the Security Council scheduled a meeting Wednesday at the request of France, Russia and Germany, who oppose a rush to war and want to make a last-ditch effort to achieve Iraq's peaceful disarmament.
The three countries want foreign ministers to set a timetable to carry out a dozen key disarmament tasks set by chief UN inspector Hans Blix
British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock singled out France for threatening to veto the resolution, which would have given Iraq an ultimatum to disarm by Monday or face military action.
"Given the situation, the co-sponsors have agreed that we will not pursue a vote." Flanked by U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, Greenstock added that the trio: "reserve their right to take their own steps to secure the disarmament of Iraq."
Weeks of intense diplomacy and pressure from the Bush administration failed to convince a majority of the council's 15 members that the time for war had come. The resolution would have authorized war anytime after Monday unless Iraq proved before then that it had disarmed.
Still, Negroponte said he thought the vote "would have been close."
"We regret that in the face of an explicit threat to veto, the vote-counting became a secondary consideration," Negroponte said.
Moments later, French ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said that in one-on-one consultations "the majority of the council confirmed they do not want a use of force."
On Sunday, Bush and his allies from Britain and Spain, meeting in the Azores, announced that they would give the United Nations one day to resolve the diplomatic dispute.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that British diplomats would work through the night to try to persuade France to reverse course. But the efforts didn't yield results.
Blair faces major opposition at home to participating in a war without UN backing. On Monday, a senior British cabinet minister resigned after disagreeing with the government's decision to back military action.
Robin Cook, a former foreign secretary, resigned his post as the government's leader in the House of Commons after a private meeting with Blair shortly before a meeting of the full cabinet, Blair's office said.
"I can't accept collective responsibility for the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support," said Cook.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said earlier Monday that France could not accept a second UN resolution that includes an ultimatum or resorts to automatic use of force. Speaking to Europe-1 radio, de Villepin reiterated France's threat to use its veto in the Security Council to block the resolution.
France was undeterred from the start and scheduled Monday's round of consultations to discuss a joint declaration by Paris, Moscow and Berlin calling for foreign ministers from the 15 council nations to meet Tuesday to discuss a "realistic" timetable for Saddam Hussein to disarm.
The declaration, released Saturday, said there was no justification for a war on Iraq and that UN weapons inspections were working.
The United States, Britain and Spain introduced their resolution last month in hopes of winning UN support to disarm Iraq by force. In an effort to change members' positions, Britain offered some amendments, but council members weren't swayed.
TITLE: Cabinet Assessment Set To Yield Major Overhaul
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - What could become one of the biggest government reshuffles in post-Soviet history is brewing at the highest levels of the Cabinet. The goal is to streamline the work of government agencies and cut down on bureaucracy. Again.
The long-promised administrative reform announced by President Vladimir Putin last April could materialize within the next three months, leading to major reshuffling of government duties and even the disappearance of some ministries and state agencies, a high-ranking Cabinet source said Monday.
"There is a plan to carry out the administrative reform in 2003 and 2004, but it could well be that the process will be accelerated," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It has become clear that the current system is ineffective and is slowing down economic growth."
At the core of the reform is a top-to-bottom reassessment of various government bodies' tasks and responsibilities - many of which overlap with one another. The government has already counted about 5,000 tasks and responsibilities - ranging from drawing up regulations and enforcing them to providing services and managing state property, the Cabinet source said. The Cabinet currently is trying to figure out how to redistribute those duties.
Ineffective bodies and agencies with overlapping tasks will be eliminated, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Friday. He said he has a list of ministries and agencies with overlapping functions.
"The removal of these will begin in the coming months," Kasyanov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
The Cabinet is focusing on ministries and agencies overseeing single sectors of the economy, the Cabinet source said. These bodies include the Communications, Railways, Press Transport and Industry, Science and Technology ministries.
"So far, all of the government bodies have reported their job descriptions to the cabinet," the source said.
However, few said which of their duties overlapped with those of other agencies, even though they were asked to do so, the source said. "Based on these reports, our task is to outline the functions of each agency," he said. "It's like writing a business plan. And based on this plan, decisions will be made on how to reform government bodies or hire staff."
The rumblings about administrative reform come just days after Putin reshuffled security posts by giving the Federal Security Service command of the Federal Border Service and some of the functions of state communications agency FAPSI. Other functions went to the Defense Ministry. Putin also disbanded the Tax Police and handed its duties to the Interior Ministry.
Among the agencies likely to disappear is the State Fisheries Committee, the Nezavisimaya daily reported Monday. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov suspended the committee's head, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, a month ago over a scandal involving fishing quota auctions. Nazdratenko returned to work last week after the government missed a deadline to extend the disciplinary action, Vedomosti reported.
A committee spokesperson said Monday that he was not aware of any plans to disband the agency apart from reports in the press and refused further comment. Other ministries also declined to comment. Nazdratenko's return to work, however, was not ruffling any feathers in the government Monday.
"Do we need a State Fisheries Committee at all?" the cabinet source said. "Kasyanov made his decision and did not change it. Whatever Nazdratenko does or signs in the committee now have no legal power."
Nezavisimaya said the functions of the State Fisheries Committee will be split between the Economic Development and Trade Ministry and the Natural Resources Ministry. Natural Minister Vitaly Artyukhov would likely be sacked because he has not been getting along with regional governors - key allies when it comes to exploiting natural reserves, Nezavisimaya said. The Railways Ministry will also be broken up to make way for the creation of the state-owned Russian Railroads Co.
"The rule is the same for all agencies: They have to justify their existence," the cabinet source said.
The reform is likely to be welcomed by the business community. Among the businesspeople who have been pushing for it is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive of No. 2 oil giant Yukos.
"The main problem in Russia now is that policies are still built on crisis planning. The country is now not in a crisis. We need to move to a regime of mid-term planning," Khodorkovsky said in a recent interview. "We need new people in government to run this. It is completely clear that those people who were effective in crisis need to be changed."
Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog, said: "In the past year, it's become obvious that all the economic reforms are running up against the ineffectiveness of government structures."
Political analysts were skeptical, however, that the reform could be carried out quickly.
"Putin already set administrative reform as a priority in 2001 and 2002," said Kremlin-connected political analyst Sergei Markov.
Yevgeny Volk of the Heritage Foundation said decades of bureaucracy could not be tamed overnight.
"It was there in the Soviet times when bureaucrats accused the ministries of inefficiency and the ministries argued that the bureaucrats were just as unnecessary since they oversaw the same sectors," Volk said.
Volk warned that it might be futile to target individual ministers given that many of them are influential enough to jump over Kasyanov's head and walk directly into Putin's office. He said infighting over this reform spilled over into the public eye last week when Kasyanov attacked Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref over economic growth and lambasted Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin over tax reform.
"There has never been any unity on this issue [administrative reform] within the government and there never will be," he said.
Staff Writers Yevgenia Borisova, Torrey Clark and Catherine Belton contributed to this report.
TITLE: Chechens Struggle With Vote Specifics
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: SLEPTSOVSKAYA, Ingushetia - Zina Amayeva's daughter Kheda was only 8 in 1994 when a mine exploded near her. She started to fear any noise, and the family had to flee its home in Grozny for the duration of the first war.
When war broke out again in September 1999 and several bombs exploded near their apartment block, the family fled again, but this time, Kheda's hallucinations, sharp reactions to noise and deep depression were much worse. She was diagnosed as a schizophrenic.
"What referendum you are talking about?" Kheda's mother, who lives with her family in the Satsita tent camp in Sleptsovskaya, Ingushetia, said with bitter sarcasm. She is 48, but the wrinkles on her forehead make her look almost 60. "My main worry is to get the Cerebrolysinum that Kheda needs."
Amayeva said she refused earlier this month even to accept a copy of the proposed constitution that Chechens are being asked to vote on in a referendum next Sunday.
"Anyway, this constitution does not correspond to reality," she said. "It should guarantee the right of life as the first priority. But can we call our existence 'life'? My home is destroyed. And is my daughter alive? Who needs such a life? Soon she will be 16, but she has been to school for only three years. What is her future?"
Amayeva said she is not going to vote.
With less than a week to go before the referendum, Chechen refugees in Ingushetia are divided over whether to take part. Few have read the proposed Chechen constitution, and many who have read it say they have difficulty understanding what it means. The language is convoluted and ambiguous, seemingly deliberately so.
Those planning to vote for the constitution say it is because they want to believe it will help bring peace to Chechnya.
The Satsita camp's administration building is decorated with signs saying "The referendum means peace. Everyone should go to the referendum." Refugees said Chechen television, received in Ingushetia, keeps showing programs in which Russian military and civilian officials explain that the referendum is the breakthrough that will end the war.
"I am tired of promises, but while I am alive, I will still hope for some improvement," said Abu Dombayev, 52, a construction worker, now unemployed, who lives near Nazran with the family of an Ingush friend. "I saw on television that after the referendum Chechnya will be given a great deal of control over its own affairs."
He said he tried many times to understand what the constitution says.
"But what I can't understand is whether we will become a sovereign republic or not. Look, Article 1 is totally unclear in Russian and Chechen. Does it say that Chechnya is sovereign and outside of the Russian Federation? I can't understand all the definitions here, I am not a lawyer. But if it says it is sovereign, why does it later say that territorially it is indivisible and part of Russia?"
The article gives Chechnya the right to make its own decisions except on matters that are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and on matters of mutual interest to Chechnya and the Russian Federation.
The article is not unique from the language of constitutions in other Russian republics; substitute the word "Chechen" for "Tatar" and it is identical to Article 1 in Tatarstan's constitution.
Nevertheless, Chechens are finding the article's language confusing.
The article reads: "The sovereignty of the Chechen Republic is manifested in its possession of the full range of powers (legislative, executive and judicial) [that fall] outside the purview of the Russian Federation, and in its authority over objects within the joint purview of the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic and is the inalienable qualitative status of the Chechen Republic."
The first instance of the word "purview," or vne predelov, also can be understood as meaning "outside the borders."
Alkhazur Durukhayev, 45, a tractor driver from the Gikalo suburb of Grozny who now lives in the Bart camp, said he tried to read the constitution but could not get past the first article.
"I can't understand it - does it say that Chechnya will be independent and outside of Russian borders? Outside the limits is outside the borders or what?" he said.
Most of the refugees who plan to vote in the referendum say they have not read either the proposed constitution or two bills that also are being put to a vote - one on the election of a president and the second on the election of a parliament.
Most of those who intend to boycott the referendum say they believe their participation would legitimize the war and discredit Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected president in 1997. Some of them, the most educated, say they have read the proposed laws.
Ramzan, 54, a physicist who says he lectured at a Grozny university before the war and now lives in the Satsita camp, said the referendum is "an effort to reject the fact that the war is going on in Chechnya and an effort to divide the Chechen community."
"If the draft of the law on the election of a president is supported and a new president is elected, that would mean the appearance of two presidents in Chechnya. Many people still consider Maskhadov their president and they will not vote for the new one," said Ramzan, who did not want his last name to be used.
"This would mean Chechnya would be driven to the next war, this time a civil one."
He said the referendum should be asking a different question.
"Everyone is worried here about whether Chechnya should be a sovereign republic or stay within Russia," Ramzan said. "This is not even considered in this referendum. But this is a core question."
He said a truly free referendum should include three alternatives, as put forward recently by Ruslan Aushev, the former president of Ingushetia:
. Should Chechnya be a sovereign republic?
. Should Chechnya stay within Russia?
. Should Chechnya have a special status?
"Most here would vote for the third option. We understand it as autonomy with special powers. For example, economically we will stay part of Russia, but politically we will obtain the status of a CIS republic and will become able to implement our own foreign policy."
"It should be a parliamentary republic. Historically, our people solve all issues together. But I will go and support the referendum because we need our own Chechen legal authorities," Lalayev said. "Perhaps after that the troops will be withdrawn from Chechnya and the stabilization will start."
Amayeva, the mother of Kheda, says she thinks differently.
"Let the war and shooting stop first. Let negotiations with Maskhadov start," she said. "I am afraid that approving this referendum before that will effectively give Russian troops a green light to go on killing us as they do now."
TITLE: Kremlin's Moves Not Likely To Sway Vote
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Russian government has closed a few checkpoints and withdrawn some troops from Chechnya as part of what political analysts say is an effort to shore up Chechen support ahead of next weekend's constitutional referendum.
The measures, however, will do little to sway the opinion of a war-weary public, and the draft constitution might end up getting approved in a vote riddled with the violations that tarnished the 1996 election of pro-Moscow President Doku Zavgayev, analysts said.
Moscow has been busy in the weeks ahead of the March 23 vote. The authorities have closed two checkpoints in Grozny and promised to dismantle six more. More than 1,000 service personnel have been withdrawn from Chechnya. Federal officials pledged to start compensating residents for destroyed housing. And prosecutors announced that 45 servicemen are either on trial or have been convicted of human-rights abuses against civilians in Chechnya.
These steps are too little and too late to influence the minds of Chechnya's 1 million residents, said Alexei Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies.
"Unfortunately, everything indicates that the Zavgayev election scenario will be repeated," Makarkin said.
Zavgayev was elected president in a June 1996 vote that was described by observing journalists as massively rigged. International observers were not allowed.
At the time, the Kremlin was eager to get its man into office in an attempt to legitimize the unpopular administration installed by Moscow as the first war raged on.
Zavgayev's government fell shortly afterward when rebels stormed Grozny and Chechnya gained de-facto independence. Rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was elected president in a republic-sponsored poll in 1997.
This time around, the Kremlin has invited international organizations to monitor the vote March 23 - although the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has declined to send observers, citing security concerns.
Pro-Moscow Chechen officials, whose careers rest largely on the outcome of the referendum, insist that the vote will be held on the up-and-up.
"The possibility of rigging is zero," Chechen elections commission head Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov told Interfax on Friday.
If pro-Moscow Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov can get the constitution approved without major violations being exposed s, he will be assured of Kremlin support in the republic's presidential election, said Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center.
Kadyrov himself has acknowledged that the referendum will be a key test of his leadership.
According to the Chechen elections commission, 537,000 adults have the right to vote in Sunday's referendum, including 38,000 Russian troops and about 65,000 refugees in Ingushetia.
The Danish Refugee Council, however, estimates that there were as many as 106,000 Chechen refugees in Ingushetia as of late last year.
Malashenko said the actual results of the poll might end up a well-guarded secret, but they could still be valuable to federal policy-makers shaping Moscow's policy on Chechnya. Regardless of how the votes are cast, they could give the Kremlin a rough idea of how many people in Chechnya are willing to maintain a dialogue with federal authorities, he said.
Abdullah Khamzayev, the Chechen lawyer representing the family of the Chechen girl strangled by Colonel Yury Budanov, said Moscow's recent activities surrounding Chechnya are largely missing the mark. He said the priority for the population is not compensation for their homes but the knowledge that their rights not be trampled on by troops and law enforcers in mopping-up operations.
"People should be able to go to bed feeling confident that they will wake up in the same place," Khamzayev said.
TITLE: Detailed Ring Road Scheme Announced
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In a move that the Transport Ministry says will mean the relocation of thousands of city residents, the ministry's directorate responsible for overseeing the construction of the St. Petersburg Ring Road announced a detailed program on Monday to have at least half of the project completed in time to meet a 2005 deadline set by President Vladimir Putin.
The 154-kilometer Ring Road was begun in 1994, and is intended to reduce the volume of traffic in the city's downtown streets by as much as 50 percent. The construction, however, has been criticized for inefficiency and the slow pace of work. Charges of construction-regulation violations and embezzlement of funds have also been made.
Putin signed the decree on the 2005 deadline for the eastern half of the Ring Road on Feb. 5. The decree led to a meeting of the interdepartmental commission for the Ring Road's construction on Friday to determine how to meet the deadline. At a press conference on Monday, Yegor Tratnikov, the director of the Transport Ministry directorate, said he was confident the deadline would be met.
"In 2001 and 2002 and the beginning of 2003, around 11 billion rubles [about $350 million at the current exchange rate] were allocated from the federal budget to build the Ring Road. The funds provided in 2001 and 2002 have been spent completely," Tratnikov said. "During this period, none of the funds have been returned to the budget as not having been used."
For 2003, 6 billion rubles ($190 million) have been earmarked from the federal budget for work on the road. Another 2.5 billion rubles ($80 million) have been provided by the EBRD within the framework of a 15-year loan.
Tratnikov said that the directorate had decided to divide the construction of the road into seven sections, the first of which, stretching from Prospect Engelsa to Prospect Kultury, already opened for traffic in November. One other section will be opened by the end of the year, with three more to be opened in 2004 and the last two in 2005. Each of the sections will be opened for traffic as it is completed, Tratnikov said.
To reduce the impact of traffic noise and exhaust fumes, panels are to be built along the road in places where the road will run near homes. According to the directorate, these buildings will also be fitted with double glazed windows, and trees will be planted to reduce noise and air pollution.
But not all residents affected by the construction will remain to see the improvements, said a statement released by the directorate on Monday. According to the statement, approximately 4,000 residents will have to be moved out of their current road in order to facilitate the construction. The relocation project will be organized by the directorate, with over 3,500 people being moved in the city's Nevsky District and another 546 in the Krasogvardeisky District.
TITLE: Buddhists Set for Summer Celebration
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Ole Nydahl looks more like an extreme-sports enthusiast than a Buddhist monk. Yet the tanned, hefty Dane is Europe's first lama.
Nydahl, who was responsible for bringing Tibetan Buddhism to St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, when he set up the city's first Buddhist center, was in town on Friday to launch the buddhism.ru festival, which will run from July 4 through July 8 and include exhibitions of photographs, books and traditional Buddhist objets d'art, as well as meditation sessions.
Nydahl became involved in Buddhism in 1969, when he went to the Himalayas on his honeymoon with his wife, Hannah. The couple ended up staying for three years to study the religion and, on returning home to Copenhagen, undertook missionary work, at first in Western Europe and, subsequently, in Russia.
During the festival in July, Nydahl will give a lecture on various issues connected with practicing Buddhism.
"The nature of my mission is to make the deep wisdom of Tibet accessible to our part of the world, and to open the minds of the extroverted West to things as unfamiliar as mantras and meditation," he said.
According to Grigory Serebrany, vice president of Russia's Karma Kagyu Buddhist Association, the festival's program will include special excursions around the State Hermitage Museum, the Kunstkamera and the Museum of the History of Religion. "These museums have so many Buddhist items in their collections, and we are going to arrange for our own experts to give people guided tours during the festival," he said.
Karma Kagyu is one of the major Buddhist schools of Tibet. Its methods were taught by the historical Buddha Shakyamuni to his closest students. In Russia, the Karma Kagyu Buddhist Association includes over 50 centers and meditation groups. Serebryany said there are several thousand Buddhists in St. Petersburg, of whom at least 400 are regular practictioners.
Nydahl first visited St. Petersburg in September 1988, when the religion was still banned in what was then the Soviet Union. He saw a need for understandable teaching closely related to everyday life. During the visit, he founded the city's Buddhist center, Karma Legshay Ling ("Place of Good Fortune"). The center, at 145 Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki, remained secret until February 1991, when it was acknowledged as a religious center by the Russian government.
According to Nydahl, the center is now overcrowded, meaning he has little time for sightseeing on his visits to the city. "It used to be that I would go to the Hermitage, or just wander around the town," he said. "But, now, we spend time just planning and plotting. For instance, we need to expand our premises."
Nydahl said he does not see himself as a missionary but, rather, as a travelling professor. "Hopefully, my audiences don't find me dusty and boring," he said. "I simply explain what Buddhism is about - it is a logical, clear religion, providing a peaceful transfer from personal matters to global, abstract issues."
Serebryany said that buddhism.ru aims to be as broadly attractive as possible. "This festival is targeted not only religious people," he said. "Buddhists are very tolerant to other religions, and we would be happy if people who come to the festival accept just some of the ideas of Buddhism."
Nydahl added that Buddhism suits people who are proactive about changing their lives. "Buddhists don't belive in fate," he said. "Karma doesn't mean fate; karma is about the cause and the consequences. In short, you can change anything before it happens."
Links: www.buddhism.ru
TITLE: Lithuania Voices Concern Over Hooliganism
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry expressed concern Monday about recent acts of hooliganism against Lithuanian diplomats and diplomatic missions in Russia. The move came after unidentified assailants sprayed Lithuanian Consul General in St. Petersburg Gintaras Ronkaitas with ketchup at the opening of an exhibition of photographs by Lithuanian photographer Antanas Sutkus on Friday.
"I had just started my speech when a fragile young woman approached me from the crowd and sprayed me with ketchup, saying that it was 'for Kaliningrad,'" Ronkaitas said Monday.
Ronkaitas said that, at the same time, two young people were distributing leaflets bearing the slogan "Hands Off Kaliningrad" and signed by the National Bolshevik Party. The pair were not detained, as no police officers were present.
About 100 guests were present for the opening, including other foreign consuls in St. Petersburg. The ketchup also hit NoMi magazine head Vera Bibinova, as well as the walls of the exhibition hall.
In its message on Monday, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry expressed the hope that the Russian authorities would "find and punish the organizers of this act of vandalism, and take measures to guarantee the safety of Lithuanian diplomats and events organized by them," Ronkaitis said. He added that the latest act came just a few weeks after the Lithuanian Embassy in Moscow was attacked by vandals wielding cans of paint.
The message also said that incidents could be "the result of irresponsible statements by Russian politicians, who give a political shade to technical questions about Kaliningrad and who create a negative image of Lithuania, which, together with the European Union, is trying to find a flexible solution to transport to and from Kaliningrad."
"Such rhetoric does not improve the relations between the two countries, and may even serve as a provocative impulse for the Russian population," Ronkaitis said. He said that the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry is preparing a note of protest to the Russian Embassy in Vilnius about the attacks.
TITLE: Bush Delivers Ultimatum: Leave or Prepare for Attack
AUTHOR: By Ron Fournier
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush told Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq or face a U.S.-led invasion, abandoning UN diplomacy Monday to brace Americans for war within days.
The president, commander in chief of 250,000 U.S. troops poised on the borders of Iraq, planned to address the country at 8 p.m., local time.
A draft of his address circulated at the White House had Bush giving the Iraqi leader and his inner circle a firm deadline to seek exile. The deadline would be brief, just a few days, said three senior White House officials who declined to be more specific.
They cautioned that the speech was subject to changes before Bush gave his speech from the pillar-lined White House cross halls. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The diplomatic window has now been closed," White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer declared Monday morning, just 12 hours after Bush's return from an Atlantic-island summit. The president and his allies from Britain and Spain had given the UN a one-day deadline to sanction the use of force in Iraq.
A quick round of telephone calls Sunday night and Monday morning confirmed what aides said Bush had concluded before the summit: The allies' UN resolution was doomed to fail.
He ordered the measure withdrawn to avoid an embarrassing defeat, then gave the go-ahead for a long-planned ultimatum address.
"To avoid military conflict, Saddam Hussein must leave the country," spokesperson Fleischer said.
In addition to giving Hussein a final ultimatum, Bush planned to use the prime-time address to explain why he was on the brink of ordering U.S. troops into action without UN approval.
The American public, by a 2-1 margin, supports military action against Iraq to remove Hussein, a slight increase from recent weeks, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll.
Bush also was expected to warn about risks facing U.S. troops and perhaps Americans at home, reflecting concern that terrorists will try to retaliate during the war.
The speech would serve as a warning to journalists and humanitarian workers to leave Iraq. "Baghdad is not a safe place to be," Fleischer said.
Bush also planned to outline his plans for helping Iraq recover from military conflict and become a democratic nation after U.S. occupation ends.
This was not the time for Bush to list which countries would join the U.S. in fighting Iraq, officials said. That would come only after the fighting had started, when the president would address the country from the Oval Office, they said.
Seven months ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell helped persuade Bush to seek UN approval for military action despite the objections of anti-Hussein hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney.
His diplomacy derailed, Powell sounded ready to turn to war. "The moment of truth is arriving," said the retired Army general, who was chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, led by Bush's father.
He said the only way war could be avoided was for "Saddam Hussein and his immediate cohorts to leave the country."
Senior White House officials said they did not expect Hussein to seek exile. Thus, Bush planned to be at war within a matter of days, they said. Powell suggested that even an 11th-hour effort by Hussein to disarm wouldn't avoid war.
"I can think of nothing Saddam Hussein could do diplomatically," he said. "He had his chance."
TITLE: Hussein Offers Own Warning In Response to Threats by U.S.
AUTHOR: By Hamza Hendawi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - After a warning from Washington, the United Nations ordered its weapons inspectors to leave Iraq and diplomats and foreign journalists also fled Monday in the clearest sign yet that the United States would soon attack.
Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein gave no sign of heeding U.S. demands that he step down and warned that American forces will find an Iraqi fighter ready to die for his country "behind every rock, tree and wall."
But he made a last-minute bid to avert war, admitting that Iraq had once possessed weapons of mass destruction to defend itself from Iran and Israel - but that it no longer had them.
"We are not weapons collectors," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted him as telling Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahia. "But we had these weapons for purposes of self-defense when we were at war with Iran for eight years and when the Zionist entity (Israel) was, and it still is, a threat."
"When Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, he means what he says," the Iraqi leader said.
Baghdad residents prepared for the worst, flooding markets to stock up on food, lining up for gas and bread and taping their windows for fear of flying glass from U.S. bombs.
U.S. President George W. Bush was expected to give Hussein a final ultimatum to leave or face war in an address to the United States on Monday night.
In advance of the speech, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said Hussein wouldn't leave. "He will stay in place like a solid rock," he told Qatar-based television broadcaster Al-Jazeera in an interview Monday.
Hussein issued a warning of his own to Washington, saying: "Not even 10 Americas will be able to separate the people of Iraq away from their land, rights, freedom, independence and sovereignty. If it attacks Iraq, it will find Iraqi fighters ready to fight and ready for martyrdom in defense of their country behind every rock, tree and wall."
TITLE: Russians Back Euro Over Iraq Tensions
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - It only took two years for a new suitor to end Russians' monogamous love affair with the dollar.
On balance, Russians bought more euros than dollars in January for the first time since the euro's notes and coins became available Jan. 1, 2001, according to the latest Central Bank data.
While in gross terms, Russians bought more dollars from retail banks than euros in the month - $1.193 billion versus 701 million euros - they also sold more. The result is that 598 million euros made its way into the hands of the population, compared to just 438 million bucks.
Worried by the continued weakness of the greenback, which has lost more than 10 percent against the euro in recent months and 1.3 percent against ruble since the beginning of the year, people are rushing to diversify their once dollar-only savings.
Analysts, however, say the trend is temporary and that the market will stabilize once the Iraqi conflict is resolved.
"The situation in Iraq is the main factor that affects the dollar/euro rate and demand for cash currency," said Natalya Orlova, an economist with Alfa Bank.
"The longer we see uncertainty over Iraq, the weaker the dollar and the higher demand for the euros," she said.
In total, imports of euros by Russian banks doubled to a record 751 million in January, while average Russians bought seven times more of the currency than they sold, the Central Bank said.
Bankers now say that demand for dollars has practically dried up, as everyone is selling: Banks imported a total of just $944 million in January, compared to $2.5 billion in December.
"Demand for cash euros has been growing by 20 percent to 30 percent a month," said Kirill Grishanov, head of the currency and money-market department of Raiffeisenbank Moscow. "It's a good time for Russians to buy euros now, as the currency has proved to be a good means of savings."
"If this trend continues, Russia might become an exporter of cash dollars for the second time in the last decade," said Vasily Zablodsky, deputy head of the investment department at MDM Bank, one of the largest importers of cash currency in the country.
Zablodsky said the last time Russia was a net exporter of dollars was after the terrorist attacks in America in September 2001.
Zablodsky said that, once the Iraqi crisis is resolved, he expected the dollar to regain parity with the euro.
"In the end, we will have two major world currencies and a more equal risk distribution between them," he said.
Although some companies such as car dealerships and tourist agencies have started marking their prices in euros, experts doubt that the European currency's importance to the Russian economy as a whole will match the dollar's any time soon.
"It is premature to speak about a 'de-dollarization' of the economy, because the corporate sector still prefers to use dollars," Orlova said.
TITLE: NRB Pins Ilyushin Hopes on Aeroflot Stake
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: VORONEZH, Central Russia - Many see little hope the stagnant aviation industry will ever get off the ground, but at least one bank is betting big on it.
In a move it hopes will help pull the industry out of its post-Soviet tailspin, National Reserve Bank is negotiating to buy Millhouse Capital's blocking 26 percent stake in flagship carrier Aeroflot.
"We hope to close the deal soon," NRB Deputy Chairperson Sergei Shakin said Saturday at the Voronezh aviation plant, where industry officials gathered to tout the resumption of production of the Ilyushin-96-300, the country's premium long-haul aircraft and a lower-budget version of the Boeing 767.
Millhouse manages the stake on behalf of Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich and other shareholders of Sibneft who paid an estimated $120 million for it two years ago, but has been unable to make much use of it.
Shakin declined to provide details of the deal, but he made no secret that he hopes the stake will give NRB enough board clout to influence key decisions of the state-controlled carrier.
Specifically, NRB wants Aeroflot to buy more Ilyushin-96-300s.
The bank, together with Ilyushin, set up the Ilyushin Finance Company, or IFC, in 1999 and, two years ago, was one of two companies to win a government tender designed to help devastated domestic manufacturers by offering customers state-backed leasing options.
The other company chosen in the tender was Financial Leasing Co., which is mainly owned by the Tartarstan government and works with the Kazan aviation plant, which manufactures mid-range Tupolev Tu-214s.
Under the terms of the tender, each company was to sell a controlling stake in itself to the government for at least 1.5 billion rubles ($47 million), but it took more than a year for the money and equity to change hands, and IFC has yet to sell a single jet.
Now, however, NRB is hoping Aeroflot will make good on a letter of intent it signed in 1999 for six Il-96-300s, which would double the airline's fleet of the craft.
IFC was originally expected to deliver the planes in 2001, but the deal stalled.
On Friday, a group of Aeroflot managers sat down with IFC to discuss how the company wants its planes to be fitted before it will agree to buy them and the two sides seemed closer than ever to a deal.
If so, it would be a huge boost for the future of the Ilyushin-96. Aside from Aeroflot, only one other airline has signed a letter of intent for the jet. Atlant-Soyuz, which is controlled by the city of Moscow, is interested in two Il-96-400s, the cargo version of the craft.
IFC has also signed a protocol agreement with Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP to overhaul and build more than 50 Tu-204 medium-range passenger planes, but that deal has not been finalized either.
Although the government owns the Voronezh plant, or VASO, NRB insisted that IFC manage the government's stake in the plant to insure that the money it invests in restarting production of the IL-96 is protected.
IFC, confident Aeroflot will eventually buy the craft, transferred 180 million rubles to the plant last week, the first tranche in a 2 1/2-year, $300-million program to complete the eight planes for Aeroflot and Atlant-Soyuz, the first set for delivery by the end of 2004.
VASO director Vyacheslav Salikov was jubilant to see production resume at the plant for the first time since 1999. The plant, with some 11,000 workers, had survived on its overhaul business and even had to branch out into other areas, such as building recreational boats.
"Concrete steps have been taken and financial leasing mechanisms were found to allow this concrete project for eight planes to go forward," said Yury Koptev, head of Russia's Aviation and Space Agency Rosaviakosmos.
"NRB Chairperson Alexander Lebedev is a sensible businessman who has put real money into this plant," said Igor Garivadsky, who handles aviation leasing issues for the Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
"We were here last September and it was a dead zone," Garivadsky said. "The more private capital we have in the aviation industry, the better."
The industry may be picking up, but there is simply no way domestic manufacturers can meet booming demand from airlines.
Economic Development and Trade Deputy Minister Yury Isayev said his ministry is preparing proposals for an April 10 cabinet meeting dedicated to aircraft leasing to ease import restrictions on foreign craft.
Russia currently charges 46 percent in VAT and import duties on foreign aircraft, making them prohibitively expensive for all but a handful of companies.
The ministry wants to increase import duties on craft older than seven years and bring down duties on imported aircraft components and engines.
Meanwhile, in an ironic twist, it wants IFC and FLC to handle the leasing of foreign jets until their domestic partners can build enough planes to meet demand.
Both industry players and analysts said the plan made no sense.
"Many airlines would jump at the opportunity to import more efficient foreign aircraft, but it will mean the end of the domestic industry," said Yelena Sakhnova of United Financial Group.
TITLE: Ministry Looking To Split Up Gazprom
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: In the latest draft of plans to liberalize the country's gas market, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry has proposed both to split up Gazprom and allow oil companies to sell their gas abroad, Vedomosti reported Monday.
The ministry said Gazprom's transportation business should be completely separate from its other activities.
Though such a move has been a key element of energy market deregulation in other countries, it is a step Gazprom's management has sharply resisted.
Responsibility for gas output among a number of competing production companies would be divided under the ministry's plan, enabling private-sector oil and gas companies to start tapping their own gas reserves. The plan also goes so far as proposing to take away Gazprom's export monopoly.
But the management does not see eye to eye with Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, who has argued for taking away control of pipelines from Gazprom and giving that responsibility to a new, separate company.
Gazprom currently controls all main gas pipelines and gas exports, while oil producers flare off their associated gas and dream about access to the lucrative export gas pipeline.
But Gazprom effectively subsidizes the rest of the economy with local prices that are several times lower than abroad and do not cover the company's costs.
Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Andrei Sharonov said last week the positions of the ministry and Gazprom had become closer, but that several serious differences in view of the matter remain.
The government hopes that, in 2007-2008, "the process of [gas] sales demonopolization" will start while, by 2009, "several independent gas companies, created on the basis of gas-producing companies, will be spun off of Gazprom."
Breaking up Gazprom contradicts promises by President Vladimir Putin that Gazprom will not be split up. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller is seen as having much clout with the president.
Vedomosti said the new document retains the promise to independent producers of access to Gazprom's export pipelines, though indirectly through Gazprom's export arm, Gazexport.
Independent producers will also have to share Gazprom's social responsibility to sell gas to domestic consumers at low prices, it said. Price reform is set, as before, for 2005-2006. Sharonov said the government would decide in May whether it liked the plan.
But investment house United Financial Group was less optimistic.
"We expect the government to take a cautious view of any radical proposals ahead of the forthcoming elections," it said in a research note, referring to December parliamentary elections and the March presidential poll.
Investment bank NIKoil likewise doubted that the proposed reforms would be considered seriously in the near future.
"While the new plan may increase the likelihood of gas sector reform, it is still a radical idea and opposed by Gazprom's management, so it is doubtful to reach the [State] Duma floor any time soon," NIKoil wrote Monday in a report.
(SPT, Reuters)
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Export Duties Hiked
MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed a ruling Saturday to hike oil-export duties to $40.3 per metric ton from $25.9 per ton, effective April 1, news agencies reported Monday.
Export duties on oil products will be hiked to $36.3 per ton from $23.3 per ton.
EU Dairy Curbs
MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - Russia plans to impose restrictions on imports of dairy products from the European Union, First Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Dankvert said Monday.
He said the new regime was designed to aid domestic producers who cannot compete with heavily subsidized imports from the EU.
Dankvert said he had informed EU officials about the plans but gave no further details. He said the restrictions would include imports of EU butter and cheeses.
The step is also a retaliatory measure in response to the EU's decision to set import quotas for grain at the start of 2003. The step has resulted in a considerable decline in imports of Russian grain to the bloc, which used to be the major buyer of the country's grain harvest.
MTS Sales
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Telecom-XXI, the St. Petersburg-based Northwestern subsidiary of the country's No. 1 mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems, posted sales of $80 million in 2002 according to preliminary figures, Interfax reported.
The company plans to increase sales by 150 percent in 2003, general director Andrei Rumyantsev said at a news conference in St. Petersburg.
The company plans to invest $100 million in its network this year, down from $180 million in 2002, he said.
Telecom-XXI subscribers number around 800,000.
AvtoVAZ Ruling
MOSCOW (SPT) - The Samara Arbitration Court has ordered Russia's largest automaker, AvtovVAZ, to pay out at least 230 million rubles ($7.3 million) in dividends on its preferred shares for 2002, Vedomosti reported Monday.
AvtoVAZ is to appeal against the judgment, the paper added.
TITLE: Despite the Snubs, Britain Will Stay With U.S.
AUTHOR: By Boris Johnson
TEXT: Gee, thanks, guys. What an odd way Americans have of rewarding Tony Blair. Every day, the British public receives stirring and uplifting news of preparations at the front. The Tornadoes are off to the Persian Gulf. Special Air Service commandoes are rootling the western desert of Iraq. Some 30,000 troops - a quarter of the British Army - are waiting to swarm from their bivouacs and join the liberation. And then Donald Rumsfeld, the fellow with the iron quiff and the scout-leader spectacles, decides to blurt the unmentionable truth: The Pentagon is perfectly happy to polish off Saddam Hussein on its own.
According to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, it seems that having the Brits in on the operation is a bit like asking Hugh Grant to tag along in a remake of "The Dirty Dozen," to give it some jolly old British class; kind of nice, but not essential. He's fed up, no doubt, with what may now look like excessive British fastidiousness about that second United Nations resolution. But he must see what a total humiliation it would be for the British prime minister if America went it alone.
What's Blair supposed to do? Go out to the Persian Gulf, get on top of a flatbed truck in his open-necked shirt, and tell the troops they'll have to come home? And thereby tacitly admit that our military contribution is about as valuable as a plastic cup-holder in an Abrams tank. Unthinkable. After so much loyal rhetoric, after all that clanking of British sword on transatlantic breastplate, after all that unpopular work as the unpaid porte-parole of the Pentagon, after selflessly supplying the syntax to George W. Bush, this is what Blair gets?
He couldn't possibly sit it out and keep his political credibility. And yet, if he goes with America, and without a second resolution, then he faces incalculable difficulties at home. On Thursday night, I received news from the executive committee of the Henley Conservative association. They had decided to take a vote, and they found that, of their 21 members, 16 opposed going to war without a fresh resolution. Now these are Tories - a bunch of the truest, bluest and best. They would all know someone in the armed forces. They believe strongly, if undemonstratively, in their country. And yet they don't much care for this war.
Imagine how much fiercer that emotion is among the nominally socialist backbenches of Blair's Labor government. These folks didn't come into politics to bomb the children of third-world countries. More than 120 of his 411-member majority have already revolted, and it seems inevitable that more will follow. They want a second resolution, and it doesn't seem that they'll get one.
Poor Blair has been brilliantly blindsided by President Jacques Chirac of France. Never did it occur to Downing Street that the French would be so devious, opportunistic and, in the end, viscerally anti-American. One is driven to wonder whether Chirac, in fact, intends directly to topple Blair, after the two had a belting row, full of sacre bleu and zut alors, about European Union farm subsidies in October. If that is his aim, I don't think the French president will succeed.
The American press has been warning of the coming extinction of the prime minister. I would treat these reports with caution, and I write as a Tory member of Parliament, dedicated to the cause of winkling him out. First, hardly anyone here can face the prospect of a government under his likely successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, a man dedicated to such chippy and divisive politics as engineering the social class of university entrants. (Remember that, in Britain, we have a lot more state control; Brown directly finances our most prestigious universities, and he likes to bully them.) He is not trusted by middle-class England and, in any case, I cannot see Labor being able or willing to ditch, in Tony Blair, a man who in the past has brought them such huge majorities and such convincing poll leads. And, if there is any attempt by some of my fellow Tories to topple the government over the war with some cunning Janus-faced motion, I am not sure I would support it.
Of course it would be better to have a second United Nations resolution - but that is a political question, not a matter of legality. You don't create international law by making the president of Chile a present of new squash courts, or whatever. The United Nations did not underwrite the Kosovo operation, and the United Nations did not give Britain leave to recapture the Falkland Islands - thanks in part, I seem to remember, to the lamentable performance of one Jeane Kirkpatrick, the American ambassador.
Indeed, some might say that America's past treatment of Britain does not deserve to be requited by this slavish devotion. One thinks of Eisenhower's dithering on the Suez, Ronald Reagan's steamrolling Margaret Thatcher on the Grenada invasion, the flow of American citizens' money to the Irish Republican Army. After all, wasn't Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA's political wing, at the White House this weekend celebrating an early St. Patrick's Day? It is not obvious quite how that fits in with the war on terror.
But never mind. We see the big picture. We know that America pulled our chestnuts out of the fire in two hot wars and one cold one. We know that our security is indissolubly linked with America, and Blair will go with America, not Europe.
He will do the Tory thing, not the Labor thing, and he will lose support. He will lose cabinet ministers. He will lose ministers whose names are not known, and will never be known, by the American public. But he will not lose office, and I doubt very much that he will lose the war. Of course, he will be weakened at the end of it all. He will never be forgiven for shaming the doubters, for helping to liberate Iraq from tyranny. His antiwar backbenchers will pursue him with special fury if and when he is proved right. Across Britain, in the commentariat and in the saloon bars, there are too many people who have invested too much, emotionally and intellectually, in the antiwar cause. They will, though they may not admit it, be secretly hoping for catastrophe.
There are also those who predict that the experience will leave the prime minister with a changed view of the world, and that it's finished between him and Chirac. I am not so sure. Never underestimate Blair's protean political personality. I won't be surprised if, in a few months time, this same Blair is urging the British people to scrap the pound sterling and share their monetary arrangements with the "poisonous" Chirac. To anyone of common sense, it looks as though the goal of a shared European foreign and security policy is chimerical. "Mais non!" the Europeans will say, and Blair will smoothly agree that the unhappy experience on Iraq simply shows that we must redouble our efforts to "build Europe."
However strong the anti-French feeling in the United States, and even in No. 10 Downing Street, it is not remotely shared at the British foreign office. It is magnificent, today's Anglo-American alliance, but other considerations will soon reassert themselves. In this brief, shining moment, therefore, let us end one needless linguistic difference between us. Isn't it about time you guys stopped this ludicrous and demeaning habit of calling fried, chipped potatoes French fries?
How can any patriotic American use such a term, after the way Chirac has behaved? They tell me some Americans want to call them "freedom fries." Donnez-moi un break. The word is chips. Let's agree on chips, folks, because, when the chips are down, Britain is going to stick with America.
Boris Johnson is a Conservative member of Parliament for Henley-on-Thames and editor of The Spectator magazine. He contributed this comment to The New York Times.
TITLE: In Case You Missed It ... the EU Is Offering a New Deal
TEXT: THE reshuffling of Russia's security agencies and the machinations in the UN over the looming war in Iraq monopolized the attention of the media last week, meaning that an important development in Russia's relations with Europe went virtually unnoticed. This is particularly unfortunate, since this event may mark a watershed in EU-Russia cooperation and carry significant consequences for Russia's reform process and its future in general.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismemberment of the Eastern Bloc, the European Union has applied a clear policy of differentiation. Central European countries and the Baltic States were quickly granted the status of EU candidates, with the associated benefits ranging from closer economic interaction to intensive assistance in the implementation of reforms. The remainder of the countries in question, including Russia, have, despite ponderous rhetoric to the contrary, been left out of the loop, enjoying very little attention both in EU statements of its priorities and in financial resources. Tacis was broadly touted as "an unmatched program of technical assistance" but, in reality, it has meant a sum of less than $1 billion in spending over the last decade, an amount that is insignificant given Russia's size and the magnitude of the problem.
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with the EU constitutes the main contractual framework for relations between Moscow and Brussels. It has an attractive title, but is, basically, just a non-preferential trade agreement that will become largely obsolete if Russia realizes its objective of joining the WTO. Specific initiatives and issues such as the Northern Dimension, the Energy Dialogue, the High Level Group on Common Economic Space and talks on travel between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia have all been clumsy efforts to bypass the outdated framework of the PCA. Moscow has pressed the EU to sign special agreements or to review the PCA, but Brussels has remained reluctant, citing Russia's responsibility to be in full compliance with the PCA while, at the same time, being aware of the institutional nightmare involved with negotiating a new agreement with Russia.
Given this history, a document with the title "Wider Europe - Neighborhood," which was published last Tuesday by the European Commission, came as a surprise. While the document proposes a new framework for relations with the all of the EU's eastern and southern neighbors, presenting Brussels' vision of its future relationship with those countries not included in the body's 2004 enlargement, to a large extent, Russia is the focus. For the first time, Brussels has taken the step of making Russia a significant offer, given the EU's traditional taboos.
The EU is offering Moscow gradual access to its market and, in principle, agreeing to replace the existing PCA with a "Neighborhood Agreement" that will better correspond to real needs and create a road map for Russia's integration into Europe. The deciding condition, according to the document, will be Russia's "concrete progress demonstrating shared values and effective implementation of political, economic and institutional reforms, including aligning legislation with the [European Union's set of rules and practices]." This is the first time in EU-Russia relationship that Brussels has offered Russia a tangible carrot. It's a pity that it has come so late.
If such an offer had been made in the 1990s, it would probably have helped to avoid the Chechen drama and to ensure better economic performance in Russia.
But we live in the real world, where these types of "ifs" have no bearing. In the real world, Moscow has managed to modernize the country's political institutions without liberalizing its political life. Democracy exists at a strictly procedural level, with the further strengthening of the bureaucratic monopoly of power being the dominant trend. Businesses are not successful here as a result of competition, but by a cruel game that some analysts call "Russian chess," where administrative resources provide the winning edge.
While the EU's offer seems attractive, Russia's elites know that free cheese can only be found in a mousetrap and, for some of them, the EU proposal is just that - an extension of EU norms and values to Russia that would destroy the systemic foundations of the current elites in the country, in both economic and political terms.
While it is understandable that the ruling elites might not want to go rushing into such a trap, there is still hope. Economic growth is an overriding priority for Russia, particularly if it hopes to maintain some relevance in the world and social stability at home. Those who have already accumulated significant capital are now interested in even greater capitalization and access to broader markets. None of this can be achieved without foreign investment and open and transparent markets. The EU is strategically positioned in this regard and can apply significant leverage, adding to the likelihood that the offer will be hard for Moscow to reject, but not before there is some tough bargaining and attempts to misuse the options.
The European Commission is proposing to negotiate an "Action Plan" that would explicitly identify the targets for political and economic reforms and objectives. This will be assessed annually, and the delivery of the carrot will be linked directly to achievements in the reform process and in Russia's alignment with the EU's template.
The final results of this process are not guaranteed. They depend on whether the elites here feel real gains generated by compliance with EU norms outweigh the benefits achieved through Russian chess. It will be more compex and daring to embark on this path today than it would have been in the 1990s but, as the saying goes, better late than never.
Igor Leshukov is the director of the Institute of International Affairs, St. Petersburg, a private think tank. He contributed this comment to the St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Seven Die in Israeli Army Raid
AUTHOR: By Ibrahim Barzak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NUSSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops firing from tanks and helicopters battled dozens of Palestinian gunmen in a four-hour raid of this crowded shantytown Monday. Seven Palestinians, including a 4-year-old girl, were killed in intense fighting.
In a separate raid, Israel seized parts of the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. Two Palestinian police officers manning a checkpoint were killed, and about 700 teenage boys and men were taken for questioning to the town square, witnesses said.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, the Palestinian parliament rejected Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's request that a cabinet formed by a future prime minister be "presented" to him - one of several amendments to a reform package the Palestinian leader had proposed.
Lawmakers disagreed over whether he was trying to weaken the new post or seeking minor procedural changes. Arafat has resisted sharing power in four decades as Palestinian leader and agreed only reluctantly last month to appoint a prime minister.
Israeli forces entered the Nusseirat refugee camp as residents headed to the mosques for morning prayers and farmers began harvesting their crops to take to the Gaza City market, witnesses said.
The main target of the raid was Mohammed Saafen, 34, a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group in central Gaza. Undercover troops surrounded the Saafen family's four-story house, and ordered residents to come out, said a neighbor, Hazem Khatib. All did, except for the wanted man who shot at troops, drawing return fire, the neighbor said.
Saafen's 75-year-old father suffered a gunshot wound in the leg. Several neighbors, including Khatib, claimed the elderly man was deliberately shot by a soldier trying to force the fugitive to surrender. The army had no comment.
The wanted man was killed in the gun battle, and soldiers blew up the house.
Fighting also erupted elsewhere in the camp, with troops firing machine guns from helicopters and tanks toward gunmen hiding in alleys and shacks.
In one three-room, doorless hut shared by 35 members of the Assar family, women and children huddled as the fighting raged outside. Four-year-old Ihlam Assar was killed by tank fire, said her aunt, Itmead.
"All the children gathered near the kitchen while the tanks were firing outside, from all directions," said the aunt. "[Ihlam] was standing next to my daughter when she got a bullet in her chest, leaving her in a pool of blood among the scared children."
An Israeli army commander in the area insisted that the Israeli fire was precise and that no civilians were killed by his troops. "[Palestinian gunmen] fire in every direction with the goal of hitting us and if they hit their own people, so be it," said the commander who only gave his rank and first name, Lieutenant Colonel Adam.
In all, seven Palestinians were killed in Nusseirat - four gunmen, two teenage boys, and the 4-year-old girl. Hospital officials said 25 residents were wounded.
The military said Mohammed Saafen, until a year ago a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, was involved in attacks on Israelis, including bombings, mortar fire and shooting ambushes.
Israeli troops seized a 4-square-kilometer area of Beit Lahiya, a Gaza town from which Palestinians have frequently fired small, homemade rockets at Israeli border towns.
Two Palestinian policemen manning a roadblock in Beit Lahiya were killed by tank fire, doctors said. Soldiers ordered teenage boys and men out of their homes, and by midmorning about 700 were assembled in the town square for questioning, said Husseini Jamal, a spokesman for the regional government.
TITLE: Mystery Illness Spreading Panic Through Far East
AUTHOR: By Helen Luk
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HONG KONG - Airports screened passengers for flu-like symptoms on Monday as worried travelers wore masks to ward off infection from a mystery illness, which New Zealand's prime minister warned might escalate into a global pandemic like one 85 years ago that killed millions.
The Geneva-based World Health Organization said airline travelers could be spreading the atypical pneumonia, which it declared "a worldwide health threat" following nine deaths and hundreds of other suspected cases.
Outbreaks of atypical pneumonia that hit southern China several months ago have been followed by similar cases in neighboring Asian nations, and most recently in Europe and North America.
Symptoms include fever, coughing, shortness of breath, headache, diarrhea and muscle stiffness, but physicians understand little about the disease that officials have dubbed "severe acute respiratory syndrome," or SARS.
It was not clear whether the cases - including five deaths in China, one in Vietnam, one in Hong Kong and two in Canada - are linked or caused by one disease type or several strains. It also was unclear whether bacteria or viruses were responsible.
With so few facts established, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said some officials inside WHO fear the possibility of an outbreak as "deadly as the 1918 influenza" pandemic that killed at least 20 million.
But a WHO official in Vietnam, where a nurse on Saturday became the ninth fatality, played down such worries.
"Today we don't know enough about the outbreak to be able to say that," WHO official Pascale Brudon said. Brudon said 10 other patients with the illness in Hanoi, where at least 31 have been infected, were "getting better and better."
Nonetheless, authorities around Asia were taking precautions.
In China, a WHO official said the Chinese government has asked for help to investigate the malady.
Hank Bekedam, another WHO representative in Beijing, said the number of cases reported by the Chinese government is officially unchanged since mid-February - 305 sickened and five dead in southern China's Guangdong province, which is next door to Hong Kong.
A Chinese Health Ministry report released by WHO said "antibiotics did not have an obvious effect" on patients in Guangdong province. But, the report said, "the patients are being cured one by one."
Alan Schnur, team leader of communicable disease control for WHO in Beijing, said the Geneva-based organization issued its warning because of how fast the illness seemed to be traveling and "the global nature" of the problem.
"There's sort of the same shock and concern now as when AIDS first developed," Schnur said. "Again we have a new disease that we don't know the cause yet. We are still searching how to treat it."
In Hong Kong, where an American businessperson died last week, health officials said Monday the number of confirmed cases had almost doubled, to 83. But they said they have identified a hospital patient who may have spread the disease, which should make it easier to bring under control.
The territory's biggest air carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, ordered ground staff to turn away passengers who appeared to be sick.
Another Hong Kong airline, Dragonair, said Monday that an airport worker was suspected of having pneumonia.
Some tourists in Hong Kong wore surgical masks as they left the airport, and some travelers arriving in Guangzhou, China, also wore masks or covered their faces with scarves.
Hong Kong media reported the price of masks was rising due to heightened demand.
In Japan, there have been no cases reported but airport quarantine stations were watching out for arriving travelers who might be infected. The central government ordered health workers to report any suspected outbreaks.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry said three health officials had gone to Vietnam to help doctors there cope with its outbreak.
The Vietnamese nurse who died in Hanoi is believed to have caught pneumonia along with 30 other hospital staff after treating the American businessman who later died in Hong Kong.
The businessperson, a resident of Shanghai, reported flu-like symptoms during a two-day stay in Hong Kong before flying to Hanoi, but it is uncertain where he caught the disease, said Jimmy Lee, a spokesman for Hong Kong's Health Department.
The Hanoi French Hospital was closed and the unidentified American man was evacuated to Hong Kong, where he died last Thursday.
In Australia, a woman was hospitalized Monday with symptoms of the illness, but has not been officially diagnosed, health authorities said. They would not disclose whether she had recently traveled overseas.
In Germany, a Singapore doctor suspected of having SARS was in stable condition after being taken off a weekend flight from New York along with two family members, officials said. The doctor had treated a patient with the disease in Singapore before his trip to New York.
Elsewhere in Europe, a woman in Slovenia who came from Vietnam 10 days was suspected of being infected.
Philippine health authorities on Monday were randomly sampling pneumonia patients, and the quarantine bureau was monitoring international travelers.
One patient was discharged from a Manila hospital after being cleared of having the infection, despite being in contact with a patient who had earlier died in Hong Kong.
A WHO representative in Manila, Jean-Marc Olive, said he has asked the WHO to remove the Philippines from a list of countries where the disease has been detected.
Hong Kong travel agents specializing in package tours for Southeast Asians have reported a 70 percent to 80 percent drop in bookings compared to the same period last year, an industry official said.
"This is a worldwide issue, and it will affect tourism globally, not just in Hong Kong," said Joseph Tung, executive director of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council.
Two people died early this month in Canada, shortly after arriving from Hong Kong, and four of their relatives were hospitalized.
TITLE: New-Look Zenit Grabs First Win of Season Over Saturn
AUTHOR: By Christopher Hamilton
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A moment of intuitive communication between a Czech and a Russian sealed a 2-1 Zenit win over Saturn-REN TV Ramenskoye in what was otherwise an ugly encounter in the first game of the season at the Petrovsky Stadium on Saturday.
Without looking up on a fast break in the 61st minute, newly signed midfielder Radek Sirl produced a defense-splitting pass to Alexander Kerzhakov, who beat a final defender and produced a sublime finish past Saturn keeper Valery Chizhov with the outside of his left foot.
Zenit's first goal came from a less predictable source, when midfielder Alexei Katulsky got on the end of a cross from the right from Andrei Arshavin to head home from close range and open the scoring in the 17th minute. Arshavin was supplied by Zenit captain Olexander Spivak, who had a solid game both in center field and on the left flank.
Saturn, however, was not intimidated, and equalized against the run of play on a penalty by captain Sergei Rogachyov after striker Cleonesio Carlos da Silva was brought down by Zenit defender Daniel Kiritse at 38 minutes.
Kiritse was sent off three minutes into added time at the end of the second half for a second bookable offense, one of 11 bookings handed out by referee Valentin Ivanov.
Zenit's new Czech defender Martin Horak shored up the defense with Armenian stalwart Sarkis Ovsepyan, combining well to keep the pressure off goalie Vyacheslav Malafeyev and to link with the midfield and attack. Horak's compatriot Pavel Mares, also a defender, was less impressive, but this was likely due to an injury that led to his substitution in the second half.
Zenit's new head coach, Czech Vlastimil Petrzela, was pleased with the result but concerned about the future.
"The atmosphere [here at Petrovsky] is super," he said. "I really didn't know what to expect, but there were so many fans at yesterday's practice I told the team that we had to win today."
He also praised Katulsky and Konstantin Konoplev's work in the midfield: "They were injured during the off season and really only trained [during our final training camp] in the Czech Republic."
"Next week we have a bit match against [defending champion] Lokomotiv [Moscow] and we have serious problems with our defensive line," Petrzela said. "I don't like players like Kiritse, both of his fouls were unnecessary, mistakes which cost the team. The doctors told me Mares' ankle is injured. The defense that we have put together has been working for less than a month."
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LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's top clubs, several of them with one nervous eye on midweek Champions League deciders, had mixed fortunes on the domestic front over the weekend.
English Premiership leader Arsenal lost 2-0 away to Blackburn Rovers, allowing Manchester United to climb to within two points after it won 1-0 at Aston Villa.
Arsenal, which visits Valencia on Wednesday in a Champions League group in which all four teams have a chance of qualifying for the quarterfinals, fell to goals by Ireland's Damien Duff and Turk Tugay.
David Beckham scored for Manchester United, whose European outing away to Deportivo Coruna on Tuesday is academic after securing first place in its group last week and with the Spanish club eliminated.
Inter crushed Como 4-0 with two goals from Italy striker Christian Vieri to keep pace with Serie A leader Juventus, 3-0 winner over Modena with a brace from Czech Pavel Nedved.
Vieri, however, misses Inter's Champions League decider at Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday through suspension.
Spanish defending champion Valencia went down 1-0 at Athletic Bilbao to stay in fourth place on 46 points, eight behind Real Madrid.
Real was in danger of getting little out of a relatively light trip to Villarreal, until Ivan Helguera's 90th-minute goal gave it the three points to keep it one ahead of Real Sociedad, a 2-1 winner at Racing Santander.
The European Cup defending champion visit Lokomotiv Moscow on Tuesday needing a win to be sure of a last-eight berth.
Arch-rival Barcelona, already sure of its Champions League place, continued to under-perform on the domestic front with a 0-0 draw at Alaves.
Borussia Dortmund, which beat Hanover 2-0, is hoping not to leave Germany without a single team in any of the European club quarterfinals, but must beat qualified AC Milan away to stand a chance.
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: Dallas Heroics Down Sacramento in OT
AUTHOR: By Greg Beacham
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SACRAMENTO, California - After each of the Dallas Mavericks' seven losses to Sacramento over the past 10 months, Steve Nash insisted his team was good enough to beat the Kings in a big game. He probably didn't imagine the heroics he would have to perform just to prove it.
The All-Star point guard hit a game-tying 3-pointer with 0:02.5 left in regulation, then scored 12 points in overtime as Dallas defeated Sacramento 129-123 Sunday - avoiding a season sweep by another prime contender for the league title.
Nash finished with 27 points and 10 assists as the Mavericks got their league-high 50th victory of the season. But it was Nash's tying shot - set up by Michael Finley's heady offensive rebound - that gave the Mavericks a momentum and confidence boost.
Despite the Mavericks' run to the top of the league standings, they had lost seven of their previous eight games against Sacramento: a 4-1 series defeat in last spring's conference semifinals, and three straight losses this season.
"I felt we deserved it," Nash said. "I thought we played well enough and hard enough. I've been saying we're good enough to beat these guys for a year now. We deserved a break at the end of the game. We got one by getting an offensive rebound and getting a second chance at the 3."
Dirk Nowitzki had 34 points and 18 rebounds, and Finley scored 21 points as the Mavericks displayed all of the poise and execution many doubted they could produce against the veteran Kings. It was a compelling game, but it still was only one game - as players and coaches on both sides were quick to point out.
"I don't feel like we have a monkey off our back against Sacramento," Dallas coach Don Nelson said. "The Kings have still outplayed us this year. Because we won an overtime game ... it doesn't mean that much to me."
The Mavericks were ahead all afternoon until midway through the fourth quarter, when Sacramento scored 12 straight points and brought the Arco Arena crowd to a frenzy.
Mike Bibby's jumper with 0:14 left in regulation gave a three-point lead to the Kings. But, after Nash missed his first 3-point attempt, Finley got the rebound and found Nash in the corner for the game-tying 3-pointer - a shot that showed Dallas had the toughness to survive in the NBA's loudest arena.
"We had the game in our hands but, somehow, we got lost in our rotation on that last shot," said Peja Stojakovic, who scored 30 points for Sacramento. "Steve made an open shot. He made a lot of big shots."
In overtime, Nash made four straight field goals for Dallas - including two more 3-pointers - as the Mavericks ran away from the Kings, whose eight-game home winning streak was snapped.
The Kings were going after their first season sweep of Dallas since the 1997-1998 season. Chris Webber had 24 points - just seven after halftime - along with 15 rebounds and nine assists.
"The worst part was they were running off the court like they just won a championship," Webber said. "You never know. Maybe we'll see them again, and we'll remember that."
It still doesn't have the enmity of a true rivalry, but Sacramento's clashes with Dallas in recent years have generally been well played and exciting. The Kings won twice in Dallas earlier this season on late baskets by Keon Clark, while Sacramento got a blowout victory in the Mavericks' earlier trip to Arco Arena.
Sunday's game was an up-tempo contest befitting two of the NBA's top three offenses. All told, 13 players scored in double figures - and Clark had nine points. Nowitzki hit six 3-pointers, while Stojakovic had five.
Nowitzki - left alone on the perimeter by the pick-and-roll - made five 3-pointers in less than five minutes during the first half, but Sacramento took its first lead since the opening minutes on consecutive fast-break layups by Bibby and Bobby Jackson in the fourth.
Webber put Sacramento ahead on a hook shot with 0:56 left, and Bibby hit an off-balance jumper before Nash's game-tying shot.
"You'd like to think a shot like that doesn't affect you, but human nature takes its course," Webber said. "You try to put it out of your mind in overtime, but you can't. Maybe it was just their turn."
Minnesota 111, Portland 95. Kevin Garnett had his fifth triple-double of the season and Wally Szczerbiak scored 20 points as the Wolves beat the Trail Blazers on Sunday.
Garnett finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists for the Timberwolves, who had lost their previous two games. Szczerbiak had five 3-pointers and 18 of his points in the second half, and Joe Smith (12 points) and Marc Jackson (15) helped fill the inside void left by Rasho Nesterovic's sprained right ankle.
Troy Hudson had 13 points and Anthony Peeler had 10. Rookie guard Mike Wilks added a pair of big 3-pointers late in the game.
Rasheed Wallace led the Blazers with 18 points.
TITLE: Red Wings Fly on Hull's Triple
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DETROIT - Brett Hull's 32nd career hat trick Sunday night lifted the Detroit Red Wings into first place in the Western Conference with a 6-2 victory over the East's top team, Ottawa.
The Red Wings won for the 15th time in their last 17 games. Detroit, with 96 points, moved past the Dallas Stars and within two points of the Senators for first place overall in the NHL.
"I think we started doing the things we're supposed to do," said Hull about the Red Wings' recent run. "Some line combinations began to click and we started doing the little things."
The Senators lost their second straight game as Curtis Joseph stopped 41 shots for the Red Wings.
"He was tremendous tonight. That's the best goaltending we've seen," said Ottawa's Jason Spezza. "He robbed me a few times, he robbed Martin Havlat a few times. It was getting frustrating."
Meanwhile, Detroit got its six goals on only 20 shots.
But Hull, who also had an assist, put in three, and Henrik Zetterberg and Brendan Shanahan each had a goal and an assist. Nicklas Lidstrom got the other goal.
"The goals we scored were tremendous shots," said Detroit coach Dave Lewis. "You look at the shots at the end of the game [43-20 in favor of Ottawa] and think 'What happened?' But we won the game."
Marian Hossa and Mike Fisher scored for Ottawa.
Detroit broke a 1-1 tie by scoring three times on four second-period shots. Hull scored two of his goals.
Hull gave the Red Wings the lead 2:30 into the second period when he took the puck away from Ottawa's Chris Phillips and beat Patrick Lalime with a wrist shot from the right circle.
The Senators tied it when Fisher put in a rebound on a power play. But Hull gave the Red Wings the lead again with a wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle through Lalime's pads.
Zetterberg's power-play goal made it 4-2. His one-timer from the inside edge of the left circle beat Lalime high on the stick side.
"I didn't make the saves. That was the difference in the game," said Lalime, who was pulled after giving up five goals on 13 shots. "They didn't shoot much, they waited for their chances. and when they did, I didn't make the saves."
Shanahan added his goal 5:02 into the third period and Hull, who has 33 goals, completed his hat trick with 44 seconds remaining.
"It's a thrill to score anytime," said Hull, when asked if hat tricks are still exciting to him. "No matter where, no matter when."
He has 712 career goals, fifth on the career list. He passed Mike Gartner with a goal on Saturday.
(For other results, see Scorecard.)