SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #895 (63), Friday, August 22, 2003
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TITLE: Press Center Draws Mixed Reviews
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A number of candidates for the post of St. Petersburg governor were present on Thursday for the opening of the Regional Elections 2003 press center but, while reviews of the center were good, the results of a recent public-opinion poll drew more of the attention - and fire - from those present.
 
The organizers say that the center, which is located inside the headquarters of the Rosbalt news agency on Krasnogvardeisky Bulvar, is intended to provide an equal opportunity to all candidates in the election to deliver their message to voters and to discuss issues with each other.
 "Elections should not be a form of fist fight or some kind of obstacle course," Natalya Cherkesova, Rosbalt's general director, said at Thursday's opening. "This should be a review of different programs. It is to show what the candidates have to offer citizens in order to make their lives better."
 Candidates welcomed the opening of the press center, but some expressed concerns that the it would end up helping to create just the negative campaign character that its organizers say it is intended to combat.
 Cherkesova is the wife of Victor Cherkesov, head of the Kremlin's National Anti-Drug committee and the former presidential representative in the Russia's Northwest Region. Konstantin Sukhenko, who was expelled from the pro-Kremlin United Russia for declaring his candidacy for city governor, said that Thursday's event was another example of what he believes has been slanted coverage.
 "From what I saw today, this is not an objective outlet," Sukhenko said in an interview on Thursday. "It is not right to operate on just one telephone survey and not to look into other sources of information - surveys by the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications [FAPSI], for example."
 The report that upset Sukhenko was delivered by Roman Mogilevsky, the head of the Agency for Social Research (ASR). The results of one ASR study showed that Valentina Matviyenko, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region, is currently leading in the race, garnering the support of 39 percent of the 1,850 respondents in the poll, which was completed on Sunday.
 The poll placed Vice Governor Anna Markova in second spot, with 7 percent, followed by the leader of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, Mikhail Amosov, with 4 percent and Sergei Belyayev, the former head of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, with 2.4 percent. The remaining seven candidates drew support of around 1 percent or less. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 3.2 percent.
 Mogilevsky said that not only was Matviyenko leading, but that her numbers were climbing ahead of the Sept. 21 vote. He said Matviyenko had received the support of only 23 percent of respondents in polls taken five months ago, while the relative numbers for Markova and Amosov had remained relatively stable.
 After the opening of the center, Sukhenko countered that studies by FAPSI showed that Matviyenko's support levels had actually fallen over the last two weeks - from 24 to 20 percent.
 Mogilevsky went on to explain the increase in support his survey showed Matviyenko to be enjoying in relation to her position as the presidential representative.
 "The growth is linked with events of federal significance. It doesn't reflect on candidates who are not linked to federal structures," Mogilevsky said during the briefing. "Because Matviyenko is involved in this type of activity, it has an effect on her [position]."
 But he seemed to contradict his point with the second report he presented, a study of the amount of media coverage being received by the respective candidates.
 The ASR study of the number of items published related to each candidate showed that, while Matviyenko has drawn the most media attention, the gap between her and her competitors is not as large as her lead in support. The survey, which looked at coverage at the national and local levels, said that 30.6 percent of the stories concerning candidates were devoted to Matviyenko, followed by 13.8 percent for Markova, 10.3 percent for Amosov and 10 percent for Sukhenko. Mogilevsky did not provide specifics on the methods used in the survey.
 Leonid Kesselman, a political analyst at the Sociology Department of the Russian Academy of Science, questioned the accuracy of the report.
 "It looks like they only considered a selective list of media outlets," Kesselman said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "The question is how to define the media. There is television and radio beside newspapers and, [given this], you could call this approach a little sneaky."
 "There would be a different picture if the whole range of information was taken into account. It is just an attempt to make the gap in media coverage between [Matviyenko] and the other candidates look smaller," he added.
 Dmitry Gavra, the head of the Communications Department in the Journalism Faculty at St. Petersburg State University, also presented the results of a study, estimating that there was a 60-percent likelihood that a second round would not be needed to determine a winner. He also said that the gap between Matviyenko and her next closest opponent was unlikely to mean an increase in the number of voters who opt to check the "against all" box on their ballots.
 "It is not very likely that the protest vote will be higher than 16 to 20 percent by the day of the election ... The main question is one of turnout," Gavra said. "Our forecast is that it will be slightly higher than in previous elections."
 In the last elections, which were held in May 2000, 45.7 percent of St. Petersburg's 3.7 million registered voters cast ballots in a vote that saw the incumbent, Vladimir Yakovlev, win in the first round with 72.7 percent of the vote. Yakovlev resigned as governor in June to take a Kremlin position as deputy prime minister responsible for communal-services reform.
 Although Sukhenko was less than impressed at the opening of the new press center, other candidates were more positive.
 "This looks like a very good place for all of those people who don't have millions of dollars in financial resources to express their views for the voters," Sergei Pryanishnikov, a local pornographic-film distribution-company owner and candidate in the gubernatorial election said in an interview on Thursday.

TITLE: Chopper Carrying Governor Vanishes
AUTHOR: By Sarah Karush
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Rescuers combed the mountains and volcanoes of the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula for the second day on Thursday in an unsuccessful search for a helicopter that went missing with about 20 people on board, including the governor of the oil-rich Sakhalin region.
 
Authorities lost contact with the helicopter on Wednesday as it carried Governor Igor Farkhutdinov and other officials and businesspeople from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Kamchatka to the Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Kurils are part of the Sakhalin region.
 The search failed to yield results before it was suspended at nightfall, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokesperson Irina Andriyanova.
 A total of 346 rescue personnel from the Emergency Situations Ministry and the Defense Ministry were taking part in the search over an area of approximately 400 square kilometers, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Some 41 ships and 19 aircraft were involved, it said.
 Confusion lingered as to exactly how many people were on board the Mi-8 helicopter. Officials first said there were 17 people, but later the ministry said there were 20 to 17 passengers and three crewmembers.
 President Vladimir Putin's representative in the Far East, Konstantin Pulikovsky, said that the absence of a list of passengers was a serious violation of flight regulations, Itar-Tass reported.
 Pulikovsky also said that Khalaktyrskiye Airlines, which owns the helicopter, is not accredited to transport high-ranking officials.
 Federal prosecutors in the Far East opened a criminal investigation into possible violations of flight regulations, Interfax said.
 The missing helicopter had been equipped with a satellite telephone, signal flares and a radio-beacon, said Pulikovsky's deputy, Alexander Drozdov.
 "We cannot rule out a collision with a volcano, but we are still hoping for the best," Drozdov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 Pulikovsky rejected the possibility that a helicopter could have been shot down by a rocket during military exercises that opened in the region on Monday. In televised remarks, Pulikovsky said the active phase of the exercises would be held only next Wednesday.
 Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed was killed in a crash when his helicopter became tangled in power lines in April 2002. 
 Two pilots are on trial in Krasnoyarsk for violating flight rules in the crash that killed Lebed.

TITLE: Uzbek Human-Rights Activist's Arrest Questioned
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Before walking into a Moscow cafe, Asma Ismailova looks over her shoulder and whispers, "you see those two smoking over there? I noticed them following me yesterday." And sure enough, when she emerges from the cafe an hour and a half later, the two men in gray suits are still lurking 20 meters away.
 
But the psychological pressure from being tailed pales in comparison to the ordeal her husband, Bakhrom Khamroyev, a political refugee from Uzbekistan, is going through just a few blocks away in a cell with seven others in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.
 Khamroyev, 40, a member of Uzbek opposition group Birlik, has been held since July 20 on charges of drug possession. Human-rights groups say that his arrest was politically motivated and the drugs, 3.25 grams of heroin, were planted in his pocket by the officers who arrested him. He was arrested, they say, as punishment for his work defending the rights of Muslims in Russia and possibly as a political favor to Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
 Khamroyev's arrest came a month after he joined the human-rights organization Memorial in criticizing a Federal Security Service operation in which 55 immigrant workers from Central Asia were rounded up and accused, apparently falsely, of being members of a banned Islamic organization.
 Khamroyev fled to Russia in 1992 after the chairperson of Birlik, Abdumannob Pulatov, was abducted by Uzbek police in Kyrgyzstan. Pulatov was sentenced to three years for showing "disrespect" to President Islam Karimov but promptly amnestied, and he eventually made his way to the United States.
 Khamroyev settled in Moscow and became a Russian citizen. He helps deliver to Uzbekistan the opposition magazine Kharakat, which is printed in the United States, and works to raise awareness of human-rights abuses against Muslims in Russia.
 Amnesty International considers Khamroyev to be a political prisoner and is demanding that he receive a fair trial, said a spokesperson for its Russia office, Denis Krivosheyev.
 His lawyer, Vladimir Chumak, said that the case against Khamroyev did not develop like a typical drug case. In the months leading up to his arrest, his friends and family were questioned by police about his political activities and religious beliefs.
 "Why would they do that if he is suspected of carrying drugs with the intent to sell?" Chumak said.
 Khamroyev's wife said that Moscow Oblast police questioned her for five hours in May and asked her to report where he went and with whom he met. There were two Uzbeks present during the questioning, she said, suggesting that Khamroyev was being pursued at Uzbekistan's request.
 The police also contacted Khamroyev directly. They wanted him to help them track down Islamic extremists in Moscow and threatened to set him up if he did not cooperate, he and his wife said.
 Instead, Khamroyev joined Memorial at a June 24 news conference to go after the Federal Security Services, or FSB, for the June 6 raid on a bakery in eastern Moscow that resulted in the arrest of 55 immigrant workers. They called it a PR stunt intended to show that the government is fighting terrorism.
 Most of those detained were quickly released, but only after footage of the roundup had been shown on all the major television networks.
 The FSB said that the workers were linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir, a secretive organization banned in Russia and several Central Asian countries. Its goal is to unite all Muslims under a caliphate. Uzbekistan has accused the group of trying to assassinate Karimov in 1999.
 Only two men remain in custody, charged with illegal possession of explosives and ammunition.
 At the news conference, Khamroyev said that he could share their fate and said police had threatened to "slip" him something if he refused to cooperate.
 On the morning of July 20 he was arrested.
 Two men walked up to Khomroyev's car, parked outside his apartment building in northern Moscow, while two others hung back, according to his wife, who was with him in the car.
 "They pulled him out of the car by the neck," Ismailova said. "And I saw one of them stick his hand in my husband's back pocket, I saw something that looked like the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of his hand."
 Khomroyev tried to protest, saying, "I know you've planted something on me," she said.
 Police hit Khamroyev around the liver while leading him away and made racial slurs toward Muslims, Ismailova said.
 "He told me he hates Muslims and will crush us if he can," she said of one of the officers.
 Khamroyev's hands were tied with rope and he was only handcuffed later when uniformed police and FSB officers arrived on the scene.
 "There were about 40 people in all," Ismailova said.
 Gennady Deyneko, the head of the Moscow Oblast police's criminal division, whose units conducted the investigation and were responsible for questioning Khamroyev, his wife and friends, said the case has been handed to Moscow city police and he could not comment. A spokesperson for Moscow city police said that she had no information on the case. The case was opened by oblast police because Khamroyev is officially registered in the oblast.
 In March, Khamroyev's brother, Farmon, and four employees of Uzbekskaya Kukhnya, a cafe in the Mytishchinsky market owned by Ismailova, were questioned about Khamroyev with the use of lie detectors, according to Memorial.
 Another Uzbek who worked in another cafe called Uzbekskaya Kukhnya, but not owned by Ismailova, agreed to be interviewed by Radio Free Europe after being questioned by police about Khamroyev's links to Hizb ut-Tahrir and was subsequently beaten on the floor of the cafe by police, Memorial said in a report.
 When he asked to see a representative of the Uzbek Embassy, he was told by police that the Uzbek authorities were "cooperating with us on this," the report said.
 "After the recent terrorist acts, it was necessary to show that terrorists were being found, and Khamroyev became a victim of this situation," said Vitaly Ponomaryov, the Memorial activist who wrote the report. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a rock festival at the Tushino airfield on July 5.
 Khomroyev's arrest was also a goodwill gesture to the Uzbek government ahead of Putin's visit in early August, Ponomaryov said. 
 "This is very concerning, because this is just part of a new tendency were the security services plant contraband on suspects for political gain, not financial, as they have always done in the past," Ponamaryov said.
 Alexander Petrov, Human Rights Watch deputy director for Moscow, said that the case sets a dangerous precedent.
 "When the Uzbek authorities ask Russia to extradite one of their citizens, sometimes it works, but for the Russian authorities to actually target a Russian citizen for his activities in his country of origin, that's something totally new.
 "This has been done at the highest level and shows how many parallel ties the security services of Russia and Uzbekistan have."
 Relations between Russia and Uzbekistan have been strained in recent years. Uzbekistan's acceptance of U.S. airbases on its territory irritated the Kremlin, which considered Central-Asia to be within Russia's sphere of influence.
 But now it looks as though relations may be warming up. During Putin's visit in early August, Karimov said, "Uzbekistan has always recognized Russia's role and interests in Central Asia." 
 Human-rights activists view Khamroyev's arrest as a possible olive branch extended to Karimov in view of Russia's interest in Uzbek gas.
 "Uzbekistan is definitely interested in seeing Gazprom involved not only in our natural-gas deposits but as an operator of the pipeline network," Karimov said at a joint news conference with Putin on Aug. 6.

TITLE: Moscow Bombing Suspect Arrested
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Police and secret-service agents have arrested a suspected organizer of last month's double suicide bombings at the Tushino rock concert, which killed 17, including the two female attackers, officials said on Wednesday.
 
The suspect, Deni Elikhadzhiyev, 19, is a brother of Zalikhan Elikhadzhiyeva, the first suicide bomber at Tushino, and was arrested in the Ingush capital, Nazran, last week by a group of Federal Security Service agents and Interior Ministry commandos flown in from Moscow, local media reported on Wednesday.
 During questioning, Elikhadzhiyev revealed that he had a hideout in the settlement of Nasyr-Kort, near Nazran, Gazeta reported. There, investigators found a cache of weapons and a notebook with plans for the July 5 attack, the newspaper said.
 Confronted with the notebook, Elikhadzhiyev admitted to having helped organize the attack and said that he drove the two suicide bombers to Tushino in a Lada sedan, Kommersant reported.
 Investigators suspect that Elikhadzhiyev may have coordinated the two bombers' activities at Tushino via a cellular phone, the newspaper said. He also is suspected of having fought with the Chechen rebels.
 In addition to the Tushino plans, the notebook contains plans for other attacks and the addresses of locations in the Moscow region where explosives have been hidden, Kommersant said, citing Ingush law-enforcement officials.
 FSB officials declined to comment on Elikhadzhiyev's arrest Wednesday. Ingush Interior Ministry officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

TITLE: Latvians Seize Russian Weapons Shipment
AUTHOR: By Timothy Jacobs
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIGA, Latvia - Latvian security police and customs officials said Thursday that they seized an illegal shipment of Russian weapons at Riga airport.
 
Customs officials found 28 tons of military equipment, including night-vision devices for tanks and parts for jet fighters and anti-aircraft guns waiting to be shipped on a charter flight Tuesday evening, customs spokesperson Dita Klavina said. Authorities believe the shipment came from Russia and was destined for Iran.
 Security-police spokesperson Kristine Apse said that counterintelligence experts from the Latvian military were brought in to help identify the seized items. The experts determined the equipment was not likely destined for use by the Iranian army because it is old.
 The equipment was more likely meant for use by "terrorist organizations for their equipment repairs and modernization," Apse said.
 The shipment had a declared value of $315,000 and was financed through offshore bank accounts. Apse said that police are investigating a Latvian company thought to be involved, but offered no further details.
 Yevgeny Dumalkin, an official at the Russian Embassy in Riga, said that the embassy had no immediate comment.
 No arrests have been made.

TITLE: Chechen Rebel Site Goes Online Again
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - To the chagrin of the Kremlin and with a warning from Lithuanian security services, the Chechen rebels' main propaganda tool, the Kavkaz Center Web site, is back online.
 
Kavkazcenter.com went back up on Aug. 8, after being down for more than a month following the confiscation of the site's server at the offices of the Elneta Internet service provider in Vilnius by eight Lithuanian State Security Department officers. The Lithuanian State Security Department issued a statement saying that the site had been reinstated against the security service's recommendations, and warned it would be shut down again if anything illegal was found.
 "The server was confiscated to investigate whether the site contained propaganda calling for national and religious intolerance and terrorism," Lithuanian State Security Department spokesperson Vitautas Makauskas said by telephone from Vilnius. "We have given the evidence to a court to review, and they will decide whether to shut the site down."
 Kavkaz Center appears unfazed by the warning.
 "It doesn't matter if the authorities shut us down on their territory or not," it said in a statement thanking Lithuanian human-rights activists, members of parliament and Elneta for their support.
 "We will find a way to get the truth about crimes in Chechnya and [President Vladimir] Putin's murderers out regardless," the statement said.
 It said that the Web site was closed because of Kremlin pressure on Vilnius.
 The Lithuanian State Security Department said that its decision to target the site was based on a review of its content by independent experts. In addition, it wrote in its report to court, the site is linked to people wanted by Interpol.
 Kavkaz Center was set up by former Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev's chief ideologist, Movladi Udugov, after the start of the second Chechen war in 1999. He is now believed to be close to warlord Shamil Basayev.
 Kavkazcenter.com is registered to a man named Movladi Udug, with an address in Turkey. Elneta director Rimantas Pasys, however, said that he has not had any dealings with Udugov. He told Gazeta.ru that Elneta's contract is with one Khasan Tutuyev, who bears legal responsibility for the site and pays its bills.
 Tutuyev told Gazeta.ru that the site is now headed by rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev, whom Moscow is trying to extradite from Britain on murder charges.
 Kavkaz Center is the Chechen rebels' main tool for lashing out at Moscow and claiming or denying responsibility for attacks on Russian targets. It also features news and analysis about Chechnya and the Arab world from the rebels' perspective and includes disquieting video footage of rebels destroying Russian government buildings and killing troops.
 The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the commotion around Kavkas Center was part of the global fight against terrorism.
 "Lithuanian authorities closed the site ... because it contained information connected with terrorist propaganda and racial intolerance. Russia has always characterized it as such," a ministry statement said. "The Foreign Ministry hopes Lithuanian authorities will follow through with the fight against all kinds of forms of international terrorism."

TITLE: Zyuganov Hits Out at Glazyrev, Kremlin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Striking back at fellow traveler Sergei Glazyev's plans to form a new electoral bloc, Gennady Zyuganov said that his Communist Party will not reform and will fight what he called efforts by the Kremlin to push it toward "Menshivism."
 
Zyuganov made his case in an article that was due to be published Thursday in Pravda, according to Interfax, which said the party gave it a copy of the article on Wednesday.
 Zyuganov said Communists will fight the "petty-bourgeois tendencies" and "sectionalism" that threaten to undermine the party.
 "The ambitions of individual people are trying to make the party change its line," he wrote. Zyuganov never mentions Glazyev by name, but the reference appears clear.
 Glazyev, a popular left-leaning economist and member of the Communist faction in the State Duma, last weekend announced plans to form his own bloc to run in December's parliamentary elections.
 The initiative has been seen as a Kremlin attempt to take votes away from the Communists.
 Glazyev invited the Communists to join his bloc, but Zyuganov, as expected, said that this was out of the question.
 Referring to this in his Pravda article, he said, "Russia has its own leftists and Communists are their name."
 Zyuganov said that the party's "hundreds of years of experience" will give it the strength to "oppose such attempts from the regime's side."
 Glazyev has been seen as a person who could help modernize the party and perhaps even transform it into a social-democratic party along the European model.
 Zyuganov, however, made clear that his party has no interest in reform. He shunned what he labelled Menshevism, just as the Bolsheviks shunned the more moderate Mensheviks.
 Russia's Communist Party is closer to communism's "primordial principles" than any other social-democratic party in Europe, and the path chosen by the social-democratic parties in Europe is not acceptable for Russian leftists, he wrote.
 The article ends with a critical note about those who initially call themselves social democrats but then end up rejecting social-democrat ideology and "accepting the Western system of values."
 Those people, the article said, "fulfill the orders of international organizations. But we don't need other people's dictates."

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Big Bond
 </b>

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) - A Manhattan diamond dealer charged with money laundering connected with an alleged plot to smuggle a Russian missile into the United States was released after posting a $10-million bond.
 Yehuda Abraham was freed Wednesday from a jail in Paterson, New Jersey, after guaranteeing the bond with $5 million worth of property and 10 co-signers, federal officials said. 
 Abraham, 76, and two others are accused in a plot to smuggle shoulder-fired missiles that could shoot down a commercial airliner. They were arrested Aug. 12 in an international sting operation.
 
 
<b>Russia Backs Libya
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia supports a draft UN Security Council resolution put forward by Britain to lift sanctions imposed on Libya after the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Interfax reported on Tuesday.
 "Libya has fulfilled all the demands from the UN Security Council," it quoted Andrei Granovsky, head of the Foreign Ministry's Department of International Organizations, as saying. "That is why we are in favour of lifting these sanctions."
 Britain introduced a draft resolution on Monday to quickly lift sanctions imposed on Libya after the midair bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. The council began debate on Wednesday.
 In a deal painstakingly negotiated with Britain and the United States, Libya accepted responsibility on Friday for the Pan Am bombing and agreed to pay an expected $2.7 billion in compensation - enough to provide up to $10 million to the families of each of the 270 people killed in the attack.
 
 
<b>Case to Court
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Prosecutors said on Thursday that an investigation into an attack that downed a Russian military helicopter in Chechnya last August that left at least 119 people dead had been completed, according to Interfax.
 Anatoly Arsentyev, the head of Russia's southern district prosecutor's office, said one of the men who carried out the missile attack, Doku Dzhantemirov, had been arrested and four accomplices identified.
 Arsentyev said the case had been sent to Chechnya's Supreme Court.
 
 
 



TITLE: New Merger Set To Jolt Defense Industry
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: ZHUKOVSKY AIRFIELD, Moscow Region - NPK Irkut, the privately managed producer of Su-30 fighter jets, announced on Wednesday that it will merge with the Yakovlev design bureau within a year - a deal that analysts said will give the government a run for its money in its plans to consolidate the mostly state-controlled defense industry.
 
&quot;It will be a merger of two stock holding companies with a transfer to a single share, which we will try to finalize within a year. We've started the process already,&quot; Irkut President Alexei Fyodorov told a news conference at the sixth Moscow Aviation and Space Show. Fyodorov said that Irkut and Yakovlev are each controlled by private management.
 Irkut Vice President Valery Bezverkhny said his company is eager to take part in Yakovlev's project to build a Yak-130 combat trainer jet, and that the merger is part of a strategy to bring aviation companies with viable projects under one roof.
 Fyodorov said that as much as a controlling stake in the new company, which has yet to be named, may later be put up for sale to a group of investors. He gave no financial details about the merger.
 In addition to its main production facility in Irkutsk, the Irkut holding has grown in recent years to include controlling stakes in the Russkaya Avionika design bureau, which works on upgrades for fighter jets, and the TANTK Beriev design bureau, the developer of the Be-200 amphibious plane.
 A successful private holding with progressive-minded management, Irkut is the darling of defense-industry watchers, who say that it could serve as an example of industry-wide consolidation but also as a stick in the government's eye.
 Irkut, capitalizing on its lucrative export contracts for fighters, is quickly moving into civil aviation, and is set to be the first Russian aviation company to tap international capital markets next year. It plans to raise $200 million by floating a 20-percent stake and issuing a eurobond.
 The merger is unlikely to sit well with government officials, who have been keeping a sharp eye on Irkut and other privately managed defense companies.
 First Deputy Industry, Science and Technology Minister Alexander Brindikov last month attacked private businesses moving into the defense sector, saying they pose a threat to state security, and could not save the powerful, cash-strapped industry on their own.
 The government wants to consolidate the aviation industry into two holdings by 2006. One of them would be AHC Sukhoi, which would unite the Sukhoi design bureau with two manufacturing plants in Novosibirsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur and include the state's 38-percent stake in TANKT Beriev and 14.7-percent stake in Irkut.
 Fyodorov said there is mistrust from the government toward private companies in the defense sector, and current legislation discriminates against them.
 Sukhoi chief Mikhail Pogosyan said on Wednesday that he expects the AHC Sukhoi holding to be formed by the end of the year. He also said Sukhoi and Irkut will sign an agreement outlining future cooperation between the two holdings, but acknowledged that any hope of a single holding was out of reach for now.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Air Merger
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Pulkovo Airlines Director Boris Demchenko announced on Monday that the local aviation company is planning a merger with state-owned airline Rossiya, Interfax reported.
 Pulkovo, also state owned, will become a joint-stock company by 2005, Demchenko said, with the federal government holidng 100 percent of its stock. The merger will make Pulkovo Russia's second-largest carrier, after Aeroflot.
 Pulkovo, which reported $256 million in revenues in 2002, says that the figure will be over $300 in 2003, with total passengers carried of about 3.5 million. The company reported $43 million in pre-profit taxes in 2002.
 Rossiya specializes in official government, VIP and charter flights and does not disclose financial results.
 
 
<b>A Little Help
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A new 24-hour service providing support for foreign tourists, Guest Assistance, began operations in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
 According to spokesperson Svetlana Labkovich, the new company offers assistance to tourists in the event of theft, loss of documents or money, assault, automobile accidents and health problems. It will provide information for tourists in booking theater tickets or rent cars.
 Guest Assistance presently offers service in English, German, Finnish and Russian, and says that the list will soon be enlarged to include French and Italian.
 Subscriptions for the paid service may be purchased through travel agencies or directly from Guest Assistance. 



TITLE: Prague Spring Provides a Timely Reminder
AUTHOR: By Mark Kurlansky
TEXT: Thirty five years ago, on Aug. 20, 1968, Anton Tazky - a secretary of the Slovak Party Central Committee and a personal friend of Czechoslovakian Communist Party chief Alexander Dubcek - was driving back to Bratislava from an outlying district. He noticed odd, bright lights in the distance and, as he drove closer, he realized he had been seeing the headlights of tanks and military trucks with soldiers in foreign uniforms at the wheels. A movie shoot, Tazky decided. He went to bed as his country was being invaded, courtesy of Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet Union.
 
It was the midpoint of a year unparalleled for wars, uprisings, revolutions and upheavals. And yet, with hindsight, it's clear that no single event of that eventful year had a greater effect - or holds a stronger message for us today - than the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. 
 Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's last leader, recently said that the 1968 invasion &quot;had an effect on all domestic and foreign policy and the entire development of Soviet society, which entered a stage of profound stagnation.&quot;
 It took only a day of world outrage for Brezhnev to realize that he had made a terrible blunder, and he tried to backtrack. What he couldn't know was that it was the first crack in the post-World War II geopolitical structure; the Cold War, which was at the root of so much unrest in 1968, had begun to disintegrate.
 Dubcek had come to power in Prague in the first week of 1968 in a shakeup that ousted the most repressive government in the Soviet bloc.
 &quot;We couldn't change the people,&quot; Dubcek said wryly, &quot;so we changed the leaders.&quot;
 Suddenly, Czechoslovakians were free to travel, their media was free to report on what it wanted in the way it wanted, and their labor unions and agricultural associations were free to criticize government policy. What they had in mind was the creation of a Communist democracy, Marx's ideal made real. It came to be called the Prague Spring.
 By summer, activists and hippies from Amsterdam to Berkeley, California, packed the city to test Dubcek's experiment. It was difficult to find a hotel vacancy or even a table at one of Prague's few restaurants.
 On Aug. 12, a New York Times reporter wrote: &quot;For those under 30, Prague seems the right place to be this summer.&quot; But at 11 p.m. Central European time on Aug. 20, the earth rumbled, and 4,600 tanks and 165,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers crossed the Czech border at 20 locations, rolling west from the Soviet Union, east from East Germany, south from Poland and north from Hungary into the undefended country. Militarily, it was magnificent, except that no army fought back. It was the largest airlift ever carried out by the Soviet military outside its borders. In seven hours, 250 aircraft delivered an entire airborne division, including small armored vehicles, fuel and supplies.
 Party chief Brezhnev and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin had planned the invasion for more than a month, but they decided Czechoslovakia's fate just days before the invasion was launched. They believed that the Czechoslovakian Presidium, once its members saw the tanks coming, would oust Dubcek and his team and bring the country back into line. The official East German newspaper, Neues Deutschland, ran ahead of the news on the night of the invasion with a story about an uprising and a new revolutionary government that had asked for Soviet military support. But no new government was formed and there was no one asking for Soviet intervention.
 When word of the invasion reached Dubcek, he was meeting with the Presidium. &quot;I had no suspicion, not even the slightest hint that such a step could be taken against us,&quot; he said softly. Tears slid down his cheeks, recalled one Czech official who was there. &quot;I have devoted my entire life to cooperation with the Soviet Union, and they have done this to me. It is my personal tragedy.&quot;
 Dubcek, whose father had been jailed in the United States as a World War I pacifist, ordered that there be no armed resistance. Still, young Czechoslovakians threw burning rags at the tanks, blocked them with their bodies, and pleaded with confused Russian soldiers to lay down their arms and join the Czech experiment.
 By the end of the first day, 23 Czechoslovakian civilians were dead, including one shot by Soviets while Dubcek watched from a window. The sight of unarmed students facing Soviet tanks had been filmed by Czech television, smuggled out and broadcast worldwide. 
 The invasion was widely condemned. There were even protests, quickly suppressed, in Red Square. Of the 88 Communist parties in the world, only 10, including the five Warsaw Pact invaders, voiced approval. Brezhnev, who had thrown Dubcek and the rest of the Czech government into prison, quickly brought the officials to Moscow for negotiations.
 When the Soviet Union finally came apart more than 20 years later, Western observers were shocked. They had already forgotten 1968. But at the time of the invasion, even Time magazine predicted its fall: It was the end of heroic Russia. A country widely admired because it had dared to stand alone and build a socialist society, because it protected other socialist countries, because its citizens had been sacrificed by the millions to rid Europe of fascism had become, simply, a bully that crushed small countries.
 A superpower that no longer stands for anything, that no one believes in anymore, that is seen only as a bully, will fall despite its military might. If the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush ever wanted to reflect on history, it might think about this.
 
 <i>Mark Kurlansky's latest book is &quot;1968: The Year That Rocked the World.&quot; He contributed this comment to the Los Angeles Times. </i>

TITLE: Elections are Variations on a Familiar Theme
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
TEXT: As Valentina Matviyenko's campaign cakewalk to the governor's seat in Smolny wanders on, a hackneyed phrase appears to have become the motto of many of the city's career politicians and officials: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
 
According to city-politics insiders, the jockeying to get new and retain old positions within City Hall has already begun. Given that there doesn't seem much left to do for the workers at Matviyenko's headquarters with regard to actually winning the campaign, they are probably happy to have other work to occupy their time. Instead of having to think up ways to get their candidate elected, Matviyenko's staff can now concentrate on deciding what St. Petersburg's next government is going to look like.
 I would label the whole process rather cynical, if I wasn't so convinced that disgusting is a better word.
 Even Acting Governor Alexander Beglov has joined the cynical (disgusting?) group of &quot;joiners.&quot; The vice governor in charge of the administrative committee under former Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, Beglov is said to be trying to wrangle himself the construction-committee job under Smolny's next boss. And he appears to be in a hurry.
 This week, the acting governor told us that the city had only set aside enough funds to pay for the gubernatorial elections if they only run one round (in the event that no candidate receives 50 percent of the votes in the first round, the City Charter calls for a run off between the top two vote getters). If a second round is required, Beglov says, it will end up hurting the city's budget. His proposed solution to the danger is for the city's voters to cast their ballots for the candidate that they think has the best chance of winning 50 percent. He might as well have suggested that the City Election Commission hand out ballots with one name on them. I'm sure that there are still people kicking around with enough experience in drawing up this type of ballot to offer advice.
 About the only political figures who don't appear to be falling all over each other in the joiners' rush are the other 10 candidates in the race. With regard to this group, Matviyenko and her campaign appear to have opted for a couple of new variations on our subject phrase.
 The first is: &quot;If they won't join you, make it look as if they already have.&quot;
 This variation arrived in the form of a leaflet being distributed on the streets by Matviyenko workers with quotations from three of her opponents in the race, extolling her qualifications as a candidate for governor.
 Mikhail Amasov, the head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, is quoted as describing Matviyenko to news daily Kommersant as a &quot;diplomatic and able to bring together different political forces.&quot; St. Petersburg Vice Governor Anna Markova, in an article that originally appeared in the daily Gazeta, said, &quot;I have only heard positive things about [Matviyenko's] work and that, wherever she has worked, she has brought real advantages.&quot; Konstantin Sukhenko told the newspaper Sankt Petersburgskiye Vedomosti that, while he doesn't know Matviyenko personally, he considers her to be a &quot;competent person with a lot of experience who knows the city and the whole country.&quot;
 These are all pretty positive sounding endorsements of an opponent in an election race. The only problem is that when they were made - in the middle of March, just after Matviyenko had been named as presidential representative for the Northwest Region - she wasn't a campaign opponent at all. It's kind of like asking Boris Berezovky what he thinks of Vladimir Putin on New Years Day, 2000, and then using the quote as evidence of how he feels today.
 Although this can't be called false campaigning from a legal standpoint, it's not the sort of literature you would expect from a candidate who, just two weeks ago, called on all candidates in the race to join in signing a manifesto she had authored calling for &quot;clean and democratic elections.&quot;
 The issue of clean and democratic elections gave us an opportunity to see another variation on the joiners theme: &quot;If they won't join you at your place, you sure as hell shouldn't show up at theirs.&quot;
 Monday saw a public meeting held inviting all of the gubernatorial candidates to take part in a discussion on principles for running a campaign without mudslinging or dirty tricks. Matviyenko was a no-show. To be fair, only four candidates bothered to attend, but I would have thought Matviyenko would have been willing to join a discussion of a topic that she, herself, chose to make a campaign issue almost from the outset.
 I know that politics is never a pretty game, but the general dishonesty that seems to be involved in what is beginning to look more like a coronation than an election is frustrating. While, according to a survey conducted by the Agency of Social Information on Aug. 10, 68 percent of St. Petersburg residents believe Matviyenko will be the next governor, I can't believe that there aren't a lot of other people out there who feel the same frustration that I do.
 But a conversation with one of those 68 percent the other day made me wonder why I bother complaining.
 &quot;It doesn't matter who I vote for. Everything has already been decided for us, so it doesn't make sense to vote at all,&quot; he said
 My protest that, as voters, it depends on us who wins, and that we should get out and cast ballots, was met with the response: &quot;No, Matviyenko will win, and you know it as well as I do.&quot;
 Perhaps this really is the way that most people think. But that doesn't necessarily make it right.

TITLE: the private life of the romanovs
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Anyone interested in getting up close and personal with the private lives of Russia's pre-1917 ruling family should head to Peterhof's new museum. Some real rarities are on display, including many that have never been seen by anyone apart from their owners.
 
The items include Catherine the Great's saddle, a golden box that once held the baptismal clothes of members of the Romanov family, a silver mirror used by all the tsarinas after Catherine and a watercolor on parchment that hung in Nicholas II's bathroom.
 &quot;The exhibitions here will only be temporary, and we will have to change them every six months,&quot; said Nina Vernova, deputy director of Peterhof's palace museums and the creator of the new display.
 &quot;The artworks from the special collections are either very fragile or are sensitive to direct sunlight or have some other special requirements, and therefore have never been displayed in our permanent collection,&quot; she said.
 All of the items on display also have strong personal connection with their former owners. Many were diplomatic presents or gifts given by members of the Russian royal family to their relatives.
 One of the halls contains several costumes from the wardrobe of Grigory Potyomkin, Catherine the Great's favorite and her alleged lover.
 &quot;It was sometimes very difficult for us to find these costumes because, after the revolutions of 1917, they were given to some of the Russian theaters,&quot; Peterhof Director Vadim Znamenov said.
 &quot;They were used extensively by singers of various sizes, which damaged them enormously,&quot; he said.
 The costumes have been restored, but are now very sensitive to sunlight and, even though there are sun protectors on the palace's windows, they can not be on display for more than six months.
 To find the necessary amount of space for the exhibition, Znamenov moved his office and administration to a less spacious headquarters. The Wing Under the Shield (Korpus Pod Gerbom in Russian), which is linked to Peterhof's Grand Palace, has now become a permanent home for exhibitions from the museum's special collection.
 Three rooms out of the eight that make up the exhibition are devoted to Catherine the Great: her cabinet, her bedroom and her dressing room. The wing was mainly used to accommodate guests of the royal family, and Russian rulers didn't usually live there, but Catherine was an exception.
 Exactly how the rooms' interiors looked during Catherine's time has not been documented, so the exhibition's curators compiled the display from the tsarina's personal belongings and other items or artworks that she is known to have used. One example is a gorgeous silver samovar with four types of playing cards carved on its bottom.
 &quot;Catherine herself was a passionate gambler, and many of her noble contemporaries were quite keen on playing cards,&quot; Vernova said. &quot;Virtually every event that happened within these walls during the second half of the eighteenth century, be it a reception or dinner or a foreign ambassador's visit, inevitably ended with a game of cards.&quot;
 Some playing cards are shown as well, as are jewellery items and multiple snuffboxes, which were a popular present at the time.
 The exhibition's curators are particularly proud of the portraits by Catherine the Great's parents that can be seen in the cabinet. Almost no museums have a similar portrait, as they are extremely difficult to find, Vernova said.
 The hall before the cabinet contains assorted personal items used by or given to some of Russia's imperial rulers. One of them is a luxurious, richly decorated saddle used by Catherine when she went to St. Petersburg from Peterhof for her coronation. A scene from the coronation is displayed alongside. That watercolor, along with other three depicting various scenes of Catherine's coronation, were known to hang in Nicholas II's bathroom.
 &quot;No-one knows the reason for that, but let's hope that he, just like we museum workers, wanted to protect them from sunlight,&quot; Vernova said, adding that the paintings are very sensitive to sunlight as they are on parchment.
 The guestroom has a special meaning for the palace. It is linked to the Grand Palace, and was where Russian princesses were prepared for their weddings and newborn members of the family were readied for baptism. When everything was prepared, they went through the Grand Palace to the church.
 
 <i>
Entrance to the museum costs 100 rubles ($3.30). The exhibition can be viewed by groups of up to 15 people only; individual visitors must wait to join a group. Tours are available in English. For more information, call 420-0073. </i>

TITLE: bikers get ready for 'real' festival
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: It may be the second motorcycle festival taking place around this city this month, but local bikers and alternative rockers insist that this weekend's event is the first and only real one.
 
Officially called the Sixth International Biker Festival in St. Petersburg, the show is being promoted by the local Werwolves (sic.) Motor Club under the motto &quot;Our Voice Is Freedom, Our Blood Is Rock and Roll&quot; near Olgino Hotel, 18 kilometers north of St. Petersburg. 
 What makes the festival different is that it is being held in St. Petersburg for the sixth year running. The bike show earlier this month at the Kasimovo Aerodrome outside the city was foisted on the city by a Moscow motorcycle club that is a bitter rival of local organizations.
 &quot;We'll be playing there because it's <i>our</i> festival, it's being run by the Werwolves, who are from St. Petersburg,&quot; Sergei Shnurov of the hugely popular ska-punk band Leningrad said this week.
 Leningrad will headline the opening day of the festival, and is probably the event's main musical attraction.
 &quot;Honestly, I can't understand why bikers from Moscow promote their show here,&quot; Shnurov said. &quot;We don't promote ours in Moscow, do we?&quot;
 The Moscow-promoted event was headlined by St. Petersburg group DDT, a somewhat dated &quot;Russian-rock&quot; band that still packs stadiums, even thought it performs only a couple of times every year.
 &quot;'Yulianych' [DDT leader Yury Shevchuk] did his dance there, but it's his business,&quot; Shnurov said. &quot;I don't blame him at all.&quot;
 In any case, Shnurov said, he is &quot;sure&quot; that the event at Kasimovo was just &quot;not right.&quot;
 Tequilajazzz frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov seconded Shnurov's support for the local scene. 
 &quot;We chose to support our own,&quot; he said this week.
 &quot;This festival is meant to contrast St. Petersburg and Moscow, or, to be more exact, the Moscow invasion to St. Petersburg's biker market, as it were,&quot; Fyodorov said.
 &quot;It all has a lot to do with sponsors,&quot; he said. &quot;The Muscovites and their event, a so-called 'gift to the city' [the event was advertised as being dedicated to St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary] caused a lot of damage to the St. Petersburg guys, so they're having big difficulties in promoting the festival.&quot;
 &quot;They're promoting it with very little money, and we decided to be a part of it,&quot; Fyodorov said. &quot;Maybe they'll make an extra hundred bucks because of us, I don't know.&quot;
 However, Fyodorov insisted that Tequilajazzz is not part of the biker movement.
 &quot;It has nothing to do with lifestyles,&quot; he said. &quot;It's just a human thing,&quot; adding that, after its performance at the festival, his band will take a break from public concerts for a while.
 &quot;We are rehearsing our new set, and don't want play our old one, because we know that many are already tired of it,&quot; he said. &quot;We have to change something, but it's not clear what, so we have to decide what to do in new times and a new situation.&quot;
 Leningrad, which last played in the city in April, is now recording a new album, its first since March 2002's &quot;Piraty XXI Veka&quot; (&quot;21st Century Pirates&quot;), at a local studio. The band will next play at Yubileiny Sports Palace on Sept. 12.
 Festival spokesperson Daniil Kovalchuk stressed the differences between the two events.
 &quot;[The Moscow group] promotes a show, rather than a festival, whereas we have a proper festival,&quot; he said this week. &quot;They do more of a spectacle, with a laser show, aiming at making money, while we have various clubs coming here, just to see each other and hang around together. People are coming from all over Europe and the rest of Russia.&quot;
 According to Kovalchuk, St. Petersburg's Werwolves differ from Moscow's Nightwolves, who promoted the Bike Show, in their attitudes toward other biker groups.
 &quot;Nightwolves' policy is somewhat 'genocide'-style,&quot; he said. &quot;They think there is nobody but the Nightwolves.&quot;
 &quot;They take the <i>zhiletki</i> [waistcoats with club colors and other regalia that bikers wear over their leather jackets] off bikers who belong to clubs other than Nightwolves,&quot; he said.
 Losing a waistcoat or having it taken off is the ultimate humiliation for a biker, similar to a military officer losing his weapon.
 &quot;Our position is different,&quot; Kovalchuk said. &quot;We invite all the clubs and treat them as honored guests.&quot; 
 
 q 
 
 <i>The Sixth International Biker Festival
 Saturday:
 Noon: Assemble on Palace Square
 2 p.m.: Arrival at Olgino and opening ceremony
 2:30 p.m. to 6:20 p.m.: Competitions
 6:20 p.m.: Strip show
 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.: Rock concert with Torba-Na-Kruche (7 p.m.), Tequilajazzz (7:50 p.m.), Pushking (8:40 p.m.) and Leningrad (10:10 p.m.)
 11:30 p.m.: Firework display
 Sunday:
 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Performances by new bands
 4 p.m.: Competitions
 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.: Rock concert with Great Sorrow (5:30 p.m.), Zed Zeppelin (6 p.m.), Razniye Lyudi (6:40 p.m.), Zakhar Mai and Shiva (7:20 p.m.), Chizh &amp; Co. (10 p.m.) and Korol I Shut (9 p.m.)
 
 Olgino Hotel is located 18 kilometers along Primorskoye Shosse. Take bus 110 or any marshrutka in the direction of Sestroretsk from the Staraya Derevnya metro station, or marshrutka 425 from Chyornaya Rechka metro station. </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The weekend's biggest event will be The Sixth International Biker Festival, which features Leningrad and Tequilajazzz (see article, this page), but there are a few smaller gigs that also sound promising.
 <strong>
Boom</strong>, an underground club in the center of the city, seems to have reconsidered its policy and schedule - no membership cards any more (good) and no events on weekdays (not so good). 
 But on those remaining three nights, from Friday through Sunday, the place looks friendly and stimulating for musicians, who seem to be glad to perform an extra number or appear as a guest with the band playing. 
 The reformed <strong>Wine</strong>, which played a fine gig at Purga last week, concentrating on covers such as The Smiths' &quot;A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours&quot; and Bob Dylan's &quot;All Along the Watchtower,&quot; will perform at Boom on Friday. Call the club at 312-8086 for other events - but not on weekdays, because the people who pick up the phone know nothing.
 <strong>Chirvontsy</strong>, the band formed by now-former members of Leningrad and a song-writing actor in July 2001, was &quot;born from an uncontrollable, continuous conversion of money into vodka,&quot; according to its biography.
 While the band's frontman, Fyodor Lavrov, has been busy featuring in movies and working toward a theater premier lately, the band has not prepared any new material. But Chirvontsy's manager and occasional singer, Liza Savina, said the band will put together something special for an as-yet unscheduled gig at Chaplin Club some time in September. 
 Chirvontsy will play at Fish Fabrique on Saturday.
 <strong>PTVP</strong>, the great punk band from Vyborg, will play a pair of gigs this week at local clubs. According to frontman/songwriter Lyokha Nikonov, the band will perform two or three songs from its new album, which the band is now busy recording in a St. Petersburg studio, including the song &quot;Ulitsa v Ogne&quot; (The Street's on Fire).
 PTVP will play at Front on Saturday (with younger band Svinyi V Kosmose, also from Vyborg) and at Orlandina on Thursday.
 Foreign acts are still tending to avoid St. Petersburg and limit their Russian tours to Moscow. Thus, Germany's one-person bands <strong>Neoangin</strong> and <strong>Nova Huta</strong> will play at Moscow's alternative venues Kitaisky Lyotchik Dzhao Da (Chinese Pilot Dzhao Da) on Friday and P.iR. O.G.I. on Nikolskaya on Sunday. The pair first got together earlier this year to record a somewhat tongue-in-cheek release of The Cure covers called &quot;Jumping on Someone Else's Train.&quot;
 Call Kitaisky Lyotchik at (095) 924-5611 and P.iR. O.G.I. at (095) 346-9410 for details if you're thinking of going.
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: advertising doesn't cost, it pays
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When we arrived at Kollegiya early on Friday evening, the restaurant was empty and a young man in overalls was stencilling a corinthian pillar capital on the wall in the entranceway. Fair enough, we thought, it's still early, and the restaurant opened not long ago, so maybe more people will show up later. They didn't - we were there for about an hour and a half, and were the only diners - which is their loss, because Kollegiya is possibly the finest place I've had the privilege of reviewing this year.
 
According to our friendly server, decked out formally in a tuxedo and bow-tie, Kollegiya (&quot;College&quot;) has been open for 2 1/2 months, but the management has yet to begin advertising. However, he promised that a large-scale campaign is slated for September. I can only hope that it brings results, for otherwise I fear that the restaurant will not be around for much longer, which would be a real shame.
 Kollegiya is located in the basement of Dom Yurista on Ulitsa Tchaikovskogo. It consists of two halls, one with a dark-blue color scheme and the other red, and an airy-feeling bar area in which we settled. The decoration is classic St. Petersburg, all baroque-esque stencils and refinement. The bar area is styled to feel like a terrace, with swooping sparrows on the walls and marvellous trompe-l'oeil &quot;views&quot; through to a &quot;formal garden.&quot;
 The food is similarly classical in style, and very reasonably priced with it. My companion started out with a summery soup of carrot and orange (180 rubles, $6). She declared this to be very good, although she would have preferred it to be a little thinner. However, the oranges lent the concoction a nicely bitter tang, which was judged to be very refreshing.
 I chose the cherry-tomato salad, just about the cheapest dish on the menu at 90 rubles ($3). The tomatoes came with mixed salad leaves - including Lollo Rosso, something of a rarity - olives and a mustard dressing. All of the vegetables were first-rate, fresh and tasty, and the dressing gave the dish a nicely piquant kick.
 My entree was the highlight of my meal. I originally went for the salmon with vegetable fettucini, but it was unfortunately not available, so I settled instead on the stuffed trout in pastry. It turned out to be an inspired choice, and I was hooked, trout-like, from the first bite. The dish came as slices of a roulade, the trout stuffed with halibut, wild rice - a real rarity - and spinach and wrapped in a thin layer of pastry. The flavors of all the elements were individually discernable, and the whole thing was beautifully spiced. It was accompanied with wafer-thin eggplant chips and a rather rich mushroom julienne that was probably unnecessary; in a word, though, it was fantastic.
 My companion, meanwhile, was almost as impressed with her main course, the filet of duck (290 rubles, $9.60). This was slices of tender meat accompanied by various fruits - from strawberries to kiwi - that took up most of the plate. The fruit-meat combination is one of my companion's favorites, and she pronounced this variant to be very high class indeed.
 For desserts, we both chose bliny dishes, my companion opting for the fruit bliny (150 rubles, $5) and I for the chocolate version (100 rubles, $3.30). Here we ran into our only service glitch of the evening - an almost half-hour wait - but it was worth it. As with all the dishes we tried, the desserts were beautifully presented, almost to the extent of it being a shame to have to eat them. But eat them we did, and thoroughly enjoyed them.
 Like her main course, my companion's dessert came heavily garnished with an assortment of different fruit, which she enjoyed, although she said that the bliny themselves, wrapped up and almost buried under the riot of colors, were somewhat plain. My dish came as a tower of three thick, yeast-batter pancakes surrounded by a sea of marbled dark-and-light chocolate sauce that tasted as delicious as it looked. We could probably have ordered one dessert between two - Kollegiya's portions seem to be calculated to be filling without being huge - but being the greedy types we are we eventually managed to finish the lot.
 When I first looked through the menu, Kollegiya seemed to be quite pricey, with the most expensive dish being a starter of foie gras for 880 rubles ($29.30). However, I was pleasantly surprised to receive the bill, which came to under $50 for three courses each plus a couple of glasses of decent, if unspectacular, house white wine (90 rubles, $3, per glass). The service was also excellent - discreet, polite and unfussy - but I amost pitied our poor server, who spent much of the evening standing by the bar or polishing silverware and glasses.
 We rounded off our meal with a green tea (20 rubles, $0.60) for my companion and cappuccino (50 rubles, $1.60) for me, and left fervently hoping that Kollegiya succeeds in attracting the necessary business. Otherwise, the local restaurant scene will be very much the poorer.
 
 <i>
Kollegiya. 28 Ul. Tchaikovskogo. Tel.: 273-9913. Open daily, noon to midnight. Menu in Russian only. Credit cards not accepted yet. Dinner for two, with alcohol: 1,390 rubles ($46.30). </i>

TITLE: streets are alive with the sound of music
AUTHOR: By Sandra Upson
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Street musicians do more in their day-to-day musical exploits than play their instruments at the mercy of a transient audience. In addition to dodging local authorities and trying to play enough to earn their keep, they deal with the region's temperamental climate, attend schools - or hope to one day be able to stop playing on the street altogether. 
 
Concentrated along Nevsky Prospect, in the Gostinny Dvor underpass and underground in the city's metro stations, singing old ladies and accordion players of all ages warble Russian folk songs. Meanwhile, groups of teenagers and twenty-somethings in the pedestrian zones along Nevsky idly strum guitars while &quot;askers&quot; - Russian street lingo for in-your-face money solicitors - clutch old caps in their hands and implore passersby to throw in a few coins.
 Though the quality of music ranges from a beginner's discordant first attempts to the pleasantly impressive, throughout central St. Petersburg, the intermittently audible strains of a musical smorgasbord provide an unpredictable backdrop to the industrial sounds of city life. Love of the outdoors, music and interactions with grateful listeners are primary motivations for many of the more affable freelance musicians. 
 &quot;I can't imagine myself doing anything else,&quot; said 38-year old Sneshka, who was playing on a drum outside the Versace store on Nevsky Prospect last week. &quot;They used to tell me I was insane. But seriously, if someone wants to play on the street, why shouldn't they? I love nature and freedom, and especially the lifestyle of Africans, who really know what it means to be free and to love the outdoors.&quot; 
 According to two young women playing Vivaldi's &quot;The Four Seasons&quot; in the Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station, &quot;Of course we don't just do it for the money. We're in our first year at the [Rimsky-Korsakov] Conservatory, and will some day be music teachers, but we play here for the fun of it and for the practice, because we really do love playing.&quot;
 Others explain that the street provides a training ground for anyone who chooses to make use of it.
 &quot;The street is a really egalitarian space,&quot; Ira of Beatles cover band Sunflower said during a break from playing opposite Gostinny Dvor. &quot;Those who like what they hear stop and listen, and as a musician you learn and improve by noticing what people respond to. Those who don't like what they hear either simply walk past or shake their heads and cross themselves.&quot;
 Sneshka recounted similar experiences with the reactions of some of their listeners.
 &quot;There's a number of people, typically babushki, who cross themselves when they see my friends and I play,&quot; said the drummer, whose drooping dreadlocks and raggedy orange corduroy couture distinguish her from the majority of the population. &quot;Others sometimes spit or swear at us, usually when they're drunk.&quot;
 The street musicians themselves, however, for the most part respect and abide by an unwritten code that groups or individual musicians who are regulars on the street each have established certain territories at certain times of day, and seek to maintain an appropriate amount of distance from other performers.
 &quot;If someone's in our space, and tells us they desperately need the money, we may yield it to them,&quot; Sunflower's Ira said. &quot;But then sometimes newcomers show up here who know nothing and upset our system by claiming territory that's been someone else's for quite some time.&quot;
 However, encounters with the police and the sporadic contributions of passersby keep a more sober countenance on some faces.
 &quot;I'd rather be teaching students again,&quot; said retired actor and music teacher Vladimir Ivanovich, an accordion player next to the Teremok bliny stand outside the Vladimirskaya metro station. &quot;I love to teach kids about culture and folk music, but that doesn't pay the bills. As it stands, I make just enough to cover the rent and a salami sandwich.&quot;
 Some members of the local police department, according to flautist Zhenya, playing by the Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospect, first deliver lectures on all the infractions committed by the musicians, then turn a blind eye once some money changes hands. 
 According to Alexei of Christian rock group Logos, &quot;Usually they try to get money out of us but we just pack up and leave if it comes to that. They try to tell us we're breaking the law by being here, but we should have the freedom to play outside if we want to.
 &quot;We don't take money from people and, since church and state are separate here, I don't understand what the problem is,&quot; Alexei said. while taking a breather from playing on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa.
 Tremulously playing the theme from the movie &quot;Godfather&quot; on her weatherworn violin outside the Sever coffeeshop on Nevsky Prospect, 14-year-old Nastya said that sometimes the police bother her, &quot;especially when [President Vladimir] Putin comes to town.&quot;
 Others, weary of the street, want to play better venues, but have not received enough recognition to give up street playing. 
 &quot;We're sick of playing outside,&quot; Sunflower's guitarist and vocalist Timur said. &quot;The street functions as a good school for musicians, but once you feel that you've graduated, you really want to move on to something better, like playing more in clubs and bars.&quot; 
 Nastya, who has been playing on the street for the last three years, also claims she's tired of it.
 &quot;It gets unpleasant when it's cold, and sometimes little kids give me a hard time or make fun of me,&quot; Nastya said.
 On the other hand, some just play to combat boredom.
 &quot;Nobody tells me to play out here,&quot; said 10-year-old Vanya, a fledgling accordion player whose music was a staple of the Gostinny Dvor underpass for about a month this summer. &quot;I'm visiting my grandmother, and have nothing to do all day, so I started playing the accordion on the street.&quot;
 With an income of around 300 to 400 rubles a day, it pays to keep Vanya amused.

TITLE: filming chechnya up close
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: War produces casualties, but it also has a habit of making good cinema. With the conflict in Chechnya turning into Russia's Vietnam, Russian filmmakers have turned out a clutch of acclaimed films, including Sergei Bodrov's &quot;Kavkazsky Plennik,&quot; or &quot;Prisoner of the Caucasus,&quot; and Aleksei Balabanov's &quot;Voina,&quot; or &quot;War.&quot; 
 
But up to now, the tiny republic of Chechnya has not released a single feature film of its own. That changes this month, with the premier of &quot;Marsho,&quot; or &quot;Freedom,&quot; a tale of love and revenge directed by a Chechen refugee, at the Locarno Festival in Switzerland. 
 Only 39 minutes long, &quot;Marsho&quot; dives right into the controversial fray with the story of a Chechen family whose eldest son is killed by Russian forces. As the dead warrior is lying in state on the floor of the family house in the last scene of the film, his younger brother puts on his headband to show that he too will join the holy war.
 &quot;I wanted to enable people to feel the pain of the Chechens, who have relatives and loved ones, and dreams, and don't want to be in a war and be killed,&quot; director Murad Mazayev said in a telephone interview from Tbilisi, Georgia, where he recently finished a degree in film.
 Starring as the warrior son and writing the Chechen-language screenplay, the 26-year-old refugee from Grozny shot the film in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a high-risk area close to the Chechen border, where Chechen guerillas were actually operating at the time.
 Funds were so tight that the fight scenes were shot with live ammunition to save money.
 &quot;Our budget was very limited, and we couldn't afford to buy blank cartridges,&quot; admitted Mazayev. &quot;The local police gave us live cartridges for free, so we had to take what we were given.&quot;
 Luckily, no serious accidents occurred, although a camera operator had to dodge a bullet when he stood too close to the action.
 The $16,000 production cost was mainly covered by expat Chechens in Georgia and Turkey, but there was also a small donation from left-wing British actor Vanessa Redgrave, who espouses Chechen causes, and some support from the Chechen Ministry of Culture.
 So far, &quot;Marsho&quot; has been screened only once, in Tbilisi, but the movie has already attracted international attention. An article on the film caught the attention of Christian Zeender, former head of the cinema section at Switzerland's Ministry of Culture, who now runs the production company Caucasus Media, based in Tbilisi. After Zeender brought the film to the Locarno Festival's attention, &quot;Marsho&quot; received an invitation to the festival, where it will be screened outside of the main competition.
 Currently, &quot;Marsho&quot; has no release date in Russia. But that's not intentional on the part of Mazayev, who would like the film to get as much coverage as possible.
 &quot;I would love to show the film in Russia, but I think the censors would not let it through,&quot; he said.
 He also reckons that &quot;the film won't be shown in Chechnya either, as the puppet government will not dare to do it.&quot;
 After attending a preview, critic Andrei Plakhov, Russia's correspondent at the festival, panned the film. In an article early this month for Kommersant, Plakhov dubbed the movie a &quot;propaganda piece,&quot; stating that &quot;it's difficult to call the film highly artistic, although it's undoubtedly politically engaged.&quot;
 The film also got the brush-off from one of Russia's top distribution companies, Intercinema Art Agency, whose portfolio includes Balabanov's &quot;Voina.&quot; Director-in-chief Raisa Fomina said last week that she had been keen to see a Chechen film, but that &quot;Marsho&quot; was not fit for a commercial audience.
 &quot;It's not convincing because it's very amateur,&quot; Fomina said, describing the movie as &quot;like a student work.&quot; 
 Despite &quot;Marsho's&quot; pro-Chechen slant, Mazayev, whose family still lives in Grozny, does not see himself as a factionalist and is mulling a new project to represent both nations. One of Mazayev's ideas, he said, would be to shoot a a love story between a young Chechen man and a Russian girl, beginning in the Soviet period.
 &quot;I had a very interesting idea about a full-length film that would have a stabilizing effect for both sides, Russians and Chechens,&quot; he said.

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy <i>
TEXT: <i>Zagadka russkoi dushi</i>: the mystery of the Russian soul
 
The Russian soul is a mystery indeed. You start with a few soulful expressions of love and intimacy, and before you know it, you've moved into the realm of economics and murder.
 That is to say, <i>dusha</i> (soul) has many shadings of meaning and is the source of a great many idiomatic expressions. When you love someone profoundly, you can say: <i>Ya lyubila yego dushoi i telom</i>. (I loved him body and soul.) When you want to express your heartfelt generosity, you can say, <i>Yesh skolko dushe ugodno</i>. (Eat to your heart's content; literally, &quot;eat as much as your soul wishes.&quot;) <i>Dusha</i> can also be a stand-in for &quot;conscience&quot;: <i>Ya pokravila dushoi</i> (I went against my conscience, or I went against my heart.) If you are feeling anxious and ill at ease, you can say, <i>U menya na dushe koshki skrebut</i>, literally, &quot;cats are scratching at my soul.&quot; And if you are terrified, you can say, <i>Dusha v pyatki ushla!</i> Out of fear, the soul departs the body through its homophone: &quot;My soul left my body through the soles of my feet.&quot;
 When you want to describe a tear-jerker, &quot;a weepie,&quot; or &quot;a three-hankie movie,&quot; you call it <i>dusheshchipatelny</i> film. When something is heartrending, in Russian it's <i>dusherazdirayushchy</i>, as in the phrase, <i>Ikh proshchanie bylo dusherazdirayushchim</i>. (Their parting was heartrending; their parting tore at my heartstrings.) Someone who is mentally ill in Russian is <i>dushevnobolnoi</i>, literally, &quot;ailing in his soul,&quot; which has always seemed to me to be a profound and compassionate way to describe a troubled individual. However, when you say, <i>bolit dusha</i>, (&quot;my soul aches&quot;), you mean that you are very disturbed by something, or, with the phrase <i>bolit dusha za nego</i>, you feel deep compassion (&quot;my heart goes out to him&quot;).
 <i>Dusha</i> also means &quot;a soul&quot; in the sense of &quot;a living being.&quot; <i>Tam ne bylo ni zhivoi dushi</i>. (There wasn't a soul there.) It can also be used in the economic sense of &quot;per head&quot; or &quot;per capita&quot;: <i>Dokhody na dushu naseleniye rastut</i>. (Per capita income is growing.) In the old days, before the great emancipation, <i>dusha</i> could also refer to a serf. Gogol's &quot;Myortviye Dushi&quot; (&quot;Dead Souls&quot;) referred to a good old Russian scam of buying up dead serfs and making a profit on the deal.
 If we go back even further in time, to when the Russian language was being codified, <i>dusha</i> and <i>dukh</i> (spirit) were one word that conveyed the sense of &quot;spirit,&quot; &quot;breath,&quot; or &quot;life's breath.&quot; Over time, many concepts of breathing evolved along the <i>dukh</i> line, but some still remain in the <i>dusha</i> branch. <i>Dushit</i> is &quot;to strangle&quot; (to squeeze the breath out of someone), although it can also be translated as &quot;smother&quot; in the lovely phrase <i>On dushil menya v obyatiyakh</i>. (He smothered me with hugs.) Or it can have a more sinister meaning: <i>Yego dushil gnev</i> (he was choked with rage). 
 Perfume in Russian is <i>dukhi;</i> to wear it is <i>dushitsya. Moya mat vsegda dushilas dukhami &quot;Krasnaya Moskva.&quot;</i> (My mother always wore Red Moscow perfume.) <i>Dushno</i> means &quot;stifling&quot; or &quot;stuffy&quot; (i.e., when you can't breathe): <i>V tramvaye bylo tak dushno, chto ya chut ne upala v obmorok.</i> (It was so stuffy in the tram, I almost fainted.) <i>Dushok</i> can be a bad smell or a &quot;tinge&quot; of something in the figurative sense: <i>On pishet dlya gazety s pravym dushkom.</i> (He writes for a right-wing newspaper.)
 Jumping from love to serfs to economics to asphyxiation can be wearying to us poor foreign souls, trying to make sense of Russia and Russians. Whenever you are totally at a loss, you can always say, <i>Eto zagadka russkoi dushi!</i> (It's a mystery of the Russian soul.)
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator.</i>


TITLE: military revivial after trauma
AUTHOR: By Daniel Benjamin
PUBLISHER: New York Times Service
TEXT: Barely a generation separates two milestones in the history of the United States military: in March 1973, the last American combat troops departed from Vietnam, demoralized standard-bearers of the country's most ignominious modern failure at arms. Thirty years later, United States forces this past March began an invasion of Iraq that will likely be remembered as one of the most rapid conquests ever of a large nation. Between these two events lies an extraordinary story of regeneration and adaptation.
 
A full accounting of how the post-Vietnam military, a &quot;hollow army,&quot; in the famous phrase of General Edward C. Meyer, became a world-bestriding force has yet to be written. It is a work in need of an author not least because military might has become an outsize aspect of American power. Other Western countries have generous welfare states; the United States alone has a military that can project force anywhere on the globe, fight and win.
 America's technological advantage in warfare has become so large that, despite the ritual references to coalition forces, the Pentagon finds it more of a burden than a benefit to have allies in combat. (It demonstrated this by turning down offers of assistance for the fighting in Afghanistan. The Department of Defense's desire for assistance in peacekeeping is another issue entirely.)
 Remarkably, the current U.S. administration shows no sign of resting content with the current enormous superiority to all conceivable rivals. Defense spending has been rising for the last five years, and Congress is currently putting the final touches on a national security budget of $400 billion, or about 10 percent more in real dollars than the United States spent in an average year in the cold war. That does not include the $75 billion cost of operations in Iraq. 
 In &quot;America's Splendid Little Wars: A Short History of U.S. Military Engagements: 1975-2000,&quot; Peter Huchthausen has written a prelude to this subject, surveying the period that began with the Mayagez incident, in which Khmer Rouge forces seized an American merchant container ship, and ended with NATO's defeat of Serb forces in Kosovo. The title, adapted from the diplomat John Milton Hay's description of the Spanish-American War, is ironic, as the author acknowledges. With ample chapters devoted to debacles like Desert One, the failed effort to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, and the 1992-1993 deployment in Somalia, little splendor is on display.
 These sections are accompanied by others covering eight more engagements, including interventions in Grenada, Bosnia and Kosovo, the reflagging and escorting of merchant ships in the Persian Gulf, the hunt for Manuel Noriega in Panama and the 1991 Persian Gulf war. In clean and economic prose, Captain Huchthausen, a retired Navy officer, delivers a historical background to each engagement of the United States military and a concise narrative of the action.
 The author takes a traditionalist's approach and dwells on those episodes in which shots were fired - or should have been - instead of ones that saw American troops involved in peacekeeping or nation-building, as in the substantial deployment to Haiti. Many of his vignettes are thoughtful and thorough, recapitulating, for example, the largely forgotten political struggles on Grenada that helped trigger United States intervention and describing in its full horror the experience of the Marines in their 1982-1983 deployment in Lebanon, where they came to serve no function except as a target for hostile militias and terrorists. 
 Others are marred by mistakes of fact - the 78-day campaign over the skies of Kosovo involved not &quot;450 allied sorties,&quot; but more than 10,000. Some of Captain Huchthausen's conclusions are also off, as when he argues that as a result of the air strike President Ronald Reagan ordered against Libya in 1986, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi's &quot;overt support of terror attacks ceased.&quot; Two years later, Colonel Qaddafi's intelligence agents arranged the bombing of Pan Am 103, the most murderous act of Libyan terror ever, which cost 270 lives.
 Perhaps the most frustrating shortcoming of &quot;America's Splendid Little Wars&quot; is the author's tendency to touch on big themes without developing them. Thus, he limns the growing importance of special operations forces but never details how halting progress has been in putting these exceptionally trained and lavishly equipped warriors in the field. Though billions have been devoted to building up the fabled Army Delta Force, Navy Seals and others, commanders have been averse to employing them - often to the exasperation of their civilian masters.
 In the 1991 war against Iraq, General Norman Schwarzkopf wanted little to do with the &quot;operators,&quot; and almost a decade later the brass in Washington was reluctant to use special forces to capture wanted war criminals in Bosnia. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld aims to change that aspect of the American Way of War, which favors great massed forces often to the exclusion of small, highly mobile contingents. Whether his innovations will outlast his tenure remains to be seen.
 Similarly, Captain Huchthausen observes that &quot;Each military engagement in this history demonstrates the progression of a blend of battlefield hardware, improved communications and command-and-control technologies.&quot; Yet he never addresses head-on how the advent of &quot;stand-off&quot; weapons like cruise missiles, precision-guided munitions or stealth technology have changed the face of battle. 
 While he says his greatest obligation is to those who fought, he tells us little about who they are - those who joined the all-volunteer military and, especially, those who fill the contemporary officer corps, an assemblage of talent and intelligence that may be as impressive as any in our history. The human side of the military transformation of the last three decades is surely the most fascinating part of the story. Too much chronicle and not enough history, &quot;America's Splendid Wars&quot; leaves this subject for another to reconnoiter.
 
 <i>
&quot;America's Splendid Little Wars: A Short History of U.S. Military Engagements: 1975-2000.&quot; By Peter Huchthausen. 254 pages. Viking. $25.95.</i>


TITLE: shiver me timbers! a rollicking good pirate romp
AUTHOR: By Elvis Mitchell
PUBLISHER: New York Times Service
TEXT: The action comedy &quot;Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl&quot; raises one of the most overlooked and important cinematic questions of our time: Can a movie maintain the dramatic integrity of a theme park ride? 
 
In this case the answer is - sure. Director Gore Verbinski's penchant for logistics - combined with the producer Jerry Bruckheimer's desire to spend like a drunken pirate when it comes to putting everything on screen - melts into an often frenetic, colorful and entertaining comic adventure that often seems to be using &quot;Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid&quot; as a template. The dazzling, high-flying silliness is quite an achievement. The movie is better than it deserves to be, given its origins: a ride at Disneyland and Disney World.
 Verbinski's staging is as vertiginous as an amusement park ride, and places the wiry and beauteous tomboy Keira Knightley at the center. Her physical assurance suggests what Nicole Kidman might be like if she didn't spend so much time coughing tragically into handkerchiefs in an equally tragic pursuit of important roles. 
 Knightley is Elizabeth Swann, owner of a medallion that gets the plot going a scant hour into &quot;Pirates.&quot; This trinket is first seen in a prologue sequence, in which little Elizabeth steals it from an equally young Will Turner. She has also stolen (sigh) his heart, as Will (Orlando Bloom) grows up to be a stalwart blacksmith - and more than able swordsman - who nurtures a secret crush on her. Knightley is strident and confident in her movement, an ability that makes her all the sexier and alluring, which is fortunate, given that her acting skills aren't quite as devastating as her looks. 
 The movie belongs to Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow the pirate, a rapscallion who's as woozy as someone who has endured much too much time on a roller coaster. Depp doesn't get the opportunity to display his gift for comedy often, and his mellow, dizzied underplaying here is a balm, an antidote to the raucous battles and swashbuckling. 
 Gargling his consonants before spitting them out, Depp's pirate suggests a man who has spent either a great deal of time with Keith Richards after a tour of the Rebel Yell factory, or a man who has spent a great deal of time watching Mike Myers do his Keith Richards impression. Either way, festooned with dreadlocks and braids in his hair and beard, and wearing enough industrial-strength mascara to indicate that Captain Jack was probably influenced by another King of the Wild Frontier - Adam Ant - Depp offers a ratty, bedeviled turn that keeps the picture in motion during that extended period when there's not much plot involved.
 But when this protracted state of narrative lassitude suddenly shifts, &quot;Pirates&quot; brings in enough story line for several movies. And in the words of Bart Simpson, it takes a knife-wielding maniac to show us the way: in this case it's the entrance of the pirate Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush, who's nearly as game - and gamy - as Depp). 
 He kidnaps Elizabeth because of the medallion. (There's a side benefit. &quot;She's the governor's daughter,&quot; one of Barbossa's hearties cackles.) The medallion turns out to be an enchanted piece of gold that, with the blood of a special someone, can free Barbossa and his swabbies from their curse: they're the larcenous undead whose skeletons can be seen in the moonlight at night. 
 In addition Barbossa now commands the swift, capable ship the Black Pearl, which he seized from Jack Sparrow in a mutiny, after which he left Sparrow to die. Seeking revenge, Sparrow steals a ship and finds a new crew of his own, including Will, to pursue Barbossa.
 There are plenty of salty, fatty moments in &quot;Pirates&quot; among the clearly staged fighting and rum-flavored comedy provided by Depp, Rush and the rest of the cast, including Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth's craven, officious governor father. It's a hip slice of summer ham.
 Verbinski swings his stylistic flourishes, which compel him to turn most interiors into haunted houses for their joke potential, and this notion gives the movie a deliriously antic air. Hilariously, every time the Black Pearl sails into view, an ominous cloud swirls around it, even in beautiful daylight. It's as if Barbossa carries his menacing mystique with him wherever he goes. 
 This is one of the few films that could justify use of a term that should never be used in describing a movie - a thrill ride - since it is, after all, based on one. Verbinski especially uses the scene in which Elizabeth discovers exactly what her captors want, in which she's thrown and shoved as if she were being slammed around on a roller coaster, to remind us of this. 
 There are also several other instances lifted right off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The thorough shamelessness of &quot;Pirates&quot; - a trait it shares with many pictures this summer - becomes part of the motif. And the good-natured professionalism of the cast - with the exception of Bloom, who's stranded by the one-note intensity of his role - adds to the cheerfulness. This broad, fluky comedy hits the groove of a remixed 12-inch single. Eventually it crams in so much plot information that there's an unwieldy surfeit of narrative treasure: it's bootylicious.
 Perhaps this film's success will bring us a &quot;Batman, the Ride: The Movie&quot; or a &quot;Superman, the Ride: The Movie.&quot; After &quot;Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl,&quot; you will believe a man can synergize. But in these days of much concern about movies being stolen for sale in other forms - bags were checked for video cameras before &quot;Pirates&quot; started - another philosophical question comes to mind: If you don't like this film, does that make you anti-piracy?
 
 <i>
&quot;Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl&quot; is currently showing at Barrikada, Crystal Palace, Kolizei, Leningrad and Mirage Cinema. </i>

TITLE: U.S. May Turn to UN for Iraq Assistance
AUTHOR: By Barry Schweid
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is considering ways to bring more allies - including Iraq war opponents France and Germany- into the U.S.-dominated force now securing Iraq. One option is a UN Security Council resolution.
 
Powell was going to New York on Thursday to continue discussions with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.
 Among the foreign ministers contacted by Powell this week were Jack Straw of Britain, Dominique de Villepin of France, Joschka Fischer of Germany and Franco Frattini of Italy.
 A new resolution was one possibility, and Powell discussed that prospect with Annan and the foreign ministers, said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
 Britain already has a substantial presence in Iraq. The United States had until now resisted enlisting France and Germany because of their efforts to delay the war.
 The administration U.S. President George W. Bush has in recent months solicited contributions from other countries and said that other nations' troops would gradually supplement U.S. troops. But foreign governments preferred having a UN resolution in place before sending in troops.
 On Tuesday, a truck bomb exploded at UN headquarters, killing the top UN representative and 19 other Iraqis and UN personnel. At least 131 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major conflict on May 1. Bush says he is committed to ensuring Iraq's transition to democracy and bringing deposed dictator Saddam Hussein to justice.
 The attack on UN headquarters renewed discussions about the possibility of sending a multinational force to help secure Iraq. The idea surfaced last month after France, Germany and India refused a U.S. request to provide troops for the U.S.-led force in Iraq unless there was a UN mandate.
 The possibility of an expanded multinational force appeared unlikely to pick up any new proponents, unless Washington agrees to cede some control of Iraq to the United Nations.
 Annan said Wednesday an international force was &quot;under discussion. But I do not see UN blue helmets going into Iraq at this stage.&quot; He also said he didn't foresee quick action on this contentious issue.
 U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte said &quot;one of the possibilities that is being seriously thought about is the possibility of another Security Council resolution ... but we don't have any specific proposal to put on the table at the moment.&quot;
 However, a council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was making the same proposal it made previously - calling for more troops but without relinquishing any control over the military and security operation in Iraq.
 At the State Department on Wednesday, spokesperson Richard Boucher said soliciting other troops at this point was only a matter of speculation. But, he said, &quot;We are in consultations with other governments about what's the best way to continue this support, facilitate the support of the international community.&quot;
 Earlier Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there were no immediate plans to send additional U.S. troops to Iraq. The fledgling Iraqi security forces, he said, were the best bet for securing the country in the long term.
 Rumsfeld said military commanders in Iraq told his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, that there was no need for more troops.
 &quot;At the moment, the conclusion of the responsible military officials is that the force levels are where they should be,&quot; Rumsfeld told reporters during a visit to Honduras. &quot;The effort should be on developing additional Iraqi capability rather than additional coalition capability.&quot;
 More than 140,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, performing hundreds of daily patrols as well as relief and reconstruction efforts. Their raids have turned up tons of military explosives and thousands of other weapons, captured 36 of the top 55 most wanted Iraqis and killed Saddam Hussein's sons, Udai and Qusay.
 Other countries have sent more than 24,000 troops to Iraq. The American-led civilian administration in Iraq has 954 U.S. government, military and private contractor employees working to restore basic services such as electricity and water and to rebuild Iraq's economy.
 A large part of that effort involves creating Iraqi institutions to replace those that Hussein used to keep himself in power. Coalition forces have hired and trained more than 32,000 Iraqis as police, border guards and security guards. More than 8,000 Iraqi police are on the job in Baghdad. Plans call for 12,000 troops in the new Iraqi army to be trained by the end of the year, augmented by more than 3,500 members of a new Iraqi civil-defense force.

TITLE: New Leader Chosen for Liberia in Peace Talks
AUTHOR: By Kwasi Kpodo
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ACCRA, Ghana - Liberia's rebels and government chose a gentle-mannered Monrovia businessperson seen as neutral Thursday to lead a transition government that aims to guide the country out of 14 years of civil war.
 
The announcement came at the close of 78-days of landmark peace talks with international mediators.
 The chief mediator, retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar, officially announced the selection of Gyude Bryant to oversee the two-year power-sharing accord - and sent warring parties home with a mandate to support it.
 &quot;The first step of unifying the people starts from today,&quot; the mediator declared. &quot;Do not let your people down.&quot;
 Selection of the transitional government's leaders follows Monday's signing of a peace accord, made possible by former president Charles Taylor's Aug. 11 resignation and flight into exile.
 As part of the peace accord, Liberia's rebels and government agreed not to vie for the interim government's top posts themselves.
 Instead, combatants picked the leaders from a list of nominees submitted by political parties and civic groups, in deliberations that ended only before dawn Thursday.
 Bryant, a 54-year-old heavy equipment dealer, was seen as the most neutral of the three final candidates considered for the interim chairpersonship.
 &quot;I have lived there throughout all these problems, and I see myself as a healer,&quot; Bryant, a tall man noted for his calmness, said early Thursday.
 He pledged to work closely with the United Nations and other international agencies in the two-year transition government, meant to lead Liberia into elections.
 Priorities would include demobilizing fighters, many of them boys, or still-young men who grew up with AK-47s. 
 &quot;We have to disarm these young men, and let them know the war is over,&quot; he said.
 Others were restoring order, and restoring basic services such as electricity - knocked out by fighting in 1992, and never repaired.
 Combatants picked Wesley Johnson, also a nominee of political parties, as vice chairperson.
 The interim government is to take power from Taylor's designated successor, former Vice President Moses Blah, in October.
 The transitional government itself is to yield to an elected government in 2005.
 With Thursday's selection, Abubakar officially closed down the Ghana peace talks.
 &quot;Your job is not going to be an easy one,&quot; he said.
 He urged Liberia's people to support the effort. 
 &quot;You have to play your part. Your country has bled for quite some time now. This is the time to heal the wound. We hope never again should such a carnage be visited to your country,&quot; the Nigerian said.
 Abubakar, Blah, and other West African leaders now will go on a tour of Liberia's neighboring countries, including three - Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast - that themselves were embroiled in civil war or threatened with it because of Taylor.

TITLE: Hamas Ends Truce After Israeli Strike
AUTHOR: By Ibrahim Barzak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel killed a senior Hamas political leader in a missile strike Thursday, retaliating for a suicide bombing of a bus in which 20 people died, including six children. The Islamic militant group threatened revenge and formally abandoned a truce declared eight weeks ago.
 
Also, Israeli troops raided the West Bank towns of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem in search of militants. In the West Bank city Hebron, troops blew up the home of the Jerusalem bus bomber, a routine punishment intended as deterrent.
 Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas warned that the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab would make it harder to crack down on militant groups. Under pressure from Washington and Israel, the Palestinian leadership had decided on a clampdown just hours before his death.
 Abu Shanab, who was in his early 50s, was riding with two bodyguards in his white station wagon Thursday in Gaza City when five missiles fired from an Israeli helicopter hit the vehicle. The car burst into flames and the bodies were pulled from the wreckage. Fifteen bystanders were hurt.
 Dozens of Hamas supporters at the scene dunked their fists in blood, raised their hands and vowed revenge, chanting &quot;God is great.&quot;
 Israel has routinely targeted members of Hamas' military wing but rarely gone after the group's political leaders. Abu Shanab, a U.S.-educated professor of engineering, was the third member of Hamas' political wing to be killed in the past two years.
 Abu Shanab was widely regarded as a moderate in the group, and served as a liaison with Abbas during the prime minister's efforts to persuade Hamas to halt attacks.
 Israel says the distinction between political and military leaders is insignificant, because both are involved in planning attacks.
 &quot;There's no question that there is a direct link between the heads of Hamas and the terrorists on the ground,&quot; said Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir.
 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that if the Palestinian Authority &quot;does not take all the necessary steps in the war against terror, real and substantial steps, it will not be possible to advance on the diplomatic track.&quot;
 Hamas and a smaller militant group, Islamic Jihad, formally called off a three-month truce they declared June 29.
 &quot;We consider ourselves no longer bound by this cease-fire,&quot; said a Hamas leader, Ismail Hanieh, after identifying Abu Shanab's decapitated body at a Gaza City morgue.
 Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin said his group vowed revenge.
 &quot;This crosses all red lines,&quot; Yassin said of the missile strike. Addressing the Israelis, he said: &quot;You will pay the price for these crimes.&quot;
 Hamas had carried out two suicide bombings despite the cease-fire, including the Jerusalem bus attack Tuesday that killed 20 people. The group insisted these were limited retaliations for deadly Israeli raids and not violations of the truce.
 Abbas warned the missile strike would hamper the planned crackdown, saying, &quot;This for sure will affect the whole process and the decision taken by the Palestinian Authority.&quot;
 Earlier Thursday, he met with U.S. envoy John Wolf to discuss the authority's next moves.
 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called on Yasser Arafat to make his security forces available to Abbas.
 &quot;End terror, end this violence that just results in further repetition of the cycle that we've seen so often,&quot; Powell said at the United Nations, where he met with Secretary General Kofi Annan. &quot;Those who are determined to blow up the road map must not be allowed to succeed.&quot;

TITLE: Argentina Overturns Amnesty For Human-Rights Abusers
AUTHOR: By Debora Rey
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Argentina's Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to scrap a pair of amnesty laws dating to the 1980s that had ended trials for human rights abuses committed during the country's military dictatorship.
 
Human rights activists and relatives of the disappeared present broke into raucous applause when it was announced that senators had voted 43 to seven with one abstention to scrap the laws. Twenty one lawmakers were absent. The lower House of Congress had passed the proposal last week.
 The final congressional approval marked a victory for human rights groups who are pressing for a national re-examination of the 1976-1983 dictatorship. President Nestor Kirchner, who has given human rights new prominence during his weeks in power, is expected to sign the bill. Observers said, however, that the Supreme Court will likely have the final decision on the laws.
 At issue is the fate of Argentina's &quot;Full Stop&quot; and &quot;Due Obedience&quot; laws, enacted in 1986 and 1987, respectively. Those laws effectively ended human rights trials after the 1976-1983 dictatorship that is blamed for a crackdown on dissidents.
 Some 9,000 people were officially reported as dead or missing during the junta's years in power, but human-rights groups estimated the number could be as high as 30,000 from the seven-year period in which leftist opponents were hunted down, kidnapped off the streets, tortured and made to disappear.
 Following Argentina's dictatorship, many ranking military officers were tried on charges of abduction, torture and execution of suspected opponents of the regime. They were imprisoned in 1985 and later pardoned in 1990 by then-President Carlos Menem. Opponents say the &quot;Full Stop&quot; and &quot;Due Obedience&quot; laws were enacted by a fledgling democratic government bent on appeasing army leaders angry over the trials.

TITLE: A's Rally as Red Sox Have a Night To Forget
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOSTON - Catcher Doug Mirabelli's fielding error in the eighth inning allowed Erubiel Durazo to score the go-ahead run as the Oakland Athletics rallied for the second straight night, beating the Boston Red Sox 8-6 on Wednesday. 
 
&quot;I feel like we stole two games,&quot; Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez said. &quot;These aren't the kind of games we're going to win down the line.&quot; 
 The A's, who scored three runs in the seventh inning in Tuesday's 3-2 win, trailed 6-2 after four innings. They scored four runs off Byung-Hyun Kim in the eighth. 
 On Tuesday, Oakland rallied after starter Mark Mulder had to leave with a hip injury. 
 &quot;Winning games like this can propel a team,&quot; said A's first baseman Scott Hatteberg, who tied the game with an eighth-inning single. &quot;It's a significant comeback. Offensively, we've been struggling a little bit.&quot; 
 Miguel Tejada and Durazo hit solo homers for the Athletics, who won their fourth straight. 
 The A's hit just .237 in their previous 45 games, and own the AL's second-worst team average at .251 - 48 points behind the Red Sox. 
 &quot;I don't know where to start on that game,&quot; Oakland manager Ken Macha said. &quot;We've been down 5-1 and 6-2. Normally, [Tim] Wakefield is tough on us.&quot; 
 Oakland moved two games ahead of the Red Sox in the AL's wild-card chase, and closed within three games behind Seattle in the West. 
 Gabe Kapler and Damian Jackson each drove in a pair of runs for the Red Sox, who have lost nine of 13 games and fallen a season-high 7 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees in the AL East. 
 The Red Sox stranded 17 baserunners during the game.
 &quot;We felt like we had the right people up there at the right time at several points in the game, but we couldn't get more runs across,&quot; Boston manager Grady Little said. 
 The A's had three straight hits off Kim to open the eighth, cutting it to 6-5 on Durazo's RBI single. Scott Hatteberg hit an RBI single to tie it after Ramon Hernandez struck out. 
 With runners on first and third, Mark Ellis then hit a high chopper to third. Bill Mueller's throw got past Mirabelli and Tejada slid home safely to make it 7-6. 
 &quot;I saw the ball the whole time,&quot; Mirabelli said. &quot;That's why I thought it was going to hit him.&quot; 
 Scott Sauerbeck relieved Kim (5-4), who left to a chorus of boos. Chris Singleton's sacrifice fly made it 8-6. 
 Kim gave up four hits and four runs - three earned - while getting just one out. It was his second blown save in 11 chances since moving into the closer's role. 
 &quot;The team knows how important this game was,&quot; Kim said through an interpreter. &quot;I did my best out there. I just didn't have good stuff.&quot; 
 Chad Bradford (7-3) got two outs for the win. Keith Foulke worked the ninth for his 33rd save in 38 chances. 
 
 <strong>
Chicago Cubs 6, Houston 0.</strong> Mark Prior, roughed up earlier this season at Minute Maid Park, took a no-hitter into the sixth inning as the Chicago Cubs moved within a half-game of the Houston Astros in the NL Central with a 6-0 victory Wednesday night. 
 
&quot;I kind of took this outing personal,&quot; Prior said. &quot;I came down here earlier this year and didn't have a good outing. These guys have hit me pretty well in the past and it was time for me to stand up and take control.&quot; 
 Prior (12-5) allowed four hits and struck out nine in seven shutout innings as the Cubs snapped a three-game losing streak. He had a no-hitter until Adam Everett led off the sixth with a double. 
 &quot;We've been hitting the ball really great and I don't think anybody matches up with our pitching staff, so that's a strong point for us,&quot; Prior said. &quot;That's why, hopefully, we'll come out on top.&quot; 
 The win was Prior's fourth straight since coming off the disabled list on Aug. 4 with a bruised right shoulder. He's allowed just two earned runs in 31 innings for a 0.58 ERA, with 29 strikeouts and three walks in those four starts. 
 Kyle Farnsworth pitched the eighth and Joe Borowski the ninth to complete the Cubs' eighth shutout this season. 
 Aramis Ramirez hit a two-run homer in the fourth off knuckleballer Jared Fernandez (1-3), and Randall Simon added a three-run shot in the sixth for the Cubs.

TITLE: U.S. Women Survive for World Gold
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: ANAHEIM, California - The U.S. women were trying to come up with a suitable nickname for their scrappy team when Chellsie Memmel suggested, &quot;The Five Left Standing.&quot; Better yet, &quot;World Champions.&quot; 
 
Between injuries and illness, the Americans ran into so much bad luck in the World Gymnastics Championships it seemed someone must have been sticking pins in a doll somewhere. No way they should have been able to compete for a medal after losing three of their six gymnasts, let alone the gold. 
 Yet there they were at the end of the night Wednesday, five left standing - on top of the podium, gleaming gold medals around their necks and bright smiles on their faces. It was the first team gold ever at worlds for the Americans, men or women. 
 &quot;That was unheard of. You do not go into a meet with eight girls and come out with five,&quot; team captain Tasha Schwikert said. &quot;We pulled together as a team and we said, 'We can do this. There's nothing else that can go wrong.'&quot; 
 And for the first time since they arrived at worlds, something finally went right for the Americans. Strutting their stuff as if they didn't have a care in the world, the U.S. women came through with one clean routine after another. 
 Nobody was more clutch than Memmel, who went from being an emergency alternate to the anchor of the team, hitting 8-for-8 in preliminaries and finals. 
 Holly Vise overcame a spill on the bars with a beautiful balance beam routine, one of three the Americans put on on the toughest event on the floor. In one of the most unique moves in the sport, Vise opened by laying her chin and shoulders down on the 10-centimeter slab, pulling her legs up and over her head, then arching one leg back so her toes rested on her other thigh. 
 The Americans practically had the gold locked up after the balance beam, but the show wasn't over yet. Carly Patterson closed the night with a high-flying, hip-shaking saucy strut that left the crowd of 10,120 and her teammates slapping hands and shouting &quot;U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!&quot; 
 Their competition, meanwhile, fell away one by one. When Russia went slipping and sliding on the floor, so did its medal hopes. China lost a bronze medal on a technical mistake, getting penalized when one of its gymnasts warmed up on the podium before. 
 Australia faltered on beam and floor, dropping to third. Romania, winners of the last five world titles, settled for silver because of problems on the uneven bars. 
 By the time the night was over, the Americans had a spacious 1.74-point edge over the Romanians. 
 &quot;Life is life, and we just have to accept the situation because we made some mistakes,&quot; Romanian coach Octavian Belu said. &quot;I was very impressed with the Americans after so many bad injuries and accidents. The team has such great potential.&quot; 
 The Americans arrived in Anaheim as favorites, bringing their best team since the Magnificent Seven won gold in the Atlanta Olympics. Then the karma soured. 
 First Ashley Postell, reigning world champion on the balance beam, got a bad case of the stomach flu and had to be scratched. Then vault specialist Annia Hatch blew out her knee, leaving the Americans even more vulnerable on what already was their weakest event. 
 On Tuesday, reigning national champion Courtney Kupets tore her Achilles' tendon in practice. 
 &quot;Every day there was an illness, every day an injury came up,&quot; national team coordinator Martha Karolyi said. &quot;You just don't give up. I told the girls, the world is for the toughest.&quot; 
 Also Tuesday, China returned to the world stage with a vengeance by storming to gold in the men's team event.
 A weakened team had finished fifth at the last championships to feature a team format in 2001, but with Olympic champion Li Xiaopeng leading their bid at the Arrowhead Pond, one of the traditional powerhouses of men's gymnastics reclaimed its pre-eminence. 
 The United States, backed by a partisan crowd, secured its second successive silver medal in the team format, but its final points total of 171.121 was eclipsed by China's haul of 171.996. 
 Japan, which did not send a team to the 2001 world championships in Ghent, Belgium, landed a creditable bronze medal with a score of 170.708. 
 &quot;We came over here to challenge and we did a good job,&quot; said China coach Huang Yubin. 
 There was a hint of drama when officials docked four tenths of a point off American Morgan Hamm's original vault score of 9.512 because of confusion over the type of sequence performed. 
 Hamm's attempt - a Kassamatsu with half twist - carried a lower difficulty rating than the one he indicated to judges, and the U.S. accepted the amendment without appeal. 
 &quot;I was too high on the board, and I just didn't have enough speed to finish the last twist [of my intended vault],&quot; said Hamm. 
 In any case, with China's trio of Li, 18-year-old Teng Haibin and Yang Wei in a dominant mood, it had no bearing on the final outcome. 
 Brothers Morgan and Paul Hamm had given the U.S. a strong start on the floor exercise, but Yang's floor routine kept China in the running, before Teng's pommel routine helped it seize the initiative on the second rotation. 
 Blaine Wilson put in an impressive demonstration on the rings for the U.S., which brought him a mark of 9.737. 
 But despite a disappointing return on the rings, China's team went on to top the aggregate scorecards on each of its final three rotations - vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar. 
 They were indebted to Li's 9.762 in succession on the vault and parallel bars - his specialties - and after Teng had rounded off in style with a 9.725 on the horizontal bar, he was carried triumphantly around the arena by coach Huang. 
 Wilson delighted home fans with a 9.787 after a breathtaking display on the horizontal bar, but even the crowd was swept away by China's masterclass, even booing the judges when Teng was harshly marked down on the parallel bars. 
 Japan, in contention for bronze alongside Russia for much of the competition, finished strongly, with Naoya Tsukahara's parallel bars routine rewarded with a deserved 9.800 mark. 
 Russia finished fourth with 168.771 points, with Romania fifth and Korea in sixth place. France finished seventh and Ukraine eighth. 
 Belarus, world men's team champions in 2001, did not qualify for this year's finals after a disastrous qualifying attempt on Sunday.

TITLE: Kuerten Recovers Form, Moves Into Quarterfinals
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: COMMACK, New York - Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil defeated Karol Beck of Slovakia 7-5, 6-3 Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the TD Waterhouse Cup. 
 
Seeded No. 2, Kuerten will face No. 7 seed Younes El Aynaoui, after the Moroccan, who won three ATP titles in five finals last year for his best season ever, moved on when Rik De Voest of South Africa retired because of a groin injury. De Voest was trailing 7-6, 3-0 at the time. 
 Also advancing was American James Blake, who won a career-best 36 matches last year. The 23-year-old Blake upset No. 3 seed Tommy Robredo of Spain 6-3, 6-4. Finland's Jarkko Nieminen beat No. 6 seed Agustin Calleri of Argentina 6-1, 6-4. 
 Kuerten, a three-time winner of the French Open who was No. 1 in the final ATP rankings in 2000, won the International Series in Auckland, New Zealand, in January. Since then, he has gone 14 tournaments without a title and only reached one final - at Indian Wells, California, where he was trounced 6-1, 6-1 by Lleyton Hewitt. 
 &quot;I lost my focus,&quot; the 28-year-old Kuerten said, &quot;and that is something I always maintained when I was going good. Even last year, when it seemed that I was constantly hampered by one injury or another, I played better.&quot;
 &quot;Finally, my competitive spirit has come alive and I'm winning again,&quot; he said.
 In New Haven, Connecticut, after receiving a first-round bye, second seed Jennifer Capriati survived a second-round scare at the $625,000 WTA Tour hardcourt tournament.
 Capriati rallied past 20-year-old Russian yelena Bovina, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal meeting with Anna Pistolesi of Israel. The former Australian and French Open champion has played 14 tournaments this season but is seeking her first title. She was runner-up at Miami and Stanford.
 No. 2 Amelie Mauresmo of France overcame a back strain and beat 18-year-old Swiss qualifier Myriam Casanova 7-5, 6-4, ending Casanova's first appearance at this U.S. Open tune-up.
 Mauresmo has reached the quarter-finals of this event in all four previous appearances but has lost to top seed Lindsay Davenport each of the last two years.
 Davenport was a runner-up to Venus Williams at this event each of the last three years. Williams, the four-time defending champion, skipped this tournament due to an abdominal injury.
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard.)</i>
 <i>(AP, AFP) </i>