SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #858 (26), Tuesday, April 8, 2003
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TITLE: American Forces Move Into Baghdad
AUTHOR: By Ellen Knickmeyer and Hamza Hendawi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces thundered deep into Baghdad on Monday, the third straight day that American troops entered the city. In the south, British troops thrust to the center of Basra, "delivering liberation" to Iraq's second largest city, a British commander said.
 
The coalition advance on both fronts "reinforces the reality that the regime is not in control of all of the major cities," said Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command in Qatar.
 With machine-gun fire providing cover, U.S. Marines grabbed planks, poles and twisted rails as they surged into Baghdad on Monday across a shattered bridge over a Tigris River tributary.
 The assault opened the way for thousands of Marines to move in from the southeast while the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division marched in from the southwest.
 American forces also stormed a presidential palace in the heart of Baghdad and briefly placed tanks outside the Information Ministry.
 U.S. Central Command said two journalists and two soldiers were killed in an Iraqi rocket attack Monday on the 3rd Infantry Division. Fifteen soldiers were injured, a statement said.
 U.S. Army Colonel David Perkins said the American military does not keep a body count but estimated his forces had killed 600 to 1,000 Iraqi fighters in Baghdad on Monday.
 "There is too much needless loss of life. We have had a lot of suicide attackers today. These guys are going to die in droves," he said. "The bridge is stacked up with them. They keep trying to ram the tanks with car bombs."
 Iraqi officials remained defiant.
 "Be assured Baghdad is safe, secure and great," Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said at a dust-blown news conference on the roof of the Palestine Hotel. "There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad, at all."
 Iraqi television and radio broadcast patriotic songs and slogans as well as footage of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein meeting with his son Qusai and top officials. The footage was not accompanied by sound.
 With Baghdad echoing from intermittent explosions on Monday night, armed militia and troops manned barricades close to the Al-Rashid Hotel and the presidential "Old Palace" compound. Most of the city was deserted and remained without electricity.
 Two bodies were recovered from three adjoining houses that were destroyed Monday, but the toll may be as high as 14, rescue workers said. At least 75 wounded civilians were brought to al-Kindi hospital in Baghdad's working-class district of al-Nahda, a hospital official said. Most suffered from gun shot wounds, burns and shrapnel.
 The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that overwhelmed hospitals in Baghdad are short of drugs, anesthetics and water.
 In other Arab countries, people expressed dismay and disbelief over television images of U.S. tanks in the heart of Baghdad. Some dismissed the news as American propaganda while others volunteered to fight for Iraq.
 In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that while Hussein's whereabouts may not be known, "we do know he no longer runs much of Iraq."
 "The circle is closing, their options are running out," Rumsfeld said of Iraqi leaders.
 Looking beyond Hussein, Rumsfeld said that planning is under way to turn over to Iraqis control of several government ministries other than defense and intelligence.
 "It's pretty well sorted through," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing.
 U.S. officials envision turning over administration of Iraq to an interim Iraqi government at some point, leading to eventual elections.
 U.S. defense officials said Monday the military is testing samples from a site in Iraq where soldiers found possible chemical weapons. Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division found the suspicious material in a compound near the Iraqi city of Hindiyah, about 100 kilometers south of Baghdad.
 Rumsfeld acknowledged reports about the site Monday but said first reports are often incorrect.
 "We have to take our time and look at it," Rumsfeld said, adding that getting samples back to the United States and completing testing can take days.
 A Knight Ridder News Service journalist traveling with the unit said initial tests of samples from the facility were inconsistent. Some tests did not indicate chemical weapons, while others indicated the presence of G-class nerve agents - which include sarin and tabun - and mustard agent, a blistering chemical first used in World War I.
 If the discovery was confirmed, it would be the first find of chemical weapons during the war. Finding and eliminating Hussein's chemical and biological weapons, which the United States claims he has, is a goal of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
 In southern Iraq, British "Desert Rats" swept through the heart of Basra to take possession of Iraq's second largest city, greeted by huge crowds of welcoming residents but also scenes of chaotic looting. At least three British soldiers were killed.
 "After decades under the heel of Saddam's brutal regime, U.K. forces are in the process of delivering liberation to the people of Basra," said Air Marshal Brian Burridge, commander of British forces in the Gulf.
 In northern Iraq, U.S. soldiers and Kurdish fighters took the town of Dibagah, near the site of a U.S. friendly-fire incident that killed 17 Kurdish fighters and a translator on Sunday. But nearby, a strategic crossroads between the key cities of Mosul and Kirkuk remained a no-man's land.
 At Khazer, due east of Mosul, Iraqis held a position west of a strategic bridge they lost to the Kurds last week, and the Kurds pulled back east of the bridge to clear the way for airstrikes. On Monday the number of airstrikes diminished somewhat.
 Two Polish reporters were abducted by armed Iraqis at a checkpoint in central Iraq on Monday afternoon, their editors said.
 U.S. war commander General Tommy Franks visited troops in Iraq, including soldiers in the holy Shiite city of Najaf and two other sites, officials said.
 U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair began to focus on postwar rebuilding in Iraq at a meeting Monday in Belfast, Northern Ireland. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "The hostilities phase is coming to a conclusion."

TITLE: Rice Visit Aims at Mending Fences
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - U.S. President George Bush's national-security adviser met with President Vladimir Putin on Monday and delivered a message from her boss saying that the United States is committed to continued partnership with Russia despite the very serious disagreements over Iraq, a senior U.S. diplomat said.
 
Condoleezza Rice's visit, which the diplomat said was scheduled last week, coincided with the firing on a Russian diplomatic convoy outside Baghdad on Sunday. Even though there has been no confirmation that U.S. troops were to blame, the incident had the potential to sour efforts by both countries to mend relations, but Russia did not appear to allow this to happen.
 Rice also met with presidential Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
 Her meeting with Putin was not announced until late in the afternoon, when Interfax reported it, citing Putin's spokesperson, Alexei Gromov. The U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the foreign and defense ministers were present during the hour-long meeting with Putin.
 Following the meeting with Foreign Minister Ivanov, Rice said only that she had had a "very good" conversation and declined to answer questions from reporters. Later in the day, the U.S. diplomat said both sides seemed "very pleased" with the talks, which were "useful in keeping up the dialogue on our relationship."
 Gromov said Russia had confirmed its position on Iraq and said the issue of a postwar settlement should be returned to the United Nations as soon as possible, Interfax reported. The U.S. diplomat said Rice had recognized that the UN and other international bodies will have roles to play, but said the leading role immediately after hostilities end will be reserved for the U.S.-led coalition.
 Kommersant reported on Monday, citing an unidentified source in the U.S. State Department, that Rice was to discuss Russia's possible role in postwar Iraq, including its role in oil projects. The U.S. diplomat would not comment on the details, but said that Rice discussed "the need to work to find a practical solution to the many issues relating both to the humanitarian aspects and to the broader reconstruction of the country."
 In the past week, Putin has toned down his criticism of the war, and both he and Bush have made overtures toward restoring their relationship. 
 Even though the Russian ambassador to Iraq directly blamed U.S. forces for the attack on his convoy, the official reaction was rather reserved. The U.S. diplomat said the issue was discussed Monday "in a calm and non-emotional manner." Gromov said Russia had expressed "serious concern" over the incident.
 The U.S. military on Monday reported finding Russian-made night-vision goggles in Iraq. The Lytkarino Optical Glass Factory, near Moscow, which manufactured the goggles, denied shipping them to Iraq and said it would have required Defense Ministry permission to do so, Itar-Tass cited the factory's technical director, Viktor Rumyantsev, as saying. The goggles are readily available in hunting stores around Russia and are said not to be suitable for military use.
 Rice spent twice as much time with Voloshin than with any other official - about two hours, the U.S. diplomat said. Voloshin, who is viewed in Washington as having played a key role in Putin's turn toward the West following the Sept. 11 attacks, was in Washington just prior to the beginning of the Iraq operation in what was seen as an attempt to secure Russia's place in the equation.

TITLE: Poll Shows Support for Early Governor Elections
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The results of a survey conducted by the Agency for Social Research last week suggest that a majority of St. Petersburg residents would support a plan to move the gubernatorial elections scheduled for next May ahead to coincide with State Duma elections this December.
 
A less-than-scientific telephone poll conducted on Monday suggested that a large number of deputies in the Legislative Assembly would also be in favor.
 "It seems to be the most likely course [that the situation will follow] that [Governor Vladimir Yakovlev] will resign before his current term expires, so the elections will take place in December 2003," said Vladimir Yeryomenko, a deputy from the United City bloc, in a telephone interview on Monday.
 Yeryomenko's comments are particularly interesting, as United City has traditionally been Yakovlev's power base in the assembly.
 "[But] if the elections were run together, this would be a handicap for some candidates, particularly those who were planning to run in the Duma elections beforehand," he added.
 According to the Agency for Social Research survey, 54 percent of respondents said they would be in favor of moving the vote date ahead, with 23 percent opposed. Sixty one percent of respondents surveyed said that they would definitely vote in the elections if they were moved. An additional 21 percent said that they were likely to vote if the election was moved.
 The report of the findings did not provide information on the survey size or the margin of error.
 "It seems to me that people are excited by the idea," said Leonid Kesselman, a political analyst at the Sociology Department at the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a telephone interview Monday, "[This is because] the fewer elections there are, the better it is for people."
 But Kesselman said that public opinion was unlikely to play a significant role in determining when the elections will be held. He said that the decision will come from other quarters.
 "I think that the decision has already been made [in Moscow], so it doesn't matter if people here are for or against it. [Moscow's] main aim is just to turn this page as soon as possible and forget about the whole situation," Kesselman said.
 According to Article 41 of the City Charter, elections are held at the end of the governor's term of office. In the event that a governor leaves office early - for example, by resigning - the article says that elections for the office must be held within six months. The charter says that the Legislative Assembly is responsible for determining the date. In the event that the assembly is unable to agree on a date, the decision falls to the City Election Commission.
 While rumors have started to swirl that Yakovlev may indeed decide to leave office before his term expires, City Hall spokesperson Alexander Afanasyev made light of the talk on Monday.
 "Why is everybody talking about resignation all the time? We might as well ask why he doesn't just shoot himself," Afanasyev said in a telephone interview. "It was the governor's idea first to move the elections to December in 1999 to save money. Now, the same lawmakers who branded the idea as a threat to democracy then are suggesting the same thing."
 "Let's see what that can do about democratic issues this time - they can't do anything without the governor anyway," he added.
 A Supreme Court decision in 1999 voided the result of a vote in the Legislative Assembly in favor of Yakovlev's plan to move gubernatorial elections ahead to coincide with the State Duma elections. The court ruled that pro-governor lawmakers had rigged the vote in the chamber by using duplicate voting keys.
 While the decision to move the election seems to enjoy support, some suggest that it could significantly damage the current alliance between certain factions at the Legislative Assembly that have followed an anti-Yakovlev line in concert with the United Russia faction, which began flexing its muscles almost immediately after the Legislative Assembly began sitting in January.
 "There is a danger that it could happen this way, which is something to avoid," Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko faction member, said by telephone on Monday. "These are two different campaigns, in which voters should be considering entirely different issues. If the gubernatorial elections took place in December, candidates would not have enough time to get their messages across."
 "There is a constant talk about this, and the idea comes from United Russia," he added. "We didn't have any sort of formal alliance with them. It was just a tactical majority to block [a pro-governor bloc] initiative to amend the City Charter, as well as to elect a speaker and the heads of commissions."
 The idea to move the gubernatorial elections was originally broached by the Legislative Assembly Speaker Vadim Tulpanov, a member of the United Russia faction, on Jan. 16, the day he was elected to chair the assembly. At the time, the announcement was greeted as a threat by pro-governor lawmakers, who wanted to amend the City Charter to allow Yakovlev to run for the third term.
 "I'm absolutely neutral, although I think it would have been better to hold the elections in December," Konstantin Sukhenko, the head of the United Russia faction, said in a telephone interview Monday. "This makes sense as an opportunity to save money and to stabilize the [political] situation in the city. Once it was clear that the governor couldn't run for a third term, a lot of candidates surfaced representing different power bases."
 "At the same time, it's Yakovlev's decision as to when to go," Sukhenko said. "He's got a right to stay until May 2004."

TITLE: Russia Angry Over Convoy Fire
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's ambassador to Iraq on Monday accused American troops of firing on his convoy outside Baghdad, but a U.S. diplomat said it was still unclear who was responsible for the incident.
 
Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko said U.S. forces fired on the convoy, which was carrying Russian diplomats and journalists toward Syria on Sunday, despite clear markings.
 "About 40 kilometers from Baghdad, there were American armored vehicles, tanks and artillery," Titorenko told reporters in Damascus. "We stopped away from them and, despite the Russian flag on the car, they opened fire on us and I suffered minor injuries while a colleague was seriously wounded.
 "We were about 40 meters away from the [American] vehicles. We tried to talk to them but they opened fire directly and continuously for 40 minutes," he said.
 Before leaving Iraq, Titorenko had told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite channel, "The economic counselor tried to signal to let them know we were foreigners but they fired at him and now he has head wounds."
 A Rossiya television journalist who was in the convoy, Alexander Minakov, said Sunday that it was caught in a crossfire while passing Iraqi positions near Baghdad's outskirts and might have been hit by both U.S. and Iraqi forces.
 Minakov gave a somewhat different account on Monday, saying on Rossiya that "it was clear, concrete fire at the cars." However, he also said that two Iraqi vehicles were in front of the convoy, and reiterated that there was firing from both sides.
 A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Russia had not yet received official information from either the United States or the Iraqis.
 A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had assured Russia that no harm was intended but was not accepting responsibility. "It's still not clear how yesterday's incident unfolded, but it does appear that the Russian convoy came into an area where we were engaged in a firefight with Iraqi forces," the diplomat said.
 The diplomat said the United States had coordinated plans with the Russians on the evacuation and had discussed various routes, but had stressed that they could not offer absolute safety guarantees because Iraq is a war zone and much of the route was not under U.S. control.
 In Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said the U.S. Central Command had received reports about an exchange of gunfire that hit part of the convoy, but added "we don't have anything that would confirm the role of U.S. forces in that."
 Titorenko and most of the diplomats crossed into Syria on Monday afternoon. A medically equipped Russian plane was to take them to Moscow on Tuesday.
 One of the Russian diplomats underwent surgery and was at an Iraqi-controlled hospital in Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Yakovenko said. Another diplomat stayed with him.

TITLE: Roma Get Civil Help From New Center
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In connection with International Gypsies Day on Tuesday, the St. Petersburg chapter of the Memorial human-rights organization held a round-table session to publicize the recent opening of the Northwest Center for Social and Legal Assistance to Roma.
 
Roma is the proper name for people commonly referred to as Gypsies or, in Russian, as <i>tsygani.</i>
 The goal of the center, which was opened in January but hasn't been functioning at full capacity, is to help inform Roma of their civil rights in Russia, and to provide somewhere to turn for help for an ethnic group that is often the target of abuse from law-enforcement agencies and racist groups.
 Listening to the stories told by Roma about their experiences here - stories of victimization in the form of extortion by law-enforcement officials, racially motivated verbal abuse, violence and, in extreme cases, murder - it was clear that the new center has a large task ahead of it.
 &quot;In the past three years, the number of racially motivated attacks on gypsies has skyrocketed. The attacks are not only more frequent, but also more violent,&quot; said Stefanya Kulayeva, the project leader at the new center. &quot;It is common for groups of youngsters to wait for gypsies outside areas with a large Gypsy population and to assault them physically.&quot;
 But although the danger from street thugs is significant, many Roma have an even greater fear of the police.
 Kulayeva said that the police prey on the Roma, often taking advantage of their poor educational background and uncertainty about their position in Russia to extort money from them.
 The ethnic stereotype that portrays Roma as thieves and drug dealers makes them a particularly vulnerable group, Kulayeva said.
 &quot;Police officers constantly extort money from Gypsies, taking advantage of their low level of education and familiarity with their legal rights. They often plant drugs on them and then force them to hand over money to avoid prosecution,&quot; Kulayeva said.
 &quot;These cases never go to court,&quot; she said. &quot;Gypsies would rather sell everything they have than face going to prison.&quot;
 The legal help offered through the center is targeted at helping Roma bring individual cases to the attention of the authorities in a situation where the police regularly refuse to register complaints of assault or theft.
 The new center already employs one lawyer on a full-time basis to help Roma with filling complaints, and provide them with police forms and the addresses and telephone numbers of the proper people to contact in the event that the police refuses to register a complaint. Kulayeva said the legal advice will be available for Roma in the entire Northwest Region, and that assistance in the form of a lawyer will be sent anywhere in the region to advise Roma who find themselves in particularly difficult situations.
 &quot;When these incidents occur, the victim is usually in shock and is not always able to deal with legal questions, Kulayeva said. &quot;Memorial can help them take care of these questions.&quot;
 Alexander Klein, a young Roma from Pskov, in the Northwest Region, is tragically familiar with the dangers his people face, having lost a wife and her unborn child, whom he said were murdered by police.
 In May 2002, his 22-year old wife, Fatima Alexandrovich, was arrested while riding a crowded bus after police alleged that she had attempted to steal another passenger's wallet. The wallet was discovered lying on the floor of the bus, but a police officer on the bus detained Alexandrovich and took her to the narcotics-squad department at a local station.
 Although, according to Klein, the police said Alexandrovich would be released half an hour later, she was later found on the ground outside the police station after having fallen from its second-floor window. She died from injuries related to the fall after spending four days in a coma and, while the police say that she jumped out the window during questioning, her husband said that she was thrown or forced to jump.
 &quot;The police said that she jumped out the window herself, but I know she would never have done that. She had two small children and was pregnant. There was no reason for her to kill herself,&quot; Klein said. &quot;She had bruises and black eyes. There were bruises in the form of finger marks on her arms. I think that she might have been raped, and then pushed through the window. But the case was classified as a simple accident.&quot;
 Klein's sister, Vera, was with Alexandrovich on the bus and said that her sister-in-law did not try to steal the wallet, which she said fell on the floor while its owner was pulling some documents out of her purse. She said that Alexandrovich was accused simply because she had a dark complexion and looked stereotypically Roma.
 Klein said that, at the time of his wife's death, he was in too deep a state of shock to demand that an autopsy be performed or even to file a complaint. With the help of Memorial, he filed an official complaint two months ago, to which he has yet to receive any form of official reply.
 Kulayeva said that, while the Kleins and other Roma often face particular brutality at the hands of the police, the situation grows out of a larger, political injustice.
 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Klein and his family moved to Russia from Latvia. But although they had held full Soviet citizenship before 1991, they have no legal right to live in Russia.
 &quot;[Then President Boris] Yeltsin promised that all holders of Soviet passports in Russia could exchange them for Russian passports,&quot; Kulayeva said. &quot;But a large number of Gypsies have been denied passports, being told that they are foreigners.&quot;
 Even when they carry Russian passports, Roma still run into institutional roadblocks here.
 Margarita Marshinnikova, the head of school No. 462 on the outskirts of the St. Petersburg suburb of Pushkin, an area with a relatively large Roma population, said that many schools in St. Petersburg refuse to teach Roma children, considering it to be a waste of time. As a result, rates of illiteracy among Roma in Russia are rising rapidly.
 With the aid of Memorial, Marshinnikova set up special Roma language and culture classes to attract Roma children back to school.
 The absence of a Russian passport also means that many Roma have no access to health care. Alexander Chuprevich, a Roma from Pskov, said Sunday that his pregnant wife was refused treatment in a hospital there. She was told that she was a foreigner, as she had no Russian passport.
 Alexander and Vera Klein are among the Roma in Russia who are technically stateless and, therefore, are not entitled to any benefits from the Russian state.
 &quot;I don't have a Russian passport because, when I applied, I was told I was a foreigner. The only passport I have is the old Soviet one,&quot; Vera said.
 &quot;I am a citizen of a country that doesn't even exist anymore,&quot; she said. &quot;Because I don't have a Russian passport, I'm not legally registered as a resident, which means that I can't get a job, I can't receive child benefits as a single mother of two, and I can't send my children to school.&quot;
 To survive, Vera stands at the market every day, where she sells various goods. She said that she earns about 150 rubles a day.
 Some Roma, like Vera, said that they have little hope for the future and no longer have the energy to try to improve their legal situation.
 &quot;Officials treat us with such contempt that I don't even want to go back and apply for a passport again,&quot; she said. &quot;I don't know what I'm going to do - this can't go on like this forever. One day I will really have to go and steal or sell drugs, just as people think all Gypsies do.&quot;
 The increasing anti-Roma feelings in Russia have even brought some to lie about their ethnicity.
 &quot;I usually say that I'm Belarussian&quot; Chuprevich said. &quot;I am afraid to admit that I'm a Gypsy.&quot;

TITLE: Party of Life Coming Out of the Shadows
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The obscure Party of Life appears to be positioning itself to play a role in national politics, with Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov and possibly Lyudmila Putina as members.
 
The party, already the home of animal lovers and environmentalists, held the first meeting of its Moscow branch Monday. The meeting was to pave the way for Mironov, an old colleague of President Vladimir Putin's, to be named officially the head of the party at its first congress on April 19, said Tatyana Piskaryova, the party's spokesperson.
 Piskaryova said she could not immediately confirm Putina's membership, but an official in the party's press service did so on condition of anonymity.
 Political analysts said the Kremlin may see Mironov's party as a potential alternative to United Russia and a tool for restraining the &quot;party of power.&quot;
 &quot;I would say that the Party of Life is a small armored train that the Kremlin is keeping on a side track,&quot; said Vladimir Pribylovsky of the Panorama think tank. &quot;If the Kremlin decides to split with United Russia for any reason, it can boost Mironov's party to win the Duma elections in the very same way it did in just two months with the obscure Unity movement four years ago.&quot;
 Putina's membership in the party would give it considerable weight, he said.
 This scenario seems unlikely, however, since the Kremlin has already invested so much in United Russia, Pribylovsky said.
 Alexei Makarkin of the Center of Political Technologies said the party is being nurtured by a cautious faction in the presidential administration to keep United Russia in check.
 The party also allows Mironov to fulfill his political ambitions, Makarkin said. &quot;His post gives him the aura of a political heavyweight, which in fact is diminished by the unclear status of the Federation Council, which now has only the power to rubberstamp Duma bills,&quot; he said. &quot;Mironov needs a political organization behind him to strengthen his influence within the state machine.&quot;
 According to the party's Web site, Rpvita.ru, it is a moderate, socially oriented group. It has helped to supply medication to regional hospitals and raise AIDS awareness, the web site says.
 &quot;For the Party of Life, there is no right, no left, no centrists, there is only the human being,&quot; Irina Rukina, a member of the Moscow City Duma and a co-chairperson of the party, said at Monday's meeting, the Rosbalt news agency reported.
 The party has a &quot;charismatic potential leader, Sergei Mironov,&quot; she said. &quot;We have a professional team, which, along with having a leader, is very important for victory in the forthcoming elections to the State Duma in December.&quot;
 The most likely scenario for the elections, the analysts said, would be for the Party of Life to merge with United Russia in exchange for getting two or three names onto the party list.
 Yury Korgunyuk of the Indem think tank said the Party of Life is too weak to meddle in political conflicts and therefore will never win any substantial public support. Its lot then is to ride on the coattails of Putin's popularity, he said.
 Analysts, however, said the true backbone of the party is the Will of St. Petersburg, a movement headed by Mironov before he was elected speaker in December 2001. The movement includes people from Putin's election headquarters in St. Petersburg in 2000, of which Mironov was a deputy head, Makarkin said.
 Mironov, who joined the party on March 22, is one of 55 members on its national council, Piskaryova said. She could not name any other major figures on the council. The party, registered by the Justice Ministry in October, has 38,000 members in 80 regions, she said.

TITLE: Prosecutor Interested in Kasyanov
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Prosecutor General's Office says that it would like to question Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov over his role in a crab-fishing scam that has already netted the deputy head of the State Fisheries Committee and has ties to a murdered governor.
 
&quot;We have questions [for] several officials in the government, including Kasyanov,&quot; Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said in televised remarks. &quot;This case will be pursued to the end, and any officials found to be involved in any illegal activities will be brought to justice, irrespective of rank.&quot; 
 Prosecutors say they are investigating how Magadan's state fishing-research institute acquired a scientific quota for an additional 2,200 tons of crab between September and December - then sold the catch abroad for $6.2 million, &quot;causing grave damage to the state.&quot;
 Such institutes are routinely granted small quotas to study shellfish and fish populations, but getting approval for additional quotas requires the approval of several ministries and the signature of the prime minister. 
 Institutes do not have their own fleets, so they cut deals with commercial fishing firms, one of which, in this case, was partly owned by Deputy State Fisheries Committee chief Yury Moskaltsov, who late last month became the third person charged in the case.
 Prosecutors say they are probing senior government officials for abuse of office and have seized documents from the White House, but have yet to officially question Kasyanov, who approved the quotas at a September cabinet meeting.
 &quot;You be the judge,&quot; an official in the prosecutor's office told Kommersant on Saturday. &quot;In previous years the free quota for scientific research was 4 percent of the season's total catch. This time, the Magadan companies got 40 percent.&quot;
 Kasyanov's office declined to comment, but a source close to the prime minister denied that prosecutors had seized documents or even set foot in the White House recently.
 &quot;Kasyanov has never received an official request to appear for questioning and no documents whatsoever have been confiscated,&quot; the source said. &quot;We are surprised the prosecutor general's office decided to approach the media instead of approaching the prime minister himself. They must know the procedures.&quot;
 Kolesnikov, in remarks reported by Interfax, accused Igor Shuvalov, head of the government's apparatus, of not cooperating with prosecutors with requests for documents related to the quota, necessitating the search of the White House.
 Kolesnikov said that Shuvalov declined to turn over the documents for two weeks, using various excuses to avoid meeting with him.
 &quot;I got sick and tired of this and gave an order to make the confiscation, and it was done,&quot; he said. Government officials said that all the documents had been handed over at the end of January.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Sending Help
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - President Vladimir Putin appointed Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Chernenko as a deputy to Valentina Matviyenko, the recently appointed presidential envoy in the Northwestern Region, Interfax reported Monday.
 In the Interior Ministry, Chernenko headed the Federal Migration Service, which recently came under harsh criticism for failing to handle visa processing quickly. The FMS began visa-processing services on Jan. 1.
 It was not clear Monday who will fill Chernenko's post in the Federal Migration Service.
 
 
<b>Picking Up the Tab
 </b>

MOSCOW - (SPT) - Russia's richest man according to Forbes magazine, Yukos's Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said Monday he will finance the Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, liberal parties from his own pocket, Interfax reported.
 "My political sympathies are with SPS and Yabloko and I am ready to direct my private money to finance them," Khodorkovsky was quoted by the agency as saying. He refused to disclose the amount he plans to donate to the political parties but stressed that the money will be his own, not Yukos'.
 "People who work in the company have different political views and taking such a decision would be an usurpation [of power]," he said.
 
 
<b>Paper Trail
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - The General Prosecutor's office opened a criminal case to investigate whether the former editor of Noviye Izvestia newspaper, Igor Golembiovsky, and his deputy, Sergei Agafonov, were responsible for the deliberate bankruptcy of the company, Interfax reported. The investigation will be carried out by the Interior Ministry.
 Oleg Mitvol, the chairperson of the Noviye Izvestia company, fired Golembiovsky as the paper's general director, saying he and his management were responsible for theft. Golembiovsky and Agafonov said they were not aware of the investigation.
 
 
<b>Grave Discovery
 </b>

ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia (AP) - Police in Chechnya discovered four mass graves with disfigured bodies over the previous 24 hours, emergency officials said Sunday. 
 Three sites were found in the northern Nadterechny district, usually a relatively peaceful area, Chechnya's Emergency Situations Ministry said. The heads and arms had been cut off of the corpses, which were stacked in a shallow grave and covered with soil, the ministry said. It did not say how many bodies were in the graves. 
 Another grave with two bodies was discovered in the village of Solyonaya Balka outside Grozny, the ministry said. The dead men's heads were wrapped in black plastic bags. Both bore signs of strangling and their teeth had been knocked out, it said. 
 Investigations were opened into both cases, and police and prosecutors were trying to identify the bodies. There was no way to immediately know whether the dead were civilians, militants or federal troops.
 Also Sunday, the body of a pro-Moscow Chechen police official was discovered, an official in the Kremlin-backed administration said. The body of Madzhid Aguyev, the deputy commander of a rapid-reaction squad, was found with multiple bullet wounds in a car near the village of Isti-Su, the agency said, citing the Chechen Interior Ministry. 



TITLE: Brits Claim Body of 'Chemical Ali' Found
AUTHOR: By Tini Tran
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BASRA, Iraq - Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of the most brutal members of President Saddam Hussein's inner circle, was apparently killed by an airstrike on his house in Basra, British officials said on Monday. He had been dubbed &quot;Chemical Ali&quot; by opponents for ordering a 1988 poison-gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds.
 
Major Andrew Jackson of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment said that his superiors had reported the death of the man who was Hussein's first cousin, entrusted with defending southern Iraq against invading coalition forces.
 Al-Majid apparently was killed on Saturday when two coalition aircraft used laser-guided munitions to attack his house in Basra. Jackson said a body that was thought to be his was found along with that of his bodyguard and the head of Iraqi intelligence services in Basra.
 &quot;We have some strong indications that he was killed in the raid,&quot; said British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon. &quot;I cannot yet absolutely confirm the fact that he (al-Majid) is dead, but that would certainly be my best judgment of the situation.&quot;
 Jackson said that the apparent discovery of al-Majid's body was one of the reasons the British decided to move infantry into Basra, because they hoped that resistance in the southern Iraqi city might crumble with the top leadership gone.
 &quot;The regime is finished. It is over, and liberation is here,&quot; said Group Captain Al Lockwood, spokesperson for British forces in the Gulf. &quot;The leadership is now gone in southern Iraq.&quot;
 Believed to be in his fifties, al-Majid led a 1988 campaign against rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq in which whole villages were wiped out. An estimated 100,000 Kurds, mostly civilians, were killed.
 Al-Majid also has been linked to the bloody crackdown on Shiites in southern Iraq after their uprising following the 1991 Gulf War. Prior to that, he served as governor of Kuwait during Iraq's seven-month occupation of its neighbor in 1990-1991-an invasion that led to the Gulf War.
 Human-rights groups had called for al-Majid's arrest on war-crimes charges when he toured Arab capitals last January seeking to rally support against mounting U.S. pressure on Hussein's regime.
 Syria and Lebanon ignored international calls to arrest al-Majid when he visited in January. He dropped scheduled stops in Jordan and Egypt - both U.S. allies. Egypt refused to receive him and the Jordanian government denied a visit was ever planned.
 &quot;Al-Majid is Saddam Hussein's hatchet man,&quot; Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York, said at the time. &quot;He has been involved in some of Iraq's worst crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity.&quot;
 Al-Majid was a warrant officer and motorcycle messenger in the army before Hussein's Baath party led a coup in 1968. He was promoted to general and served as defense minister from 1991 to 1995, as well as a regional party leader.
 In 1988, as the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was winding down, he commanded a scorched-earth campaign to wipe out a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq. Later, he boasted about the attacks, including the March 16, 1988, poison-gas strike on the village of Halabja, where an estimated 5,000 people died.
 During peace talks in Baghdad in April 1991, the Kurdish delegation leader, Jalal Talabani, told al-Majid that more than 200,000 Kurds lost their lives in the Iraqi campaign. Al-Majid replied that the figure was exaggerated and the dead were not more than 100,000, according to Arab press reports.
 After Iraq's 1991 Shiite Muslim uprising was crushed, Iraqi opposition groups released a video that they said had been smuggled out of southern Iraq. In the video, which was shown on several Arab TV networks, al-Majid was seen executing captured rebels with pistol shots to the head and kicking others in the face as they sat on the ground.
 He was no less brutal with his own family.
 His nephew and Hussein's son-in-law, Lieutenant General Hussein Kamel, was in charge for many years of Iraq's clandestine weapons programs before defecting in 1995 to Jordan with his brother, Saddam Kamel, who was married to Hussein's other daughter.
 Both brothers were lured back to Iraq in February 1996 and killed on their uncle's orders, together with several other family members.


TITLE: UN To Meet To Discuss the Rebuilding of Postwar Iraq
AUTHOR: By Edith M. Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday he asked to meet with the Security Council to discuss the reconstruction of postwar Iraq, stressing he expects the United Nations to have &quot;an important role.&quot;
 
The UN's role after the war has become a major issue, with the Bush administration insisting the U.S.-led coalition fighting in Iraq take the lead in reconstruction. The European Union and Washington's closest ally, Britain, are pushing for greater UN involvement.
 Annan said only the UN can bring international legitimacy to the process of rebuilding Iraq.
 &quot;I do expect the UN to play an important role,&quot; he said. &quot;Above all, UN involvement brings legitimacy, which is necessary - necessary for the country, for the region, and for the peoples of the world.&quot;
 In countries that are emerging from conflict, Annan said, the UN has had &quot;good experience&quot; facilitating &quot;the emergence of a new or interim administration.&quot; That includes working with aid donors and UN agencies on reconstruction, and on promoting human rights and the rule of law, he said.
 The secretary general spoke to reporters shortly before meeting the 15 Security Council officers in his 38th floor office at UN headquarters, on a day when U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were to start talks in Northern Ireland, with postwar Iraq high on the agenda.
 Annan talked separately about Iraq with all 191 member states last week.
 Annan announced the appointment of Rafeeuddin Ahmed, a former UN assistant secretary general and Pakistani diplomat, as his special adviser on the issue of postwar Iraq. He said Ahmed has been working for him since February, &quot;thinking about what is likely to happen, and what the likely UN role will be.&quot;
 The United Nations took over the administration of East Timor in its transition to independence, and is still running Kosovo. But Annan said &quot;Iraq is not East Timor and Iraq is not Kosovo.&quot;
 &quot;There are trained personnel, there is a reasonably effective civil service. There are engineers and others who can play a role in their own country,&quot; he said. &quot;Iraqis have to be responsible for their political future and to control their own natural resources. And whatever one can do to help the emergence of a new leadership, or a new situation, is what one should focus on.&quot;
 The council has been bitterly divided over the conflict, with France, Russia, Germany and China rejecting authorization for the war and arguing that Iraq could be disarmed peacefully. The same division is emerging again over plans for Iraq's reconstruction.
 France and Russia have vested interests in Iraqi oil - the country's most coveted economic asset. Both have extensive oil concessions in Iraq. Though no oil is being shipped during wartime, only the Security Council can change how it is sold - and how the money is spent.

TITLE: Nothing New Identified in Innovation
AUTHOR: By Katherine Ters
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia may have some of the world's most talented scientists and top research institutes, but that doesn't mean it has a hi-tech economy.
 
In fact, according to participants at a top-level British-Russian seminar held on Thursday, the county is not using its scientific resources to their full potential.
 &quot;Russia can't yet be called a hi-tech country,&quot; said Mikhail Kovalchuk, executive secretary of the Presidental Science and Technology Committee. &quot;Russia is a raw-materials country; it gets more than 40 percent of its GDP from raw materials, even though we have 12 percent of the world's scientific potential concentrated here.&quot;
 The seminar, &quot;Britain and Russia: Developing a Science-Based Economy,&quot; was organized jointly by the British Council and the Northwest Center for Strategic Research, a public strategic-planning institute, as part of British Science Week, itself part of UK@SPb, a British government-funded program for St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations.
 The seminar, which included a round table and presentations by British and Russian government officials and advisors, focused on innovation and its role in economic development. Also taking part were the heads of St. Petersburg scientific institutions and representatives from science-and-technology committees and research centers from across the Northwest Region.
 The U.K. government's chief scientific advisor, David King, outlined the British experience of moving from a manufacturing-based to a hi-tech economy, stressing the importance of fusing academic research and business and, in particular, the need to create mechanisms to facilitate knowledge transfer between the two.
 &quot;This is the key to finding funding for science, and for keeping businesses globally competitive,&quot; he said.
 In Britian, King said, a new company is created for every $19 billion invested in research. The figure for the United States is one company for every $72 billion invested.
 Investing in academic research also brings benefits for the scientists involved, King said. He recalled looking out of his window in Cambridge a few years ago and seeing rusty, aging cars belonging to his fellow academics in the parking lot below.
 &quot;Now, if you look in the same car park, there are a number of Porches and Mercedes,&quot; he said. &quot;Out of the 50 academics in our faculty, six are millionaires as a result of their spin-out activities.&quot;
 &quot;In the past, when academics came across something new, they would think about publishing an article; now, they think about setting up a company,&quot; he said. &quot;Spin-out activities have become a part of what academics in Britain do now.&quot;
 Participants in the round table discussed the problem of Russia's brain drain, the difficulty of finding loans to cover international patent costs and the lack of information and support for scientists with start-up projects and inventions. Many participants complained about current public funding levels for science.
 &quot;The creation of a silicon valley in Russia is not possible despite our scientific potential,&quot; said Vladimir Troyan, the vice rector of research at St. Petersburg State University. &quot;Current funding levels do not adequately support Russia's scientific potential.&quot;
 Russia's scientific resources are large, with more than 4,000 research institutes employing over 800,000 researchers, but underfunded. Russian scientists are well known for their prowess in pure physics and math, but are increasingly gaining recognition for software development, nanotechnology, biotechnology, lasers, materials development and optoelectronics. Software and biotech outsourcing sectors are growing particularly fast.
 &quot;Foreign investors come to Russia and make fat profits from our scientific resources,&quot; Troyan continued. &quot;Russians are not getting as much as they could be from these activities.&quot;
 Despite giving an exhausting description of the history of science in Russia, Kovalchuk failed to address the question of the day: What is the Russian government doing to stimulate an innovation-based economy?
 Kovalchuk said that the government believed it should take care of the generic situation, rather than picking particular technologies or scientific projects to support. However, he sidestepped questions about funding, and failed to mention any government programs that really assisted scientists commercialize their discoveries.
 First Deputy Science Minister Andrei Fursenko said that the government was well aware of the need to support science, but suggested funding increases were unlikely.
 &quot;Science was never perceived as part of the market in the past. We need to change this attitude and make it more marketable,&quot; he said. &quot;Our scientific institutions from Soviet times are important resources, but you all need to be aware, that the government only has a finite amount of resources and that is not going to change.&quot;
 Round-table participants also talked about the difficulties of attracting venture capital.
 &quot;Investment capital operates on the basis of confidence, and Russia's image in the U.K. is not quite there yet,&quot; King said. &quot;Russia is known for its scientific resources, but it will take time for it to improve its image and for investor confidence to follow.&quot;
 &quot;Remember, it took Britain 30 years to change its image,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Business VIPs Head for London
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton and Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: LONDON - Hundreds of Russian business leaders, politicians and their bodyguards gathered Thursday to present their case to investors at a packed Russian Economic Forum, an annual investment powwow that influential Alfa Bank President Pyotr Aven jokingly said was beginning to resemble a &quot;Partkhozaktiv,&quot; the Soviet-era conference between party leaders and enterprise directors.
 With more than three years of stability under Russia's belt and steady economic growth pushed along by high oil prices, no headline grabbing scandals spilled out at the forum's opening session. Instead, the emphasis was on mundane but vital issues for Russia to modernize its economy, such as corporate restructuring, cutting back bureaucracy, reform of its dinosaur natural monopolies and accession to the World Trade Organization.
 But the shadow of the more scandalous days of Russia's transition to a market economy nevertheless hung over the conference. Surrounded by bodyguards and dressed playboy style in a white open-necked shirt, former Kremlin powerbroker Boris Berezovsky, now in self-imposed exile in London and facing extradition hearings on fraud charges, watched on the sidelines as former &quot;partners in crime&quot; at the top of Boris Yeltsin's administration, such as Anatoly Chubais, carried on the show of Russia's development, telling investors about new reform projects.
 When Chubais was asked by a BBC World reporter whether he feared his reputation as Russia's most hated man would have a negative impact on investor perceptions of his drive to restructure Unified Energy Systems, the electricity monopoly he now heads, Berezovsky, who attended the informal press conference that Chubais held in a side lounge, jumped in to joke that he was in fact Russia's most hated man.
 Berezovsky earlier had trained his sights on Chubais during his formal presentation to the full forum, standing at the back of the auditorium, in the middle of the central aisle.
 Even though Berezovsky at his own press conference Wednesday said he believed Russia's business barons would, by the end of the autumn, join him in opposing Putin's regime as being damaging to the business climate, not one of the business leaders here was seen openly to speak with him.
 And, even though the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre was filled to overcapacity, some delegates feared worsening relations between Russia and the United States and its ally Britain over the war in Iraq could hit investment flows.
 &quot;It is a big risk for Russia to allow relations with the U.S. to sour. This is extremely dangerous,&quot; Chubais told reporters after his presentation. &quot;This is against Russia's national interests.&quot;
 Anatoly Karachinsky, the president of Russian IT giant Information Business Systems, also warned that the stand-off could damage investment.
 &quot;Our alliance with the United States has opened huge new horizons for the Russian IT industry. It has already paid real dividends,&quot; Karachinsky said in an interview. &quot;If relations worsen, we could lose a big opportunity: the chance to become the programmer of choice for the countries of the coalition, which have markets worth tens of billions of dollars.&quot;
 But Boris Nemtsov, a leader of Union of Right Forces, assured the conference that any damage was only temporary.
 Other investors have feared a collapse in Russia's mainly oil-driven economy should the end of the Iraqi war lead to an oil-price downturn. But Alfa Bank's Aven was on hand to tell the conference the exact scenarios he plotted for the Russian economy under a drop in crude prices.
 He said a fall to $18 per barrel would mean the Central Bank would stop being able to build its foreign-currency reserves, while a drop to $14 would mean the end of the government's ability to preserve a budget surplus. Down to $10, however, and that's the end of Russia's economic growth, he said in a presentation. &quot;Everything looks very presentable,&quot; he said, however.
 He said that the fundamentals of Russia's economy looked bright, with a boom in the services sector helping drive overall GDP growth ahead of industrial growth for the first time last year.
 But he warned that growth of small and medium businesses was still low and that state savings bank Sberbank's stranglehold on the banking industry was still stifling the rest of the sector.
 Nemtsov also criticized the government for slowing down reforms. &quot;High oil prices have a sleep-inducing effect on the government, while upcoming elections have a paralyzing effect,&quot; he said.
 In a sign that there could be future conflict between the government and Russia's leading tycoons, Aven, during his presentation, lashed out at plans being mulled by the government to find ways to take a greater share of the oil giants' windfall profits from high oil prices.
 &quot;It is a fundamental mistake to take something away from the oilmen,&quot; he said, stressing that economic growth so far had been driven by the oil sector.
 &quot;Taking into account the state of the government apparatus, it would be a big mistake to take something away from the oil barons thinking that someone else would know better where to invest it. This would be a measure that would put economic growth under threat.&quot;
 The government has been considering proposals to levy a greater royalty tax on the oil giants for their use of natural resources in order to push for a greater diversification of the economy out of its raw materials base.
 The influential head of the Russian National Investment Council, Alexander Lebedev, said in an interview that levying greater royalty taxes would free up funds for the government to cut taxes for other sectors of the economy.
 &quot;A few people are getting billions in profits and this is not going to the rest of the economy. The president has to find the will to raise royalty payments and cut taxes in other sectors of the economy to encourage growth in other sectors,&quot; he said. &quot;The government could gain an extra $40 billion to $50 billion from the natural-resources sector if this happens.&quot;
 Anti-Monopoly Minister Ilya Yuzhanov also said that the government should take such steps. &quot;It's important to increase efforts to build a mechanism for the state to play its role as the owner of natural resources and balance out access to these natural resources,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Programming Teams Win Top Honors in U.S.
AUTHOR: By Larisa Naumenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When 14-year-old Timofei Borodin started doing algorithmic programming six years ago as an extracurricular activity in his hometown of Kostroma in central Russia, he had no idea how far the hobby would take him.
 
Last week Borodin became one of six Russian students to win gold medals at the Association for Computing Machinery's International Collegiate Programming Contest in Beverly Hills, California.
 Borodin's gold medal means even more to Russia's information-technology community, which sees the winners as a new generation of programmers for the country's still-rudimentary industry.
 &quot;It shows the strengths of the Russian system of higher education and proves that the Russian IT talent is the best in the world,&quot; said Alexis Sukharev, president of the Auriga software company.
 Two teams, Moscow State University and St. Petersburg's Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics, took home two of the four gold medals. The students' medals were second and third behind the Cup winner - Warsaw University's team. Saratov State University finished seventh in the competition and won a silver medal.
 &quot;These two gold-medal teams outperformed the best of the best university students at the world's great universities by working harder, preparing better and delivering more solutions under pressure,&quot; said William Poucher, ICPC executive director. &quot;They set the standards for their peers worldwide at unprecedented levels.&quot;
 The winners and their mentors attribute their success to Russia's system of science education - an inheritance from the time of the Soviet Union, when mathematics and physics were some of the most popular majors at colleges and universities.
 It took a few years of training to get the teams ready to win, said Sergei Chernyshov, a 23-year-old graduate student at Moscow State University, who founded and now coaches one of the gold-medal winners - MGU's Yarik team of Pyotr Mitrichev, 18, Yevgeny Cherepanov, 21, and Maxim Babenko, 21. Chernyshov participated in the contest a few years before as a member of Yarik.
 &quot;There's a strong tradition of school Olympiads in mathematics,&quot; said Chernyshov. Since Soviet times, contests in math have allowed the best colleges and universities to search for talented youth outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.
 The two winning teams are a good example of regional recruitment: On the St. Petersburg team, Borodin, 20, is from Kostroma, Alexander Shtuchkin, 19, is from Saratov and Yevgeny Yuzhakov, 20, is from Kotlas.
 On the Moscow team, only the youngest, Mitrichev, is from Moscow. &quot;I've been into computers since 11 or 12 years old,&quot; he said. Shy and reserved, Mitrichev already has an impressive award history, having won gold and silver medals in the programming Olympiads during his three last years of high school. Last year, while still only in high school, his team was the best at the Russian college-programming contest.
 &quot;We are taught to think and to look for solutions ourselves rather than to use methods that are already out there,&quot; Chernyshov said.
 The 70 teams in this year's competition were required to solve ten problems in five hours. Some of the problems were to write a program on how to determine an optimal bridge configuration, or to design a program for a set of switches for a huge computer-operated marquee.
 The winning team, Warsaw University, successfully solved nine problems, while MGU solved eight and St. Petersburg solved seven.
 Warsaw's win broke Russia's streak - St. Petersburg State University was champion two years in a row in 2000 and 2001.
 Borodin said psychological readiness to participate in the contest and to face the pressure is also very important. &quot;This is one of the reasons we performed better than last year, when we finished fourteenth,&quot; he said.
 Borodin already works as a software programmer and sees his future in this field.
 Still, some experts, like Vladimir Parfyonov, dean of the IT and programming department, said they fear real talent is becoming a rarity in Russia with less young people interested in math and other sciences, a trend he sees increasing across the world.
 &quot;The level of education has dropped worldwide and this wave has reached our country too,&quot; he said. &quot;Our human resources have nearly run out.&quot;
 But young Mitrichev is more optimistic than that. He needs to find two new members for his team next year, as his current teammates will not be eligible for future contests.
 &quot;We'll see how it goes,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Gauging the Economic Consequences of War
AUTHOR: By Alan B. Krueger
TEXT: &quot;EVEN if it did not sow the decay of the whole civilized life of Europe,&quot; an ominously prescient John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919, it was &quot;abhorrent and detestable&quot; to impose financial reparations on Germany after World War I. 
 
Although untold battles lie ahead and the extent of destruction is yet to be determined, there will eventually be a postwar Iraq. Historians will judge the success of the war by the success of the peace. Will the consequences resemble the tragedy of Germany after World War I or the success of Germany after World War II? The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has much riding on an outcome approximating the latter, but it has done little publicly to describe its postwar plans, other than to give lucrative contracts to former business associates in closed bidding and to request $3.5 billion - a down payment - for postwar relief and reconstruction in its recent $75-billion supplemental-spending bill.
 Even without punitive war reparations, the financial burden on Iraq already poses a big obstacle to reconstruction. The fog of finance is almost as thick as the fog of war in Iraq, but analysts have pieced together a balance sheet that looks, well, wildly out of balance. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein borrowed heavily to finance his war with Iran, the invasion of Kuwait, and the first Persian Gulf war. On top of this, the United Nations Compensation Commission received $320 billion of claims for damages against Iraq related to its invasion of Kuwait.
 Iraq's total potential obligation - from war-related compensation claims, foreign debt and pending contracts - is $383 billion, according to Frederick D. Barton and Bathsheba N. Crocker of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Their report, &quot;A Wiser Peace: An Action Strategy for a Post-Conflict Iraq&quot; (available at www.csis.org/isp/pcr/index.htm), should be required reading for anyone looking for a blueprint of how to rebuild Iraq successfully after the war.
 &quot;In any reconstruction there is a make-or-break issue,&quot; said Barton, a veteran of United States and United Nations efforts to rebuild war-torn regions like Bosnia, Haiti and Rwanda. &quot;Debt is the make-or-break issue for Iraq.&quot;
 To gain some perspective on the crushing financial burden facing the Iraqi people, note that, with a population of 24 million, pending obligations work out to $16,000 for every man, woman and child. The Central Intelligence Agency estimates, probably optimistically, that Iraq's per capita gross domestic product is $2,500. So, for the average person, financial obligations exceed income by a ratio of more than six to one.
 If 50 percent of Iraq's future export income is diverted to paying down the debt - more than three times the percentage extracted for Germany's World War I reparations - it would take more than 35 years to pay off current obligations fully, even after allowing for reasonable growth in oil exports.
 The ratio of debt to GDP in Iraq is more than 10 times what it is in Argentina or Brazil.
 Even if the Barton-Crocker estimates are way off, the debt load facing future generations of Iraqis is overwhelming.
 What would happen if an occupied Iraq simply defaulted on the debt?
 Patrick Bolton, an expert on sovereign bankruptcy at Princeton University, said creditors could seize Iraq's assets in their countries or sue to block future creditors from collecting money owed to them, creating an obvious disincentive for anyone considering investing in Iraq. Creditors might even be able to block the United States from using Iraqi oil reserves for the Iraqi people, as the Bush administration has promised.
 Indeed, the United Nations has been siphoning off 28 percent of Iraq's oil-export revenue to compensate claimants from the invasion in Kuwait - and, so far, has processed only half of all claims from that war. There could be additional claims after this war, and much of the country's infrastructure will need to be rebuilt or repaired. The United Nations has awarded 30 cents on the dollar for individual and family claimants; claims by companies, governments and international organizations remain to be settled.
 To give Iraq's economy a chance to recover, Barton and Crocker recommend a five-year moratorium on external debt, along the lines that the Paris Club creditors agreed to for Yugoslavia in 2001. They also call for an immediate halt to the United Nations deduction of oil revenues to compensate claimants.
 Michael Kremer and Seema Jayachandran, two Harvard economists, go even further. They propose that debts incurred by all illegitimate, repressive regimes should be made nontransferable to successor governments. Because Iraq has the potential to generate foreign exchange, unlike Rwanda or Haiti, a debt moratorium or write-down could generate short-term investments to help the economy get back on its feet.
 Relieving Iraq's debt crisis is a particularly delicate diplomatic challenge, however, because Russia - with its own economic problems and veto on the Security Council - is owed $64 billion by Iraq. Crocker cautions that the United States should not unilaterally cancel contracts executed between other sovereign countries; this should be left to a multinational body.
 &quot;Nations are not authorized, by religion or by natural morals, to visit on the children of their enemies the misdoings of parents or of rulers,&quot; Keynes proclaimed. As matters stand now, future generations of Iraqis will be saddled with Hussein's debts.
 Ironically, the Bush administration - on whose watch the projected 10-year budget of the American government morphed from a surplus of $5.6 trillion into a deficit of $4 trillion - must address Iraq's debt for reconstruction to succeed.
 It is easy to underestimate the hardship that severe financial burdens impose on a people trying to recover from war. In his 1920 critique, &quot;The Economic Consequences of the Peace,&quot; the celebrated University of Chicago economist Thorstein Veblen wrote, &quot;the measures hitherto taken in the execution of this peace treaty's provisional terms throw something of an air of fantasy over Keynes's apprehensions.&quot; The next two decades proved Keynes' apprehensions correct. 
 Let's hope Barton and Crocker's apprehensions are taken seriously.
 
 <i>Alan B. Krueger is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. He contributed this comment to The New York Times. </i>

TITLE: It Is All About Deceiving - and Winning
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: IN his famed book &quot;The Art of War,&quot; Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago: &quot;War is all deceit. If you can do something, make the enemy believe you cannot; if you are close, pretend you are far away.&quot; Last week in Iraq both sides were playing Sun Tzu to the limit: The allies faked weakness and disarray, the Iraqis faked strength and confidence.
 
It's easy to understand why Iraqi President Sadaam Hussein and his cohorts were claiming victory was at hand. Their only hope is to coerce Iraq's army and people to continue a senseless resistance and hold out while growing casualties fracture U.S. morale.
 The 1993 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia after an unsuccessful encounter in Mogadishu (the story told in the movie &quot;Black Hawk Down&quot;) is still very much on everyone's mind. Americans are soft and afraid of close encounters: If more than Mogadishu's 19 soldiers are killed, the American public will press for an end to hostilities. After Sept. 11, this it is not so, but that notion has not yet sunken in.
 The U.S. and British allies also had a good reason to cheat. By faking weakness and portraying an inability to make a decisive push for overall victory without weeks of preparation and reinforcement, the U.S. military command apparently hoped to trick the Iraqis into keeping their best units in the field, rather than withdrawing immediately to Baghdad, where defeating the Republican Guard would come at a higher cost.
 All last week, the authorities deliberately fed the press and pundits with fake stories of the campaign plan gone wrong, of Iraqi resistance having &quot;bogged down&quot; the troops. There were constant reports that the allies had too few solders to win the coming battle for Baghdad and that crucial reinforcements would arrive only in three to four weeks.
 The most outrageous piece of strategic disinformation released last week was that U.S. forward units were out of food and that restocking would take more than a week. Perhaps the intelligence officer who invented that yarn was reading some account of the American Civil War, when food rations arrived by mule.
 Of course, the disinformation was fed to the public and to the enemy correctly: It all came from &quot;unnamed reliable sources.&quot; Toeing the official line, the Pentagon repudiated stories of the war plan gone awry. But their denials were feeble and not convincing. When the allied troops began a concerted advance earlier this week, I heard a Western reporter in Baghdad relay the mood there: This cannot be true. They do not have enough troops.
 If one pierces through the many lies both sides have circulated, the true picture looks like this: The allies have never been truly bogged down. The supply crunch and the reported lack of sufficient troops were grossly exaggerated. And the &quot;Iraqi resistance&quot; was more an annoyance than a real strategic problem.
 In over two weeks of fighting, the Iraqis have not been able to shoot down a single allied warplane. (In 1991, they took down 38 jets and maimed many more.) In two weeks of intense ground fighting, the allies have, so far, lost less than 100 troops, which includes casualties of friendly fire and accidents, not Iraqi action.
 In comparison, the German blitzkrieg against Poland in 1939, which is considered a masterpiece, cost the lives of 13,799 German solders in 18 days, with 30,322 wounded. The losses were considered insignificant. The Polish army of 1939 is comparable in overall strength with Hussein's force. In their Middle East wars, the Israelis have suffered far greater casualties than the allies today in Iraq.
 &quot;Iraqi resistance&quot; has been patchy and highly inefficient. Hussein's forces have given up a number of intact bridges to the allies - over the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Shatt al-Arab - indicating the Iraqi forces' lack of discipline and organization.
 The several-day pause by advancing U.S. and British forces was needed to pound to bits the Republican Guard lingering outside Baghdad. Attack planes were moved to the front from Kuwait to improvised airstrips in the desert in order to provide better close air support.
 But Iraqi forces were tricked into believing they still had time since the enemy was strategically &quot;far away,&quot; when, in fact, a potent allied force was in Hussein's backyard ready to advance to victory.
 
 <i>Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. </i>

TITLE: Global Eye
TEXT: <b>Hell for Leather
 </b>
Even as the sleek techno-wizardry of &quot;Shock and Awe&quot; gives way to the old-fashioned slog of &quot;Blood and Guts&quot; on the battlefields of Iraq, the Bush Regime's postwar plans continue apace. It's now clear that the Bushists aim to turn Iraq into an American protectorate - a supine dependency like Guam, Puerto Rico or Britain - by controlling every aspect of life in the conquered land.
 
The blueprint for colonial rule, being drawn up by Project for the New American Century alum Paul Wolfowitz (without any input from those silly-billy Brits or - it goes without saying - that discarded hunk of junk, the UN), will install an American arms merchant, former general Jay Garner, as civilian supremo, the Guardian reports. Garner - who has publicly declared his admiration for Israel's highly successful methods of administrating occupied Arab territories - will oversee a coterie of American proconsuls and Iraqi factotums, including the self-proclaimed, Washington-paid &quot;leader&quot; of the Iraqi opposition, Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted bank fraudster who has not lived in his native land since 1956.
 American masters will determine Iraq's domestic government, foreign policy, economic system, even the education of its children. (The ones who haven't been killed by their liberation, that is.) Reconstruction contracts will be awarded to favored American companies, and the Bushists will seize control of the UN's &quot;food-for-oil&quot; program to finance this ladling of prime political pork. As imperial architect Wolfowitz himself puts it: &quot;There's a lot of money out there. To assume we're going to pay for this war is just wrong.&quot;
 But you mustn't think that all this moolah-mongering means Iraq's <i>spiritual </i>needs are being ignored. As always with your classic Anglo-American imperial conquest, sword, flame, bullet and bomb will be accompanied by the maniacal whacking of Biblical leather. Just this week, Bush of Arabia's favorite preacher announced he was mustering an evangelical army to Christianize the defeated heathen hordes, Newhouse News Service reports.
 Of course, Christianity has existed in Iraq for 2,000 years - rather longer than in, say, Texas - but such nuances are lost on the Bushist Party's much-coddled &quot;core supporters&quot; in the hardline Christian Right. And so the Reverend [sic] Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, declared that his relief group, Samaritan's Purse, will follow the Anglo-American invaders with blankets, food - and Jesus on tap. He was quickly joined by America's largest - and most Bushist - Protestant sect, the Southern Baptists, who proclaimed their plans to launch a second front of their own in the bread-for-souls campaign.
 As we all know, Daddy Graham sealed his place in history about 15 years ago by convincing the booze-guzzling, nostril-burning - but eminently well-connected - George W. Bush to trade Jack Daniels for Jesus Christ. Graham also schooled his acolyte in the inherent damnability of perfidious Jewry - a lesson little Georgie was a bit too apt to repeat in mixed company until his handlers finally got him under control.
 (Yes, we all know about the influence of the small group of Likud-leaning, war-whooping Jewish &quot;neo-conservatives&quot; - Wolfowitz, the disgraced Richard Perle, the convicted perjurer Elliot Abrams, etc. - whom Bush has brought into power. But these figures - representing a tiny, extremist sliver of the vast and variegated glory of Jewish thought - are merely useful tools for the &quot;Dominion Christians&quot; who serve as the fedayeen of the Bushist Party. For believers of Bush's primitivist ilk, Israel's only importance is its role as the staging ground for the universal genocide of Armageddon - a feast of carnage and obliteration for which the Dominionites yearn with a deep, erotic fervor. Come the Rapture, they will joyfully ship the Jews to Hell.)
 Now, with Billy ailing, son Franklin has taken over the pastoring of Bush's soul (or the &quot;Jack Daniels watch,&quot; as it's sometimes called). He even gave the invocation at Bush's inauguration (or the &quot;Loser Takes All Ball,&quot; as it's sometimes called). We're sure that Franklin's deep and sensitive understanding of Islam - which he calls &quot;a very wicked and evil religion&quot; - will serve him well as, with the president's blessing, he spreads the good news of Christ Militant amongst the smoldering ruins and uranium-choked dust of Basra and Baghdad.
 But of course, the war is not yet won. Young American men and women are still in the field, caught in a vortex of fear, death, rage and atrocity. And so another group of busy Bushist beavers is helping these war-battered troops stay focused on the most important thing of all: praying for George W. Bush.
 Leather-whacking televangelist Charles Stanley has supplied thousands of U.S. soldiers with a list of daily prayers for the Dear Leader - and his holy family too. There's even a tear-out card to mail the pledge directly to the White House: &quot;I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops.&quot; (Note the careful ordering here - gotta get your priorities straight!) Soldiers are directed to ask that God keep the precious Bushist leaders &quot;safe, healthy, well-rested and free from fear&quot; (unlike the poor suckers praying for them).
 Finally, the ritual supplications adjure our well-rested Crusader chieftains to &quot;recognize their divine appointment&quot; and rule according to holy scripture - perhaps by following the postwar policy of the Lord Himself (Numbers, Chapter 31) after His troops routed the Midianite army: &quot;Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.&quot;
 Yep, that old whacked leather is just chock-full of handy wartime hints.

TITLE: Ex-Milosevic Agents Arrested Over Murder of Serbian PM
AUTHOR: By Katarina Kratovac
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -Two former leaders of ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's secret service arrested in connection with the assassination of Serbia's prime minister could be handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal, a Belgrade official said Sunday. 
 
Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic told Studio B television that Serbia is prepared to extradite the two, who were key figures in the former Yugoslav president's secret service and formed a paramilitary force dreaded during the brutal Balkan wars of the early 1990s. 
 The men - former state security chief, Jovica Stanisic, and his deputy, Franko Simatovic, who headed notorious Serb paramilitary units in the Bosnian and Croatian wars - were arrested following the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in Belgrade last month. 
 Both are listed in The Hague indictment against Milosevic as accomplices in a &quot;joint criminal enterprise,&quot; meaning they are likely under investigation for war crimes themselves. Milosevic is on trial on charges of 66 counts of war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, including genocide. 
 &quot;Both are in our custody in connection with the investigation,&quot; Svilanovic said. &quot;But should The Hague tribunal announce their indictments, we shall surely hand them over.&quot; 
 Sources at The Hague said on Sunday that the court was preparing indictments against Stanisic and Simatovic. The pair are believed to have maintained influence among police and mob circles even after Milosevic's ouster in 2000. Officials have linked them to the underworld and paramilitary network accused of Djindjic's March 12 slaying. So far they have not been charged in Belgrade. 
 Authorities also have suspected the two may have played a role in protecting top indicted war criminals, such as chief Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army chief during the Bosnian war.

TITLE: Colombians March Over Abductions
AUTHOR: By Michael Easterbrook
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOGOTA, Colombia - Hundreds of people marched Sunday to demand the release of more than 60 children kidnapped in Colombia over the years, many abducted by criminal gangs or leftist rebels seeking ransoms. Among the nearly 1,000 marchers was Vice President Francisco Santos, abducted by the late drug lord Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel in 1990 and held for eight months. 
 
&quot;People who kidnap children have lost their humanity,&quot; Santos said. 
 More than 60 children are being held hostage in Colombia and some have been held for years, said Juan Francisco Mesa, director of the anti-kidnapping foundation Free Country. 
 Some of the victims are forced into prostitution. Others have been caught up in Colombia's nearly four decade civil war that pits government troops against leftist rebels and right wing paramilitary groups. Rebels have kidnapped hundreds of people in recent years for ransom money to finance their fight. 
 The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has abducted seven children this year and is demanding money for all of them, said Mesa. Six of the 11 children kidnapped this year by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, a smaller rebel group, were freed by soldiers. 
 The most recent kidnapping victim, 3-year-old Vytis Karanauskas, was yanked from a school bus in the nearby town of Villavicencio last week by five armed men. Police have blamed right-wing paramilitary fighters for taking the boy, whose grandparents immigrated to Colombia from Lithuania. Leaders of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Casanare have denied responsibility, El Tiempo newspaper reported. 
 &quot;I'm trying to stay optimistic,&quot; said the boy's mother, Saule Karanauskas, a color photograph of her blond toddler's smiling face printed on the front of her T-shirt. 
 Florinda Farfan has been waiting for the return of her daughter, Yulie Chacon, since 1996 when the 11-year-old girl was taken while walking to school in Bogota. 
 &quot;I've never lost hope that I'll find her,&quot; said her mother, Florinda Farfan, holding a poster-sized photograph of her daughter.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: <b>Squids In
 </b>

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Fishermen working in Antarctic waters have made an extremely rare catch - a colossal squid with eyes as big as dinner plates and razor-sharp hooks on its tentacles, a marine researcher said Thursday. 
 The 150-kilogram, 5-meter-long specimen was caught in the Ross Sea, said Steve O'Shea, a research fellow with the Auckland University of Technology. He said the squid was a young female; adults are much bigger. 
 Going by the scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the animal is unrelated to the smaller and more common giant squid, O'Shea said. "This animal is formidable," he told New Zealand's National Radio. 
 While the giant squid eats "quite small prey," the colossal squid eats large prey like the Patagonian toothfish, which can grow more than 2 meters long. 
 Fully grown, the colossal squid would be "larger than any giant squid I have seen, and I've seen 105 of them," O'Shea said. 
 Only one other colossal squid has ever been caught before. Scientists knew of their existence because their beaks have been found in the stomachs of sperm whales. 
 "All we know is that it can move through the water ... to a depth of 2,000 meters and it is an extremely active and extremely aggressive killer," O'Shea said.
 It differs from the giant squid "by having enormous hooks arming the tentacles and the arms," he said. 
 The creature makes up three quarters of the diet of large sperm whales, which suggests there are large numbers of them in Antarctic waters, O'Shea said. He said the squid was caught near the surface of the ocean. 
 
 
<b>Circus Runaway
 </b>

BERLIN (Reuters) - A female lion tamer has run away from a circus in Germany with eight lions, two tigers and the circus director's son, police said on Friday. 
 The woman, in her late 40s, is believed to have developed a close relationship with the 20-year-old man she was training to become a lion tamer, a police spokesperson in the northern German town of Melle said. 
 The couple eloped with a truck containing the animals and is still on the run since disappearing on Monday night.
 "If she can handle lions and tigers, she shouldn't have trouble with a 20-year-old man," said Georg Dongowski, spokesperson for the Melle police. 
 The circus director reported the matter to police, saying the theft amounted to a value of around 100,000 euros ($107,300). 
 
 
<b>Sore-Headed Bear
 </b>

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Authorities at Dublin Zoo, worried by the erratic behavior of their female polar bear, commissioned a study to find the problem and discovered she simply had a bad case of marital stress. 
 Experts monitored the behavior of the bear and her mate and concluded the female's constant, agitated pacing of their shared enclosure was due to the male. 
 "The report found that the female demonstrated symptoms of stress when she was near the male and to remove this stress a separate area or retreat exclusive to the female polar bear was recommended," Dublin Zoo director Leo Oosterweghel said. 
 Now the pair, Ootec and Spunky, are to be moved to new accommodation in eastern Hungary where Spunky can chill out in her own exclusive space. 



TITLE: Arsenal, Man. U Set To Duke It Out for Title
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LONDON - Arsenal and Manchester United look set for a thrilling race to the Premiership title after Newcastle United's 2-1 defeat at Everton on Sunday.
 
In Italy, Inter Milan's title hopes suffered a serious blow on Sunday after it lost a two-goal lead to draw 3-3 at home to AS Roma and leave leader Juventus five points clear.
 Meanwhile, Deportivo la Coruna displaced Real Sociedad from second spot in Spain's Primera Liga after recovering to claim a 2-1 win against the Basque team in a pulsating match at the Riazor on Sunday. 
 Newcastle walked out at Goodison Park on Sunday hoping for a win that would give it 64 points - just three fewer than Manchester United, whom it hosts on Saturday, and an increasingly erratic Arsenal. But 17-year-old England striker Wayne Rooney shattered those hopes, scoring one goal and contributing to another. 
 On Saturday, Manchester United avenged its recent League Cup final loss to Liverpool with a convincing 4-0 victory, closing Arsenal's lead at the top to goal difference, after Arsene Wenger's team failed to make its superiority count in a 1-1 draw at Aston Villa.
 Alex Ferguson's team was given a helping hand after only four minutes when Liverpool skipper Sami Hyypia was red-carded for hauling down Ruud van Nistelrooy in the penalty area. United's Dutch striker gave Jerzy Dudek no chance on the resulting penalty.
 Liverpool fell further behind in the 65th minute when van Nistelrooy converted his second penalty after Paul Scholes had been floored by substitute Igor Biscan. 
 Ryan Giggs added the third, guiding home a high cross from David Beckham, who had come on as a substitute, and Norwegian striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer arrowed in the fourth. 
 At Villa Park, Arsenal had to wait until the second half to get the breakthrough, when Swedish midfielder Freddie Ljungberg tucked the ball home. 
 But Villa soon hit back, and its pressure was rewarded with Arsenal midfielder Kolo Toure's sliced clearance into his own net in the 71st minute. 
 
 <strong>
Italy. </strong>Inter was 3-1 up with just seven minutes remaining when mid-standings Roma scored twice, first through an own goal from Luigi di Biagio and then a dramatic, superbly taken equalizer a minute later from substitute Vincenzo Montella. 
 
Inter, searching for its first <i>scudetto </i>since 1989, must now hope that Juve fails to win at least twice in the remaining seven games to have any hope of winning the title. 
 Juve, which beat Torino 2-0 on Saturday, is now firm favorite to defend its title and win its 27th Italian championship, especially as third-place AC Milan also slipped up with an 1-0 loss to Parma on Saturday. 
 All the action at the San Siro came in a remarkable six-goal second half that began with a strike from Roma's Antonio Cassano just seconds after the restart, the young forward's toepoked shot from the edge of the area looping over Francesco Toldo. 
 Inter came back in some style with Christian Vieri scoring his 24th goal of the season after racing on to a long ball from di Biagio and powering goalward before firing home. 
 Uruguay's Alvaro Recoba then put Inter ahead with a fine solo goal, holding off four challenges before driving a shot in off the post as Inter took control of the game. Turkish midfielder Emre added the third in the 77th minute, from a Sergio Conceicao cross that eluded the Roma defense. 
 But Roma rallied, and a Vincent Candela cross from the right was headed down by Massimo Marazzina and di Biagio put through his own goal during the scramble that followed. 
 A minute later, Inter substitute Domenico Morfeo was robbed inside his own half and Montella took a quick glance before curling a beautiful left-foot shot over Toldo and into the top corner. 
 
 <strong>
Spain. </strong>Deportivo's win, which saw it overtake Sociedad by virtue of better goal difference, played into the hands of Real Madrid, which stretched its lead at the top of the standings to six points as a result of the weekend's games. 
 
Substitutes Fernando Morientes and Javier Portillo came to Real's rescue on Saturday with three late goals to help it to a barely-deserved 3-1 win over relegation-threatened neighbours Rayo Vallecano. 
 Defending champion Valencia effectively said goodbye to its hopes of retaining the title after it lost 2-0 at Real Betis on Saturday and now trails 13 points behind Real in fourth with 10 games left until the end of the season. 
 Real Sociedad began the match at the Riazor in aggressive style as it pushed forward and pinned Deportivo back in its own area. 
 Sociedad took the lead at 16 minutes when Nihat outpaced the Depor defense to pounce on a long ball from defender Aitor Lopez Rekarte. 
 The Turkish striker controlled neatly with his toe before rounding keeper Jose Molina and then stroking the ball into the open goal from just inside the area. 
 Depor levelled the score just before the break, after being awarded a controversial free kick when midfielder Lionel Scaloni appeared to slip just outside the area. 
 Mauro Silva touched the ball to substitute Joan Capdevila and the defender fired a rasping drive into the far corner that left Sander Westerveld rooted to the spot. 
 Two minutes later, Sociedad was awarded a penalty after Scaloni was judged to have brought down Zuhaitz Gurrutxaga in the area. 
 Serbian striker Darko Kovacevic stepped up to take the spot kick, but only succeeded in slamming his shot against the bar. 
 Depor was forced to change its line-up in the second half after injuries to Tristan and Makaay, but the entry of attacking midfielder Juan Carlos Valeron upset Sociedad's defensive formation. 
 Fran took full advantage of the disruption to score the winner seven minutes from the end. The midfielder cut in from the left wing before firing off a a shot from the edge of the area which deflected off a defender and past a helpless Westerveld into the net to secure three valuable points for the home team. 
 
 <strong>
Russia. </strong>Zenit dropped its first points of the season on Sunday, with an unexpected home draw to lightly regarded Rostselmash Rostov-Na-Donu.
 
Despite controlling much of the possession, Zenit failed to find a breakthrough goal, and now has seven points from its opening three games, trailing Moscow teams CSKA and Dinamo, which both won over the weekend.
 Czech international Jiri Jarosik scored the last-minute winner to give CSKA a 3-2 win over bitter city rivals Spartak in a highly charged derby game on Sunday. 
 There were no major incidents reported during the game as Spartak and CSKA fans, considered the most violent in Russian soccer, were kept apart. But Russian news agency Interfax quoted police as saying that they had arrested 135 fans, mostly drunk, following the match. 
 Spartak captain Yegor Titov opened the scoring when he pounced on a rebound following a Maxim Kalinichenko shot. 
 CSKA captain Sergei Semak equalized four minutes into the second half, but Spartak went ahead again in the 57th minute when CSKA's Vasily Berezutsky hit the back of his own net as he tried to clear Roman Pavlyuchenko's cross. 
 The army club, however, battled back and Rolan Gusev made it 2-2 from the spot in the 77th minute after a foul on Semak. 
 But it was Jarosik, acquired by CSKA for $3.7 million from Sparta Prague before the start of the season, who turned out to be the real hero for last year's runners-up, when he scored the last-gasp winner.
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard) </i>

TITLE: Turco Sets GAA Mark as Stars Shine On
AUTHOR: By Ira Podell
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Marty Turco risked his goals-against average just by playing on the final day of the regular season. Things worked out perfectly for the star goalie and his Dallas teammates. 
 
Turco dropped his GAA to 1.72 - the lowest in the NHL's modern era - in Dallas' 2-0 home victory over Nashville on Sunday. 
 Coupled with Detroit's 4-3 overtime loss at Chicago, the Stars earned the top seed in the Western Conference playoffs. 
 &quot;This has certainly been a magical year, for the team and for myself,&quot; Turco said. 
 Turco, who made 21 saves for his seventh shutout of the season, came in with a 1.75 GAA, already better than the record of 1.77 set by Chicago's Tony Esposito in 1971-1972. 
 All was well for the Colorado Avalanche, too, who put a damper on Vancouver's regular-season finale. 
 Milan Hejduk scored his league-best 50th goal, and teammate Peter Forsberg used a three-point rally to capture the Art Ross Trophy as the top scorer. 
 It all added up to a Northwest Division title for the Avalanche, who won 25 of their last 37 games to capture their NHL-record ninth straight division crown. That snapped a tie with Montreal, which won eight straight from 1975-1982. 
 The day started so well for the Canucks and their top point-getter, Markus Naslund. The forward entered with 48 goals - one behind Hejduk - and 104 points, one more than Forsberg. 
 Most important, the Canucks were one point ahead of the Avalanche and needed just one point to win their division for the first time in a decade. Instead, Naslund had his first pointless game in eight contests, the Canucks lost 2-0 to Los Angeles, and the Avalanche beat St. Louis 5-2 to take the Northwest. 
 Forsberg, with a goal and two assists Sunday, finished with 29 goals and 77 assists to became the first Swedish-born player to win the Art Ross. Forsberg had the most assists in the NHL since Jaromir Jagr had 83 for Pittsburgh in 1998-1999. 
 Instead of a first-round matchup against Minnesota, the Canucks will take on the experienced Blues. Colorado will play postseason newcomer Minnesota. 
 The Stars will play eighth-seeded Edmonton for the sixth time in seven years, while Stanley Cup defending champion Detroit earned the No. 2 seed as the Central champion and will play Anaheim. 
 &quot;They will be excited to play us, because last time they beat us,&quot; Detroit forward Sergei Fedorov said. 
 In the East, Ottawa had Sunday off, but the Senators already knew their first-round opponent would be the New York Islanders. 
 Ottawa, with a league-high 113 points, is the fifth different Presidents' Trophy winner in five years. Detroit and Colorado, the previous two winners, also captured the Stanley Cup. 
 The Islanders closed with a 2-1 win over Carolina, which went from Eastern Conference champion to the NHL's worst team. 
 New Jersey edged Philadelphia in the Atlantic Division to earn the No. 2 seed in the East and a first-round matchup with Boston. Philadelphia will play Toronto. 
 The Devils and Flyers tied for the fewest goals allowed with 166. So they will share the Jennings Trophy, which goes to goalies who played at least 25 games for the team with the fewest goals against. 
 Martin Brodeur played 73 games for the Devils, and Roman Cechmanek was in Philadelphia's net 58 times, with backup Robert Esche playing 30. 
 In a series pitting the top two teams in the Southeast Division, Tampa Bay - a first-time division winner - will face Washington. The Lightning finished with 93 points to edge Washington by one. 
 Two things that weren't cleared up were whether the careers of Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier came to an end. Lemieux dropped hints that his career was done by using several sticks in his final game and reflecting on the past. 
 But no decision was made for Lemieux, who had 28 goals and 91 points. 
 Messier, 42, wouldn't comment on his future as the New York Rangers, the team with the NHL's highest payroll, cleaned out their lockers following a team-record sixth straight season out of the playoffs. Messier said he hasn't decided whether to return for a 25th NHL season. 
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard.) </i>

TITLE: Russia, France Embarrassed In Davis Cup Quarterfinals
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LONDON - France joined defending champion Russia in the Davis Cup doldrums on Sunday, completing a disastrous weekend for the tournament's top two seeds.
 
France lost 3-2 to Switzerland, and Russia crumbled 5-0 to Argentina.
 The cup was unceremoniously wrenched from Russia's grip by a dogged Argentine team effort. Russia's heroics in last December's final were a distant memory as it meekly surrendered its trophy.
 Missing the injured Marat Safin - the architect of its 2002 triumph - second-seeded Russia never got to grips with the agonizingly slow clay court nor the partisan Argentine crowd in Buenos Aires.
 The defending champion found itself 2-0 behind after the opening day, when Yevgeny Kafelnikov lost to Gaston Gaudio and Nikolai Davydenko lost to David Nalbandian.
 Kafelnikov then teamed up with Mikhail Yuzhny and lost the crunch doubles - and, with it, the tie - to Nalbandian and Lucas Arnold on Saturda.
 Mariano Zabaleta beat Yuzhny 6-,1 6-4 for 4-0, and Gaudio completed the rout beating Davydenko 7-6, 6-3.
 It was a painful way for the Russians to relinquish their hold on the Cup, and the first time they have lost a tie 5-0 since, as the U.S.S.R., they lost to Spain in 1979.
 &quot;Argentina played well, there's no more explanation than that for the final results,&quot; said Yuzhny, the only member of the Russian team to face journalists after the bitterly disappointing doubles result that cost it the tie.
 For Argentina, the victory was sweet revenge after falling to the Russians in the semifinals last year.
 &quot;I didn't expect this 5-0, this is really unbelievable,&quot; Argentine captain Gustavo Luza said. &quot;Beating the last champion ... with this score, I never dreamed it.&quot;
 Guy Forget's French battlers - champions in 2001 and runners-up to Russia in last year's dramatic showpiece - were pounded into submission by their Swiss neighbors, inspired by a faultless Roger Federer.
 The stylish lionheart won all three matches in which he featured, tearing into Fabrice Santoro in the fourth rubber on Sunday to secure the visitors' victory 6-1, 6-0, 6-2 and clinch the tie in Toulouse.
 Federer had on Saturday teamed up with his captain, Marc Rosset, to win the doubles and beaten Nicolas Escude on Friday to secure victory and a semifinal spot against Australia almost singlehandedly.
 &quot;It was a perfect weekend,&quot; Federer said after being embraced by his jubilant team mates. &quot;This tie had special meaning for us because France beat us in the quarter-finals last time we met in the Davis Cup two years ago.&quot;
 For the Swiss, Federer's victory means only a second semi-final appearance since the world group was formed in 1981. They will travel to Australia in September for a chance to reach the final for only the second time in their tennis history.
 Australia - led by world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt - booked their semi-final spot with ease, walloping Sweden 5-0 in Malmo.
 In the other semifinal, Argentina will face Spain, which thrashed Croatia 5-0.
 
 
q
 After a sluggish start in Sarasota, Florida, Russia's Anastasia Myskina used her speed to beat Alicia Molik 6-4, 6-1 and win the championship of the $140,000 Sarasota Clay Court Classic on Sunday. 
 
The second-seeded Myskina, the only seeded player left in the tournament, fell behind 2-0 to a player who got through the qualifying tournament to reach the main draw. 
 But the 21-year-old Russian took three straight games, went ahead 5-4, and then broke Molik to win the first set. The second set was tied at 1 when Myskina broke the Australian twice and held serve in the final game to win the match. 
 It was the fourth singles championship for Myskina, the top-rated player in Russia.
 The tall and powerful Molik, who had 17 aces in her semifinal victory, had four against Myskina. 
 &quot;I knew she couldn't stay in rallies with me, and I just wanted to be able to handle her serve and put the ball in play,&quot; Myskina said. &quot;I felt confident even after I was down 2-0. She doesn't move that well and I knew I just had to keep her moving, especially with the heat. I thought she would get tired.&quot;
 
 <i>
(Reuters, AP) </i>

TITLE: Jordan Is Not Giving Up Without a Fight
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOSTON - Michael Jordan is doing everything he can to extend his career. 
 
Jordan had 25 points and 13 rebounds Sunday to keep Washington's playoff hopes alive and lead the Wizards to a 99-98 overtime victory over the Boston Celtics in what was likely his last game in Boston. 
 &quot;Michael played a happy game,&quot; Washington coach Doug Collins said. &quot;He played this game, I thought, very loose, and [he] smiled. It was fun to watch him have fun.&quot; 
 Christian Laettner had 13 rebounds and 16 points, including the game-winning jumper with 53 seconds left. Jerry Stackhouse scored 24 for Washington, which is two games behind Milwaukee for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race with six games to play. The Bucks own the tiebreaker. 
 &quot;Mathematically, we're still in it. So let's just keep winning and let the chips fall where they may,&quot; said Jordan, who will retire for a third time after the season. &quot;I want to make sure I smile when I walk away this time.&quot; 
 He was chuckling along with the crowd when he faked out Eric Williams in the first quarter, and again when he missed a reverse layup in the second half. 
 &quot;I know this is not going to last forever,&quot; Jordan said. &quot;I enjoy being on the court, and I'm trying to smile and have a good time and still play hard. I know that it is coming to an end, but it was fun. It was a great win.&quot; 
 Paul Pierce had 36 points and nine rebounds for Boston, which could have clinched a playoff berth with a win. Walter McCarty scored 23, but Antoine Walker had just seven points - two in regulation - to go with his 14 assists and 10 rebounds. 
 Jordan, who scored an NBA playoff-record 63 points in Boston on April 20, 1986, made the last three baskets of the fourth quarter to help the Wizards tie it at the end of regulation. 
 &quot;He was Jordan tonight,&quot; McCarty said, &quot;the Jordan we know.&quot; 
 
 <strong>
Sacramento 97, Philadelphia 81. </strong>Chris Webber had 21 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists and the Kings beat the Philadelphia 76ers 97-81 Sunday to finish their road trip 5-1. 
 
Peja Stojakovic added 21 points for Sacramento, which has won four straight and 10 of 11. 
 The Kings, who lost at Detroit in the second game of their trip, are two games behind Dallas for the No. 1 spot in the Western Conference. They will play three of their remaining four games at home, where their 32-6 record is the league's best. 
 &quot;It was the most consistent effort of the trip,&quot; said Kings coach Rick Adelman, who recorded his 600th career victory. &quot;We started out tired, but picked it up in the second half. To win five of six and have a chance to win all six is terrific.&quot; 
 Allen Iverson, playing despite left knee bursitis, had 24 points, seven rebounds and six assists for Philadelphia. Iverson, coming off an eight-point output in a loss to Houston on Friday, sat out the final 6:01 after the Sixers fell behind by 18. 
 &quot;It's not 100 percent, but I just felt I could get through this,&quot; Iverson said, adding that he might have to sit out some games down the stretch. &quot;Hopefully it'll get better before the playoffs.&quot; 
 The Sixers lost their second straight and fell 2 1/2 games behind first-place New Jersey in the Atlantic Division. Philadelphia was without forward Keith Van Horn (sprained left foot). Aaron McKie (back) and Derrick Coleman (thigh, finger) played through injuries. 
 &quot;I think they feel in their hearts they are well enough to play,&quot; Sixers coach Larry Brown said. &quot;I admire them for being out there.&quot; 
 Brown criticized his players in the locker room after the game, and expressed frustration that all the injuries prevent the team from having a full practice. 
 &quot;Coach ripped into us and rightfully so because we didn't show up,&quot; Iverson said.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Champion Whiner I
 </b>

LONDON (Reuters) - UEFA condemned Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson's attack on the Champions League quarterfinal draw as "unfortunate and silly."
 Ferguson, whose team faces defending champion Real Madrid on Tuesday, hinted in the media that the draw was loaded to keep teams from the same country apart. 
 "The remarks are unfortunate and silly," UEFA spokesperson Mike Lee said on Sunday. "The draw is open. It's done in front of television cameras and all the club representatives, including those from Manchester United."
 "It's produced some great ties for this next round in this fantastic competition," he said. "We just have to accept that, unfortunately, in European football, people sometimes, for whatever reason, take views that there's one bias or another."
 "These comments don't fit with reality," Lee added. 
 As well as 1999 winners United against Real Madrid, last month's draw paired AC Milan with Ajax, Inter Milan against Valencia and Juventus versus Barcelona. 
 "It was a nice draw for the Spanish and Italians - I think they picked it themselves," Ferguson was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror. "The three Italian teams have avoided each other and so have the three Spanish. How do you think that worked out?" he said. "I can tell you - UEFA don't want us in the final, that's for sure. I don't know why they have given the final to Old Trafford because they don't want us to get there."
 
 
<b>UConn Triumphs
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ATLANTA (AP) - Despite an aching right ankle, a sore back and an off game, Diana Taurasi made big baskets down the stretch and a key defensive stop at the end to give Connecticut a 71-69 victory over Texas on Sunday night. 
 "I say it over and over again," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "We have Dee and they don't. That's probably the biggest reason we won." 
 Taurasi, national player of the year, scored 26 points to bring the Huskies back from a nine-point deficit in the second half. Now, they'll get a chance to play for their third championship in four years. The title game is Tuesday night against longtime rival Tennessee, which beat Duke 65-56 in the other semifinal. 
 "There's just something about this team," Taurasi said. "We just don't want to go home." 
 It helps to have the country's best player. Taurasi's 3-pointer from well behind the arc gave the Huskies the lead for good, 67-66, with 2:07 remaining. 
 "The biggest thing you can say about her is she's not afraid," said coach Geno Auriemma, who picked up his 500th career victory. "She wants the ball in the crucial situations." 
 
 
<b>Champion Whiner I
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Spartak Moscow President Andrei Chervichenko accused Russian soccer chiefs of bias against his club, after the former champion lost a highly-charged Premier League derby to bitter city rival CSKA, 3-2, on Sunday. 
 "There's been a conspiracy against our team for some time now," the Spartak boss told a news conference following the game. "We didn't deserve to lose tonight but we were beaten by the referee [Valentin Ivanov], who had his orders from his bosses. 
 "Since it's not the first time this has happened against our team, it makes me believe that [Russian soccer chief] Vyacheslav Koloskov and people around him do not want Spartak near the top anymore," Chervichenko added. 
 Spartak, which has won nine Russian titles since 1992, finished a disappointing third behind city rivals Lokomotiv and CSKA last year in what was its worst season in a decade. It also lost all six of its Champions League games to stretch their European winless record to 17. 
 Spartak coach Sergei Pavlov also blamed Ivanov for the loss. 
 "It looked like the two teams were playing by two different sets of rules," he said. "The ref allowed them to do whatever they wanted and penalized us for every little thing. The penalty he called against us was total nonsense." 
 
 
<b>Kansas Facing Syracuse
 </b>

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - All-American Nick Collison scored 12 points and had 15 rebounds Saturday night to lift the Kansas Jayhawks to a 94-61 victory against overmatched Marquette, the fourth-most lopsided game in Final Four history. 
 "Some people could say we reached the pinnacle of our game today," coach Roy Williams said. "I hope there's still something left in us." 
 In his 15th season as coach at Kansas (30-7), Williams stands one win away from the national title he needs to fill out an otherwise impeccable resume. 
 Whether he got it or not Monday night against Syracuse, a 95-84 winner over Texas in the other semifinal, he would go home knowing his team set a standard for Final Four excellence. 
 Pushing the ball at will, outjumping and outhustling Marquette (27-6), the Big 12 regular-season champions shot 53 percent - and that was despite a long dry spell when the reserves were on court at the end of the game. 
 They made eight 3-pointers and many times simply embarrassed the Golden Eagles, snatching loose balls out of their hands, and beating them downcourt for uncontested layups and dunks no fewer than 15 times. 
 Collison may be the best player for Kansas, but he certainly wasn't the only star. Keith Langford led the Jayhawks with 23 points on 11-for-14 shooting. Kirk Hinrich and Aaron Miles scored 18 points each.