SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #887 (55), Friday, July 25, 2003
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TITLE: Taking A Partial Leave For Now
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Valentina Matviyenko announced on Wednesday that she was taking a voluntary leave of absence from her duties as presidential representative in the Northwest Region, in accordance with local election law.
 
But televised reports on a meeting she held the next day in her office with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and comments from a number of analysts raised questions of how far from the post and the publicity it offers her the candidate for St. Petersburg governor will be able to stay.
 The press service at the Northwest Region presidential representative's office said that, although Matviyenko had already named Andrei Chernenko, her deputy, to handle her duties during the campaign for the Sept. 21 gubernatorial vote, she still had the right "to return to the business of the presidential representative in the even that some emergency question should appear."
 According to the press-service, Matviyenko would not be allowed to use the phone system in the office.
 She will, however, be allowed to continue using would maintain her government car and being protected by a government security detail. The press service said that this was in order to maintain her safety as a person with access to state secrets.
 Matviyenko said that her meeting with Ivanov on Thursday was consistent with her leave of absence announcement and St. Petersburg's election laws, as the City Election Commission has yet officially to register her as a candidate.
 "The situation will remain the same until I have been registered as a candidate, which is fully in accordance with the law," Interfax quoted Matviyenko as saying after Thursday's meeting. "In cases like the visit of the minister of defense, I will continue with my responsibilities. Beside this, I still have a number of orders from the president."
 "I have three days to take leave from my position once I have been registered, according to the law, which will suspend my powers as presidential representative. In this case, my responsibilities will be given to the person who is appointed by the president to replace me," she added.
 Both state-owned Rossiya and local TRK Petersburg television stations carried brief reports of the meeting with Ivanov, but did not carry comments from either of the participants.
 Beside making the announcement about her leave, Matviyenko also used Wednesday to finish appointing her campaign-headquarters team, officially naming the majority of its members, including Vladimir Litvinenko, the dean of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute as the head of a group that will include State Duma Deputy Alexei Alexandrov, Lengaz head Vasily Ganis, St. Petersburg Metro head Vladimir Garyugin, Russian Museum director Vladimir Gusev, Vasily Zakharyaschev, who is head of the regional dacha administration, local power utility Lenenergo chief Andrei Likhachyov and Legislative Assembly Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov.
 Matviyenko's headquarters have already gathered over 90,000 signatures from eligible voters, Interfax reported on Tuesday, well above the 32,000 required for registration under the election law. But the candidate is in no hurry to hand them over to the City Election Commission, saying that the signatures will only be turned over to the commission after it has finished working out "rules for dealing with them."
 According to the Interfax report, the City Election Commission said that the procedures for examining and verifying the signatures were to be decided upon on Friday. T(o)he deadline for submitting documents is 6:00 PM, June 31 and the active campaign period opens on Aug. 22 and runs through to the day before the vote - Sept. 20.
 Thirty candidates have announced their intention to run by Thursday.
 That Matviyenko could come up with the necessary signatures was never really in question, as she is the early favorite in the campaign, and analysts say that she should face few problems from the CEC.
 "This whole story about [Moscow] powers anointing their candidate here and then fostering public opinion for the candidacy is boring," Yury Vdovin, a representative of the St. Petersburg Branch of the International human-rights organization Citizen's Watch, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "It is absolutely clear that the election commission will work in her favor and that the signatures were gathered in three minutes by her workers in St. Petersburg factories, while other candidates had to pay thousands [of dollars] to take care of the same question."
 "I have a feeling that St. Petersburg is being used as a training ground for the conception of national information security, which has been signed by the president. Independent sources of mass media have been liquidated, so the elections are going to take place not on the basis of consciousness choice, but through the manipulation of public opinion," Vdovin said.
 While Vdovin questioned the situation being created around the vote, Tatyana Dorutina, the head of the St. Petersburg League of Voters, said that Matviyenko's status as presidential representative is bound to mean at least the bending of some local election laws.
 "Officials at this high a level are not able to leave their work completely," Dorutina said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "She will have access to resources that will give her an advantage over other candidates. It would be silly for her not to use it."
 "Her position means that she will always be in the news. Society and media are not ready at the present time to give all of the candidates an equal opportunity."

TITLE: Court Stands Pat On Yukos Arrest
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prosecutors locked in a vicious, politically charged battle with the Yukos oil major played hardball on Wednesday and emerged victorious from court when judges ruled to keep core Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev in prison while the fraud investigations against him roll on.
 
Olga Timofeyeva, who chaired the three-judge panel, told journalists that the court had rejected Lebedev's appeal to be released on bail. He remains in Lefortovo prison.
 The Moscow City Court's decision had been much awaited as a sign of which way the Kremlin wind was blowing in the Yukos affair, which began three weeks ago with Lebedev's arrest and has since ballooned to include allegations of possible tax evasion by Yukos and of murder by other company officials.
 The showdown has prompted leading businesspeople to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to defuse a situation they say could set a precedent for a new carve-up of property and unravel the stability that has been the president's main achievement so far.
 Before the ruling, Lebedev's lawyers had expressed hope that Putin's recent ambiguous statement of opposition to jailing people during investigations of economic crimes was a signal that the man seen as the financial genius behind Mikhail Khodorkovsky's empire would be released. Some observers saw that prospect as a sign a compromise could be in the offing.
 But Wednesday's rejection of Lebedev's appeal for bail came as a clear sign that both sides were digging in for trench warfare in a battle that pits Khodorkovsky against forces within the Kremlin and their allies in the law-enforcement agencies.
 "What's clear from this is that not one of the sides is ready to back down and find a compromise," said Alexei Moiseyev, an economist at Renaissance Capital. "The end is far from sight in this battle."
 The Russian stock market dipped another 1.3 percent on the news, and shares in Yukos fell almost 3 percent. The market has lost almost $20 billion in value since the affair beganm, while Yukos shares have lost about 20 percent of their value, or about $7 billion.
 Khodorovsky sounded a warning after the decision was announced that Lebedev's case may not be the last of this type.
 "The tension is rising," he said on Wednesday evening. "We feel that there could be more arrests and searches."
 Khodorkovsky's comments came after others he has made this week showing little sign that he is ready for a truce either, escalating his rhetoric against the Kremlin faction of former security-service officers that he sees as being behind the campaign against his company. 
 In an interview with regional journalists that was published in Moskovskiye Novosti on Tuesday, Khodorkovsky accused the state of dominating economic and political life.
 "An oligarchic system is better than dictatorship and an authoritarian regime," he said. "But there's no reason for hope, we still don't live in an oligarchic country. We have been living in a slave-owning state for thousands of years. And we ourselves think there is only one tsar while the rest of us are lackeys."
 "To say that Khodorkovsky has political power is just ridiculous. We have one God - the state. And we all offer our lives and our children up to it as sacrifices and are glad when it eats them up."
 Analysts have said the attack on Khodorkovsky's empire is an attempt to reduce his political influence. Putin has openly lashed out at big business for blocking the passage of key reforms in the State Duma. Khodorkovsky, meanwhile, has openly been seeking to lock in his own loyal faction in the Duma.
 In the interview with regional journalists, Khodorkovsky said that he considers it his duty to be involved in politics. "I personally, as a citizen, not only have the right to have, but I have to have, my own political views and I have to defend them," he said. "And if we don't do this, then the prosecutors are going to determine our political life."
 Kremlin-connected political analyst Sergei Markov said that Khodorkovsky risked provoking even stronger ire from the Kremlin by so openly lashing out at the state. "The crisis is deepening," he said. If Khodorkovsky does not back down, "the next step will be the destruction of his empire.
 "He cannot win against the Kremlin," Markov said, saying a step back by the Kremlin would mean a return to the oligarch-dictated policies of the Yeltsin era. He said, however, that it was unlikely the rest of big business would dare to join Khodorkovsky in his battle.
 Markov said that a high-placed source in government had told him that other oligarchs were already running to the White House to ask for pieces of a collapsing Yukos empire.
 Lebedev's lawyers and Menatep general director Oleg Ashurkov said on Wednesday that the court hearings seemed to be skewed against them from the start.
 "I have a feeling all this has gone according to a planned scenario that was scripted before the hearings began," Ashurkov said. He cited the judge's approval of the prosecutors' appeal to close the hearings to the press and the public.
 "There are no state secrets and no commercial secrets in this case," he said. "Today we were shown that one of the main principles of the judicial system - openness - is not in force here.

TITLE: Cutlture Is Working on the Fine Art of Business
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Not so long ago, the suggestion that Russian museums should sell coffee mugs bearing images of paintings from their collections would have been treated by many of the museums' directors as something just short of blasphemy.
 
But the fall of the Soviet Union and the economic upheavals that followed had the effect of convincing even the most conservative members of the group that a degree of business sense was vital to the maintenance of any cultural institution.
 The question for many of these museum directors was where to find the expertise and advice they would need in generating the necessary funds to revitalize their institutions. Enter the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF).
 "Russia's culture and arts world were the subject of intense international interest. They were already competitive in attracting global attention," says Susan Casey, the IBLF program manager for Russia. "But we knew that the new economic philosophies meant that they were inevitably threatened by cuts in state funding."
 The growing importance of cultural sites and tourism to the city's economy as a strong industrial sector shrank rapidly was recognized early in the 1990's by then St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who approached the IBLF looking for cooperation with an NGO that he had himself founded, the St. Petersburg Renaissance Foundation.
 Although the idea was not directly in line with the programs the IBLF had set up in other countries, the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles supported the proposal enthusiastically, becoming personally involved in a number of projects and coming to St. Petersburg last week to mark the tenth anniversary of his forum's work here.
 "His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has a strong affinity with Russian culture - he packed a huge amount of activity into his brief three days in Russia," Casey said of last week's visit. "But he was visibly thriving on the stimulus, energy and visual excitement he received from being in your wonderful city!"
 Robert Davies, the CEO of IBLF, also reports glowingly on forum's decade of activity here, saying that the museums and creative industries program, which works with Russian partners in over 100 museums in St. Petersburg and the Northwest, has surpassed all initial expectations.
 "The program has contributed, through building management skills from the bottom up, towards regenerating many smaller museums, cultural sites and related artistic industries - the employment backbone for culture and tourism," Davies told Russian Investment Review last month. "It has had a far greater multiplier effect than mobilizing philanthropic donations, which rarely have the same impact on pride and sense of ownership of solutions."
 Elena Korf, an IBLF Representative in Russia, says that the forum - which operates in a number of countries with transition economies - develops tailor-made programs for each case.
 "We thoroughly research country's needs and conditions before we develop a strategy," she said.
 Korf described the IBLF's own fund raising strategy as a mosaic.
 "We receive grants from the European Union as well as donations from international banks and foreign businesses operating in Russia," she said.
 The program has filled a particular void in helping smaller institutions work out funding difficulties. While high-profile institutions like the State Hermitage Museum or the Mariinsky Theater found it easier to reorganize their activities to deal with new realities, many smaller institutions had fewer resources to use to develop their audiences and, by extension, their ability to attract funding and create income.
 Galina Pavlovich, the director of the Theater on Liteiny, tells the story of some actors being paid in eggs after the financial crisis of 1998. Pavlovich says that sponsorship donations in 1998 and 1999 were only covering five percent of total costs, so, in 1998, some of the younger actors would receive 100 eggs instead of 100 rubles they were owed.
 According to Yelena Kolovskaya, the director of St. Petersburg Pro Arte Institute, now even lesser known venues - she cites the example of the St. Petersburg Artillery Museum - have so-called "friends' societies."
 Kolovskaya says, however, that some negative Soviet characteristics have survived the shift to new ideas for marketing and fundraising.
 "One of the major problems is communication - both internal and external," she said. "Hierarchies are very strict and communication very formal in most cultural organizations here. Sometimes very good and productive ideas either don't reach the top management level or can not be presented properly."
 Casey says that another difficulty the IBLF program faces is that of the slow pace of change in local bureaucratic structures and behavior, which makes the adoption of more entrepreneurial approaches difficult.
 "Sustaining relationships between organizations representing specific skills and professional talent is difficult. Misunderstandings may occur if both sides are not properly briefed and provided with information about local background and developments," Casey says. 
 Yevgeny Fyodorov, a senior official in the Hermitage's Development Department has taken part in a number of seminars and other events organized by IBLF, including a trip to Manchester, St. Petersburg's sister-city, to gain first-hand experience from organizations involved in creative industries in other situations.
 "I was fascinated by the way they turned industrial sites into galleries and restaurants, how winningly they used the existing interiors," Fyodorov said. "Art was blending with business so naturally."
 Vadim Kasparov, the director of Cannon Dance Studio, which focuses on modern and jazz dance and organizes several annual contemporary-dance events in St. Petersburg, stresses that the administrative help is the biggest contribution from the IBLF program.
 "The cooperation has been very fruitful. We have learned to present and market ourselves and have even improved relations with the St. Petersburg city administration and business partners," he says. "We also very much appreciate the opportunity to reach out to our Western counterparts through IBLF."
 Casey says that the potential for growth remains and that the opportunity to work with similar foreign institutions has more to offer.
 "There is a big appetite for creativity and innovation in all areas in the West. St. Petersburg's cultural world presents a fascinating area for exchanges and joint developments in areas such a design, music and fashion," she said.

TITLE: Mirilashvili Remarks Run Long
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After sitting in jail for almost 2 1/2 years on charges of kidnapping and forming a criminal organization, Mikhail Mirilashvili finally got to make his closing statements to the St. Petersburg military court that is hearing the case.
 
It was clear that, since his arrest in January 2001, the local businessman and owner of the Conti casino chain had used the time in Kresty prison to put together something to say, as his statements lasted from 10:30 a.m to almost 5 p.m.
 Much of his statement involved charges against prosecutors that they had manufactured evidence during their investigation into his case or that they had turned everyday facts or items into evidence in their case.
 "If the fact that somebody owns a vehicle and has communication devices should be considered proof that the person has created an organized-crime group, then half of the people in this court room could be imprisoned on these same charges, considering that half of the people here own mobile phones and automobiles," Mirilashvili said.
 "I have to apologize to the judge for being so emotional here in the court room," he added. "I just reacted this way because such harsh methods have been used by the prosecutors," he said.
 During a break in the proceedings today, Alexei Bundin, the chief prosecutor in the case, said that the contents of Mirilashvili's statements were to be expected.
 "He's in a position where he is allowed to defend himself against the charges," Bundin said inside the courtroom. "This is his right, so this is what he is doing."
 One of Mirilashvili's main criticisms of the prosecution's case concerned a tape of a conversation that the prosecutors say contains Mirilashvilli's voice threatening potential victims with crimes. Mirilashvili says that the testimony of court expert Sergei Koval, who testified that the voice on the tape had been that of the accused, should be thrown out as Koval has a personal interest in the case. Mirilashvili says that Koval is looking for revenge after his wife, Tatyana, was forced to resign from a job with the Conti group for not fulfilling her obligations there. He also said that Koval's testimony had been influenced by the prosecution.
 "I remember that he came up to me to apologize and as I shook his hand he said that he had [provided evidence] under pressure from the prosecutors," Mirilashvili said in court on Thursday.
 "But then he told me 'You have your job, I have mine' and there was an impression of superiority written on his face," Mirilashvili added. "Something was wrong about it - people who are apologizing don't look superior."
 The chain of events leading to the case began with the kidnapping of Mirilashvili's father on Aug. 7, 2000, as he was being driven along Vyborgskaya Naberezhnaya. According to the police, his black Toyota was stopped by unknown people wearing police uniforms, who checked the documents of the car's occupants, showed them a gun, and then asked the driver to get out of the car. They then drove away with Mirilashvili Sr. He was released the next day, although the circumstances surrounding his release remain unclear, and police and family members have not made any comments about whether a ransom was paid or even demanded.
 A month later, on Sept. 8, two men and a woman of Caucasian origin were shot in broad daylight in front of the Hotel Astoria, where an international forum on investment and business in St. Petersburg was being chaired by Mirilashvili and was attended by luminaries such as President Vladimir Putin's chief economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov.
 Mirilashvili is charged with being involved in the abduction of two other people who prosecutors say he thought were involved with the earlier crimes.
 If convicted, Mirilashvili faces a prison term of up to 15 years. the court did not give a date for the announcement of its verdict.

TITLE: Military Brass Set for Some Fresh Faces
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A reshuffle is looming in the top ranks of the armed forces, with three commanders facing mandatory retirement due to their ages.
 
Colonel General Georgy Shpak, the commander of the elite airborne troops, and Colonel General Pyotr Klimuk, the head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, will both retire within the next several months, while Air Force commander Anatoly Mikhailov will only stay on if ordered to do so by the president, a Defense Ministry official said on Thursday.
 Shpak and Colonel General Mikhailov will reach the retirement age of 60 in September and October, respectively, while Klimuk turned 61 in June.
 The three commanders have the right to ask President Vladimir Putin to extend their active service, which Putin would do by issuing special one-year decrees until they turn 65.
 Shpak, however, has already announced that he will not ask for an extension, and the Kremlin earlier this year rejected a request by Klimuk to stay on, Interfax reported, citing unidentified Defense Ministry sources.
 Putin last year extended the service of Klimuk, a star-studded general who flew to space three times in the 1970s. He will probably be replaced by Major General Sergei Bainetov, the 45-year-old commander of the 11th Air Force, Interfax reported.
 The Defense Ministry official confirmed that Shpak and Klimuk are "on their way out," but noted that no decision has been made concerning Mikhailov.
 Air Force officials refused to comment on Thursday.
 Shpak is considering running for a seat in the State Duma in December's elections, either on the ticket of Duma Speaker Gennady Selznyov's Revival of Russia party or in a single-mandate constituency in the Pskov region, Interfax reported. The Northwest Region is home to his 76th Airborne Division.
 "I will make a decision on whether to run for State Duma after the order for my discharge from the armed forces is signed, Shpak told Interfax. "The decision to run for the State Duma is not final yet, but the decision to retire is."

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>United Russia Tops Poll
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The pro-Kremlin United Russia party edged out the Communists for the first time this year in a monthly opinion survey conducted by a respected polling agency that is measuring support for political parties as December parliamentary elections approach. 
 Asked which party they would vote for if the elections were held this Sunday, 27 percent of respondents who intend to cast ballots chose United Russia while 26 percent chose the Communist Party, according to the results of the poll published Wednesday by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, or VTsIOM. 
 It was the first time United Russia had edged the Communists in the survey and suggested the pro-Kremlin party has gained on its chief rival since January, when it received 14 percent, to 24 percent for the Communists.
 In this month's survey, VTsIOM polled 1,600 people in 100 cities and tows across Russia from July 17 to 21.
 The poll had a margin of error of 3.4 percent.
 
 
<b>3rd Candidate
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Businessperson Malik Saidullayev on Thursday announced his candidacy for the Oct. 5 presidential election in Chechnya.
 Saidullayev said at a news conference that that he dreams of a Chechnya whose citizens get the medical help and education they need and a time when "Chechen and Russian mothers no longer cry for the region's problems."
 The millionaire said that he would not align himself with any political party and was not seeking Kremlin approval.
 He is the third candidate to officially enter the contest.
 The pro-Kremlin United Russia party, meanwhile, announced its support Thursday for the candidacy of Akhmad Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration, Interfax reported.
 
 
<b>Chechen Refugees
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that free will should be the "guiding principle" in returning refugees to Chechnya, Itar-Tass reported.
 Officials have said that some 18,000 Chechen refugees are now living in tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia.
 Igor Yunash, first deputy head of the Interior Ministry's Federal Migration Service, said the camps "may cease to exist by fall" if accommodation for the refugees can be found in Chechnya, Interfax reported.
 
 
<b>4 Soldiers Killed
 </b>

VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia (AP) - Clashes with rebels and land mine explosions in Chechnya killed four soldiers and wounded 13 over the previous 24 hours, an official in the region's Moscow-backed administration said Thursday. 
 Federal forces fired artillery at suspected rebel hideouts and supply lines, many buried deep in the rugged mountains of southern Chechnya, and rounded up around 120 people on suspicion of aiding the rebel fighters, the official said on condition of anonymity. 
 Three soldiers died and seven were wounded when rebels strafed federal positions with gunfire 15 times over the last day. Another soldier was killed when a military jeep he was riding struck a land mine. 



TITLE: Plaintiffs Form Ranks To Fight for Their Pay
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Each year more than 100,000 Russian soldiers file civil suits in military courts over anything from back wages to the right to wear a tracksuit in their barracks, a top judge says.
 
The number of civil suits peaked at 211,000 in 2001, as tens of thousands of military service personnel went to court to claim unpaid wages. The wages had mostly piled up in the 1990s when the so-called &quot;power agencies&quot; were too cash-strapped to pay on time, the deputy chairman of the Supreme Court's military board, Anatoly Ukolov, said in a recent interview.
 Just over 150,000 suits were filed and heard by the civil boards of military courts last year, the 62-year-old judge said.
 &quot;Civil suits have been our main work for the past three or four years,&quot; said Ukolov, who holds the rank of lieutenant general and has worked in the military court system since 1967, serving as a judge in garrisons from Chita, Eastern Siberia, to Budapest, Hungary.
 He said that about 70 percent of the civil cases focus on wage arrears. For instance, 36,990 of the 150,888 suits heard last year focused on the nonpayment of food subsidies.
 While wage arrears peaked in the second half of the 1990s, it took service personnel some time to realize that they had the post-Soviet right to challenge their superiors in court and that military courts were no longer under the control of the Defense Ministry, Ukolov said.
 Often the courts find in favor of the soldiers. A Defense Ministry official explained this by saying that the military lacks qualified lawyers to fight the lawsuits. He added, however, that in any case it is next to impossible to contest claims of unpaid wages.
 The large number of suits &quot;shows service personnel are increasingly becoming integrated into civil society,&quot; said the official, who asked not to be identified.
 Military courts were handed the right to consider civil suits from soldiers in 1996, while the courts were re-assigned from the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry to that of the judicial branch of the executive power in 1999, Ukolov said.
 Service can file civil suits in either military or civil courts, he said.
 But a number of them have tried to settle their disputes over unpaid wages out of court. In one high-profile example, Major Igor Belyayev drove a T-80 tank out of his unit in the Nizhny Novgorod region and parked it in front of the local administration's offices in the settlement of Novo-Smolino in July 1998. He soon was joined by dozens of other soldiers and their families who also were upset about back wages. Their demands were not immediately met, but a senior commander promised to &quot;settle the conflict.&quot;
 The response would not have been so prompt if Belyayev had decided to go to court, but the outcome would have been more favorable, Ukolov said. Plaintiffs won almost 90 percent of the cases they filed in 2001 and 2002.
 The decline in lawsuits over the past two years suggests that the military has become more prompt about paying wages. However, some arrears remain, such as combat fees to those who fought in the 1994-96 and ongoing military campaigns in Chechnya, Ukolov said. 
 A recent report in the Gazeta newspaper estimated that combat fee claims in the court system total about 30 billion rubles ($1 billion).
 In addition to suing for arrears, soldiers are challenging the actions of their commanders. Last year, 711 suits were filed over disciplinary measures, while 756 suits contested commanders' orders to pay for damage they allegedly did to military property, Ukolov said.
 At least one officer has gone as far as to challenge his commander's views of what is proper attire on military premises. He sued his commander's decision to reprimand him for wearing a tracksuit in 2001, but lost, Ukolov said.
 The courts hear civil and criminal cases involving the more than 2 million service personnel in the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry, Emergency Situations Ministry and the Federal Security Service and its Federal Border Service.

TITLE: Bankruptcy Hits Local Market
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: While the Russian stock market plummets, the St Petersburg sector has been rocked by the largest bankruptcy of any single investment company since the financial crisis of August 1998 - a bankruptcy that has led in turn to financial difficulties for a number of other investment companies.
 
Prolog, a St. Petersburg-based investment company, has attracted many new customers over the past year by offering low tariffs on services and high rates on promissory notes.
 &quot;The company was building up a pyramid, whilst damping prices and playing against the market,&quot; said Victor Chetverikov, head of the Information and Analysis Department at the National Association of Stock Market Participants (NAUFOR).
 But the risky strategy failed to pay off, and the company began to suffer financial problems. In early June, it failed to cover its debts, causing the exclusion of the company from the RTS Stock Exchange and the suspension, and later withdrawal, of its license by the Federal Securities Commission (FSC) in early July, according to Nadezhda Samuilova, the head of the St. Petersburg Department of the FSC.
 In June, the Moscow-based East-European Investment Company was rumored to be intending to acquire 51 percent of Prolog, which could possibly have saved the company. However, the plans were canceled.
 Alexei Sergeyev, the executive director of Stock Exchange St. Petersburg, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that the main reason for Prolog's bankruptcy was poor company strategy.
 &quot;These problems did not affect the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, which practices a delivery-against-payment scheme, and demands 100-percent money pre-depositing, which makes transactions more secure.&quot;
 Sergeyev also said that Prolog's local transactions beyond stock exchanges could entail financial shortages for other St. Petersburg stock-market participants. 
 At present, the accounts of Prolog have now been frozen, the company has moved out of its office, and its top managers appear to have disappeared, leaving more than $2 million in unpaid debts. Private investors, a number of investment companies, and Sberbank have found themselves among Prolog's creditors.
 Clients of Prolog are now being advised by the FSC either to turn to the prosecutor's office or the courts in order to begin legal proceedings against the company.
 Following the demise of Prolog, a number of St. Petersburg investment companies appear to be suffering knock-on financial consequences. The FSC is investigating the Yamal Stock Center, to which Prolog owed $650,000, and which, in turn, failed to cover its $50,000 debt to investment company The Fourth Dimension. Eventually, Yamal Stock Center did manage to pay off its debt to The Fourth Dimension, but it failed to pay the fine, which led to a cancellation of the company's NAUFOR rating. RTS Stock Exchange has also given an official warning to Yamal Stock Center, according to Samuilova.
 The Fourth Dimension itself was reported to have been closely linked with Prolog, having, in May, supplied 1 million RAO UES shares to the ailing company at a total cost of $230,000 under an RTS deal. But this relationship with Prolog does not appear to have had an adverse affect on that company's standing.
 According to NAUFOR Head Alexei Savatyugin, NAUFOR has no information of market violations by The Fourth Dimension. &quot;Neither we nor any of the stock exchanges have had any complaints about [the company]. Clients and partners of the Fourth Dimension do not appear to have any problems either,&quot; he said.
 Vladimir Kuptsov, deputy general director of The Fourth Dimension, also confirmed in an interview earlier this week that there were no claims against the company by its clients. 
 &quot;The current situation may provoke a systemic crisis in attitudes toward St. Petersburg participants as a whole. It may lead to a situation where you may be refused to make a deal on the basis of your being from St. Petersburg&quot;, Alexei Sergeyev said.
 &quot;It's very bad news that all the ill-fated investment companies turned out to be from St. Petersburg,&quot; Savatyugin said.

TITLE: China To Back Floating Nuclear-Power Facility
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia hopes to win a Chinese loan for a project to build a floating nuclear plant, and the two countries may cooperate in building more such plants in the future, officials said Wednesday.
 
A spokesperson for state-run Rosenergoatom, the company that operates the country's nuclear power plants, said that it would cost about $145 million to build the floating plant and that Chinese officials had offered a loan to finance the construction.
 China could finance from 50 percent to 100 percent of the cost, said the spokesperson, who asked not be named.
 The plant would be capable of producing electricity and heat and desalinating water.
 A statement posted on Rosenergoatom's Web site said that the floating plant would be built at a shipyard in the city of Severodvinsk in northern Russia. This and other plants that might be built in the future would be operated by Rosenergoatom and remain its property.
 Floating nuclear-power plants could claim a large share of the fast-growing global desalination market, the statement said. Their mobility would allow them to provide fresh water and electricity to coastal areas in Asia and Africa.
 China wants to see Russia build and safely operate the first floating plant before it commits to further cooperation, Rosenergoatom's statement said.
 In the future, China could build barges for such plants at its shipyards, the Rosenergoatom spokesperson said. Russian and Chinese officials were to discuss details of the deal Wednesday, he said.
 Russia has long been interested in using such plants to supply electricity to remote northern and eastern regions where severe weather makes construction on land difficult and expensive. But despite frequent announcements that the project had the green light, construction has not yet begun.
 Environmentalists have criticized the plans as too risky, and questioned Russia's ability to safeguard such a facility from terrorists.

TITLE: Corporate Profits Climb, Rise of 64 Percent
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The combined pretax profit of all large and medium-sized companies in Russia in the first five months of the year jumped 64 percent year on year to 527.4 billion rubles ($16.8 billion), according to the State Statistics Committee.
 
Some 44,900 of the companies in this category, which does not include agriculture, banking, insurance or budget-funded sectors, posted a total profit of 646 billion rubles.
 Roughly 34,000 companies had combined losses of 118.6 billion rubles, the committee said.
 In 2002, total profits for large and medium-sized enterprises in the January-May period rose 63.3 percent over the same period in 2001, and totaled 320.4 billion rubles, or $10.3 billion.
 The big winners were the trade and electricity sectors and export-oriented industries such as fuel and oil transportation.
 Retail and catering led the way, with profits nearly tripling year on year to 145.4 billion rubles, most of which came from importing and exporting, which grew 400 percent to 117.3 billion rubles.
 &quot;We see this as support for our optimistic forecast of 13-percent private consumption growth this year, one of the fundamental reasons underlying the robust economic growth,&quot; investment bank United Financial Group said in a note to clients Wednesday.
 &quot;We believe that it is obvious that the majority of the surge in profits in [the international trade] sector was caused by higher oil prices this year than last,&quot; Renaissance Capital said.
 &quot;The other reason why we think corporate profits have increased so much is the much lower and often negative real-interest rates that have been seen this year compared to last year.&quot;
 The electricity sector increased profits by 88.5 percent to 28.6 billion rubles, while the fuel industry earned 73.5 billion rubles, up 52.8 percent on the year.
 The percentage of loss-making companies remained constant, increasing by just 0.2 percent to 43.4 percent of the total, led by the housing sector, which posted losses of 2.7 billion rubles.

TITLE: Yukos Attack Only Safe When in 'Silly Season'
AUTHOR: By Anders <strong>&Aring;</strong>slund
TEXT: Since July 2, a campaign has been pursued against Yukos, Russia's biggest private enterprise and one of its best managed. Several facts are evident. First, it is a concerted and long-planned action. Second, all the culprits are from the St. Petersburg FSB group - led by Viktor Ivanov and Igor Sechin, President Vladimir Putin's closest collaborators in the Kremlin. Third, this campaign must have been undertaken with the president's consent; he keeps just enough public distance to be able to call it off when he reckons the time is ripe.
 
This serious drama involves many issues, but the most important is probably that the ruling party, United Russia, is in tatters with no program and little popularity five months before the parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, the Communists have gained new popularity because of left-wing concerns about oligarchs and corruption. Sensibly, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov is pursuing a campaign against corrupt police officers, but United Russia also needs to beat up on the oligarchs.
 At the same time, this campaign must not go too far because then three major planks in Putin's platform would be lost. Both the political stability he has achieved and the country's economic welfare would be jeopardized. Furthermore, hostile reaction among foreign investors could endanger the planned Putin-Bush summit in the United States at the end of September. Therefore, the campaign must not run beyond the &quot;silly season&quot; of July and August.
 Another important factor is the vicious fighting between the FSB men from St. Petersburg and the oligarchs that has characterized the Putin presidency. The St. Petersburg group gained ground in 2000 and 2001, but the oligarchs hit back in late 2001, as the FSB adepts failed miserably to make inroads into business or to manage democracy. After the oligarchs' long bull run, it was high time for an FSB counteroffensive. 
 Putin's victory in the presidential election in March 2004 is too secure to be a concern. There is much talk about whether Putin will get the two-thirds majority in the next parliament that would allow him to undertake constitutional changes. Naturally, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and most oligarchs oppose that, but the likelihood of such a majority is small in any case.
 The current FSB attack smacks of desperation. Putin was able to deploy the seemingly neutral Tax Police to deal with Vladimir Gusinsky but, since it has been abolished, FSB officers must now carry out the dirty raids themselves, exposing themselves to popular demands for their disciplining. Rosneft and Gazprom, two poorly managed state enterprises, have also been mobilized to fight Yukos. Frankly, such troglodyte enemies are not too worrisome.
 Russia's financial markets have enjoyed an extraordinary boom and were longing for profit-taking. Numerous investors were hoping for a market correction to buy assets more cheaply, while many foreign investors have entered Russia recently with a poor understanding of Russian reality and are therefore prone to panic. While short-term foreigners are rushing out, Russian investors are taking some profits and waiting on the sidelines for lower prices. A total fall in the stock market of 20 percent to 30 percent from its peak would be natural, but few financial actors would want it to fall further. Last year, UES stock was talked down and foreigners with weak nerves sold out to the great benefit of certain Russian strategic investors, as its stock price has more than tripled in a year.
 Although the oligarchs have thrived, they are not entirely satisfied. Their main concern is that their property rights are not secure, which lays them open to extortion from political parties and the authorities. Reportedly, the Kremlin has extorted a total of $200 million for United Russia's campaign this year, $20 million from each of the big oligarchs. That is four times more than Khodorkovsky is said to have paid to Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, so his financing of them cannot be the problem, although United Russia might want even more.
 Even if other oligarchs are or were jealous of Khodorkovsky, they all suffer from this attack and are prepared to act with Yukos through the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP. Moreover, the recent TNK-BP megamerger could easily fall victim to larger price realignments, and others could be pre-empted. Most big businessmen care about their stock values, favoring stability. 
 The international repercussions of this scandal may be devastating. What foreigner will dare to invest in Russia, if even Russia's richest man and best operator is not safe? Putin's claims to promote the rule of law and good relations with the West come across as a joke while he is making use of law enforcement for political persecution.
 Being responsible for the economy, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his government have every reason to oppose this destabilizing conflict. It will cause capital outflow and reduce investment, economic growth and Russia's credit rating.
 The bottom line is that it would be extremely dangerous to tamper with the outcome of mass privatization, which is one of Russia's main accomplishments. It has laid the foundation for five years of strong economic growth. Most of the elite understands that.
 After three weeks of intense fighting, a possible outcome of the campaign is apparent. Politically, it is so important that it may last for two months, but if it continues for longer it would harm economic growth, political stability and Russia's international standing - undermining Putin's authority.
 The campaign has seriously shaken any belief in the sanctity of property rights in Russia. The economic and political effects will be devastating if the state does not guarantee the outcome of privatization. A sensible suggestion is the three-year statute of limitations on privatization disputes for which RSPP chairperson Arkady Volsky is now campaigning. It should include not only enterprises, but also land and real estate. Yet foreign investors will be deterred for quite some time.
 The oligarchs' huge political contributions remain a sore spot. Since this financing cannot be prohibited, it should be legalized but made public and transparent. The oligarchs would be less keen to fund politicians then, while also becoming less vulnerable to extortion. 
 Politically, United Russia is likely to benefit from this campaign against oligarchs and corruption, but so are the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, which are mobilizing in defense of rule of law and democracy. Clearly, civil society is being energized.
 As is usually the case in a major Russian campaign, the prime movers are likely to be punished for having gone too far. Clearly, the powers of the FSB and the prosecutor general should be subject to review. Certain comparisons with the routing of the lawless Korzhakov-Barsukov-Soskovets group in June 1996 may be appropriate. That Platon Lebedev has not yet been released is hardly surprising given that Olga Yegorova, the head of the Moscow City Court, is considered a loyalist of Viktor Ivanov, one of the instigators of the scandal.
 Yukos expects even more legal cases in the regions, but it has the legal acumen to win most of them. After all, Khodorkovsky is Russia's best operator and he is not likely to be beaten or driven into exile. Any tampering with the ownership of Russia's best large company would be devastating to economic growth. In addition, if Yukos had planned a merger with a major Western oil company, that deal is most likely off.
 There is no escaping it: Putin is the master of this drama, and he will be judged by how soon he brings this tragedy to an end, how severely he punishes the culprits and whether he disciplines the secret police.
 
 <i>Anders &Aring;slund, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Media Revolution Running Out of Steam
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: A &quot;velvet revolution&quot; swept through the Russian mass media in the summer of 2002, launched in part by presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. One year later, the &quot;revolution&quot; is all but forgotten.
 
The main event of last summer was a conference, held in Moscow at the end of June, called &quot;The Media Industry: Directions for Reform.&quot; The conference was an outgrowth of the Russian-American Media Entrepreneurs Dialogue, or RAMED, initiated by Bush and Putin in November 2001.
 After six months of bilateral meetings, Russian and American participants in RAMED met with Putin in May 2002. Among their conclusions was the need for a conference devoted exclusively to the Russian media industry.
 On the eve of the conference, Putin met with a group of delegates. The conference attracted top executives and editors from all of the major Moscow-based media organizations as well as representatives of the regional mass media. No problem facing the media industry was off the table. A resolution passed at the close of the conference called for a new industry-wide model that would make Russian media companies more competitive and attractive to investors. That model would promote professional management, high editorial standards, economic independence and financial transparency. The conference identified the excessive presence of the state on the media market as a fundamental obstacle to growth. Press Minister Mikhail Lesin became the darling of the broadsheets when he declared that in time he would gladly hand over some of the functions of his ministry to the media community.
 On July 15, 2002, three dozen heads of major Moscow-based print media outlets, television and radio stations formed the Media Industrial Committee lobbying group, headed by Konstantin Ernst, general director of the state-controlled Channel One television station. The committee vowed to pay particular attention to the problems facing regional and local media.
 One year later, no one - not the participants in RAMED and the conference, not the Media Industrial Committee, not the press - has bothered to assess the progress made to date.
 I was disappointed by this disregard for the Bush-Putin initiative. In mid-June, Sreda magazine asked visitors to its Web site to rate the impact of the media industry conference on the subsequent development of the mass media in Russia. Just under 15 percent of respondents said the conference had made a positive impact, while 5.6 percent said that impact was negative. An overwhelming 44.4 percent said the conference had made no impact whatsoever, and 35.2 percent stated they expected Sreda to put forward more meaningful questions for discussion.
 In preparation for the first anniversary of the Media Industrial Committee, media executives and editors in Moscow and the provinces were asked if the committee reflected the interests of the media community. In Moscow, we managed to find a few people with something positive to say about the committee. In the regions, however, the responses varied from ignorance to hostility.
 &quot;I am not familiar with the activities and declarations of the Media Industrial Committee,&quot; said Andrei Filinov, editor of the Vladimir State Television and Radio Co. Boris Kirshin, head of one of Russia's few independent newspapers, Chelyabinsky Rabochy, dismissed the committee as out of touch with the trials and tribulations of the regional press. &quot;At the same time, I am convinced that the regional press needs a voice,&quot; Kirshin said.
 Clearly Bush and Putin will have to roll up their sleeves and get back to work if they want to make a real difference in the Russian media industry.
 
 <i>Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals. [www.sreda-mag.ru] </i>

TITLE: paprika spice up local scene
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Paprika Korps, one of the very few Polish bands to have toured Russia recently, plays reggae, if not in a pure style - they describe their music as &quot;heavy reggae,&quot; and claim that it owes as much to punk as to Jamaican rhythm. Having toured this country twice last year, the five-piece will arrive again to perform three concerts in Moscow and two in St. Petersburg this week. 
 
Poland has a rich reggae scene, with its own festivals and record labels, although Paprika Korps stands out from the crowd, said the band's spokesperson Pyotr Maslanka, who sings and play keyboards.
 &quot;There are quite a lot of reggae bands in Poland, [but] mostly they play roots reggae,&quot; wrote Maslanka from his home in Opole, a city in southern Poland, in a recent email interview.
 &quot;Our style is bit different, because we're trying to combine reggae <i>riddim</i> [a rhythm pattern, basically consisting of a drum pattern and a prominent bass line] with distorted guitars and with other styles - that makes our style unique.&quot;
 The band has adopted a description of its music as &quot;heavy reggae,&quot; not to be confused with Jamaica's traditional roots reggae.
 &quot;It's a good description for people who expect reggae to be really roots music from Jamaica - we don't play reggae at all,&quot; wrote Maslanka.
 &quot;Drums play something totally different than in normal reggae riddim, and the guitars are also more punky than reggae ... It seems that we're the first band who describes its music as heavy reggae.&quot;
 Formed in April 1996 in Opole, 309 kilometers Southeast of Warsaw, Paprika Korps has released two albums, &quot;Kolejny krok&quot; (2000) and &quot;Przede wszystkim muzyki&quot; (2001), and toured the rest of Europe extensively since its first lengthy German tour in 2001, promoted by an anti-fascist organization.
 Apart from Maslanka, Paprika Korps features Marcin Matlak on guitar and vocals, Lukasz Rusinek on lead guitar, Tomasz Krawczyk on bass and Aleksander Zelizniak on drums. 
 Paprika Korps visited Moscow last year with the help of Jah Division, Moscow's veteran reggae band, which Maslanka came across while surfing the Web many years ago. In exchange, Paprika Korps helped to organize the Moscow band's German tour earlier this year.
 &quot;Many, many years ago I discovered Jah Division's music on the Internet, I loved it from the beginning,&quot; wrote Maslanka.
 &quot;After a few years we played a festival in Warsaw and, out of the blue, a girl speaking Polish with a Russian accent gave me a Jah Division tape - just for no real reason. She left contact details for them too, so I used them, and we played a few gigs with them in Moscow last year. Those were tremendous gigs, really great. Then we organized a tour for Jah Division in Poland and Germany, which was also big success... That's why we decided to spend more time in Russia on this tour.&quot;
 For Maslanka, Russian audiences are similar to those in Eastern Europe.
 &quot;Playing in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans has one common point: the audience is really enthusiastic, they like to dance, and it really helps us on the stage,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;We have very good memories from Russia. Really. Good clubs, with good equipment. Very friendly and nice people. The only bad thing is the borders: you always need at least small miracle to cross them.&quot;
 Paprika Korps sings both in English and in Polish. &quot;Singing in English is easier in general,&quot; wrote Maslanka. &quot;The language is better to use in songs. But we also have a few Polish texts which I like most.&quot;
 Paprika Korps describes its music as alternative and wants to be perceived as an alternative band (&quot;We don't play commercial music - that's a fact&quot;), but Maslanka admits that its hybrid style makes it possible to reach wider audiences than just reggae fans.
 &quot;Our style helps us a lot because, for the whole time, we are somewhere between reggae and punk, so we can play at a big punk festival in Croatia as well as a reggae festival in Dresden or a small punky club in Finland. That's a good point for us!&quot;
 
 <i>
Paprika Korps performs at Fish Fabrique at 10 p.m., Tuesday and Moloko (with Igrai Garmon!) at 8 p.m., Wedenesday,.Links: http://paprika.reggae.pl </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Sweden's electronica crooner <strong>Jay-Jay Johanson</strong> will perform this Saturday in what promises to be the main event of Stereoleto electronic/dance festival, which runs every Saturday through Aug. 9.
 
While Johanson's musical influences and interests, including Kraftwerk and Daft Punk, are widely know, he revealed what interests him outside music in am email interview last week.
 &quot;Well, art and fashion has always interested me. Not so much cinema and books. Science is also a favorite subject, and maths. But I can't mention any names really.&quot;
 Johanson's popularity in Russia was proven when pirates took the trouble to release each of his four albums, and then even compiled a collection of their favorite songs from all four.
 For his most recent album, &quot;Antenna&quot; (2002), quite a departure from his previous work, Johanson received some help from the outside.
 &quot;Well I produced it myself with the co-production of [Germany's electronic act] Funkstorung and my close friend Martin,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;But I had all the general ideas of what instruments to combine and where to put the vocal. For my next album, I guess I will work in a more minimalist and more personal direction...&quot;
 While Stereoleto seems to be running smoothly, at least two big festivals scheduled for July have been canceled or postponed.
 The new <strong>Baltic Jazz Festival</strong>, which many thought would become the second major jazz event to be held at the Peter and Paul Fortress (the other being the Peter and Paul Jazz Festival in late June) has taken its posters back down from the city's walls.
 The festival, which was advertised as being headlined by Joe Zawinul of the Weather Report and Zawinul Syndicate fame, has been cancelled because of problems with those taking part but, to a greater extent, because of the response from the public, according to the event's spokesperson. 
 &quot;It turned out that the city isn't yet ready for such a festival,&quot; she said, adding that it has been postponed and re-scheduled to be held for October. 
 <strong>The Neva Delta Folk Blues Festival</strong>, which was first held in 2001, will not be happening either. &quot;Attention!!! Due to lack of financing, The Third International Folk Blues Festival Neva Delta has been postponed for an indefinite period,&quot; reads the festival's Web site.
 Finally, reports that <strong>Lou Reed</strong> will be playing - as Bryan Ferry did in 2001 - at the Shostakovich Philharmonic on Aug. 9 have not been confirmed.
 According to an insider, the singer and the local promoter &quot;failed to come to an agreement.&quot; The promoter was not available for comment as this paper went to press. 
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: russia's stones take new trip
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Greblya, a new name on the local club scene, is, in reality, the high-energy garage-rock four-piece Chufella Marzufella, plus some additional members and new songs by its frontman Pavel Ryabukhin.
 
Formed in January 1994 by fans of The Rolling Stones and The Who, Chufella Marzufella performs original material in Russian, but also delights in belting out covers of &quot;Jumpin' Jack Flash&quot; and &quot;I Can't Explain.&quot;
 According to Ryabukhin, who sings and plays guitar, the new project came to life when he wrote some new, psychedelia-tinged songs which seemed different to Chufella Marzufella's trademark style, with its focus on 1960s British rhythm-and-blues and somewhat punkish approach.
 &quot;First we wanted to have some fun - I wrote a couple of idiotic songs, and we played one concert under the name Perduny (Farts),&quot; says Ryabukhin.
 To be more precise, it was a three-song surprise appearance at a concert by Mad Lori, the local pop-rock group, at the underground rock club Moloko in May. The band's minimalist set design consisted of a bed-sheet with the word &quot;Perduny&quot; written in red paint.
 &quot;When we got the name, it was fun just to see people's reaction,&quot; said Alexander Nikolayev, bass player and, with Ryabukhin, one of the two founding members of the group. &quot;My mama heard about this - she said, 'Sasha, it's all well and good, but please change the name - don't use that word.&quot;
 However, soon they found that local clubs were none to keen on booking a band with a name like that, and the group was forced to rethink its approach.
 &quot;First we came with Grablya ('Rake' or 'Hook') and then Greblya (literally 'Rowing,' but sounding very much like a Russian four-letter word),&quot; said Ryabukhin.
 Soon after its stage debut at Moloko, Greblya recorded as yet untitled 11-track album, which it hopes to release in September. 
 &quot;We started to record it as Perduny, and finished it as Greblya,&quot; said Ryabukhin, adding that the recording sessions took up just three days in late May.
 &quot;We got off the Chufella Marzufella track, and everything ran very quickly, one song after another,&quot; said Nikolayev. 
 &quot;It just took a change in name, and everything became new - not only new songs, but a whole new concept.&quot;
 Chufella Marzufella's old music style has changed drastically over the past few months, according to the band.
 &quot;The beat and rhythms and blues that we used to play sort of transformed into psychedelia,&quot; said Ryabukhin. 
 &quot;But the basis is still the same, just some other different things have been added - mostly because of the choice of musicians.&quot;
 Apart from Ryabukhin and Nikolayev, Chufella Marzufella consists of Boris Yakovlev on guitar and Andrei Doroshenko on drums.
 For Greblya, the lineup is augmented by violinist/pianist Tatyana Kos, as well as Alexander Vakhivsky and, occasionally, Andrei Lavrinenko, both playing African Jamba drums. 
 Lavrinenko is better known as bassist with the local psychedelic/ethno/trance outfit Ole Lukoye, but will not take part in this week's Greblya concert as his main band is now on tour in Germany.
 Officially the band is now called Chufella Marzufella (Greblya) or, alternatively, Greblya (Chufella Marzufella).
 Chufella Marzufella has released three albums, &quot;I Wanna Be Your Man&quot; (1996), &quot;Zoloto&quot; (&quot;Gold&quot;) (1998) and &quot;Ozma and the Garage Express&quot; (2000).
 There is little hope for the re-release of the first two albums, which were only available on tapes and sold out long ago. 
 The band's former label, the now-defunct DDT Records, which belonged to Yury Shevchuk's popular rock band DDT, has been unable to locate the master tapes, according to Ryabukhin.
 Of the Chufella Marzuffella material, Greblya performs the club hits &quot;Europa Plus&quot; and &quot;Kiska&quot; (&quot;Pussy&quot;). Both songs have also been included on Greblya's as yet unreleased CD debut.
 However, the involvement of the members of the band in the new project does not mean that Chufella Marzufella is a thing of the past.
 &quot;It would be great to make a record by Chufella Marzufella as well,&quot; said Nikolayev. 
 &quot;Those are good songs, it would be a pity not to use them.&quot;
 Ryabukhin, who admits to having listened to Astrud Gilberto's old bossa-nova recordings extensively in recent times, claims that he prefers a live sound to anything electronic.
 &quot;I can't see any common points between the madness of live performance, when a live sound is produced by a live person with a live drum stick made of wood, and some preprogrammed sounds,&quot; he said.
 &quot;It's now all getting eclectic - they [electronic acts] try to mix everything into one big heap to please everybody, I don't like it.&quot;
 At this week's concert at Moloko, support will come from the younger garage-rock trio The Littlewater. 
 &quot;They are interesting, I like them - I was at their gig at the Front club,&quot; said Ryabukhin.
 &quot;We have something in common with them.&quot; 
 
 <i>
Chufella Marzufella (Greblya) performs at Moloko at 8 p.m. Thursday. Links: www.chufella.ru </i>

TITLE: sushi invasion picks up pace
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Following in the wake of Moscow, St. Petersburg's selection of sushi bars and restaurants continues to expand at a dramatic pace. Only the meteoric rise in the number of beauty salons and mobile-phone dealerships can compete with the steep hike in the number of sushi eateries opening up, and on a recent trip out to the dacha I discovered that fast-food Sushi bars at gas stations on the way out of town have now arrived. Quite why sushi should be so popular in St. Petersburg at the moment remains something of a mystery, but it's a trend that's to be welcomed. And for those not venturing out of town, one of the latest additions to the ranks of the city's finest sushi bars, Kaminari, a short walk from St. Isaac's Square, is well worth a visit.
 
Granted, from the outside, Kaminari does look a little garish, with the slightly tacky red lettering almost randomly glued on to the bar's windows, but appearances are all too deceptive in this case. Once inside, you find yourself in a bright, informal setting, with a wealth of natural light and a complete absence of the pretension and formality that you find in many of the city's other Sushi bars. It was almost a relief to hear a Russian pop radio station playing quietly in the background, rather than a standard-issue CD of ethnic ambient sounds. The service proved to be similarly informal - polite, friendly and informative, rather than the frosty and misplaced cool of the sushi bars at the higher end of the price range.
 We kicked off with a stylishly served selection of two rolls and eight sushi, including salmon, shrimp, scallop, tuna, water eel and hoki clam for 575 rubles ($18.95). The standard of sushi in St. Petersburg doesn't vary greatly, and Kaminari proved to be at least on an equal footing with the frontrunners. I shared the selection with my dining partner, a self-acclaimed sushi expert and Japanese speaker, who gave the dish a thumbs up. We also tried the miso soup for 40 rubles ($1.30), which I found deliciously tasty, but my companion deemed a little too crude. The Kirin beer for 120 rubles ($3.95) provided no cause for dispute, however.
 It would be unfair to say that it was downhill from here on, as far as the food was concerned, but after the exotic taste sensations that sushi provides on these shores, the dishes that we went on to order proved disappointingly familiar. I took the salmon teriyaki at 210 rubles ($6.90) - despite being extremely fresh, beautifully prepared and served with an excellent selection of vegetables, there was little to distinguish it from meals served at a number of Russian restaurants in the city. 
 My dining companion's selection - ebi-gedza, fried Japanese dumplings packed with crabmeat - created much the same impression. While far from being a straight Russian-style pelmeni dumpling, it could hardly be described as something out of the ordinary. 
 For dessert, I tried the fried bananas for 110 rubles ($3.60), which were light, delicately crispy and almost entirely oil free. My partner opted for the &quot;lichee pulp&quot; for 180 rubles ($5.90), which was also deemed delicious. 
 Kaminari, then, has much to recommend it, the relaxed atmosphere and cheerful service ranking particularly highly, and distinguishing it from the ever-growing sushi crowd. 
 
 <i>
Kaminari Sushi Bar. 18 Voznesensky Prospect. Tel. 311-78-39. Open daily, 11.00 a.m. until late. Menu in Russian and English. Major credit cards accepted. Lunch for two with alcohol, 1455 rubles ($48) </i>

TITLE: monuments to writer all too literal
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Some describe them all as a bunch of cast iron dolls and cemetery-style platforms, and some see them as symbolic and ceremonial, but nevertheless, one of them is very likely to be erected in St. Petersburg in the very near future. The seven designs for a monument to the late Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, which have made it to the third - and the last - round of the architectural contest, are currently on public display until Aug. 10, 2003, at the Bosco de Ciliegi store at Nevsky 12. 
 
No members of the St. Petersburg city government were invited to join the international jury, as the organizing committee has argued that Brodsky himself would not have wanted this monument to have any affiliation with officialdom.
 The jury includes the poet's widow, Maria Brodskaya; Thomas Krens, the director the Guggenheim Foundation; Vladimir Gusev, the director of the Russian Museum; Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky; the poet Yevgeny Rein; Vladimir Spivakov, the director of the ensemble Moscow Virtuosi, and the city's Head Architect, Oleg Kharchenko. The contest also boasts a representative Expert Council that consists of prominent artists, sculptors, poets and art historians.
 Jury member Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, made a clear distinction between the two types of monuments represented in the final round. &quot;One type of work is made up of the ceremonial and symbolic monuments, meant to be installed, for instance, on an embankment, while another type are figures of a man wandering around St. Petersburg, which would suit a courtyard,&quot; he said. &quot;They are hard to compare, and I haven't decided anything yet.&quot; 
 Every monument is already linked to a particular location, with most of them being on Vasilievsky Island. The choice was inspired by the famous line: &quot;I will come to die on Vasilievsky Island,&quot; from one of Brodsky's untitled verses. The idea has been widely criticized for its banality and for telling nothing about Brodsky's personality, but no convincing alternative has been proposed, with the exception of Preobrazhenskaya Square, very near to Brodsky's former apartment on Ulitsa Pestelya.
 Alfa Bank and the St. Petersburg Buildings and Architecture Committee announced an international contest for just such a monument in March of 2002. Since then, there has been a fierce debate and much skepticism surrounding the issue, especially considering that architectural competitions in St. Petersburg have not been very successful of late, with the competition to design the monument for the city's 300th anniversary being the most recent illustration. &quot;It was depressing to see the domination of trivial thinking among my fellow-artists,&quot; city's Head Artist Ivan Uralov said of that contest. St. Petersburg's 200th birthday, by comparison, was commemorated by the construction of Troitsky Bridge.
 There is a high risk that the Brodsky monument may be another demonstration of such trivial thinking. Several members of the jury didn't give their support to any of the projects that reached the final round, on the grounds that they all lacked original ideas. &quot;I was disappointed,&quot; said jury member and art critic Arkady Ippolitov. &quot;The poet doesn't deserve to return to St. Petersburg in the shape of an iron-cast doll reminiscent of a turn-of the century policeman. When I look at these works, I want to ask if the authors wanted to create a monument or to win the contest.&quot; 
 Oleg Kharchenko said that he has been satisfied with the contest's outcome so far. &quot;I admire the transparency of this contest,&quot; he said. &quot;It has brought interesting works as well. We have enough to choose from but, I can't predict the final verdict, which makes it all the more exciting.&quot;
 Ippolitov disagreed, suggesting that, in principle, the debate is not about Brodsky. &quot;Only someone very naive would believe that we are really talking about a monument to Brodsky,&quot; he said. &quot;It is a monument to the current historical period, the period of transition. Similarly, the Bronze Horseman is not so much a monument to Peter the Great, as it is to the reign of Catherine the Great.&quot;
 Artistically, the contest's outcome has already shown that the artists have taken the word &quot;monument&quot; literally, limiting it to sculpture. Most of the authors obviously wanted their works to achieve a physical similarity with Brodsky. There were no attempts to create a connection with Brodsky through association. Some experts believe this to be a rudiment of the way of thinking of the Soviet era.
 &quot;I know that there are still many people who remember Brodsky alive, who were friends with him, or are related to him,&quot; said Alexander Borovsky, head of the New Trends Department of the State Russian Museum. &quot;These people want the monument to be a sculpture showing the poet 'as if alive,' but the result is frustrating. It is just awful. We see a man in glasses, who can easily be mistaken for [the revolutionary Yakov] Sverdlov, or looks, at best, as a chief accountant.&quot;
 To make matters worse, a sculpture of this kind is almost guaranteed to create an endless argument about its closeness to the original. There will always be someone who will say that the monument fails to reflect Brodsky's complex personality. A metaphoric monument would have been a solution to this problem, but the idea didn't find enough supporters, or perhaps the metaphoric works didn't meet the standards of the jury members.
 Whatever the case, it will take a decisive verdict from the 18-member jury for the monument to carve itself a niche in the city. &quot;We don't <i>have</i> to choose anything,&quot; said Alexander Gafin, chairperson of the board of directors of Alfa Bank. &quot;If we don't reach a consensus, there will be no monument.&quot;
 Alfa-Bank has allocated $26,000 for the prize fund. The winner will receive $15,000, with the rest being divided between the other finalists. The bank will not, however, be financing the actual construction of the monument. &quot;We expect other organizations, and even ordinary people to participate,&quot; Gafin said.

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: 
 <i>
Ya vas umolyayu: Oh, please! Don't be silly! Give me a break! Get off it! Give it a rest!</i>
 
Russian gives us a plethora of ways to ask for something, from the straightforward <i>prosit</i> (to ask), to every shading of entreaty, polite or impolite. If you want to ask someone to take an action, you can use <i>uprashivat/uprosit</i>, with imperfective and perfective the indicator of whether or not we got what we were asking for. <i>Ya polchasa uprashivala ego razreshit mne sdelat etu rabotu, no on ukhodil ot otvet.</i> (I spent half an hour asking him for permission to do the work, but he kept avoiding an answer.) <i>Nakonets-to ya ego uprosila</i>. (I finally prevailed upon him to agree.)
 <i>Umolyat</i> is a stronger form of asking: It means to &quot;entreat&quot; or &quot;beg.&quot; <i>Ya umolyal ego ne ekhat</i>. (I begged him not to go.) However, when you say <i>Ya vas/tebya umolyayu!</i> in an exasperated tone with the accent on <i>Ya</i>, it is a strong form of objection, as in the following exchange: <i>&quot;On mne ne pozvonit.&quot;</i> <i>&quot;Ya tebya umolyayu! Konechno, on pozvonit. On tebya lyubit.&quot;</i> (&quot;He won't call me.&quot; &quot;Oh, please! Of course he'll call. He loves you.&quot;) <i>Zaklinat/zaklyast</i> is a word that can mean &quot;to invoke&quot; (as in evil or good spirits) but also &quot;to entreat.&quot; 
 When you want to ask for a thing, you can use <i>vyprashivat/vyprosit.</i> <i>On chasto vyprashival u menya dengi.</i> (He often asked me for money.) <i>Klyanchit</i> is a nice word that means what it sounds like: to pester, bug or nag someone for something. It can be used in reference to house pets' behavior in the kitchen. <i>Pyos sidit u stola i klyanchit edu.</i> (The dog sits by the table and pesters us for food.)
 <i>Kanyuchit</i> also means to beg, but with the sense of whining for something. <i>Perestan kanyuchit!</i> <i>Ya tebe ne dam deneg na morozhenoe.</i> (Stop whining! I won't give you money for ice cream.) When you want to bum or cadge a cigarette or money, you can use the word <i>strelyat</i>, which has the primary meaning of &quot;to shoot.&quot; <i>Ona inogda strelyaet u menya sigaretu.</i> (Sometimes she bums a cigarette from me.)
 There are also ways to get something that are not so nice. <i>Vymogat</i> is &quot;to extort&quot; something, and can be used either literally or describe something that is de facto extortion. <i>Oni ne prosili zaplatit, a prosto vymogali u nas dengi.</i> (They didn't ask for payment; they simply extorted money from us.) If you are trying to get money out of an institution, you can use <i>vybivat/vybit. My vybili sredstva iz ministerstva na kapremont.</i> (We wheedled funds out the ministry to do major repair work.)
 Russia being Russia, with its long history of asking the <i>tsar-batyushka</i> (the tsar-father) for something, there are ways to make your needs known in the sense of &quot;petition.&quot; The most common word to use is <i>khodataistvovat: Ya khodataistvoval za nego u ministra.</i> (I petitioned the minister about his case.) If you want to convey that you went through a lot of trouble petitioning someone, you can use the word <i>khlopotat: Ya khlopotala za neyo vesnoi - kuda ya tolko ne obrashchalas! No ona v institut vsyo-taki ne postupila.</i> (I ran around for her all spring - I went everywhere I could think of! But she didn't get in to the institute.)
 Finally, there is plain old <i>Proshu!</i> or <i>Proshu vas!</i> which is a kind of all-purpose invitation to do something. Usually when you translate it into English, you have to specify the action. <i>Uzhin gotov. Proshu.</i> (Dinner is served. Please be seated.) So even if you forget the verb in Russian, you can still be polite and people will work out what you mean.
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator.</i>


TITLE: CIA, KGB play out endgame
AUTHOR: By David Wise
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: During the Cold War, it was no easy matter for a Russian to volunteer to spy for the CIA. Take the case of Adolf Tolkachev, an aircraft designer in Moscow. Risking his life, Tolkachev tried half a dozen times to approach the agency.
 
He left notes in the cars of two successive CIA station chiefs in Moscow. He got nowhere. The CIA, it seemed, yawned at the prospect of recruiting an agent at the very heart of the Soviet aviation industry, a scientist who could reveal vital information about the state of Moscow's research into stealth technology. Poor Tolkachev had to do everything but dance the kazachok naked in Red Square to attract the attention of the CIA. Finally, giving up on the obtuse station chiefs, he made contact by approaching the Italian butler at Spaso House, the residence of the American ambassador.
 Perhaps the agency had worried it was all a KGB plot. But Milt Bearden, the former chief of the CIA's Soviet division, and James Risen, a Washington correspondent for the New York Times, report that Tolkachev, once recruited, turned over a cornucopia of secrets about Soviet MIGs and other weapons systems, saving the United States &quot;billions of dollars&quot; and perhaps five years of research and development time. He was eventually betrayed by Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who defected to the Soviets in 1985. Tolkachev was executed a year later.
 &quot;The Main Enemy&quot; - the title comes from the KGB's designation of the United States during the Cold War - is the product of an unusual collaboration between the veteran former CIA officer and a respected journalist who specializes in intelligence and national security. Their joint authorship created some cumbersome logistical problems: Bearden was required to submit his portion of the manuscript to CIA for clearance, but Risen, not having worked for the spooks, was under no such restriction.
 The result, despite the screening by the CIA - the agency's censors do seem to have wielded only a light pencil - is a fast-paced page turner, a richly woven tapestry of the spy wars between Moscow and Washington in the fading twilight of the Cold War. For spy buffs, there are delicious inside details: The CIA specialists who prepared instructions in Russian for Tolkachev and other agents are called &quot;poets&quot;; a brief encounter between a case officer and an agent is a &quot;bren&quot;; and the KGB - not just Saddam Hussein and Hollywood - used body doubles to mislead onlookers. At one point, the CIA even consulted magicians to learn the art of deception.
 As a CIA officer, Bearden was a participant in the games of intelligence played with the Soviets. But the authors were also able to mine high-level sources inside the former KGB. Many of the stories in the book have been told before, but aside from providing new detail, the real value of &quot;The Main Enemy&quot; is that it assembles in one place all the interlocking cases of the period: Howard, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, Ronald Pelton, Vitaly Yurchenko and several others. By pulling the threads together, the authors demonstrate the often complex relationships among the cases. In the wilderness of mirrors, as counterintelligence has been termed, Ames and Howard betrayed some of the same agents, as did Hanssen and Ames. You can't tell the players without a scorecard, and Bearden and Risen have provided one. For students of espionage, and readers who just enjoy a good spy story, the result is an essential guide to the endgame of the Cold War, a sort of espionage Michelin with a lot of three-star stopping places along the way.
 More details are disclosed, for example, about &quot;the Gavrilov channel,&quot; the fascinating secret meetings of senior CIA and KGB officials that were held when, on occasion, they had matters of mutual interest to discuss. In one such session in Helsinki in 1989, Bearden and Gardner &quot;Gus&quot; Hathaway, the CIA's chief of counterintelligence, met warily with Rem Krassilnikov, the agency's nemesis in Moscow, and two other KGB officers. The official business concluded, the vodka was produced, and apparently the party got fairly raucous because Hathaway lost his wallet, as Bearden reveals with evident glee. The KGB politely returned it: &quot;[T]he thing's probably radioactive from all the photocopying,&quot; Bearden cracks. In researching the book, the authors had extensive help from Krassilnikov, whose job it was to catch the CIA's officers and agents in the Soviet capital, and from Leonid Shebarshin, who headed the KGB for exactly one day after the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Krassilnikov died before the book was published.
 Beginning in 1985, the CIA was losing agents inside the Soviet Union almost faster than they could be recruited, thanks in large measure to Ames. Ten were executed, many others imprisoned. The CIA hardly seemed to notice; it took nine years to track down the mole. But the book reveals a clever ploy by Bearden to try to find the culprit. He flew to Kenya in 1985 and arranged to have the station there create a fake CIA asset - the hapless chief of Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, in Nairobi. The cables to CIA headquarters reporting on the information ostensibly provided by the new &quot;recruit&quot; - but manufactured by the CIA - would be read only by a small group of agency officers. If the GRU man was suddenly recalled to Moscow, it would be pretty good evidence that one of the cable-readers at Langley, Va., was the mole, thus narrowing the field of suspects. A similar ruse was activated at a meeting inside the soundproof &quot;bubble&quot; in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Unfortunately both schemes failed; Ames was not arrested until 1994.
 Bearden, a Yale graduate who grew up in Texas, was the CIA officer tapped to run the covert operation that succeeded in pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989. In one unforgettable vignette, Bearden meets in 1986 with CIA Director William J. Casey, who instructs him to &quot;do whatever it takes to win.&quot; Casey adds: &quot;A billion enough for ya?&quot; Bearden replies, &quot;Yeah, a billion ought to do it.&quot; And in fact the CIA's money flowed to arm the moujahedeen.
 In a cinematic scene on the Moscow-to-Leningrad train, the Red Arrow, Jack Downing, the Moscow chief of station (he was not one of the ones who turned away Tolkachev), is approached by a KGB man. The Russian seemed almost too good to be true, and he was. Not until the CIA was ready to &quot;exfiltrate&quot; him out of Moscow - and he failed to show - was the agency sure it had been had.
 A couple of names of CIA chiefs of station are misspelled: Alan D. Wolfe was the station chief in Rome when Yurchenko defected (and later when Ames worked there), and the Moscow station chief whom Howard tried to telephone was Carl E. Gebhardt. But these are minor errors and do not reflect the work as a whole, which is accurate and carefully researched.
 In the maze that is espionage, not every path is clearly marked, however. The authors maintain that a Russian source helped pinpoint Ames. But CIA officers involved in the mole hunt say that although a source was indeed helpful in filling in some blanks, that happened only after the agency had already concluded that Ames was the mole.
 Are there still spies among us? The authors speculate that there is yet another Russian mole inside U.S. intelligence who has not been caught, an American Anthony Blunt, as it were. 
 One of the cases they cite to buttress their theory is that of Sergei Bokhan, the GRU officer in Athens who was a longtime CIA spy. The CIA rescued him after he was summoned home to Moscow in 1985 and decided he better not go. True, Bokhan was recalled on May 21, 1985, more than three weeks before Ames turned over the bulk of the names of the CIA's agents to the KGB. But Ames had by then already walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington twice, on April 16 and May 15, and had been promised $50,000, which he received two days after his last visit. So it is also possible that he gave away Bokhan on one of those visits; at some point he indisputably did pass on Bokhan's name to the KGB.
 Still, recent history suggests that predicting that another mole is burrowing away inside U.S. intelligence is a safe bet. Former CIA Director Robert Gates has quoted Richard Helms, one of his predecessors, on the point. When Gates became director, Helms cautioned him: &quot;Never go home at night without wondering where the mole is.&quot;
 David Wise is the coauthor of &quot;The Invisible Government&quot; and author of &quot;Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America.&quot; 
 

 <i>
The Main Enemy, The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown With the KGB. Milt Bearden and James Risen, Random House: 564 pp., $27.95 </i>

TITLE: install new old memories
AUTHOR: By Daria Agapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The &quot;Save as ...&quot; exhibition currently running at the D-137 gallery is closely linked to the notion of a sentimental journey to the past that also dominates at &quot;Garden of Eden&quot; project currently viewing at the Anna Akhmatova Museum. The aspiration towards catching and depicting the shadows of the past is natural to the museum - the main organizer of both projects - as true and false scents of the past are among the chief motifs of Akhmatova's poetry.
 
The new exhibition, however, has an additional dimension, in that the video and audio installations by the St. Petersburg artist Ludmila Belova and the composer Alexei Rakhov are not only an examination of the past, but also an investigation of the inner mechanisms of memory. 
 There have been other local exhibitions tracing out the dividing lines between history and memory, perhaps the first notable such event being the &quot;Memory of Underclothing of the Soviet Era&quot; exhibition held in 2001. The revealing exhibition attempted to give an impression of the time that went beyond the dry material of historical facts. A similar undertaking was provided by the Pro Arte Institute in its &quot;Shtuchki&quot; (&quot;Things&quot;) displays which placed works by contemporary artists alongside historical artifacts taken from the St. Petersburg History Museum. 
 While these exhibitions featured genuine artifacts, the &quot;Save as ...&quot; project, living up to its computerized title, employs multi-media virtual objects, creating formless memories that are brought into the present. At the entrance to the gallery, a video-camera films visitors, then projects the results onto a screen after an &quot;aging process&quot; has been carried out through the use of a special filter. Visitors are confronted with ghost-like images of themselves, as if they have been steeped and drowned in the past. 
 Elsewhere, video stories are recounted by &quot;Akhmatova's neighbors,&quot; the stories being packed with the peculiarities of everyday life which historians would deem too petty, despite their being incredibly evocative: &quot;...just before Christmas, a man was selling geese on the streets. He had a stick with a loop in his hands. People would choose a goose and he'd take a bird out. Each family bought two geese and kept them under the kitchen table, in a box for firewood. The children would help with the feeding...&quot; &quot;Boys wore bow-ties, pants with straps and stockings... School uniform, with its service caps and belts, resembled that of the military...&quot; &quot;Toys were made of cotton-wool. Children were dancing around the Christmas tree. Then we did the Polka - the Polka-butterfly - and then, when we got older, the pas-de-quatre and then, of course, the foxtrot, tango and waltz.&quot;
 A final story is reflected in the last video installation, where a widespread metaphor of &quot;shades of the past&quot; is put into a material form. A phantasmal dancing couple travels through the time in a slow-motion replay that is matched to the changes in the soundtrack. The music comprises incidental noises and old melodies, mixed with authentic sounds made by the visitors present. The installation recalls an international cinematographic masterpiece: the film &quot;Le Bal&quot; by Ettore Scola (1983) where 40 years of French history, from 1938 to 1978, are &quot;danced&quot; in 107 minutes, without a word, and through the use of music and gestures alone. 
 
 <i>
&quot;Save as...&quot; runs through July 31 at The Gallery of Contemporary Art &quot;D-137&quot;(Nevsky 90/92)</i>

TITLE: a moral fog hangs low over their london
AUTHOR: By Kenneth Turan
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Nigerian-born Okwe, an immigrant cabdriver hustling for customers at a London airport, knows just how to chat up potential fares abandoned by their car services. &quot;I am here,&quot; he says with elegance and precision, &quot;to rescue those who have been let down by the system.&quot; It is, however, one of the many ironies of the superb &quot;Dirty Pretty Things&quot; and its gripping examination of dislocation and uncertainty among that city's refugees that no one is more let down by the system than Okwe himself. 
 
Vividly, unexpectedly, convincingly, &quot;Dirty Pretty Things&quot; thrusts us into Okwe's unsettling world of clandestine, quasi-legal foreigners, &quot;the people you do not see,&quot; where the level of stability, security and accountability many people take for granted are near-unreachable goals. 
 It's a world where the most savage things happen to the best people, where fearful underdogs search for a way to rise off the bottom, where attempts at morality can seem foolish, even inhuman. An upside-down world where &quot;there is nothing so dangerous as a virtuous man&quot; and falling in love is the riskiest thing you can ever do. Disturbing and intriguing, &quot;Dirty Pretty Things&quot; fits a great deal into its 94 quicksilver minutes. Directed by Stephen Frears from a remarkable script by Steven Knight, this is a film that insinuates itself deeply into our awareness. It's that rare pulp story with something on its mind, an unnerving, socially conscious thriller with a killer sense of narrative drive. 
 Those qualities flow from Knight's persuasive screenplay, the first theatrical feature from an experienced television writer. With its real feeling for language and the way it is spoken by individuals as well as different immigrant groups, Knight's writing places us in the center of these uncertain lives. He has a gift for unexpected plotting, for adding a touch of the indefinable to create a story that feels not quite like those we've seen before. 
 For his part, director Frears is a complete filmmaker, attracted to intelligent language as well as memorable images. Although he's had his share of misfires, Frears is indisputably one of Britain's top directors, and when he gets hold of superior material - as he has in films as varied as &quot;The Grifters&quot; (1990) and &quot;High Fidelity&quot; (2000) - he knows it. Frears creates a moody, tawdry atmosphere, a disturbing London that is anonymous, uncaring, even threatening. 
 Desperate to survive as he faces ever-increasing obstacles is Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), for whom being a cabdriver is only one of two full-time jobs. Chewing on a medicinal root to stay awake, he also works as night-shift clerk at a questionable hotel, a bizarre mini-UN where the doorman is Russian, the hookers multinational and his accurately named Spanish boss Sneaky (Sergi Lopez) explains the film's title. &quot;Strangers come to hotels to do dirty things,&quot; he tells Okwe. &quot;In the morning it's our job to make things pretty again.&quot; That homily is Sneaky's way of responding to Okwe's baffling discovery of a human heart blocking the toilet in one of the hotel rooms. Although he's guarded about his personal history, Okwe is a former doctor, and while his innate sense of decency pushes him to investigate and to try to help, his questionable status and something dark in his past (&quot;It is an African story&quot; is all he'll say) limit what he can safely do. 
 A similar dynamic animates Okwe's relationship with Senay (Audrey Tautou), a Turkish immigrant and fellow hotel worker whose couch he sleeps on. Although Okwe has something of a crush on her, Senay, timid and terrified of seeming promiscuous, tries her best not so much as talk to him. This tenterhooks relationship becomes even more complex when British immigration enters the picture and Okwe looks deeper into what goes on in the hotel after hours. 
 The film's excellent cast facilitates our bonding with the characters. A British actor whose Nigerian parents helped him with his accent, Ejiofor uses stillness and interior strength to give a powerful presentation, while Lopez brings oily panache to his role as the ultimate fixer. As for Tautou, she delivers a major emotional performance in a role that is the complete opposite of her breakthrough work in &quot;Amelie&quot; (2001). The protective coloration of immigrant communities provides a welcome anonymity these characters count on-but that's not always a reliable strategy. 
 In a film that takes no one's happiness for granted, it is not at all sure that there is room for both love and survival. What does it mean finally to attempt to do good in this kind of a corrupt, compromised society? When a character demands of Okwe, &quot;Stop acting like you've got a choice,&quot; it's a measure of the integrity and individuality of &quot;Dirty Pretty Things&quot; that it is far from clear whether he does.
 
 <i>
&quot;Dirty Pretty Things&quot; opens Thursday at the Mirage. </i>

TITLE: Attacks Continue After Husseins' Deaths
AUTHOR: By Matt Moore
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD - Three American soldiers were killed Thursday when their convoy was hit by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in northern Iraq, a military spokesperson said. 
 
The killings were further signs that an insurgency against American troops is not losing strength as Washington hoped after the deaths on Tuesday of former president Saddam Hussein 's sons, Uday and Qusay. 
 V Corps spokesperson Nicole Thompson said the soldiers, members of the 101st Airborne Division, were traveling in a convoy toward Qayyarah, about 300 kilometers north of the capital, Baghdad, when they were at attacked. No soldiers were reported wounded and it wasn't known if any assailants were killed or wounded. 
 It was the second attack in two days that killed members of the division, which led the intense but sporadic fiery assault in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that killed Uday and Qusay Hussein. 
 On Wednesday, two American soldiers were killed in separate attacks on their convoys, including one near Mosul. 
 The latest deaths brought to 158 the number of U.S. servicemen killed in action since the war began March 20, surpassing by 11 the death toll in the 1991 Gulf War. 
 Odai and Qusai were Nos. 2 and 3 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted from the toppled Saddam regime. Guerrilla holdouts loyal to the regime have attacked U.S. forces at a rate of about 12 times daily in an effort to wear down the Americans and drive them from the country. 
 To prove to Iraqis the brothers are dead, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States would release photographs of their bodies, but didn't say when. The photos are likely to be gruesome because the fighting to capture the house was intense.
 &quot;The disbelief runs very deep, and it goes to the level almost of paranoia,&quot; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Wednesday on PBS' &quot;NewsHour With Jim Lehrer&quot; program. &quot;One of the great effects of yesterday for Iraqis is to demonstrate our seriousness.&quot; 
 Rumsfeld, speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill after briefing members of Congress, said he had not decided when the photos would be released. But he said it would be &quot;soon.&quot; 
 In Sadr City, a poor suburb of Baghdad formerly called Saddam City, some residents wanted to be sure the brothers were dead. 
 &quot;We heard about Uday and Qusay being killed and, frankly, we are happy,&quot; Fadil Abbas said. &quot;The question is, what's the proof of them being killed. We heard about it, but we haven't seen any proof so far.&quot; 
 Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq, said the brothers, along with two other Iraqis believed to be a bodyguard and Qusay's teenage son Mustafa barricaded themselves on the second floor of a three-story home in Mosul. He said they were killed after anti-tank rockets were fired from Humvees during the sporadic four-hour siege. 
 In a telephone interview from his home in London, Izzedin Kamel Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of the two brothers, said Uday and Qusay were likely relaxing in the Mosul home when the American soldiers approached it. 
 &quot;They went to this man in particular because he was a member of the family and they thought they could stay there for a while, be safe and then go somewhere else,&quot; he said. 
 In Baghdad on Thursday, two Iraqi men were killed after the car they were in approached a U.S. checkpoint near the downtown al-Geilani mosque and American troops opened fire. Eyewitnesses said that the two men were killed after the car caught fire. 
 &quot;We told the driver not to go ahead because there was an American checkpoint,&quot; said Mahmoud Haider, 50, who witnessed the shooting. &quot;He refused.&quot; Military spokesperson Giovanni Lorente had no information about the shooting. 
 Also Thursday, a leading member of Iraq's interim Governing Council said Iraq should adopt a constitution and hold free elections within 1 1/2 years at most. 
 Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister, told BBC radio that the aim of the newly appointed council was to &quot;shorten as much as possible the transition period&quot; to self-rule. 
 &quot;The only way to do that is to have a constitution and free elections,&quot; Pachachi said. He planned to hold talks with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw later Thursday. 
 On Wednesday, a tape purportedly made by Hussein called on Iraqis to press their uprising against the U.S.-led occupation. The tape reportedly was made Sunday, two days before the killing of Hussein's eldest sons. 
 The CIA was analyzing the audio message, broadcast by Arab television, but has reached no conclusion about its authenticity, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. 
 Meanwhile, the Coalition Provisional Authority announced early this week the closure of a Baghdad newspaper and arrest of its office manager, who wasn't identified. The statement said Al-Mustaqila, which means &quot;The Independent&quot; in Arabic, published an article July 13 calling for &quot;death to all spies and those who cooperate with the U.S.&quot; It said killing them was a religious duty.

TITLE: Neighbors Poised To Send Troops To Liberia
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Zavis
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MONROVIA, Liberia - West African leaders promised to send peacekeepers to Liberia, despite new rebel attacks that shattered a short-lived cease-fire considered crucial to restoring peace in the troubled country. 
 
President Charles Taylor has promised to leave Liberia when peacekeepers arrive, but was believed unlikely to do so with battles still raging in the capital, Monrovia, his last stronghold. The ceasefire lasted just 24 hours before the rebels began new attacks Wednesday. 
 The rebels briefly seized the Stockton Bridge in the city's north but were driven back by government forces - many of them teenagers armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers. 
 Even as the fighting raged, West African leaders meeting in Dakar, Senegal pledged to send two Nigerian battalions to Liberia within days - the vanguard of what they say should be a 3,250-strong international force. The first Nigerian battalion, 770 strong, would arrive in a week, officials said. 
 In Accra, Ghana, a top aide to Taylor again pledged he would leave the day the Nigerian troops arrive. &quot;When the interposition force arrives, Mr. Taylor will leave,&quot; Lewis Brown said. 
 Taylor has repeatedly promised to cede power since rebels opened attacks two months ago on Monrovia. The rebels were just as skeptical about the latest claim. 
 &quot;Taylor is just bluffing,&quot; rebel spokesperson Kabineh Ja'neh said in Ghana, site of off-and-on peace talks for Liberia. &quot;You know how many times he has said this kind of thing? We'll make sure he leaves.&quot; 
 West African and UN leaders - and many Liberians - have urged the United States to send peacekeepers to the country, which was founded by freed American slaves with U.S. government support in the 19th century. 
 Three U.S. ships with 2,000 Marines and 2,500 sailors aboard were moving toward the Mediterranean Sea, where they were to await orders to head to Liberia. But Washington still has not committed to sending peacekeepers. 
 Cut off from the city's cemeteries by the battles, aid workers buried victims of fighting on Monrovia's beaches Wednesday, shoveling corpses into the sand under driving rain next to the stormy Atlantic Ocean. 
 More dead lay uncollected in the streets. The death toll since the latest surge in fighting impossible to calculate. 
 &quot;We had high hope that America was still going to save lives when the war started. But this dream is now in ruins,&quot; said Lydia Fallah, who ran from her home with just the clothes on her back. 
 Fighting has pushed hundreds of thousands of civilians into Monrovia - still in ruins from the country's civil war of 1989 to 1996. 
 Near the U.S. Embassy, where at least 10,000 have crowded into a diplomatic residential compound seeking safety, vendors sold flour and corn meal from stolen World Food Program bags. Dozens of disabled people in wheelchairs gathered in front of the embassy to plead for help.
 Aid workers have been logging 350 new cholera cases a week, and expect the epidemic to surge as civilians draw water from an inadequate number of wells, many contaminated.

TITLE: New York Politician Gunned Down During City Hall Session
AUTHOR: By Erin McClam and Michael Weissenstein
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - An aspiring politician strolled past a metal detector at tightly guarded City Hall - escorted by the councilman he once hoped to replace - then pulled a gun in the crowded balcony of the council chamber and shot his rival dead on Wednesday. 
 
The attack turned New York City's seat of government into a crime scene, with screaming political aides and terrified visitors diving for cover. A security officer fired up at the gunman, killing him with five bullets. 
 Councilman James Davis, 41, a former police officer and ordained minister who campaigned against urban violence, was struck several times in the torso and died at a hospital. He had planned to introduce legislation on workplace violence that afternoon. 
 His killer, Othniel Askew, 31, died a short time later at the same hospital, police said. For a time before emergency workers arrived, the two fatally wounded men were lying side by side in the balcony. 
 Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the attack &quot;strikes at the very essence of democracy.&quot; He was startled at his desk in City Hall when the gunfire erupted but was unharmed. 
 Askew had filed papers to oppose Davis in a three-way council race in this fall's Democratic primary, Bloomberg said. But he was not an official candidate because he had not filed enough petition signatures. 
 Davis spokesperson Amyre Loomis said Davis and Askew had recently called a truce, and had met three times in recent weeks. When Askew showed up Wednesday at Davis' office in Brooklyn and asked if they could go to City Hall together, Davis agreed. 
 Three hours before the shooting a man identifying himself as Askew called the FBI's New York office to allege that Davis was harassing him over the upcoming primary election, FBI spokesperson Joe Valiquette said. 
 Both men arrived together at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, where Davis planned to introduce legislation on workplace violence, Councilman Charles Barron said. 
 Barron said Davis introduced him to Askew, saying, &quot;This is the guy who was once against me, but now he's with me.&quot; Askew offered a firm handshake and an intense stare, Barron said. 
 A short time later, Barron stood staring into the balcony as the gunman shot down at Davis' prone body with a .40-caliber pistol. &quot;He wasn't shooting randomly,&quot; Barron said. 
 The shooting raised new security questions at City Hall, a two-century-old stately landmark positioned near the southern tip of Manhattan, no more than a five-minute walk from the World Trade Center site. 
 It was once so loosely guarded that passers-by could enjoy lunch on its sun-drenched steps. But stricter security was installed by Bloomberg's predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, then tightened further after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. 
 Metal detectors now sit at each of two entrances to the grounds, both also watched by uniformed police. But the mayor and council members were allowed to bypass the detectors, and sometimes, as on Wednesday, their guests were, too. 
 A shaken Bloomberg told a news conference late in the day that there would no longer be exceptions - that everyone, himself included, would walk through the machines. 
 Davis, who was black, joined the police department in 1993, a decade after he was allegedly beaten by two white officers. He founded a not-for-profit organization, Love Yourself Stop the Violence, denouncing violent music lyrics and stores that sold realistic toy guns. 
 He was elected to the City Council in 2001, becoming active on public-safety issues and working to keep a check on excessive behavior by police. 


TITLE: Betting on Some Film Publicity
AUTHOR: Richard Rosenblatt
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - In the final lines of &quot;Seabiscuit,&quot; jockey Red Pollard says that everybody was wrong. It wasn't the owner, trainer and rider who fixed a broken down racehorse: &quot;He fixed us. Every one of us. And I guess in a way, we kind of fixed each other, too.&quot;
 
More than 60 years later, thoroughbred racing is hoping Seabiscuit can do it again.
 The much-publicized film opens in the United States on Friday, just in time to give racing in the country another chance to build on its rising popularity.
 Racing already has made inroads with the casual fan thanks to Funny Cide's run at the Triple Crown. And track officials have jumped on the Seabiscuit film's promotion wagon to help increase exposure for a sport that improved three spots to 11th in popularity in a 2002 ESPN poll.
 &quot;The film is a gift from the marketing gods,&quot; said Tim Smith, commissioner of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, formed five years ago to generate more interest in racing. &quot;I don't know where it all will lead, but I know it's very positive and promising for the sport.&quot;
 Based on the best-selling book &quot;Seabiscuit: An American Legend,&quot; by Laura Hillenbrand, the film tells the story of three lost men and the horse that brought them together, giving hope to a struggling country during the Depression.
 Until recently, racing's popularity was low. But the public started paying more attention as five of the last seven years produced a Triple Crown contender.
 Funny Cide's story was the most heartwarming - the first gelding to make a Triple try in the Belmont, a group of small-town owners, a jockey cleared of wrongdoing in his Derby ride and a secretive trainer who drew comparisons to Seabiscuit's handler, Tom Smith.
 &quot;The film dovetails amazingly with the Triple Crown story of this year,&quot; Smith said. &quot;And that's another big boost to getting the interest of the general sports fan and those who aren't sports fans. The Belmont was the highest rated of any show on television that week. Now comes Seabiscuit.&quot;
 And hopefully a full field of new fans.
 &quot;I think it's going to interest a lot of people in our sport,&quot; said Chris McCarron, the retired Hall of Fame rider who plays War Admiral's jockey in the film.
 McCarron said that the story was told with such pageantry that &quot;a lot of people are going to go 'Wow, I've never been there' or 'I haven't been there in a long time, I'm going back to check it out.' It's going to have a real good shot in the arm for us.&quot;
 At venerable Saratoga Race Course, in Saratoga Springs, New York, trainer John Ward was anxious to see the film - and optimistic that it will help racing.
 &quot;Once the public starts to understand the mystique of racing, of how hard it is to win a race and to train a horse and all the human elements involved, they become fascinated with it,&quot; Ward said. &quot;And that's the story Seabiscuit tells. The outcome, win or lose, brings out an outpouring of emotions.&quot;
 During a recent screening, there were cheers after Seabiscuit defeated Triple Crown winner War Admiral in their famous 1938 match race, and applause at the film's conclusion.
 Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, who played jockey George Woolf in the film, was moved to tears the first time he saw &quot;Seabiscuit.&quot; &quot;It's going to be a 'Gone With the Wind' type of thing,&quot; he told the Thoroughbred Times, a racing-industry news magazine.
 Even before the film hits theaters, a positive impact is being felt in racing circles. Tracks are featuring Seabiscuit giveaways.
 At Del Mar, California, there's Seabiscuit Day on Aug. 2 - ceramic mugs with the colors of Seabiscuit owner Charles Howard will be given away and Stevens will sign autographs. Similar mugs will be handed out at Saratoga on Sunday.
 Dozens of screenings of &quot;Seabiscuit&quot; were held the past few weeks in the major racing states of California, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland and New York, with many events benefiting racing charities.
 At an auction of &quot;Seabiscuit&quot; memorabilia in Beverly Hills, California, a buyer from Virginia paid in the $150,000 range for a battered kangaroo-leather saddle trimmed in lizard skin worn by Seabiscuit. Hillenbrand spent at least $17,900 on items, including $13,000 for a shoe worn by Seabiscuit in the race with War Admiral.
 For its part, the NTRA has prepared a three-minute infomercial on racing that will play before the film in more than 5,000 theaters through Aug. 21. They've also partnered with Canadian manufacturer Roots and Universal Pictures, which produced the film, in selling Seabiscuit merchandise.
 &quot;If racing can't cash in on this one,&quot; Ward said, &quot;we better get a new guide book.&quot;

TITLE: SPORT WATCH
TEXT: <b>Too Pricey
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Anaheim Mighty Ducks center Sergei Fedorov, on vacation in his native Russia, has found Moscow too expensive even for an NHL multi-millionaire.
 The former Detroit Red Wings player, who signed a five-year, $40 million contract with Anaheim on Saturday, said that Moscow had surprised him with its heavy traffic, badly polluted air and soaring prices.
 "Four things surprised me the most: the huge number of very expensive cars in the city, traffic practically gridlocked even late at night, high prices and filthy air," the 33-year-old Russian was quoted as saying by Sport-Express newspaper.
 "Detroit has a reputation as being one of the most polluted cities in North America but, believe me, even there you can breathe much easier than here."
 
 
<b>Trademark Offense
 </b>

WASHINGTON - The Washington Redskins, again confronted by American Indians who find the team's name offensive, asked a judge to overturn a ruling that revoked the team's federal trademark protection.
 "My clients honor - they don't ridicule," said Redskins lawyer Robert Raskopf, echoing the NFL team's long-held contention that its use of the nickname is meant as a tribute.
 Seven American Indians successfully argued otherwise in 1999, when the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board granted their petition to cancel the team's trademark registrations because of a federal law that prohibits registering "disparaging" names.
 The Redskins appealed, and U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly heard the case on Wednesday. A ruling is not expected for a few weeks, after Kollar-Kotelly has had time to review a sealed deposition by Redskins owner Dan Snyder regarding the case's possible financial impact.
 If the team loses the case, it stands to lose its exclusive rights to market the Redskins name, particularly through merchandise. The petitioners hope this would lead Snyder to change the nickname, although he has pledged not to do so.
 
 
<b>Feeling the Heat?
 </b>

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) - South Africa's Graeme Smith said on Wednesday he was sure that rival captain Nasser Hussain must be worrying about his England future on the eve of the first test.
 Smith said it would be difficult for Hussain to return to lead the side after sitting out a one-day tournament and watching his teammate Michael Vaughan captain England to victory.
 "Nasser wouldn't be human if he wasn't feeling under pressure from Michael," Smith told a news conference at Edgbaston.
 "I'm sure their relationship is fine but there's always outside pressure. If we can exploit that, possibly we'll look at it."
 Hussain retired from one-dayers after England's wretched World Cup campaign but said that he was determined to continue as test captain.
 Vaughan, who would like to be considered as a test skipper in the future, then led a new-look England side to impressive wins over Pakistan and then Zimbabwe and South Africa in a triangular event.
 
 
<b>A Growing Parade
 </b>

ATHENS (Reuters) - A record 201 countries are set to be at the Athens Olympics next year, beating the previous high of 199 in Sydney.
 Organizers said on Wednesday that East Timor, formerly part of Indonesia, and the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati would be taking part for the first time.
 The figure could rise to 202 if Iraq is back in the Olympic fold in time for the Games.
 
 
<b>What's in a Name?
 </b>

SEOUL (Reuters) - Former Russia midfielder Denis Laktionov has become a South Korean and changed his name to Lee Seong-nam as a tribute to his club Seongnam Ilhwa, officials of the K-League champions said on Wednesday.
 The 26-year-old, who will play under his new name when K-League leaders Seongnam meet Taejon Citizen on the weekend, is only the second overseas soccer player to obtain South Korean citizenship.
 "My life in Korea is comfortable and my teammates are all very good to me, so I wanted to finish my career in this country," he was quoted as saying by Sports Seoul.
 Three years ago, Anyang Cheetahs goalkeeper Valeri Sarychev changed his name to Shin Ui-son, which means "Hands of God" in Korean.
 
 
<b>Racing Back
 </b>

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Bernie Ecclestone has assured Belgians that he will do what he can to reinstate their Formula One grand prix next year, a leading politician said on Wednesday.
 Serge Kubla, Economy Minister for the southern French-speaking region of Wallonia, met the Formula One supremo in London to discuss the possible return of a race cancelled this year due to local anti-tobacco legislation.
 "Mr Ecclestone told me that he would do everything he can to bring back the grand prix to Spa-Francorchamps and even for next year," he told RTBF radio.
 "For that, he saw two possibilities: Substitute a date of another GP or reach an agreement with the teams to find a new date," he added.
 "Mr Ecclestone assured me that he was 100 percent behind a return of the grand prix to Spa and, in my eyes, the worst thing that could happen now would be that the GP comes back in 2005 and not 2004".
 
 
<b>Handed the Win
 </b>

MIAMI (Reuters) - Brazil came from behind to defeat the United States 2-1 in a CONCACAF Gold Cup semi-final on Wednesday, with Diego scoring a golden goal penalty to take the South Americans into the final.
 The spot-kick was awarded ten minutes into extra time when Diego's goal-bound shot was intentionally handled by defender Cory Gibbs, who was red carded for the offence.
 "The ball was going in the goal," Gibbs said. "The only chance I had to do something to prevent the loss was that. That's the way it goes and the ref saw it."
 The winning goal capped a stirring comeback for the Brazilians who dominated most of the match, but fell behind in the 62nd minute when Carlos Bocanegra headed in a Claudio Reyna free kick to give the U.S. a surprise 1-0 lead.
 A pro-Brazilian crowd of 35,211 welcomed the goal in a match that appeared to be headed towards a goalless stalemate. 
 Brazil, fielding its under-23 side, intensified its efforts to break down the U.S. defence and nearly pulled level in the 74th minute when Julio Baptista was foiled by an acrobatic Kasey Keller save.
 However, the Brazilians were finally rewarded a minute from time when Kaka latched onto a rebound to beat Keller from eight meters. 



TITLE: Armstrong Closing on Fifth Tour
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BORDEAUX, France - Saving himself and his overall lead for the great battle to come, Lance Armstrong cruised to a place-finish on Thursday in the pancake-flat 17th stage of the Tour de France, his focus on an expected race-deciding time trial Saturday.
 
The 181-kilometer stage, a hill-less, anticlimactic route after the dramas that gripped the Tour in the mountains, was won by Servais Knaven, the first Dutch rider to take a stage on this centenary Tour.
 For Armstrong, the aim of the day was to stay safe and out of any crashes. Mission accomplished. His U.S. Postal Service team led him to the line.
 Armstrong, the four-time champion expecting to clinch his record-tying fifth win at the finish on Sunday, finished in a group of riders that included Jan Ullrich, his closest rival.
 They finished in the same time, meaning Armstrong preserved his 67-second lead over the 29-year-old German with just three days of racing to go.
 The flat stage from Dax to Bordeaux, the wine capital of southwestern France, offered few chances for either Armstrong or Ullrich to make up time on each other.
 They were content to hang back while a group of 10 lesser-known riders, including Knaven, broke away within the first kilometer of the race.
 Both Armstrong and Ullrich are fixing their attention on Saturday's individual time trial, when they will race against the clock seeking to clinch the overall Tour title.
 Ullrich, a silver medalist in the event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, is hoping for a repeat of his crushing defeat of Armstrong in a time trial last Friday, when he bit a whooping 96 seconds off Armstrong's overall lead, setting the stage for a grippingly close final week in the three-week slog around France.
 Armstrong, however, was suffering dehydration that day because of a heat wave. He has never lost the last time trial at the Tour since his first win in 1999 and said Wednesday that he has no intention of doing so now.
 On Friday, the Tour ventures off on another flat stage from Bordeaux, where Armstrong's aim is again expected to be keeping fresh and uninjured for Saturday's clash with Ullrich.
 Knaven, of the Italian Quick.Step-Davitamon team, was delighted to win his first-ever Tour stage.
 &quot;I've always been second, third, fourth in a stage,&quot; he said, tears in his eyes. &quot;Today I won. Incredible.&quot;
 Armstrong came in 28th in the stage, 8 minutes, six seconds behind Knaven. Ullrich finished just ahead of Armstrong, in 27th place and in the same time.
 Armstrong's team is confident that the 31-year-old Texan can clinch his record-tying fifth title in the time trial on Saturday. If not, and Armstrong and Ullrich go into Sunday's last stage equal on time, the Tour could face the incredible spectacle of the two riders battling to the last meter to win.
 But at this point, Armstrong is hoping it will not come to that.
 &quot;The idea is that it will be decided on the time trial,&quot; said Armstrong's spokesman Jogi Muller, himself a former rider who raced in eight Tours.