SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #860 (28), Tuesday, April 15, 2003
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TITLE: Politicians Ponder Fallout From War
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: World leaders gathered in Washington and St. Petersburg over the weekend to discuss the future of Iraq amid a growing standoff over whether the United Nations or the war coalition wins political and economic control of the fallen regime.
A U.S. call for a write-off of Iraqi debt got short shrift from President Vladimir Putin and his French and German counterparts as they met in St. Petersburg for a summit where they repeated calls for the United Nations to take up the reins, while finance ministers from the world's leading industrialized nations met in Washington to discuss World Bank and International Monetary Fund aid for Iraq that had been bogged down over the UN's role.
Putin bristled Friday in response to a speech late Thursday by hawkish U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in which he called for France, Germany and Russia to contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq by agreeing to write off all or some of Iraq's debts, while flatly saying the United Nations "can't be in charge" of postwar Iraq.
"Some people shot, some people stole, and now someone has to pay for that," Putin said in wry response to a reporter's question about Wolfowitz's debt proposal.
His remarks came after trilateral talks Friday evening in St. Petersburg's Grand Hotel Europe with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, where each side stressed the need for the United Nations to take over postwar Iraq.
Putin did, however, say the debt proposal was "legitimate and understandable" and could be discussed at a Group of Eight summit planned for June in Evian, France. Both Schroeder and Chirac said any debt proposals could not be discussed until a legitimate Iraqi government was in place.
Talk of how to deal with Iraq's massive debt burden came as the G-8 finance ministers met in Washington to discuss plans for reconstructing Iraq. With Iraq's oil patch, which contains the second-largest reserves in the world, now falling into the coalition forces' hands and billions of dollars in reconstruction contracts up for grabs, debate is raging over whether the coalition or the United Nations should take control in Iraq. Until that debate is resolved, a legal vacuum over who has authorization to trade Iraqi oil could put the brakes on reconstruction plans.
While France, Germany and Russia have all called for Iraq to be controlled by the United Nations, leading U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Wolfowitz have all poured cold water on the idea. President George W. Bush last week said the UN should play a "vital" role in Iraq but he did not give any further details.
For oil to begin flowing again out of Iraq and for the proceeds of oil sales to go toward reconstruction contracts, there may have to be new legal safeguards in place surrounding Iraq's debt to protect that crude from being impounded by creditors.
Iraq is estimated to owe between $62 billion and $120 billion to international creditors, and up to a further $300 billion to Kuwait and other Middle Eastern states as reparations for the 1991 Gulf War. It owes about $8 billion each to France and Russia, and $4.3 billion to Germany.
In addition to that legal tangle, for Iraq's oil to be traded legally, the UN Security Council must vote to approve the lifting of sanctions imposed in 1990, a UN diplomat, contacted by telephone in New York, said Friday.
France and Russia could threaten to use their veto power as permanent members of the Security Council to keep the embargo in order to win concessions from the United States over a greater role in Iraq, said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent analyst.
"There appear to be government-sponsored attempts to blackmail the United States into making concessions using this nightmarish legal situation," he said. "To a larger extent, they are trying to put constraints on U.S. action [by calling for UN control]. They want to reinstall the supremacy of the UN."
The UN oil-for-food program was created in 1995 as a way to allow Iraq to engage in a restricted oil trade under the 1990 embargo with all the proceeds to be kept in a UN escrow account and to go toward food and civilian equipment. The program was modified by the Security Council soon after the outbreak of war to give priority to humanitarian supplies. That resolution expires May 12, but the oil-for-food program is due to continue until June 3.
If there is no new vote to extend the program, it loses any legal force and leaves a legal vacuum with no party authorized to sell Iraqi oil, the UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Friday.
Amid the legal uncertainty surrounding trade of Iraqi oil, 7 million barrels of Iraqi oil are now backed up at the Turkish port of Ceyhan, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Although that is not a large amount of oil, it is a sign traders are steering clear while it is still uncertain who will have the legal right to trade the oil.
"There needs to be a new institution in place after this to safeguard oil sales from creditors," Felgenhauer said.
The United States, however, already seems to have set its sights on controlling any future agency, at least in the short term. Reuters cited unnamed sources as saying Friday that the United States plans to run the Iraqi oil industry until an interim authority can be formed to take over.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney called earlier last week for the creation of "an organization to oversee the functioning of their Oil Ministry." That body "will be composed primarily of Iraqis. It may have international advisers from outside," Reuters quoted him as saying.
The news agency, however, also cited unnamed sources as saying the Defense Department is considering creating an advisory board of former U.S. oil executives to help run Iraq's oil industry. The sources said a former chief executive of Shell Oil Co., Philip Carroll, had been tipped to head that board.
But ,while speculation circulates about U.S. plans to move in on the oil industry, the United States appeared to make one concession over the weekend over a UN role in rebuilding Iraq. At the G-8 meeting of finance ministers in Washington, the United States agreed that IMF and World Bank aid for Iraq would come as part of a reconstruction plan to be endorsed by the UN, The Associated Press reported. Before the weekend meeting, U.S. officials had argued that IMF and World Bank aid could start as part of an American-led reconstruction program.
On the sidelines of that meeting, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Russian television that Russia will not forgive Iraq's debt.
"No one has forgiven Russia's debt, regardless of what kind of regime it was and regardless of the country's clout," Kudrin said. "For this reason, international law and our membership of the Paris Club of creditor nations will allow us to press for the repayment of our loans."
But, in later remarks to Russian news agencies, he said it was "inevitable" Iraq's debt would have to be restructured.
As Russia and the United States head into a potential standoff over the legal mire surrounding Iraq's debts and oil revenues, analysts warned that Russia risked further reducing its chances of getting any role in Iraq by continuing to ruffle U.S. feathers. While France and Germany toned down their stance last week, Russia continued to speak out strongly against the war.
The U.S. House of Representatives last week approved an amendment to bar French, Russian, German and Syrian companies from gaining any reconstruction contracts in postwar Iraq. Although the Bush administration has said it does not support this move, and although it is not legally binding, it is a sign of how growing anti-Russian sentiment in the United States could make things difficult for Russia. And, already, officials on the coalition side in the United Nations are getting exasperated with Russia's stance.
"The frustrating thing is that, while the Russians are calling for the UN to play a central role, they are blocking any type of first step for a UN initiative to establish itself in a meaningful way in Iraq," the UN diplomat said, citing Russian attempts to block UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's adviser from having contact with pro-coalition Iraqis. "If it continues to do this, the UN risks being left behind."
TITLE: Federal Commission Slams Local Election Body
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A report from a State Duma commission examining the organization and holding of the Legislative Assembly elections in November says that the commission uncovered a number of election-law violations. The report is the latest in a number of events that City Hall officials say have been orchestrated to undermine the administration of Governor Vladimir Yakovlev.
The report charges that the City Election Commission (CEC) did not properly follow federal election laws and says that current CEC head Alexander Garusov should be removed from his post because, under his management, the commission failed to meet its obligations during the vote.
"From our point of view, this is a negative situation that could lead to more violations if we enter the next elections here with the current election-commission head," Pyotr Shelishch, the head of the examination commission said at a press conference hosted by National Press Development Institute on Monday.
The report, sent to the Central Election Commission on Monday, says that the CEC did not investigate reports of City Hall officials using their influence to provide free advertisements for candidates favored by Smolny, that it ignored significant evidence of vote buying and that it was lax in investigating instances where candidates were suspected of having used funds in their campaigns outside of the legally prescribed limits and sources. The report also charges that the CEC prevented a number of candidates from taking advantage of free television air time to which they are entitled by law.
Shelishch said Monday that more severe penalties than firing should be sought against Garusov.
"A criminal investigation should also be opened into the head of the [regional] election commission," Shelishch said. "I suspect some candidates may have been favored by the CEC itself."
According to sources within the body, the Central Election Commission will examine the report at its next session, which is scheduled for April 25.
The CEC could not be reached for comment on Monday.
Among the cases cited as instances of vote buying was that of Vadim Voitanovsky, who won in the 31st district, and who the report says distributed food vouchers worth 155 rubles (about $4.80) each to voters in his district ahead of the election. The report says that the district election commission ruled that the distribution of the vouchers was a violation of election laws and refused to register Voitanovsky as a candidate, but the CEC overturned the decision on Nov. 1, stating that "Voitanovsky has denied being involved in the distribution of the vouchers and the district commission has no direct proof that they were, in fact, distributed by Voitonovsky."
Voitonovsky's case is currently before the city court.
The examining commission also said that CEC has failed to follow an order of the Central Election Commission to look into allegations that City Hall authorities had used their influence to promote certain candidates. One official alleged to have committed such violations is Yakovlev himself. According to the commission's report, during one television broadcast the governor attacked incumbents in some of the city's districts.
"I would say that in the entire Nevsky District ... the deputies haven't done anything there other than throw them scraps every once in a while. Is this right? Is this the proper way to work?"
With regard to campaign financing, the commission pointed out that one deputy, Yury Rydnik, the leader of the Our City bloc and a Yakovlev ally, has already been found guilty by a court of breaking election laws. In March, the City Court voided Rydnik's victory in the 41st district, ruling that a transfer of 2.6 million rubles (about $78,000) to fund a stairwell-cleaning company run by one of his relatives should have been reported as spending for election advertising, as the workers for the company wore uniforms with the name "Rydnik" stenciled on their backs.
Yury Rydnik is the chairperson of the board of directors at Balt-Unieximbank. He has filed an appeal in relation to the decision with the Supreme Court.
Garusov, for his part, denies the commission's allegations, saying that they are part of an attempt to undermine him by political opponents.
"According to federal election law, it is necessary first to determine first how serious violations are. What I can say is that 50 legislators were elected from 50 city districts, all whom are working. Thus, the city elections took place," Garusov said in an interview Monday.
He also said that the federal commission did not have the power to remove him from office.
"The only things that could force me out of my post are my death, a decision by the CEC to elect a new head or if there were a number of results from a particular election overturned in the courts," Garusov said. "None of these things has happened yet."
He said that the CEC is aware of the allegations against Voitonovsky and those that Yakovlev used his influence improperly, but that it was unable to find proof that wrongdoing had occurred.
"[The Northwest Region] Prosecutor's Office has already determined that Voitanovsky did not committed any violations," he said. "As for the governor's speech, we are still trying to find the footage to determine if it actually took place. Only then can we decide what action should be taken."
Garusov added that the candidates who did not receive the mandated free air time were themselves to blame, as they did not show up or could not be contacted for their allotted times.
The report also upset City Hall.
"Shelishch is human as well, so the mistake could be his," Alexander Afanasyev, the spokesperson for Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, said in a telephone interview on Monday, "If somebody believes that something was wrong, then let's go to court and decide."
TITLE: U.S.-Russia Program Aims To Open World
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A program to encourage dialogue between Russia and the United States got a boost from the visit to St. Petersburg this week of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens and James Billington, the head of the Library of Congress in Washington. The Open World Program, under which thousands of Russian politicians have visited the United States, will be expanded to the cultural sphere.
Billington on Monday also signed an agreement with the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Kunstkamera museum to launch a bilingual, online Russian-American library.
Stevens read a prepared statement on the expansion of the Open World Program, which will start with a visit by 100 prominent Russian artists to leading American cultural institutions.
"We will work closely with the Culture Minister, Mikhail Shvydkoi, to organize visits by Russian culture representatives to the U.S.," Billington said.
Since being launched on Billington's initiative in 1999 as the Russian Leadership Program, the Open World Program has aimed to create ties and foster a better understanding between Russia and the United States by inviting young prominent Russian politicians to the United States to give them an insight into the American political and economic systems.
The program focuses its work in eight areas: the rule of law, economic development, women as leaders, health, education reforms, the environment, federalism and youth issues. This year, 1,600 Russian political leaders will visit the United States under the program, staying with host families and familiarizing themselves with the work of American state institutions and bodies of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of power.
Billington, renowned as a prominent Russia scholar as well as heading the Library of Congress, said Monday that both sides will benefit from the expansion of the program.
"Russian guests will be able to see how their American counterparts collaborate with government structures, business associations and educational institutions with regard to questions such as government, economics, and program development," he said. "Americans will receive great experience in communicating with the next generation of Russian leaders in art, literature, music, folklore, dance, and cinematography."
Since its creation, the Open World Program has received grants totaling $51 million from the U.S. Congress. It is governed by a board of trustees whose members include Billington, Stevens and billionaire financier George Soros.
Stevens and Billington shrugged off questions about the situation in Iraq from journalists at Monday's press conference, saying that they "hadn't come here to talk about the war," although Billington did hint that the United States would help with cultural affairs in postwar Iraq.
"After the first Gulf War, when the Library of Kuwait was destroyed, we helped replace some of the volumes. We will try to help, if it is necessary [after the current war]," he said.
Stevens and Billington were also in St. Petersburg to sign a partnership agreement with the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Kunstkamer. The result will be "Meeting of Frontiers," a bilingual online project that aims to provide both Russians and Americans with a free pool of documents on three topics: the history of the American West, of Siberia and of Russian-American relations in Alaska - Stevens' home state.
"'Meeting of Frontiers is used in U.S. and Russian schools and libraries and by the general public in both our countries," Stevens said.
The Web site will include over 100,000 maps and documents taken from 12 different libraries and museums in Russian and the U.S.
One of the driving forces behing the creation of the Open World Program was renowned Russian academician Dmitry Likhachyov, who served as honorary co-chairperson when the program was launched shortly before his death in October 1999. The program is now permanently dedicated to him.
Likhachyov, born in St. Petersburg on Nov. 28, 1906, was a key figure in Russian reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, and was an adviser on cultural and historical issues to then-President Boris Yeltsin. He witnessed the revolutions of 1917 and, later, survived four years of hard labor in the gulag, Russia's network of prison camps, to which he was sent for taking part in a student discussion group.
"In the years that lead to the creation of the program, [Likhachyov] would often tell me about the correspondence he held with young people in all regions of Russia," Billington said. "He was a man who, in his late 80s and early 90s, was in touch with the very young in Russia. My conversations with him were a source of reinforcement of my own incentives."
"He was unique in the sense that he was a student of deep Russian culture and at the same time a strong advocate of contact with the world," he said. "So, when I talk about the Open World Program, I have very much him in mind."
The full text of Senator Ted Stevens' statement on the Open World program can be found on p. 13.
TITLE: Proof Found That Russia Backed Iraq, Papers Say
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Baghdad residents and Western journalists rummaging through a mansion that was once an office of the Iraqi secret police have turned up evidence that Russia provided Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, a U.S. and a British newpaper reported Sunday.
The San Francisco Chronicle said it found documents revealing a Moscow-based organization had been training Iraqi intelligence agents as recently as last September. The Telegraph said it obtained documents showing that among other things Russia shared intelligence with Hussein's regime on private conversations between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other Western leaders.
Russia provided Iraq with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals with countries near Iraq, the British paper said. The two countries also signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to obtain visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden.
The Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, declined to comment Sunday on the report. Without mentioning The Telegraph , SVR spokesperson Boris Labusov said the agency does not comment on unsubstantiated reports in "boulevard publications," Interfax reported.
Interfax also quoted what it said was an expert close to the intelligence services, who suggested there was nothing sinister about intelligence ties between Russia and other countries. The unnamed expert said that the SVR established partnerships with foreign agencies over the past decade in part to exchange information in the struggles against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drugs and terrorism.
The newspapers said the documents showing links between Russia and Iraq were obtained from the heavily bombed Baghdad office of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, which has been the target of looters and ordinary Iraqis searching for information about relatives who disappeared during Hussein's rule.
The documents, in Arabic, are mostly intelligence reports from anonymous agents and from the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow, The Telegraph said.
Blair is referred to in a report dated March 5, 2002, in which an Iraqi intelligence official explains that a Russian colleague passed him the details of a private conversation between Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, apparently in February 2002 in Rome. The document says that Blair "referred to the negative things decided by the United States over Baghdad." the newspaper reported.
The expert cited by Interfax, casting doubt on this report, said such meetings usually take place one-on-one and asked "Which of the two interlocutors in this case is the agent?" according to Interfax.
The list of assassins is referred to in a paper dated Nov. 27, 2000, in which an agent signing himself SAB says the Russians have passed him a detailed list of killers, The Telegraph said. The letter does not describe any assignments that the assassins might be given.
A letter from the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow shows that Russia kept Iraq informed about its arms deals with other countries in the Middle East, the paper said. Moscow also passed on information of Russians who could help Iraqi politicians obtain visas to go to many Western countries.
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: Muscovites Say Cops Make Life Dangerous, Not Safer
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - If you're afraid of the police, you're not alone. A Moscow City Hall-sponsored survey has found that foreigners living in Russia consider the police to be the greatest threat to their personal safety.
"The greatest danger, we were surprised to find out and have to admit, is perceived to be the police." Georgy Muradov, head of Moscow's international affairs department, told a City Hall meeting Monday.
The survey, titled "Safety in Moscow through Foreign Eyes," is the last in a four-part series of surveys meant to gauge the image of Russia's capital abroad. The most recent survey asked foreigners how safe they felt in Moscow and what they considered to be the greatest dangers here.
The police took the most criticism from the 40 foreigners surveyed, regardless of their origin.
"[The police] have completely lost any idea of what the law is," Muradov quoted one of the survey's respondents as saying. "And the most amazing thing is that they don't think there is anything wrong with that."
Foreigners are frequently subjected to document checks by bribe-hungry police officers, Muradov said. "They complain that the police accuse them of nonexistent administrative offenses to get a bribe," he said. "They are enraged that police are so brazen that they don't even hide that they are corrupt."
Another safety concern mentioned by foreigners was the behavior of ordinary Muscovites. Many of the respondents felt that could only count on themselves and that nobody would lend a hand in a threatening situation.
"An Algerian diplomat who was surrounded by a jeering crowd of teenagers was most surprised by the fact that nobody, including the police, came to his aid," Muradov said.
The Moscow police have been taking a closer look at complaints of corruption, and police chief Vladimir Pronin forbade whole squads of officers last month from checking documents without cause.
"But his order is not stopping the police. They are continuing to check documents," Muradov said. "The police feel that they are in a privileged position, and they are exploiting powerless foreigners."
An off-duty police officer agreed with the assessment, saying the order hasn't changed matters much. "We were laughing about that all morning," he said, describing his police station's reaction to the news of Pronin's order. "All we have to do now to check someone's papers is to say he fits the description of any one of dozens of suspects we are radioed about everyday."
The City Hall survey, conducted by Romir monitoring, will be released in full in May. City Hall will use the results to try to improve its policies.
TITLE: Primakov's Trip Failed To Stop War
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Yevgeny Primakov said that President Vladimir Putin sent him on a secret mission to Iraq to plead with President Saddam Hussein to step down only three days before the U.S.-led attack began.
Hussein heard him out, patted him on the shoulder and then walked out of the room without another word, Primakov said on television Friday.
Primakov, a former prime minister and an expert on the Middle East who has known Hussein for years, said Putin called him in the early hours of March 17.
"He said this work could not be postponed, that the plane was already waiting. We left that morning," he said.
Recalling his last encounter with Hussein in one of his palaces, Primakov said: "I told him this: 'If you love your country and love your people - and if you want to save your people from these sacrifices, you must leave your post as president of Iraq'."
"I told him that I understood how difficult this proposal was for him and how it could change his life, but that he had to understand that he was doing this for Iraq, for his motherland," Primakov said.
Primakov, who once ran Russia's foreign intelligence service and also served as foreign minister, was known to have made a February trip to Iraq to meet with Hussein, but this was the first time that a March trip had been mentioned.
Looking back Friday on his March mission, he said the proposal he put to Hussein at first met stony silence.
"First he listened to me, without a word. Then he said that during the first gulf war we also tried to talk him into something, but a land operation turned out to be unavoidable all the same," Primakov said.
"He then patted me on the shoulder and walked out."
Primakov said Moscow had done all it could to avoid war.
"Russia and Vladimir Putin did everything until the very last moment to prevent this terrible war," he said. "Terrible, because it is still not clear what it will bring about."
(Reuters, AP)
TITLE: U.S. Raises Pressure Against Damascus
AUTHOR: By Scott Lindlaw
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday it will consider diplomatic, economic and other steps against Syria because of concerns that Damascus is harboring fleeing Iraqi leaders and has tested chemical weapons. President Bush and his top officials would not say whether they are considering military action against Iraq's neighbor.
"We believe in light of this new environment, they should review their actions and their behavior," said Secretary of State Colin Powell. He said other Middle Eastern countries might want to review past behavior as well, now that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government has collapsed.
"With respect to Syria ... we will examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature as we move forward," Powell said. He said he had no specifics on which Iraqi leaders allegedly have fled to Syria.
"I can't quantify how many might be slipping across the border," he said.
Talking to reporters at the State Department, Powell said, "These are the kinds of individuals who should not be allowed to find safe haven in Syria. And this is a point we have made to the Syrians directly."
"We're told the border is closed, but as you know, it's a rather porous border," he said. "We have a new situation in the region, and we hope that all nations in the region review their past practices and behavior."
Presidential spokesperson Ari Fleischer said the administration had "various bits of information" indicating Iraqi leaders have taken refuge in Syria, but he refused to elaborate or say who the leaders were. He rejected Syria's denials of having a chemical-weapons program. "It is well corroborated" that Syria has such a program, Fleischer said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Syria has conducted a chemical-weapons test in the past year or so.
Earlier, Bush stopped short of threatening war against Syria, though he warned the country not to take in Iraqi leaders. He too charged that Syria has chemical weapons.
"They just need to cooperate," Bush said Sunday.
Fleischer would not rule out military action against Syria, but emphasized that it is U.S. policy never to do so.
"We always leave options on tables, but our course of action with Syria is focused on reminding Syria that this is a good time for them to re-examine their support of terrorism, and a good place to begin is with their harboring of these Iraqi leaders who have fled to Syria, who should not be allowed to find safe haven there," he said.
Syria flatly denied the accusations.
"Of course Syria has no chemical weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bouthayna Shaaban told Lebanon's Al-Hayat-LBC satellite channel Sunday. Syria has also denied that any members of the Iraqi leadership had fled to Damascus and says it has closed its border with Iraq.
Great Britain, America's principal ally in the Iraq war, played down the prospect of bringing the war to Syria.
"We have made it clear that there are no plans for Syria to be next on the list," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters in Manama, Bahrain, the first leg of a Middle Eastern tour to discuss rebuilding Iraq. "But there are questions that the Syrians need to answer."
Straw was also less certain than his U.S. counterparts of accusations that Syria has weapons of mass destruction.
"I'm not sure, and that's why we need to talk to them about it," Straw said.
Rumsfeld charged Monday that the majority of foreign fighters in Iraq were from Syria, brought in by the "busloads." On one bus, military authorities found leaflets that offered rewards for killing Americans, and several hundred thousand dollars in cash, Rumsfeld said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Rumsfeld warned Syria last month to stop sending military equipment to Iraqi forces. "We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments," he said.
Asked whether Syria was a good candidate for his "axis of evil," Bush laughed and said, "We will deal with each situation as it arises."
TITLE: Coalition Is Reducing Its Naval Forces
AUTHOR: By Robert Burns
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Iraqi fighters have not mounted "a coherent defense" and major combat there is essentially over, an Army major general said Monday.
"I think we will move into a phase where it is smaller, but sharp fights," Major General Stanley McChrystal told reporters during a Defense Department briefing.
Two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and the ships in their battle groups will leave the Persian Gulf this week and return to their home ports, he added.
While there is still a lot of work to be done, McChrystal said, "I would anticipate that the major combat operations are over."
The departure of the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Constellation reflects a winding down of the air campaign, although the Pentagon is still sending more ground forces to Kuwait and Iraq.
McChrystal said that Monday was the last day that aircraft from all five carriers would fly missions over Iraq. The number of missions flown is down to about 800 a day, with fewer than 200 precision-guided bombs and missiles dropped.
Also, there have been no positive test results on the suspected chemical weapons found by coalition forces, McChrystal said.
The Army's 1st Armored Division is moving its equipment to ports for shipment to the Gulf region, and its troops will follow by air in a couple of weeks, a division spokesperson, Major Scott Slaten, said Monday. The division is sending two armored brigades and one aviation brigade from bases in Germany, and one brigade is going from its base at Fort Riley, Kansas, Slaten said.
It is not clear whether one of the Army divisions already in Iraq will leave once the 1st Armored Divsion gets there.
Also, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division, recently arrived in Kuwait from Fort Hood, Texas, crossed the border into Iraq on Monday. First to go were two convoys of about 500 tanks and other vehicles. It was not clear whether their destination was Baghdad or northern Iraq.
The Kitty Hawk will return to its base at Yokosuka, Japan, and the Constellation will return to San Diego, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
As combat winds down in Iraq, the hunt for chemical and biological weapons or nuclear materials is rising on the priority list for American troops. There are more potential nuclear, biological or chemical weapons sites in Iraq than U.S. military teams to check them, Pentagon officials said Sunday.
Also, the United States is focusing on unfinished business from the 1991 Gulf war. A team of experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency have arrived in the Persian Gulf region to search for clues to the fate of Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, who was shot down on the first night of that war, U.S. defense and intelligence officials said Monday.
The Pentagon originally declared Speicher killed in action, but changed his status to missing-in-action, then to "missing-captured," after an Iraqi defector and others reported that an American was being held in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's prison system.
With respect to movements of aircraft carriers, Vice Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of all naval forces participating in the Iraq war - including two carriers in the eastern Mediterranean - had said in an interview Saturday that he hoped the Kitty Hawk and Constellation could leave soon, although he said no orders had been received.
The Kitty Hawk is scheduled to leave first, around the middle of this week, followed shortly by the Constellation, the defense official said.
That will leave only one carrier in the Gulf - the USS Nimitz, which just arrived to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln is headed back to its homeport of Everett, Washington.
Keating said Saturday that either the USS Theodore Roosevelt or the USS Harry S. Truman battle groups - both in the eastern Mediterranean for air missions over northern Iraq - may be sent home soon.
Officials said Monday it was not clear whether any decisions had been reached on those carriers.
Each aircraft carrier has about 80 planes aboard, and their F/A-18 and F-14 strike aircraft played a major role in the air war. Surveillance and other support aircraft also fly off the carriers.
The first ship to leave the war zone was the USS Portland, part of an amphibious task force that carried 7,000 Marines to Kuwait in February. The Portland arrived at Little Creek, Virginia, on Friday.
The Air Force already has sent four B-2 stealth bombers back home to Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, officials said. They were flying missions over Iraq from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and from Fairford air base in Britain. Other B-2s flew roundtrip missions from Whiteman.
After the Kitty Hawk deployed to the Gulf in February, its duties in the Pacific were taken up by the USS Carl Vinson, which remains in the Japan area and may stay even after the Kitty Hawk gets back if the carrier requires significant amounts of maintenance, officials said.
TITLE: Africa to Russia, and Vice Versa
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: "Well, Uganda is the place to do it," Philip Arnoult was saying to two theater directors from Moscow and Tanzania as I arrived to interview him last week.
Arnoult has worked for years to build theatrical bridges around the world, including projects in Eastern Europe and East Africa that were separate - until now. His latest project, launched this month, is the culmination of a few years work bringing together the performing arts in the two regions.
"For the last three years, East Africans have been at the [Golden Mask] festival," Arnoult said, referring to Russia's top performing-arts festival, which wrapped up on Monday with an award ceremony at the Mariinsky Theater. The festival is being held in St. Petersburg for the first time in its almost 10-year history as part of the city's 300th-anniversary celebrations.
"The latest [project] will involve a workshop [run by Moscow-based director Yury Urnov] in Kampala [the capital of Uganda]," Arnoult said. "This is a bilateral East African-Russian project that has got a really strong beginning, because it's come out of the history of the work we've done the last three years."
Arnoult has been working in theater for more than 30 years, and first made his name by founding the Baltimore Theater Project, a center for cutting-edge theater and dance, in 1971. The reputation he has gained for his work around the world means he is often asked to work as a theater consultant.
"Five years ago, I was asked by the Ford Foundation in East Africa - Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - to go talk to artists to find out the state of things," Arnoult said.
The major issues concerning those working in theater in the region, Arnoult said, were training, isolation, lack of mobility, and the amount of performing spaces in the countries controlled by former colonial powers, in the shape of, for example, the British Council or the French Institute.
"Overarchingly, it was the need to nurture authentic voices - playwrights, composers - because the colonial residue was really very strong," Arnoult said.
Arnoult continued consulting for the project after the Ford Foundation gave an "amazing commitment" to it for a 15-year presence in the three countries, with funding of "something like" $15 million over the first five years.
The Ford Foundation, set up in 1936 by automobile pioneer Henry Ford and his son Edsel, provides grants to promote development and international relations. It has 13 offices in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Russia.
Urnov, the Moscow director going to Uganda later this month, is one of some three dozen directors taking part in the Central and Eastern European Theater Initiative, which Arnoult coordinates to partner young directors who can work in English with nine of the most important American theaters.
"We're looking at about $10-million worth of projects that have come out of simple introductions that have a Russian, a Pole or a Romanian end up in America doing a full-scale production with an artistic team," Arnoult said.
The other Russian directors on the program are Anton Moguchy, a St. Petersburger, and Kama Ginkas, whose production of "Lady With a Lapdog" at Moscow's Theater of Young Spectators was nominated at this year's Golden Mask.
Arnoult said that the Golden Mask and its drama-only adjunct, the Russian Case festival, had given him two more directors to add to the list, although he would only name one on the record - St. Petersburg's Viktor Kramer, the founder of the popular Farces Theater company, who is expected to stage some of the official events for the city's 300th-anniversary celebrations in May.
One of the first people Arnoult talked to in East Africa was Tanzanian director Mgunga mwa mnyenyelwa. ("Spelling is easy," Arnoult said. "I've only worked with him for five years, and I cannot say his last name.")
Mwa mnyenyelwa was also in St. Petersburg for the Golden Mask, and said his first visit to Russia had given him hope for the future.
"My colleague came [to Moscow] two years ago and, when she came back, she was not the same," he said. "Now, I am here, and I won't be the same when I go back, because I have met a lot of people now."
"We take Russia as the home of theater, because we have read a lot about the great theater artists from Russia," he said. "So seeing them live, seeing the theater situation in St. Petersburg is something that gives me inspiration when I go back, with more energy."
"There was maybe a time when we were about to get disappointed, but theater should move forward," he said. "I look at theater in my country, and we're [on to] something big here. Whether it takes ten years or fifty years, it has to be there."
Arnoult, meanwhile, has no plans to stop working in Russia any time soon, saying that he will probably be working in the country through 2007.
"I've had a passion for working in this region for 30 years," he said. "I was here long before the changes, during the changes, and I'm still here."
"I have a good time putting these people together."
TITLE: Russia Hopes War Revives Arms Industry
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - War tends to fuel demand for guns, fighter jets and air defense systems from wary countries, and Russia is hoping the U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq will lead to big bucks for its rebounding defense industry.
While recent U.S. complaints that Russia supplied Iraq with defense equipment in violation of UN sanctions cast a momentary chill on U.S.-Russian ties, the accusations could very well end up working to Russia's advantage, senior government officials and defense analysts said.
"There is no doubt that the war in Iraq has fueled the arms race not only in North Korea but in all of the world," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said during a visit to Seoul, South Korea, last week.
"As a result of the Iraq war and the accusations of illegal Russian arms deliveries to Baghdad, applications for Russian weapons systems have soared ... over the past month," Ivanov was quoted by Interfax as saying. "Thank you for the free advertisement."
Ivanov did not specify which countries have approached Russia for weapons, but defense analysts said top candidates are Middle Eastern countries caught in the thick of the Iraqi crisis such as Syria, Iran and, perhaps, the United Arab Emirates. Sales to Syria and Iran, however, might anger Washington, which has included them on a list of countries it accuses of harboring terrorism.
Other countries that might be interested in acquiring arms include Libya, North Korea and even Indonesia. Jakarta, a one-time buyer of U.S. defense equipment, has been barred from purchasing American weapons due to its bloody crackdown on East Timor. Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri visits Moscow on April 21 and is expected to be shopping for long-range S-300 air-defense systems, several Su-27 jets and a few helicopters.
Russia has to move quickly before the United States leaves it with no Middle East customers, said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, or CAST.
"Rosoboronexport has to be extremely aggressive in marketing Russian arms and do it very quickly," he said, referring to the state arms-export agency. "If we continue to drag our feet, Syria might be put under a colonial administration, and the same thing might happen to Iran in a year."
At the same time, Moscow's hopes might never pan out, he cautioned, pointing to what happened after the 1999 Kosovo conflict. Russian predictions that the war would bring a number of new clients fell flat.
Sales, however, have grown briskly over the past three years - mainly because Russia's top two clients, China and India, which account for up to 70 percent of all deals, have been buying more. Arms deliveries reached a post-Soviet high of $4.8 billion on revenues of $4.5 billion in 2002.
Russia desperately needs to tap new markets to keep the momentum going - and this has led to the talk about how the Iraq war might boost sales.
"[The war] will cause a surge in demand for air-defense systems and radio-electronic warfare," Alexander Nozdrachev, general director of the Russian Conventional Arms Agency, told reporters in Yekaterinburg earlier this month.
He said anti-tank systems and night-vision equipment might prove popular as well.
The U.S. claims that Russia supplied Iraq - directly or through third parties - with night-vision goggles, satellite-jamming devices and anti-tank guided missiles. Russia denies the allegations.
Iraq, however, was a big client in Soviet times, snapping up $30.5 billion in arms between 1958 and 1990, when UN sanctions were imposed, according to Marat Kenzhetayev, an analyst with the Center for Arms Control. The defense equipment included 4,630 tanks, 1,145 aircraft, 348 helicopters, 325 air defense systems and 41 battleships, he said.
Few of the weapons remained when U.S. forces attacked Iraq, and those that were found were out of date and in bad repair. Iraq's air-defense systems had been crippled after years of U.S. strikes following the 1991 Gulf War.
"What the United States did in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and is now doing in Iraq shows it is mainly relying on its air superiority ... and Iraq does not have the air-defense systems to counter it," Kenzhetayev said.
Yury Bondarev, deputy commander of the Russian air force, agreed.
"The lion's share of duties during this war were carried out by aviation," Bondarev, who oversees the CIS's Unified Air Defense System, told reporters late last week. "It's hard to underestimate the role of air defense here. If Iraq had had real air defenses, then U.S. aviation would have had serious difficulties."
He added: "I am confident there will be more demand for such systems [after the war]."
Air-defense systems such as the S-300, shorter range Tor-M1 and upgrades of the S-125 Pechora are of great interest to Iran and Syria, analysts said. Iran was a major importer of Russian defense equipment from 1991 to 2001, buying $3.6 billion worth of Sukhoi and MiG fighter jets, S-200 air defense systems and T-72 tanks. It also took three Kilo-class diesel submarines.
Sales have since sagged, even though Russia in 2000 walked out of the 1995 Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement with the United States that capped deliveries to Iran. Russia has sold 30 Mi-17 helicopters for $150 million and 300 BMP-2 armored personnel carriers for $60 million, said Makiyenko of CAST.
With the Iraq war and a recently adopted 25-year re-armament program, Iran is expected to go on a shopping spree for weapons systems, including S-300s.
Makiyenko said that both countries might jump for new systems if they felt any U.S. threat. He pointed out, however, that the only order that came after the Kosovo war was from China, for S-300PMU1 systems.
Kenzhetayev said U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates have been saturated with American weapons after the Gulf War and are unlikely to start looking for new arms any time soon.
"Yet one would logically expect that traditional recipients of Russian arms - Iran, Libya and Syria - would consider buying from Russia," he said. "If they thought they might be the next target after Iraq, they might start buying."
TITLE: Putin Slams Housing Services
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin expressed outrage Friday with the lack of "basic order" in the housing and communal-services sector and demanded action be taken to resolve the present "mess."
"Sooner or later, the housing and utilities sector must be put in order," Putin was quoted by Interfax as saying at a meeting with officials in St. Petersburg. "I was stunned when I was told that electricity is being delivered by verbal agreement, absolutely on a whim. It is a complete mess."
He said this was due to a lack of discipline and the absence of legislation delineating responsibility among the federal, regional and municipal government bodies that have a hand in the sector.
Another problem in the housing sector is the excess number of people who get to pay cut-rate fees, Putin said.
He said some 80 million citizens, or more than half the population, get subsidies, many of whom "don't need this support." This, he said, deprives money from those who truly need it.
"I am not sure that all these discounts are sensible," he said.
The housing sector encompasses a wide swath of services, from heating and electricity to maintenance, water and garbage removal.
Analysts estimate that the sector is underfinanced by $2 billion annually and that more than 65 percent of the sector's infrastructure is in need of urgent repair.
Putin said he recognized the painful nature of reforms ahead of parliamentary elections this December, but the gaping need to revitalize the crumbling sector should only intensify efforts to see changes into law.
Last Wednesday, the State Duma gave final approval to amendments to housing legislation that would change tariff policies for the sector.
The bill divides the rights to regulate tariffs among the federal government, regions and cities. It also provides some transition from general housing subsidies given to all citizens, regardless of need, to a system of targeted subsidies reserved for the economically disadvantaged.
Lawmakers rejected a clause in the original version of the bill that would have forced citizens to foot 100 percent of their communal-services bills.
Gosstroi chairperson Nikolai Koshman said Friday that the new amendments would boost the sector's coffers by 70 billion rubles ($2.3 billion) every year because they will staunch the outflow of 40 billion rubles given to inappropriate subsidies and the loss of about 30 billion rubles spent under a misplaced tariff policy.
National electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems together with gas giant Gazprom have said that they will start up a new venture called Russian Communal Systems to invest $700 million over five years in overhauling the floundering state and municipal communal services sector - and grab a slice of the market, estimated to be worth upward of $18 billion per year.
TITLE: Russian Firms Behaving Better
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - There were no major corporate faux pas in the last three months of 2002, but 10 of the 25 companies evaluated quarterly by the Institute of Corporate Governance and Law saw their scores drop, the corporate watchdog said Monday. However, 11 of the companies rated saw their scores rise, led by St. Petersburg utility Lenenergo, which gained nearly 7 points to finish in a tie for fourth overall with Northwest Telecom at 64.95 out of a possible 100 points.
ICGL owns small stakes in all 25 companies and scores them on transparency, capital structure, shareholders rights, governance history, management, executive bodies and corporate risk.
The country's second-largest mobile operator, Vimpelcom, lost about a half a point but still retained top spot overall with a score of 84.12, while Rosneft, the last fully state-owned oil major, remained on the bottom with a score of 33.2, up just a fifth of a point. Two other oil companies - LUKoil and recently privatized Slavneft - were the biggest point losers, falling more than 6 points and nearly four points to rank 15th and 18th, respectively.
An ICGL spokesperson said LUKoil's downgrade was mainly due to one thing - the company's failure to provide any of the information requested by ICGL as a normal shareholder.
"That was enough of a reason to cut the company's score," she said.
A LUKoil spokesperson said there must have been some misunderstanding since his company "always" answers questions from investors.
Analysts said they couldn't think of a legitimate reason to consider LUKoil's corporate behavior worse in the last three months of 2002 than in the prior three months.
"To our knowledge, Mark Mobius, who was appointed an independent director of LUKoil last year, has been quite active at his post," said Yulia Kochetygova, director of corporate governance services at international ratings agency Standard & Poor's Moscow office.
ICGL downgraded Slavneft because of the high degree of uncertainty over its future development. TNK and Sibneft jointly won a tender for 75 percent of the company last year but have yet to decide how to divvy up the company.
However, Kochetygova said that Slavneft has always been a risky company from the point of view of investors.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are Lenenergo, TNK and Moscow fixed-line telephone monopoly MGTS, all of which were praised by ICGL for full and timely disclosure of requested information.
All in all, ICGL said 2002 was a banner year for metals giant Norilsk Nickel, state long-distance provider Rostelecom, flagship airline Aeroflot, oil major Surgutneftegaz and automaker GAZ. But developments at steel company Severstal, regional utility Kuzbassenergo and national power monopoly Unified Energy Systems have been less than impressive, ICGL said.
Troika Dialog corporate governance analyst Yelena Krasnitskaya said Norilsk Nickel has been one of the most active companies in terms of improving corporate governance over the last six months. "The company is doing a lot in this direction and I think it will remain one of the leaders this year too," she said.
One reason for Norilsk's apparently improving behavior could be that its main beneficial shareholder, Interros chief Vladimir Potanin, has been appointed chairperson of the new National Council on Corporate Governance.
"I think that the creation of the council shows that Russian business has finally understood the importance of building relations with outside investors," Krasnitskaya said.
RANKINGS
Corporate Behavior
Company Score Change
1 Vimpelcom 84.12 -0.42
2 Norilsk Nickel 65.57 +0.21
3 UES 65.15 -1.04
4 Lenenergo 64.95 +6.81
4 N.W. Telecom 62.95 -0.41
6 Sibneft 62.47 -1.04
7 Yukos 62.27 -2.06
8 Rostelecom 60.41 0
9 Kuzbassenergo 59.59 0
10 Gazprom 59.18 0.42
11 Aeroflot 58.97 0.83
12 Samaraenergo 56.08 0.82
13 Irkutskenergo 55.05 1.03
14 MGTS 54.64 3.09
15 LUKoil 54.43 -6.19
16 Bashkirenergo 54.23 -1.23
17 TNK 54.23 4.75
18 Slavneft 52.78 -3.71
19 Surgutneftegaz 52.37 -0.21
20 Severstal 50.72 0
21 Tatneft 46.19 -0.61
22 GAZ 45.36 0.41
23 AvtoVAZ 44.95 2.27
24 VolgaTelecom 44.74 0
25 Rosneft 33.2 0.21
Source: ICGL
TITLE: LUKoil President Attacks Energy Giants' Lethargy
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov lashed out Monday at state-controlled monopolies for holding back the development of Russia's energy sector. Without naming names, he appeared to be targeting state-owned pipeline monopoly Transneft and state-controlled gas giant Gazprom.
Monopolies are not only fatal for the companies themselves because they have no interest in boosting the efficiency of their companies, but also for other market players because they diminish their chances for fully realizing their production and financial potential, Alekperov told students at a mining Institute in St Petersburg, Interfax reported.
"Russia is in great need of new mainline pipelines and terminals with a capacity of 130 to 150 million tons per year and at a cost of $10 billion to $15 billion," Alekperov said. But he said monopoly conditions for building and using the pipelines were making it almost impossible to attract these investments, crucial for developing transport infrastructure.
He said the only brake on Russian oil companies boosting production from the current 380 million tons of crude a year to 500 million or 550 million by 2010 was the gridlock in the transport system.
LUKoil has forwarded a project along with four other leading privately owned oil companies to build a new pipeline with an annual capacity of 50 million tons to the Arctic port of Murmansk for direct shipments to the U.S. But the government appeared to knock down that plan earlier this year when Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said all pipelines - new or existing - will belong to the state.
The debate over pipelines has been seen as a growing sign of conflict between the government and the powerful oil magnates. Repeated calls from the oil barons for a greater chunk of the gas market from Gazprom and a boost in domestic gas prices have also been seen as a potential sign of strain.
Alekperov said new gas fields could only be developed after a full liberalization of the internal gas market, making independent producers able to sell directly to consumers at market prices. He warned that lack of reform could lead to a domestic gas deficit because of the low pace of investment in developing new fields under monopoly conditions.
He said LUKoil wanted to use the associated gas extracted alongside crude at its fields for use in electricity generating companies. He said LUKoil planned to produce 50 billion cubic meters of gas by 2012 and had conducted negotiations with electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems to invest in developing stations in Perm, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod and Komi. However, he said, so far the company had failed to reach agreement with UES on terms.
TITLE: EU Policy Stays Same Despite Cancellation
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - EU trade chief Pascal Lamy inexplicably canceled his trip to Moscow on Friday, but the message he was meant to bring from Brussels was delivered just the same - a bigger Europe is better for Russia.
With an accession treaty scheduled to be signed by 10 European Union members-in-waiting in Athens on Wednesday, EU officials have been making the rounds to assure key trading partners that they will benefit from Europe's largest expansion ever.
Moscow, however, has been more worried than most because nine of the 10 countries that will officially join the world's largest market on May 1, 2004 have been strategic trading partners for several decades: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were Soviet republics; the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia were in the Soviet bloc; and the divided island of Cyprus has been financially integral for years, leaving Malta as the only new EU member-to-be that has no strong ties to Moscow.
Lamy's deputy in charge of Russia, Francoise Le Bail, trumpeted the benefits of the enlargement in meetings in Moscow on Friday with senior government officials and businesspeople.
"It will mean market access to 10 new EU members with common trade rules and a [unified] tariff policy," Le Bay said, adding that Brussels estimates the expansion will add 7 percent to Russia's economy over the long run.
Although Russian economic officials say that EU expansion will eventually lead to greater trade between the two bodies, the short-term impact of enlargement could be costly for companies exporting to acceding countries.
"After enlargement, the EU's share of Russia's total foreign-trade turnover will grow from 40 percent to 50 percent," said Yelena Danilova, head of the trade negotiations department in the Economic Development and Trade Ministry. "This means that we need to take our economic interests in the EU even more seriously."
Specific areas of concern include agriculture, steel and energy, Danilova said.
The expansion means that 10 more countries will be eligible for agricultural subsidies, pricing Russian grain out of their markets and costing exporters millions of euros a year in lost sales.
Anti-dumping penalties against steel producers is another headache. Though existing measures in the new member states will disappear after enlargement, the EU's total steel quotas will not change. Le Bay said Russia could renegotiate the quotas in the future, but no decision has been made.
Russia is also concerned how the accession will effect exports of energy products through Eastern Europe and exports of nuclear materials, both of which are major hard-currency earners for Moscow.
Alexander Livshits, the deputy director of Russian Aluminum, said negotiations on adjusting EU trade rules or exacting compensation would be much easier if Russia were a member of the World Trade Organization.
WTO members can be compensated by the EU if their companies are hurt by EU expansion, Le Bay said, "but since Russia is not a member of the organization, it cannot apply for compensation."
State Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov said the government needed to coordinate its efforts to join the WTO and its strategy to deal with a larger Europe. "But as Russia accounts for only 2 percent of the EU's trade, we don't see that this question has the same importance for our partner," he said.
Ryzhkov, however, urged the government to focus on the positive, not the negative aspects of a bigger Europe for exporters. "Russian companies have always been interested in the Eastern European market, but so far they have received no support on the governmental level," he said.
Seppo Remes, chairperson of the European Business Club, said businesses always adjust to new conditions more quickly than politicians, but eventually EU enlargement will benefit Russia.
"EU enlargement should only be considered as a first step, with the next steps being the creation of a common European energy space, a common European free-trade zone and visa-free movement throughout Europe," Remes said.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: UES May Dividends
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Management of Unified Energy Systems is proposing 2002 dividends nearly double the 2001 pay-out, a board member said Monday.
The board member said 2002 dividends would be 0.0492 rubles ($0.001) per ordinary share and 0.2916 rubles per preferred share, compared to 2001's 0.0260 per ordinary and 0.1185 rubles per preferred share.
The dividend proposal was distributed to directors for approval at an April 25 board meeting, the board member said. He declined to be named.
The register for the May 30 annual shareholder meeting and dividend eligibility closes on Monday. On the MICEX exchange, where the bulk of UES share trade occurs, the stock was down 0.5 percent at 4.36 rubles ($0.140).
UES management has made increased dividends a key point in its campaign to win back the trust of shareholders, who are skeptical about the security of their holdings in a sweeping state-mandated electricity-sector reform.
State-controlled UES has said increases will come in part from bigger dividend pay-outs at its partially privatized regional subsidiaries.
They include Mosenergo, which has offered a slight increase in dividend pay-outs for 2002 despite falling profit, and Lenenergo, which has proposed a pay-out on its ordinary shares nearly triple the 2001 level.
Getting Out
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia plans to sell its remaining state stake of 0.073 percent in the country's No. 1 oil firm Yukos by June 10, a Property Ministry official said Monday.
Yukos, one of the country's fastest growing oil majors and the biggest by market capitalization, was privatized in the mid-1990s.
The official said the state planned to offer 1.64 million shares of Yukos for at least 460.2 million rubles ($14.7 million) or 280 rubles ($8.95) per share between April 29 and May 23 with the results to be announced on June 10.
Yukos' shares rose 3.5 percent to $10.02 per share on the RTS exchange Monday at 3:30 p.m., the firm's market capitalization stood at $22.35 billion.
Analysts said the sale was unlikely to have a significant impact on the share price.
"With its daily turnover of more than 600,000 Yukos shares the market will easily digest the volumes planned for sale," Brokercreditservice brokerage said in a note to clients.
Efes to Invest $150M
MOSCOW (Vedomosti) - Turkish brewer Efes Beverages Group plans to invest $150 million over the coming three years into its Russian brewing operations, president Muhtar Kent said at the opening of the company's hi-tech Phlegmatic Dog pub in Moscow last week.
The bulk of the funds will be spent on marketing, ratcheting up capacity and developing infrastructure. At present the company owns a brewery in Moscow, in May it will open a brewery in Rostov-on-Don and it hopes to close negotiations for the purchase of the Amstar brewery in Ufa, which controls 1.7 percent of the Russian market. Kent added that his company also had the option of purchasing a plot of land in Yekaterinburg.
Kent also said that EBG is in talks to buy Serbian brewery Pivara Pancevo, which produces 5 million decaliters and controls 10 percent of the country's market.
Efes plans to have a capacity of 80 million decaliters by the end of the year, up from its current 50 million. Kent said the Moscow-Rostov-Urals "geographical triangle" is a model his company is committed to in the future.
TITLE: Art of Flying Unmanned Planes
AUTHOR: By Andrew Bridges
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOJAVE, California - Pilots spent four days in early April flying a trio of airplanes at each other over the Mojave Desert, missing on each pass by as little as 300 meters.
Remarkable was where one of the pilots was not. Some 3,450 meters below the cockpit, one pilot sat safely on the ground as he coolly scrambled to avoid hitting his colleagues with the skeletal experimental aircraft he flew by remote control.
The flights are part of a NASA project to develop a collision-avoidance system that would allow fully autonomous, and not just remotely piloted aircraft to operate in civil airspace.
The robotic drones, commonly called unmanned-aerial vehicles, have garnered lots of publicity thanks to their high-profile military roles in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Yemen and, now, Iraq. Yet, beyond the hype, the planes still aren't approved for routine use over the United States.
The Federal Aviation Administration remains concerned that the drones could pose a collision hazard to other piloted aircraft. For now, the FAA must certify each drone flight, or series of flights, individually.
The FAA, Pentagon and NASA are studying the safety and reliability standards that drones must meet, FAA spokesperson William Shumann said.
The FAA wants to make sure that drones can respond as quickly as piloted aircraft to instructions from air-traffic controllers, Shumann said. It's also uncertain whether remote operators of drones would need to be licensed pilots, he said.
During 20 collision scenarios flown in restricted airspace over four days and completed last Friday, the ground-based pilots of the experimental Proteus saw nothing of the other two planes, save the stream of radar and other data that alerted them to their presence.
Each time the Proteus maneuvered in time to avoid colliding with the other aircraft - an F/A-18 jet and a propeller-driven Beechcraft.
"We were seeing the targets earlier than the pilots in some cases," said Peter Siebold, a test pilot for Proteus builder Scaled Composites LLC. (A pilot and co-pilot were aboard the Proteus, but only as backups.)
Engineers equipped the Proteus with a radar system originally developed to help low-flying helicopter pilots avoid power lines. The plane also carried an instrument able to detect the transponders found in larger aircraft, though not gliders, hot air balloons and antique planes.
Eventually, engineers envision a system that combines radar, transponders, cameras and other instruments so drones can operate as safely as any other plane. Such a system is anywhere from 10 years to 15 years away.
"The demonstrations we're doing are not the definitive answer. They're a step on the way," said Glenn Hamilton, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Dryden Flight Research Center.
Teal Group Corp. aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia said that the FAA will come to accept drones with time. Continued military use helps, despite the many crashes that have brought down drones, including Predators and Global Hawks.
"It's a question of flight time," Aboulafia said. "What you will see is the FAA get warm and fuzzy from the number of flight hours that have been trouble free."
NASA is fostering the development of drones for mapping, communications and reconnaissance of fires and other natural disasters.
TITLE: It Pays To Know New Visa Law
AUTHOR: By Maxim Kalinin and Yana Vashchilova
TEXT: WHILE the new law on the legal status of foreign citizens has considerably changed procedures for foreigners in Russia, already causing problems to the foreign community, it seems this law was only a part of a global change in the legal reforms in the area. On Jan. 10, President Vladimir Putin signed the "Law on Changes and Amendments to the Federal Law on the Procedure for Exit from the Russian Federation and Entry into the Russian Federation." This law received its official publication in Rossiyskya Gazeta four days later, and will come into force three months after that publication date, which is to say on April 14 of this year.
Among the novelties introduced by the law is the registration of legal entities with the Interior Ministry or with its local branches in order for invitations for the entry of foreign nationals into the Russian Federation, such invitations being made by giving notice. This procedure will allow legal entities to independently file a motion on obtaining invitations for entry without any mediators. As before, the law provides for foreign nationals' entry into and exit from Russia on the basis of a visa. Depending on the purposes of entry and stay in the country, the following types of visas may be issued: diplomatic, official, ordinary, transit, and temporary residence. The ordinary visas are divided into private, business, tourist, student, work, humanitarian and visas for entry into Russia for the purpose of requesting asylum. All these types of visa can be single-entry, double-entry, or multiple-entry, whether it be diplomatic, official or otherwise.
The maximum term for which a visa can be issued, however, depends on its type, with the terms ranging from ten days to one year. An important innovation is that the Internal Ministry or its local branch can extend the term of a visa if foreign nationals apply during their stay in Russia, without them having to leave the country, or if a legal entity applies on behalf of the foreign national. The law requires the government to enact a decision setting forth requirements regarding the format of visas, and the procedure and conditions for their formalization, issuance, and extension. It should be noted, however, that provisions of the law relating to work visas do not fully comply with the provisions of the federal law covering the legal status of foreign nationals while in Russia, which also requires work permits for foreign nationals rendering services under civil law.
Among other novelties, the new law introduces a number of cases in which a decision on "undesirability" can be made regarding a foreign national's stay in Russia. The procedure for making such a decision, and the list of bodies authorized to do so, is to be defined by the government. Foreign nationals whose stay is deemed "undesirable" are obliged to leave Russia; otherwise, they are subject to deportation and can be prohibited from entering again in the future. In addition, the law exhaustively outlines the list of circumstances when a foreign national or a stateless person may be prohibited from entering Russia, as well as circumstances when such prohibition is unconditional.
With respect to leaving Russia, the law contains the new provision that, if administrative sanctions are imposed on a foreign national in accordance with Russian legislation, such a person may be temporarily prohibited from leaving the country. In view of the extensive number of actions that entail administrative sanctions, as provided for by the Russian Code on Administrative Violations, this may cause problems when leaving Russia. These sanctions can be imposed for such seemingly minor breaches as jaywalking or violating Russian labor law.
As can be seen, as well as making new requirements on foreign nationals' stays and work in Russia, the law significantly changes the regime for entry into and exit from the country. Due to the severity of the sanctions envisaged for violations of the law and, in particular, prohibition from entering, delay in exiting, or administrative expulsion or deportation from Russia, we recommend that all interested parties familiarize themselves with the requirements of the law regarding procedures for entry into and exit from Russia.
Maxim Kalinin is a partner and Yana Vashilova is an associate at Baker & McKenzie's St. Petersburg office.
TITLE: The Underlying Strength Of U.S.-Russia Relations
AUTHOR: By Ted Stevens
TEXT: HOURS after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush received his first call from a foreign leader expressing condolences on behalf of his country. The leader was President Vladimir Putin, and the call was a symbol of a dramatic change in U.S.-Russian relations.
Cold War adversaries for 50 years, the United States and Russia have developed a special relationship based on common economic, political and cultural interests. Today, Russia and the United States are partners in trade, space exploration and allies in the global war on terror. Our people share similar values, hopes and aspirations.
In recent months Russia and the United States have disagreed about important global issues. As I watched these events unfold, I was reminded of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo and Serbia.
That campaign strained the relationship between our two countries, but we learned that our friendship could endure rigorous debate and differences of opinion.
Despite differing views, the United States and Russia are both committed to strengthening our friendship and preserving our important strategic partnership. Our partnership is, once again being tested, but I am confident we will work to maintain our unique relationship.
One reason for my confidence is the way that relations between the United States and Russia have matured. Over time, our countries have forged an exceptional friendship. While friends can disagree, the underlying reasons for friendship never waver.
The second reason for my optimism is that our countries have a much better understanding of one another. We owe much of this understanding to the Open World Program, an ongoing exchange program.
Following the Serbian conflict in 1999, the Aspen Institute and I invited Dr. James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress and one of the leading scholars of Russia in the United States, to speak to leaders of the U.S. Senate about Russia's economic and political transformation, and the state of relations between the United States and Russia. Dr. Billington's message was clear: Assisting the Russian Federation in its economic and political transformation should be our top priority.
I asked Billington what we could do to increase mutual understanding and to support Russia's efforts to strengthen its democratic reforms. Without hesitation, Dr. Billington responded, "We need a Marshall Plan. Not to provide foreign aid, but to share our democratic experience."
Billington's vision included an exchange that would bring federal and local Russian political leaders to the United States. Those leaders would meet their American counterparts and gain first-hand knowledge of how American civil society works. Billington wanted to provide Russian leaders with an unvarnished look at American democracy. His hope was that these encounters would foster greater awareness between our two countries.
In the summer of 1999, I authored legislation to make Billington's dream a reality. The legislation created the first and only exchange program administered by the legislative branch of the U.S. Government: The Open World Program at the Library of Congress. The purpose of the Open World Program was to bring emerging political leaders from Russia to the United States where they could meet with their U.S. counterparts and experience America's democracy and free-enterprise system at the grass-roots level.
The Open World Program is now celebrating its fifth anniversary. More than 6,000 Russian political leaders from all 89 subjects of the Russian Federation have visited all fifty U.S. states under the program. Russians and Americans are brought together annually to share insights and develop friendships. The program is international relationship building at its most fundamental level.
The Open World Program has brought members of the State Duma and the Federation Council to the United States for visits hosted by members of Congress. I have been pleased to welcome Russian judges, regional legislators and election officials to my home state, Alaska, and to Washington under the Open World program. From conservative republicans to liberal democrats and from members of the Russian Communist Party to members of Yabloko, the enthusiasm for the program has been incredible and the friendships forged invaluable.
The Open World Program's mission of bringing Russians and Americans together has never been more important than it is today. Even during the darkest periods of the Cold War, our two countries conducted scholarly and cultural exchanges that kept the channels of communication open. In the post-Soviet era, the United States and Russia are no longer at odds about ideology, and we now have similar political and economic philosophies. It is imperative that we continue to share our experiences and ideas and discover our commonalities.
The success of the Open World Program has not gone unnoticed by my colleagues in the U.S. Congress, who have agreed to expand the Open World Program to include Russia's cultural leaders. The new program will organize extended visits to the United States by Russian cultural leaders. Hundreds of large and small cultural institutions across the United States will benefit from working with these leaders, while the Russian visitors will learn about how U.S. cultural institutions operate.
The Open World Program is creating bonds between our people that will last longer than any bilateral agreement or policy dispute. This type of diplomacy is essential as Russia and the United States seek to foster the cooperation and understanding we will need to meet the challenges of this new century.
Ted Stevens is the President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate and has been a U.S. Senator from the State of Alaska for 34 years. He is the Chairperson of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Chairperson of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress. Additionally, Senator Stevens is the Honorary Chairperson of the Board of the Center for Russian Leadership Development at the Library of Congress. Senator Stevens, who visited St. Peterburg this week with Dr. James H. Billington, contributed this comment to the St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: One Summit is Best
AUTHOR: By Dmitry Trenin
TEXT: FOUR weeks into the war, transatlantic divisions over Iraq continue. After the summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Belfast last Monday, the leaders of France, Russia and Germany met in St. Petersburg over the weekend. The issue on the table at both summits is Iraq's post-war reconstruction, in the broadest sense of the term. The views expressed, despite some recent fence-mending, are still far apart.
Yet, the time has come for the coalition of the willing and the coalition of the unwilling to work hard to narrow the divide. As the military operation is entering its final phase, the United States and Britain - de facto in control of much of Iraq - are thinking increasingly in terms of winning the peace. They are right to stress that an allied military government is only a short-term proposition. Any succeeding Iraqi administration, however, will need international legitimacy, which can only be supplied by the United Nations.
The France-Russia-Germany troika, of course, is coming from the opposite end. The three countries are seeking to confirm a measure of their international autonomy vis-a-vis the United States by restoring the UN's role in post-war Iraq. However, they can only succeed if the United States agrees that they can have a piece of action on the ground - on certain conditions. Thus, they will have to let the United States and Britain finish the job, and accept the outcome of the war as the starting point.
In the post-war environment, in fact, the central interests of the United States and the other major world powers largely overlap. No one is interested in the destabilization of Iraq and its possible break-up. No one can hope to benefit from ethnic, religious or clan-driven conflicts; and all will suffer from the rising wave of Islamic extremism, which will be difficult to contain within the borders of Iraq. Thus, all have a major stake in seeing to it that the end of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's dictatorship is not followed by the scourge of civil war.
Initially, this will be the responsibility of the United States and Britain, subsequently shared by the Iraqi authorities. A UN administration is not in the cards. Iraq is neither East Timor nor Kosovo. It is not a country to be built. Rather, it is a state which has to be thoroughly overhauled. And as a state, Hussein's Iraq was closer to the former East Germany than to neighboring Saudi Arabia. To prevent a dangerous deficit of legitimacy, it is vital that a new interim Iraqi government emerges in time to take that country's seat at the UN general assembly, so that it is able to speak for Iraq early in the reconstruction process.
The exact composition of the interim government would probably reflect the judgment of the Americans and the British more than anything else. Hopefully, it will stretch way beyond the well-known group of emigre figures. The key to success is to recruit those pragmatic and patriotic Iraqis who see, in the fall of Hussein, a chance for their country to move ahead to become the Arab world's genuine leader in modernization. This means promoting secular Iraqi nationalism for the task of domestic transformation.
As a means toward that goal, a Bonn-type conference, along the lines of the one that followed the end of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, makes little sense. It is best if the interim administration is composed of capable and respected people, rather than representatives of the warring factions. Elections to a constituent assembly should be set now, but not take place too soon, to allow the Iraqi authorities and the allied government to win a measure of credibility, and to allow Iraqi society to come to terms with the trauma of war and - even if partially - of the preceding decades of despotism. Organizing elections and certifying their results could be the UN's first major responsibility.
Inevitably, in the run-up to this, one would expect a certain amount of horse-trading between the United States and the France-Russia-Germany group. The United States would be unwise to rule out the three countries' participation in the reconstruction effort completely. It needs partners in peace even more than in war. It is unlikely, however, that the French, Russians and Germans will, in the end, be able to get more than a token consolation prize. Tactically, they must know they have lost through miscalculation, and have to accept this. They must also know that they will lose much more heavily if they continue opposing the United States and attempt to keep their axis going. The troika has run its course. Next time, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council should be meeting together, and getting down to business.
Dmitry Trenin, deputy director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Bush Must Not Let Victory Go To His Head
TEXT: AFTER the three-week military campaign that dispatched the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush may be tempted to unleash U.S. forces against the next fire-snorting dragon down the line, whether in Syria, Iran or North Korea. While Bush has every right to be pleased by the victory in Iraq, he should not confuse the military achievement for a validation of his doctrine of pre-emptive strikes.
We did not like the combative doctrine when it was formally unveiled last September because it seemed to walk away from the United States' historical inclination to work with other nations to preserve the peace and to rely on force only when its security was directly threatened. The overthrow of Hussein does not make it seem any more valid.
We do not belittle the achievement of U.S. fighting forces. But their victory was the one element of this campaign that was never in doubt - just as there is no doubt that U.S. soldiers could be toppling statues in Damascus, Tehran or even Pyongyang if they were ordered to do it. The trouble is that each of these cases has its own complexities, its own consequences. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to world affairs, and even if there were, it is far from certain that Iraq is a template. The situation there remains chaotic and it will take a long time to judge whether U.S. intervention will bring democracy and prosperity to Iraq or improve the situation in the Middle East.
So far, the hawks in the Bush administration have not publicly suggested a sequel to Iraq, even if there have been warnings to other malefactors contemplating weapons of mass destruction to "draw the appropriate lesson" from the war. We have no doubt that the administration would far prefer that Iraq proved to be the catalyst for velvet revolutions across the Middle East and beyond.
The yearning to right wrongs has a noble tradition in U.S. foreign policy, and few could oppose those portions of the Bush doctrine that would extend the benefits of freedom, democracy, prosperity and the rule of law to the far corners of the globe. Unfortunately, these goals were overshadowed by an arrogant, go-it-alone stance and an aggressive claim to the right to use pre-emptive action against threatening states.
For many people and countries, the way the Bush administration went after Hussein confirmed fears raised by the doctrine. That is one reason why the move to war drew so much opposition around the world, and why this paper urged the administration to pursue its goals in Iraq within an international framework. A doctrine that purports to spread happiness, but ends up spreading resentment, is not working, no matter how many statues come tumbling down. That is why it is especially important now to show that the United States also has the confidence and wisdom to sheath its sword until it is really needed.
This comment appeared as an editorial in The New York Times.
TITLE: Quick Victory Leaves Military Looking Silly
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: AS the war in Iraq winds to its inevitable end, uneasy reflections are taking over Russia's political and military elite. No one in Moscow ever seriously believed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might indeed "defeat" the allied forces. But the speed and decisiveness of the offensive has bewildered many.
Russian generals were expecting another prolonged so-called non-contact war, like the one against Yugoslavia in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2001 or the first gulf war in 1991, when a four-day ground offensive was preceded by a 39-day air bombardment. It was believed that the Americans were afraid of close hand-to-hand encounters, they would not tolerate the inevitable casualties, and that in the final analysis they were cowards who relied on technical superiority.
As the allies' push into Iraq seemed to falter, many hearts in Moscow and in Europe rejoiced. In a poll taken in late March, 52 percent of Russians were of the opinion that the U.S.-led military action in Iraq was unsuccessful; 58 percent believed it would be a long war; 35 percent were convinced the United States would win in the end, while 33 percent assumed Iraq would prevail.
Last week, it was disclosed that two retired three-star generals - Vladislav Achalov and Igor Maltsev - visited Baghdad recently and were awarded medals by Hussein.
It was reported that the retired generals helped Hussein prepare a war plan to defeat the Americans. Achalov confirmed he was in Baghdad just before the war and received medals from Hussein for services rendered. He also told journalists that the defense of Baghdad was well organized, U.S. tanks would be burned if they enter the city and U.S. infantry would be slaughtered. According to Achalov, the only way the allies could ever take Baghdad and other Iraqi cities was to raze them to the ground by carpet bombing.
Last week, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov echoed Achalov's opinion: "If the Americans continue to fight accurately, avoiding high casualties, the outcome is uncertain. If the Americans begin carpet bombing, Iraq will be defeated." Ivanov also announced that the Defense Ministry was attentively studying the war in order to learn how to build a stronger Russian army.
It seems that up to now the result of the study has been negative. It would appear that Russian generals and Ivanov assume that it's the Americans that should learn from them how to flatten cities - the way our military destroyed the Chechen capital, Grozny.
The worst possible outcome of the war in Iraq for the Russian military is a swift allied victory with relatively low casualties. Already many in Russia are beginning to ask why our forces are so ineffective compared to the Brits and Americans; and why the two battles to take Grozny in 1995 and 2000 each took more than a month to complete, with more that 5,000 Russian soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded in both engagements, given that Grozny is one tenth the size of Baghdad.
The Russian media is generally avoiding the hard questions and serving up anti-American propaganda instead. It is alleged that the U.S. government is "concealing casualties" (like its Russian counterpart), and that hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers have already been killed. Maybe this deceit will become the main semi-official excuse for disregarding the allied victory.
Or perhaps our generals who do not want to build a modern post-Soviet military will come up with some other propaganda ploy.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.
TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: The Road to Damascus
As shovels scoop the shredded viscera of cold collaterals in Baghdad, and brisk hoses scour the blood from market stalls and children's bedrooms - festive preparations to make ready for the enthronement of the new lords of Babylon - we cast an anxious gaze beyond the barbed steel of the security perimeter, to a column of troops and ordnance rumbling toward the horizon. Whither are they bound? Who's next to feel the mailed fist of liberation?
At the moment, all signs point to Syria. Iran, of course, would be a more glittering prize - not to mention a more remunerative one for the unholy trinity of Oil, Arms and Construction, whose mephitic spirit broods over the rising American Empire. But Iran is a big beast; first Iraq must be chewed, swallowed and digested before there is sufficient room in the imperial gut - and sufficient loot in the imperial treasury - for another sumptuous banquet.
Syria, however, would make a tasty snack - rough fare gulped down on the long, circuitous march to Persia and Cathay. What's more, a dose of shock and awe for Damascus would secure the rear for any eventual push on Teheran. And once recalcitrant Syria is brought to heel, the juicy olive of Lebanon would surely fall of its own ripe weight, without any need of brutal plucking. Then, with the equally cowed Jordan, it could serve as a - what should we call it? repository? refuge? - yes, a refuge for the troublesome hordes of Palestine, transferred - humanely and happily, of course - from the newly cleansed lands of Judea and Samaria.
Such are the utopian visions that allure the policymakers in the court of the imperator, George Augustus. But there are practical considerations that drive them on as well. Their leader excepted, these are not vain or stupid men. They can certainly see what the blind, bedazzled and bought-off media refuse to show the rest of the nation: that the U.S. economy is in serious decay, that the infrastructure of American society - its ability to provide education, medicine, roads, justice, security, stability, opportunity, equality - is being severely fractured by the ever-growing, unconstrained imbalance between a small circle of powerful elites and the increasingly disempowered multitudes who serve them.
Of course, the imperial courtiers applaud this imbalance; they believe it's the best, most efficient ordering of society. (The fact that their own wealth and privilege are enhanced by this higher order is simply a happy accident.) That's why they're striving mightily to increase the imbalance through their radical domestic policies: their deliberate bankrupting of national and state governments through massive tax cuts for the wealthy, coupled with gargantuan military spending that siphons any remaining funds away from public services. The Imperator's own political mentor, Grover Norquist, put it well - long before that other happy accident on Sept. 11: "We want to shrink government down so we can drown it in the bath water."
But vestiges of America's democratic system remain. As in the dying days of the Roman Republic, the traditional structures of self-governance - though increasingly gutted - are still in place, and retain their old meaning for many Americans. (Many others, of course, are glad to see their liberties subsumed by the growing authoritarian cult of the Commander in Chief.) The Commander and his courtiers cannot yet rule solely by fiat - though they're almost there, as shown by Bush's still-unchallenged assertion of his right to order the extrajudicial killing of anyone on earth whom he deems - on secret evidence, or none at all - a "terrorist," or even just an undefined "supporter" of terrorism.
But as long as some semblance of democracy survives, there is a danger that the courtiers could be tumbled from power by the multitude. Therefore, the true nature of America's societal rot must be kept hidden at all costs. The courtiers know they cannot govern a country at peace and hope to survive politically. Only war - with its upsurge of tribal feeling, its emotional floodtides sweeping away doubt, dissent and reason - can provide the necessary diversion from the Regime's fanatical policies of Imbalance.
So there must be more war, and soon. Syria is currently being sized up as a prospect. Hints and threats are being carefully floated: Damascus "aided and abetted" Saddam Hussein, Damascus might be sheltering Hussein, Damascus could be hiding Hussein's vast storehouses of weapons of mass destruction, which the cluster-bombing liberators so signally failed to find. Damascus has its own weapons of mass destruction, supports terrorism, has invaded neighboring countries, and might, conceivably, possibly, one day threaten the United States in some hypothetical fashion - just like Hussein!
And last week, Bush courtiers suddenly began trumpeting the fact that the repressive Syrian regime - a Baathist Party state, just like Iraq! - sadistically tortures its prisoners, who are often snatched in secret arrests and held without charges or trial. This fact has hitherto been conveniently overlooked by the Bushist Party state, which has been sending some of its own Guantanamo zeks - often snatched in secret arrests and held without charges or trial - to Syria's torture chambers for "special interrogation."
But as Hussein has learned, doing America's dirty work - which he did for many years, bombing, brutalizing and gassing with the gushing support of Ronald Reagan, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George Bush Senior - cuts no ice when the courtiers change their plans. So keep looking for that light on the road to Damascus - not the blinding glory that converted Saul of Tarsus, but the flash of flesh-chewing MOABs launched by the Crawford Caligula, George Widowmaker Bush.
TITLE: IRA Announcement Shadows N. Ireland
AUTHOR: By Shawn Pogatchnik
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DUBLIN, Ireland - The British and Irish prime ministers welcomed a new statement from the Irish Republican Army concerning its "future intentions" but signaled Monday they need something better to achieve a Northern Ireland breakthrough.
An adviser to Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in Dublin said the IRA statement delivered Sunday night to the governments in Dublin and London represented "welcome progress" but did not make clear the key points demanded by both governments.
The adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said negotiators for both Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair put a series of questions to Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party, seeking clarification of the IRA's position on disarming and ending all hostile acts.
In London, an official spokesperson for Blair said both premiers wanted "clarity and certainty" from the IRA before they travel to Northern Ireland to unveil their own peace-promoting plans for the British territory.
Blair and Ahern, who have spent the past week negotiating with IRA representatives about a proposed statement from the outlawed group, have insisted that the IRA must formally renounce the threat or use of violence.
Otherwise, they say, there will be no way to revive the key achievement of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord - a joint Catholic-Protestant government that included Sinn Fein.
Sinn Fein Chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin said the IRA would not have any trouble answering the governments' questions. But he said the IRA would not use any words specifically demanded by others, particularly the major Protestant party - the Ulster Unionists, who for years have asked the IRA to declare that its "war" against the very existence of Northern Ireland was over.
"It is my view that the IRA is unlikely to use the sort of language that unionists have demanded," McLaughlin said.
The IRA said Sunday that its confidential statement presented to Blair and Ahern includes pledges on "future intentions." The IRA said it had indicated the conditions in which it would resume disarmament talks.
Blair and Ahern planned to publish their joint plans last Thursday, the fifth anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement. The plans include new British commitments on military cutbacks, reform of the police and justice systems, and freedom for IRA fugitives wanted on outstanding charges.
They held back after their negotiations with Sinn Fein leaders reportedly produced a draft IRA statement falling far short of what the leaders required.
Blair and Ahern say they want the next IRA statement to be crystal clear to Protestant leaders, who have grown increasingly hostile to working alongside Sinn Fein.
Northern Ireland's four-party administration, formed in December 1999, was supposed to promote partnership between the province's British Protestant and Irish Catholic blocs. Both sides hoped such cooperation would ensure no return to the conflict over the British territory that has claimed more than 3,600 lives since 1968.
Protestants agreed to include Sinn Fein in the arrangement on condition that the IRA gradually disarmed and faded away. The coalition has been mothballed three times over Protestants' unease with continued IRA activity and slow, secretive disarmament moves.
Although the Good Friday pact envisaged the IRA's full disarmament by mid-2000, the FBI that year caught the group smuggling in new firearms from Florida, and police say the group retains an estimated 100 tons of armaments smuggled from Libya in the mid-1980s.
Police since have accused the group of remaining active on several fronts, culminating in October when four people - including Sinn Fein's top legislative aide - were charged in connection with IRA intelligence-gathering within the heart of the power-sharing administration.
TITLE: Situation 'Grave' as SARS Deaths Rise
AUTHOR: By Joe McDonald
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING - Premier Wen Jiabao said the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China was "grave" - a departure from earlier assurances that the illness was under control in the country where it is suspected to have emerged.
Meanwhile, progress was reported on another front: Scientists in Canada announced Sunday that they had identified the genetic code of the virus suspected of causing SARS - a surprisingly rapid achievement that is the first step toward a diagnostic test and possible vaccine.
The number of reported SARS fatalities surged to 144 on Monday, with Hong Kong reporting seven more and the World Health Organization announcing four more deaths in China.
Many of the fatalities have been elderly people or patients suffering from other chronic health problems, such as heart or kidney disease. But six people deaths reported in Hong Kong over the weekend ranged in age from 35 to 52 and had no prior health problems.
Hospital Authority spokesperson Elinda Luk said officials were investigating what had happened. Doctors in Hong Kong on Monday started prescribing heavier doses of medicine during the early stages of SARS to try to cure people before they have to receive intensive care.
Worldwide, about 3,000 people have confirmed or suspected SARS infections. Most cases have been in Asia, where worried governments have tightened the screening of passengers at airports and invoked strict quarantine rules.
In Canada, the hardest hit country outside Asia, scientists at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver worked 24 hours a day for six days to sequence the genetic code of the virus suspected of causing SARS.
Researchers reported that the gene sequence suggests a previously unknown coronavirus unrelated to any known human or animal viruses.
Their rapid completion was an "extraordinary step," said Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva, which has tracked the spread of SARS.
Global health authorities suspect SARS emerged in China, where the communist government has been accused of failing to release enough information about the outbreak.
The premier, Wen, warned that China's economy, international image and social stability might feel the impact of the disease, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
"Much progress has been made in combating the disease ... but the overall situation remains grave," Xinhua quoted Wen as saying Sunday at a national meeting on SARS.
The comments, carried by newspapers on Monday, were a striking change from recent government assurances and were the highest-level admission that SARS is a threat to China, whose official death toll from the mysterious illness on the mainland hit 60 over the weekend.
China has reported more than 1,300 cases of infection and 64 deaths, most of them in the southern province of Guangdong, where the first cases emerged in November.
At the meeting Sunday, Wen called for stepped up scrutiny of planes, boats and trains, and for passengers believed to be infected to be quarantined, Xinhua said.
Beijing has been criticized abroad and by ordinary Chinese for its slow release of information on the spread of SARS and how its people can protect themselves.
Although scientists have yet to isolate the cause of SARS and find a cure, most sufferers recover with prompt medical attention. About 4 percent of those infected have died, and doctors have said that patients with aggravating illnesses appear most at risk.
TITLE: Dozens Die as Violence Flares Around Elections in Nigeria
AUTHOR: By Glenn McKenzie
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LAGOS, Nigeria - Nigeria's ruling party was leading Monday in legislative elections seen as a key test of its young democracy, but violence accompanying voting in the oil-rich south left at least two dozen people dead.
President Olusegun Obasanjo's party had won 69 seats in the House of Representatives in returns from weekend voting counted as of Monday. Two main opposition parties took 52. In the Senate, the ruling party won 22 seats compared to 10 for the opposition.
In all, some 3,000 candidates campaigned for 360 seats in the House of Representatives and 109 in the Senate.
The legislative race is a key gauge of civil tensions a week ahead of presidential elections that will pit Obasanjo - a former military ruler turned civilian leader - against 19 opposition candidates, including three ex-army generals.
These were also the first national elections since Obasanjo came to power in 1999 after 15 years of military rule in Africa's most populous country.
More than two dozen people were killed during the voting on Saturday and Sunday. The violence also forced hundreds to flee their homes, witnesses and election monitors said.
The voting began on Saturday but was extended until Sunday in several areas where the balloting was marred, particularly the Niger Delta.
On Sunday, sustained automatic weapons fire delayed a second attempt to hold a vote in the oil port of Warri.
Witnesses said navy soldiers and Ijaw fighters were shooting at each other and spoke of between five and 10 people killed. Grace Akpete, a market vendor who fled the fighting, said she saw five bodies floating in the water.
The shooting died down after half an hour. By late afternoon, three election stations opened, but most remained closed.
"I can't understand why one tribe can hold everyone else to ransom," said Johnson Atake, an Itsekiri waiting to vote Sunday in the port city.
TITLE: Opposition Emerges Over Palestinian-Cabinet Plans
AUTHOR: By Mark Lavie
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM - Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas set out his list of cabinet ministers, expecting quick approval to trigger the presentation of a U.S.-backed peace plan, but opposition to some of his choices emerged Monday.
Once Abbas takes office, U.S. President George W. Bush said he would present the "road-map" plan, starting the clock toward Palestinian statehood in three years. The United States and Israel have demanded that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat move aside before peace talks resume.
But Arafat and several leading members of his Fatah movement object to some of Abbas' appointments.
"There is a very big argument about this cabinet," said legislator Nabil Amr, a reformer who has been offered the post of information minister. "President Arafat has reservations about some names in this cabinet."
Abbas is planning a wide-ranging reshuffle of Arafat's cabinet, moving all but two ministers, demoting several, firing others and bringing in reformers and experts to guide the overblown and corruption-ridden Palestinian regime.
Late Sunday, Fatah's Central Committee postponed at the last minute a session to approve the Abbas cabinet. The body does not have a formal say over the Cabinet, but Abbas, who is Arafat's deputy in Fatah and the PLO, is considered unlikely to buck the will of his main power base.
Arafat and top Fatah officials dug in over appointing a new interior minister to oversee security forces, insisting on retaining Hani al-Hassan, a close aide. Abbas refused, and in the end, decided to keep the ministry for himself while appointing his favored candidate, former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, as state minister for interior affairs.
That would give Dahlan authority to unite the security services and confront militant groups responsible for attacking Israel, as Israel and the United States demand.
Other prominent figures in Arafat's regime faced demotion, including the most visible officials - Local Government Minister Saeb Erekat and Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, frequent Arafat spokespeople, and Trade Minister Maher al-Masri. The three have told Abbas they will not join the cabinet, officials said.
Nabil Shaath, the powerful planning minister, was slated for a new post, state minister for external affairs, tapping his wide contacts with foreign diplomats.
Abbas was hoping to win Fatah approval and present his Cabinet later in the week but the last-minute maneuvering threatened another delay.
Israel has requested 15 changes in the plan, insisting on ironclad procedures guaranteeing an end to Palestinian attacks before making any moves. The Palestinians charge that Israel is trying to sabotage the plan.
However, in a newspaper interview Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon indicated he would be willing to uproot Jewish settlements in exchange for peace with the Palestinians.
Though many locations in the West Bank are tied historically to Israel, Sharon told the Haaretz daily, "I know that we will have to part with some of these places."
Sharon also said a Palestinian state is inevitable.
"I do not think we have to rule over another people and run their lives," Sharon said. "I do not think that we have the strength for that."
TITLE: Missing Teenager Comes Out Of the Closet After Four Years
AUTHOR: By Peter O'connor
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CANBERRA, Australia - Australian teenager Natasha Ryan, who disappeared four years ago and was presumed dead, has resurfaced - midway through the trial of an alleged serial killer charged with her murder.
Ryan, now 18, was found Thursday, hiding in a closet at her 26-year-old boyfriend's home, less than 1 kilometer from her mother's home in Rockhampton in Queensland state.
She was being questioned on Friday by police who earlier interviewed her boyfriend. It was not immediately clear whether charges would be filed.
Ryan's dramatic reappearance coincided with the trial in a Queensland court of Leonard John Fraser, 51, who was charged with the murder of her and three other women whose bodies have been found.
Prosecutors immediately dropped the charge against Fraser for Ryan's murder, although the three other murder counts remain.
The case has been adjourned until Monday, when Fraser's lawyers are expected to argue that they also be withdrawn and the entire trial abandoned.
Fraser had pleaded innocent to all four murders.
Ryan disappeared when she was 14. Her family had been so sure she was dead, that they held a memorial service for her a year ago. A police spokesman said officers raided the boyfriend's house after a tip-off arising from Fraser's trial.
Ryan's father, Robert, confirmed his daughter's identity over the phone by asking her to tell him his pet name for her. She answered correctly.
Detectives questioned the boyfriend Scott Black on Thursday night before releasing him and referring the case to the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions.
Black, a milkman, had been fined $600 in 1998 for obstructing a police investigation in a previous incident in 1995 when Ryan ran away from home for the first time and stayed in a hotel.
Robert Ryan's second wife, Debbie Ryan, said her husband had been hit "pretty hard" by the shock of discovering his daughter was alive.
Natasha Ryan returned to her mother's home Thursday night. The house was besieged by media Friday but neither Ryan, her mother nor Black have made any public statements.
The family's lawyer Ross Lo Monaco said that when police phoned the mother, Jenny Ryan, on Thursday to tell her they had found Natasha, she at first assumed they were talking about a body.
"Mrs. Ryan was in shock, she didn't know if she could believe it and she was concerned it may have been a false alarm," Lo Monaco told reporters.
Lo Monaco said the mother and child reunion had been "an emotional scene."
"It was sad to realize that Mrs. Ryan for all of these years had assumed that her young daughter was dead, but it was nice to see them finally reunited," he told reporters.
TITLE: Weir Makes History in First Masters Win
AUTHOR: By Paul Newberry
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AUGUSTA, Georgia - From weird to Weir, there's never been a Masters like this.
It started with the rain, which washed out the first round for the first time in 64 years and left muddy Augusta National smelling like a barnyard.
Then came Martha Burk, whose protest against Augusta's all-male membership featured a puppet show, an Elvis impersonator and a Klansman without a hood.
Finally, the green jacket - which had never been won by a left-hander or a Canadian - was claimed by a left-handed Canadian.
Mike Weir won the first Augusta playoff since 1990, taking the green jacket from Tiger Woods (that's a little strange, too) after Len Mattiace self-destructed on the extra hole.
"It's been a little bit odd, obviously," Weir said. "There were a bunch of things going on outside the gates, and with the weather and everything, it's been a little bit of a hectic week. But I didn't pay much attention to that. I was here to play a golf tournament."
That he did, getting through a Sunday at Augusta without making a bogey until the very end. By then, it didn't matter - Weir tapped in to win on the first playoff hole while Mattiace was taking a double-bogey.
"Unbelievable," Weir said. "It's something I've dreamt of, something I worked very hard at. I'm having a hard time putting it into words because words won't do it justice."
The green jacket that Woods had hoped to slip on for a record third straight year is going north of the border.
Tiger put himself in position to make history by shooting a 66 in the third round. But Woods was out of contention before making the turn on Sunday, his slide beginning with a double-bogey at No. 3.
"It was just one of those weeks where I couldn't get anything going for an extended time," Woods said.
Weir didn't miss any down the stretch. He saved his two biggest putts for the final two holes of regulation, both to save par.
Weir came up short on a birdie attempt for an outright victory at the 18th, then sank a 2-meter putt to keep going. He looked calm, but his emotions were churning.
"I wouldn't wish that putt on anyone," said Weir, who closed with a 4-under 68. "That's as nerve-racking as it gets."
Mattiace brought drama back to the final nine holes with phenomenal shots that took him to the edge of a stunning victory with a 65 - one short of the Augusta record for a final round.
Mattiace could have won with a par on 18, but he pushed his tee shot onto some wood chips along the right side of the fairway. Forced to pitch out from the trees, he wound up with bogey.
Weir still had four holes to play, pulling even with a birdie at No. 15 while Mattiace was signing his scorecard.
Mattiace, who had never finished higher than 24th in a major and was playing Augusta for only the second time, passed the time at the practice range and the putting green - the latter already set up with chairs for the champion's ceremony.
When Weir sent the crowd into an uproar by making the putt at 18, Mattiace was standing just a wedge away on the putting green.
He never turned around, hitting a few more balls before heading to the 10th hole.
He could have used a mulligan. Mattiace pulled his approach into the trees, chipped 10 meters, nearly ran his par putt off the green and finally just picked up when Weir tapped in for bogey.
Weir and Mattiace finished at 7-under 281, the highest winning score at the Masters since 1989.
Weir now has a green jacket and a spot in the champions locker room at Augusta National.
"It was an incredible day," he said after taking a phone call from Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. "I couldn't ask to play much better."
TITLE: Suns Shine To Claim Playoff Spot
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHOENIX - Phoenix is back in the playoffs, and probably headed for a first-round matchup with the San Antonio Spurs, a team the Suns have given fits all season.
Sunday night was no exception.
Shawn Marion scored 24 points and Stephon Marbury had 23 points and 10 assists as the Suns snapped the Spurs' 11-game winning streak and clinched the West's final playoff berth 92-85.
Joe Johnson scored 20, 11 in the third quarter, and had four steals as the Suns became the only team to beat the Spurs three times this season.
"It is a concern," Tim Duncan said. "They've given us trouble all season long, and I have no doubt they'll give us trouble in the playoffs."
Penny Hardaway and Amare Stoudemire each added 10 points. Hardaway sank two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, and Stoudemire had two big plays in the final minutes.
No one was more thrilled than Marbury, who after his best NBA season is in the playoffs for the first time since 1998, his second year as a pro.
"It means everything to me," Marbury said. "I'm just elated right now. I'm probably the happiest person on this earth right now."
Phoenix shot 52 percent to win its fourth in a row and eighth in its last 10.
San Antonio still needs a victory or a Dallas loss to clinch home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. That would mean a first-round matchup against Phoenix. The Spurs are at Utah Monday night, then finish their regular-season at home against Dallas on Wednesday.
Malik Rose scored 18 for the Spurs, who had won nine road games in a row, and 17 of 18. Their only road loss since Jan. 27 was at Dallas on Feb. 20.
Duncan, the object of aggressive double-teams all night, managed just 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting in 38 minutes.
"That was their game plan," he said. "They came at me hard, and did a great job of rotating. We got the ball out of there. We just didn't hit some shots."
Emanuel Ginobili was the only other San Antonio player in double figures with 16 points.
"Phoenix did a really great job tonight, being physical, really active defensively," San Antonio coach Greg Popovich said. "They did a wonderful job in that regard. I think that was really the difference in the game."
Portland 101, L.A. Lakers 99. Rasheed Wallace hit a 3-pointer with 4.1 seconds left as the Blazers held off the Los Angeles Lakers 101-99 Sunday to take sole possession of fifth place in the Western Conference.
Struggling Portland needed the win after a loss to Memphis on Friday dropped them a half-game back of Minnesota for fourth place, and tied with the surging Lakers for the fifth spot.
The Timberwolves defeated Chicago 119-95 on Sunday to retain the fourth seed, which would ensure home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Portland has two games left, while Minnesota has one remaining.
"We needed a win like this," Portland coach Maurice Cheeks said. "To win a game like this gives us a little boost to get ready for the playoffs. We needed it for morale more than anything."
The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the Lakers, who were led by Shaquille O'Neal's 36 points and 11 rebounds. Kobe Bryant also had 36 points for Los Angeles, which was coming off key wins against Sacramento and Dallas.
The Lakers play Denver and Golden State to wrap up the season.
"We have two games to get sharp, but wherever we end up is where we end up," O'Neal said.
Los Angeles pulled in front 97-96 on Devean George's free throw with 1:01 left. But Wallace answered with a 16-foot jumper to give Portland back the lead.
Bryant put the Lakers up again with a 21-foot jumper - but Wallace again responded, swishing his 3-pointer as time ran down. Bryant's 3-point attempt at the buzzer missed.
"We had to muddle through a game where we were behind after a very tough start. Kobe's in foul trouble and we come out with a one-point lead with seconds left," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "If they didn't get that shot, what would you be saying? About how great momentum is."
Wallace finished with 21 points for Portland, which snapped a two-game losing streak. Bonzi Wells led the Blazers with 29 points before fouling out.
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: Brodeur Blankets Bruins as Devils Take 3-0 Series Lead
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOSTON - Martin Brodeur's latest shutout has the New Jersey Devils a win away from the second round and the Boston Bruins wondering how to get the puck past him.
Brodeur posted his 14th shutout in 70 career playoff wins Sunday when the Devils beat the Bruins 3-0 for a 3-0 lead in their best-of-seven, first-round series.
"They have, basically, an unbelievable wall back there and that weighs on you," Boston's Mike Knuble said.
It should bother New Jersey's potential playoff opponents, especially with the confidence and sense of near-invincibility that Brodeur brings to the playoffs.
"I still have a long way to go and many more shutouts to get," he said.
Now they face a daunting task. In the 13 series in which they trailed 3-0, the Bruins never made it to a sixth game. They lost seven of those series 4-0 and six 4-1.
"Anything's doable," said Boston's Brian Rolston, who had just one shot Sunday and has no points in the series.
The Devils got goals from Scott Stevens in the second period, Jay Pandolfo in the third and John Madden into an empty net with 1:06 left.
The Bruins got none of their 29 shots past Brodeur, who led the league with 41 wins and nine shutouts and was fourth with a 2.02 goals against average.
"He's a big-time goalie and thrives on games like this," Madden said. "He plays just well enough to be better than everybody, but when big games come he takes it to another level."
Last season, the Devils lost in the first round in six games to Carolina, which reached the Stanley Cup finals. It was a big disappointment to a team that won the championship in 2000 and lost in the finals in 2001.
"Last year, we weren't 100 percent [healthy] going in," Stevens said. "We just look at this as another year."
This season, New Jersey tied Philadelphia for the fewest goals allowed. And the Devils don't rely on a single line as much as the Bruins do.
"Every time we get in their end it seems like they dump it out and we have to come back, regroup and then get back in," said Joe Thornton, Boston's first-line center. "They're a patient team."
Boston goalie Jeff Hackett, who missed the previous 12 games since breaking his right index finger March 15, played well and stopped 19 of 21 shots. He started in place of Steve Shields, who played in the 2-1 and 4-2 losses in the first two games.
"I felt good," Hackett said, but "sometimes, one goal is too much against New Jersey."
Edmonton 3, Dallas 2. Radek Dvorak scored early in the third period to lead Edmonton to a wild victory over the Stars on Sunday night, giving the Oilers a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven series.
The Oilers trailed 1-0 heading into the third period, but the Edmonton coaches instructed the players to be more aggressive.
"The coaches said we have to start getting the puck on the net," Georges Laraque said. "We were trying to do too many pretty plays in front of the net."
Laraque and Fernando Pisani also scored for the Oilers, who host Game 4 on Tuesday night.
It was a big moment for Pisani, who has been living in his parents' basement since he was called up to the Oilers late in the season.
"I always dreamed about that moment growing up, especially of playing in front of that home crowd," said Pisani, an Edmonton native.
Laraque said the victory was a huge boost to the Oilers' confidence following the club's 6-1 loss in Dallas on Friday.
"It was a tough loss in Dallas," he said. "We had to bounce back at home. We'll build on this."
Jason Arnott and Jere Lehtinen had the goals for Dallas, which led 1-0 until early in the third period.
With the game tied 2-2, Dvorak took the puck at center-ice, split the defense and fired a shot past Marty Turco at 5:38 of the third period.
Edmonton had to work hard to preserve the lead, killing a late holding penalty against Marty Reasoner. Then with 0:49 remaining, Dallas pulled Turco for the extra attacker but couldn't score.
"They came at us pretty good and had some great individual efforts on goals," Dallas' Mike Modano said.
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: Tribe Snap Royals Streak, Phillies Go on Rampage
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - No matter what happens from here, the Kansas City Royals can always look back on their stunning run to start the season.
"I just hope everybody enjoyed it as much as I did," manager Tony Pena said.
The young Royals lost for the first time this season, ending baseball's best start in 13 years as Ricardo Rodriguez pitched the Cleveland Indians to a 6-1 win Sunday.
The rookie right-hander kept Kansas City from becoming the eighth team in history to open 10-0, and first since the 1987 Milwaukee Brewers started 13-0.
But he didn't make any friends along the way.
The Royals, the first club to start 9-0 since the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, claim Rodriguez tried to show them up with several flamboyant gestures.
"Hopefully, he'll be around the next time we face them," outfielder Michael Tucker said. "If that's how he wants to come into the league, fine. I'd like to see him do it when he has 20 wins. If he ever lasts that long."
Milton Bradley had four hits, including his second homer for Cleveland - and took a few verbal swipes at the Royals, too.
"We brought them down to earth a little, burst their bubble," Bradley said. "They wanted to fight, so I tried to beat them with my bat and glove."
Rodriguez (2-0) allowed one run and eight hits in seven innings, and rankled the Royals with his flashy attitude.
When he struck out Tucker with the bases loaded to end the second, he pumped his fist wildly in celebration.
"It was a tough spot, bases loaded, and I was excited, real excited," Rodriguez said. "They had that winning streak and maybe that was 75 percent of it. I told myself all day I wanted to beat them."
Rodriguez was even more animated in the fourth. He got Tucker to ground into an inning-ending double play, then wildly gyrated in Tucker's direction.
"Same thing, just happy I got out of it," said Rodriguez, who claimed he did not hear Kansas City players yelling at him.
Darrell May (0-1) gave up three runs in the first inning. Kansas City's 9-0 start tied for the fifth-longest winning streak in team history.
Cleveland broke a three-game losing skid.
Philadelphia 13, Cincinatti 1. Ryan Dempster kept waiting to get that elusive third out. He's still waiting.
The Philadelphia Phillies suddenly erupted to score a team-record 13 runs in the fourth inning and routed the Cincinnati Reds 13-1 Sunday.
Bobby Abreu and Jim Thome each scored twice and Ricky Ledee hit a three-run homer to finish the burst at Great American Ball Park.
"I didn't want to be the last out," Ledee said.
The Phillies came close to the modern NL record for runs in an inning, set by the Brooklyn Dodgers when they scored 15 in the first against Cincinnati on May 21, 1952.
The major league mark is 17, set by the Boston Red Sox against Detroit on June 18, 1953, in the seventh inning.
Dempster gave up a walk and two hits to start the fourth, then got two quick outs. At that point, only two runs had scored.
But Dempster could not retire anyone else, and the next six batters reached base.
"It was one really, really, really bad inning," Dempster said. "I panicked. I'm just mad at myself."
Reliever Scott Sullivan wasn't any better, walking two batters before giving up a single and Ledee's home run.
"It was one of the worst innings I've ever been a part of," Reds manager Bob Boone said.
The Phillies combined six hits and seven walks to break the team record of 12 runs, set in the sixth inning on July 21, 1923, against the Chicago Cubs.
The last time the Reds gave up 13 runs in an inning was on Aug. 8, 1954, in a 20-7 loss to Brooklyn.
Philadelphia manager Larry Bowa felt badly for Boone.
"When you're on the good end of it, it's very nice," Bowa said. "But I don't like to see it happen to any manager. Boonie and I were teammates for a long time. It's not fun when you're on the other end. You wonder, 'Can anybody get an out?'"
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: Henin Hands Williams First Defeat of Season
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CHARLESTON, South Carolina - Serena Williams never expected to go undefeated. She also doesn't plan to make losing a habit.
Williams lost for the first time in 22 matches this year, falling 6-3, 6-4 to Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne on Sunday in the final of the Family Circle Cup.
"Sometimes you need to lose," Williams said. "I'm so motivated now. I can just feel it coming on again. So you've got to watch out."
Her last loss was to Kim Clijsters in the season-ending Tour Championships in November.
Still, Henin-Hardenne said she gave herself and others hope for a better year than last when Williams rose to No. 1 in the world and won Wimbledon, and the French and U.S. Opens. Williams added the Australian Open title in January, giving her the so-called "Serena Slam."
"She's won a lot of Grand Slam titles and a lot of matches against the other top players, so I mean it's still going to be hard," Henin-Hardenne said. "But I think that today I believe it's possible."
The streak led to talk on tour that Williams might be able to get through 2003 without a loss and surpass Martina Navratilova's benchmark 86-1 season in 1983. But Williams repeatedly has said a perfect season was a lofty goal she never expected to reach.
"I think you guys dwelled on it more than I did," she said.
Perhaps what was most stunning was how quickly momentum turned on the game's No. 1 player, who won the match's first three games but lost the next six.
"I mean my whole game was like 9,000 notches down," said Williams, whose only loss in five previous matches with Henin-Hardenne came on clay. "I didn't serve well, I didn't return well, I didn't hit well. You know, it's just one of those days."
At first it looked like most other match days for Williams this year. She showed pace and power, and her fourth-ranked opponent hit several easy shots into the net.
But Henin-Hardenne won 23 of the last 26 points to take the set. With Henin-Hardenne's smooth strokes right on target, she also overcame a 2-0 deficit in the second set.
Williams showed some shakiness in the semifinals against former No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, blowing a big second-set lead. In this one, Henin-Hardenne made Williams pay for any sloppiness. She ran down shots into the corners and forced the American to go deeper into points than she wanted.
"I was a little bit nervous at the first," said Henin-Hardenne, who lost to Williams' older sister, Venus, in the 2001 Wimbledon final. "But then she began to make some mistakes."
The clay might have dulled Williams' serve a bit as well, giving the swift Henin-Hardenne more of a chance to catch up with shots. Williams had nine aces against Davenport, zero Sunday.
It's Henin-Hardenne's second title of the year and improved her match record to 21-4. She won a tournament on hard courts in Dubai in February, beating Jennifer Capriati and Monica Seles in consecutive matches.
On Sunday, Williams dropped her racket in frustration after putting a forehand into the net at 3-3 in the second set. She hit long two points later to fall behind 4-3. In the final game, Williams hit a lazy backhand approach into the net to end it.
Henin-Hardenne's plan was to keep Williams moving, changing pace on her shots the way a baseball pitcher changes speeds. It worked to perfection.
"You ask yourself, 'Why did she have all these mistakes?"' Henin-Hardenne said. "Maybe it's because all these balls were coming back at her, she was running all over the court and she didn't have any solutions to her problems."
At least not until Williams plays again at the German Open next month.
q
ESTORIAL, Portugal (AP) - Magui Serna of Spain beat qualifier Julia Schruff of Germany 6-4, 6-1 in a rain-interrupted final Sunday to win her second straight Estoril Open.
Nikolay Davydenko of Russia won the men's title by defeating Agustin Calleri of Argentina 6-4, 6-3. It's Davydenko's second championship of 2003; he won at Adelaide, Australia, in January.
Serna needed just 69 minutes to become the first woman to defend her title at this clay-court event. She didn't lose a set all week.
Schruff's run through qualifying and then the main draw will push her WTA Tour ranking from 235th to around 160th.