SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #898 (66), Tuesday, September 2, 2003
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TITLE: Search Still On For Sub Crew
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Navy vessels plowed the rough and cold waters of the Barents Sea above the sunken K-159 submarine on Monday in what the Northern Fleet described as a "search operation" - despite an admiral's admission that the missing seven crewmembers were probably trapped inside the sub.
 
Four rescue vessels and three warships were involved in the search, Northern Fleet spokesperson Vladimir Navrotsky said on Monday. Navy aircraft also were scouring the shores of nearby Kildin Island, he told Interfax.
 The nuclear-powered Project 627A (NATO code: November) sank some 5.5 kilometers northwest of Kildin, off the Kola Peninsula, on Saturday. The decommissioned sub was being towed from the Gremikha base to a scrapyard in Polyarny when steel cables strapping it to four pontoons snapped in rough waters. The submarine sank at about 2:00 a.m.
 Three of the submarine's crewmembers were later plucked out of the water. Only one of them, Lieutenant Maxim Tsibulsky, survived.
 The remaining seven sailors most probably went down with the mothballed submarine, which is laying at a depth of some 238 meters, Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Viktor Kravchenko told a selected pool of Russian reporters in Moscow on Monday.
 Kravchenko, offering the first explanation as to why a crew had been on board the submarine at all, said they were making sure the submarine's compartments remained waterproof. He said pre-voyage tests at the Gremikha base had indicated that it was waterproof.
 Kravchenko said it remained unclear why the seven missing crewmembers apparently had not abandoned the submarine. The submarine went down with its conning tower open, and Strana.ru reported that Monday that the towing ship had radioed the crew to leave 40 minutes before the sinking. 
 Kravchenko offered assurances that the submarine, which has a displacement of 3,000 tons, posed no serious environmental danger, saying that its reactor was shut down and sealed when it was decommissioned in 1989. 
 He said that the vessel will be retrieved and scrapped, but not earlier than next year and without the assistance of foreign companies. Russian television showed hazy images of the sunken submarine filmed by an underwater robot.
 Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday that the submarine was not being towed in accordance to navy rules but maintained that the 10-member crew was not to blame. Military prosecutors, who are investigating the accident, have asked Ivanov to suspend the commander of the Gremikha base's decommissioned submarines unit, Sergei Zhemchuzhnov, which he did Sunday.
 A retired submarine commander, however, said on Monday that parts of the official explanation about the accident hold little water.
 Igor Kurdin, chairperson of the St. Petersburg Club of Submariners, said that he strongly doubted that the submarine had working ventilators and a generator to run the waterproof tests at the base. He also said that it was odd that a crew would then be needed to watch out for leaks during the towing, since they would have been unable to keep the submarine afloat anyway.
 Kurdin said that an old submarine like the K-159 should have had a mooring crew on deck to monitor how the configuration of the submarines and pontoons fared the voyage, but none inside.
 Kravchenko referred to the K-159 sailors as the "mooring crew," and Kurdin said he was puzzled to hear this. He said he usually had three - never 10 - sailors under his command when he served as a mooring-crew commander for six of his 20 years in the Soviet and then Russian navy. The rescue effort raises questions as well, he said.
 The first rescue helicopter dispatched to the site of the accident had not been informed that there were two submarines being towed by two different ships in the area Saturday. Having spotted one submarine, the helicopter's crew decided that the distress signal had been sent erroneously and aborted the search mission, according to local media reports.
 In addition to apparent human error, the decay of the infrastructure at the Gremikha base might have led to the accident, Kurdin said. Once an operational submarine base, Gremikha was downgraded to a junkyard after the breakup of the Soviet Union, he said.
 In Soviet times, Gremikha had sufficient equipment to unload the fuel, seal the submarine and fill its canisters with a buoyant substance that ensured it could be safely towed to a scrapyard with no crew on board, Kurdin said.
 Apart from Kravchenko's restricted news conference and the Northern Fleet spokesperson's comments to local news agencies, there was little opportunity for reporters on Monday to fill in the holes in the official accounts of the tragedy.
 The rescued sailor is being kept under wraps at a Northern Fleet hospital. His father complained Monday on television that he has not been able to visit his son.
 Calls to the navy's press service in Moscow went unanswered on Monday. Navrotsky could not be reached by phone at the Northern Fleet's headquarters in Severodvinsk. The press service of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office was unavailable for comment.

TITLE: Police Sieze Markova's Newspaper
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: More than 200,000 copies of gubernatorial candidate Vice Governor Anna Markova's campaign newspaper were confiscated at a printing house on Friday.
 
Police in Kirishi, a town in the Leningrad Oblast about 150 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, raided the printing house after Admiral Mikhail Motsak, the deputy presidential representative in the Northwest Region, filed complaints with local authorities requesting that the paper be withdrawn for printing a photograph of him without his permission. 
 A spokesperson for Markova, Vladimir Anikeyev, said that the raid indicated bias in favor of Valentina Matviyenko, the favorite for the top job at Smolny, on the part of the police, and said that the newspaper was within its rights to publish Motsak's photograph.
 "The photo in question was taken from the Internet, from the public domain, and it had already been published," Anikeyev said in a telephone interview on Monday. "Of course, anybody has a right to complain about anything. It is [Motsak's] problem, and not our fault."
 Last Tuesday's edition of the newspaper Delo Chesti ("Matter of Pride") contained a long article about Motsak, alleging that he ordered officers and students at local military academies to vote for Matviyenko, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region, in the Sept. 21 elections for governor. The article was accompanied by a small photograph.
 Motsak filed complaints with the City Election Commission and the Kirishsky District Prosecutor's Office, asking that the newspapers be confiscated for printing the photograph without permission.
 "Delo Chesti published my photograph without my permission," Motsak told reporters on Friday. "According to Russian legislation, I can ask to have it withdrawn from the paper."
 The district prosecutor's office issued a warning to the publisher. District police raided the printing house later on the grounds that it did not possess the fire-fighting equipment that it is required by law to have, and confiscated the copies of the newspaper.
 City Election Committee head Dmitry Krasnyansky said that he was not unduly worried by the case.
 "All the candidates are experienced politicians," Krasnyansky said by telephone on Friday. "They know what they are doing, and they know the law."
 Later editions of the newspaper carried the same article, but with a blank space where the photograph was and the caption "A photo of Mikhail Motsak was here."
 Sociologist Roman Mogilevsky, the head of the Agency for Social Information, said that the Delo Chesti case is unlikely to be the start of a series of electioneering scandals. More likely, he said, Motsak was just trying to please Matviyenko, his boss in the presidential representative's office. 
 "I doubt that [Motsak] is much inclined toward Matviyenko specifically," Mogilevsky said in a telephone interview on Monday.
 "He would probably behave the same way whomever he supported," he said. "It looks like it's just in his blood."
 The protest by Motsak - who is not actually running for governor - is the first of its kind, although many candidates' campaign literature has carried photographs of other candidates. The latest edition of Porno Pravda, a bulletin produced by supporters of Sergei Pryanishnikov, a local pornographic-movie maker, contains photographs of Matviyenko, Markova and Konstantin Sukhenko.
 Leonid Kesselman, a political analyst at the sociology department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that there was no real need for Motsak's actions.
 "[Motsak] felt there was a need for him to show his loyalty," Kesselman said by telephone on Monday, adding that the situation was likely touched off by inconsistencies in federal legislation.
 "It is legal to use photographs from the Internet and other public-domain sources, but people can protest against having their photographs published without their permission," he said. "There are discrepancies in Russian legislation, which is full of holes. Matviyenko's team just used this situation."
 Kesselman warned that excessive zeal on the part of Matviyenko's supporters is likely only to work to her disadvantage.
 "Motsak's protest is so artificial, almost farcial," he said. "You need to remember the system that he represents. When his predecessors did similar things, it was frightening. Now, it is pathetic."
 City Election Commisison head Krasnyansky said he was not discourage to see allegations of dirty tricks.
 "If the elections were all held properly - quiet, calm and boring - who would be interested in them?" he said. "I think that a healthy show coming from certain candidates won't hurt anyone."

TITLE: U.S. Looking To Rein In Internet Love Brokers
AUTHOR: By Greg Walters
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In some respects, the so-called Mail-Order Bride Bill now being considered by the U.S. Congress is as controversial as the multimillion-dollar - and still growing - industry it seeks to regulate. 
 
Drafted in the wake of the death of Anastasia King, an ethnic Russian from Kyrgyzstan murdered in 2000 by her American husband in Seattle, the bill marks the most far-reaching effort to date by any country to impose standards on the international matchmaking industry. Officially called the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act, it would require U.S.-based marriage agencies to provide background information on U.S. men to foreign women before arranging any contact between them. 
 The bill has met with firm resistance from international marriage agencies, which argue that it will do more harm than good.
 "It's such a great idea, but this bill is just wrong," Elena Petrova, the founder and owner of Russian Brides Cyber Guide, said by telephone recently.
 According to Petrova, who met her South African husband through a marriage agency and now lives in Australia, the problem is that the bill makes a background check obligatory before allowing any interpersonal contact. 
 "This procedure will take at least a few days, if not weeks," said said. "Why would somebody wait for weeks?" 
 The time lag and extra cost, Petrova said, would create an incentive for Americans, who make up more than 75 percent of her male clientele, to use matchmaking companies based outside the U.S., while law-abiding U.S. companies would be driven out of business. 
 There are no official statistics on the relationship between internet-brokered marriages and domestic violence in Europe or America. Critics of the mail-order-bride industry say that Anastasia King's muder is an example of how the law would protect women using international marriage agencies in the future.
 Anastasia Solovyova was 18 when she met and married 39-year-old Indle King, Jr., from Seattle, Washington in 1998. Despite a promising start to life in her new home - she was admitted to the University of Washington, where she intended to study law - Anastasia's life turned sour, as documented in a secret diary she kept in a safe-deposit box in a local bank.
 Indle filed for divorce in August 2000, and Anastasia's co-workers reported her missing two months later. On Dec. 28, her body, wrapped in a blanket, was found on a nearby Indian reservation. 
 Anastasia's diary was used in court as evidence of her deteriorating relationship with her husband. According to court documents, it detailed "instances where she was the victim of domestic violence, invasion of privacy and sexual assault." 
 Indle was sentenced to 28 years, 11 months in jail for holding Anastasia down while Daniel K. Larson, the Kings' lodger, strangled her to death.
 Larson received a 20-year jail term.
 The investigation into Anastasia's murder revealed that Indle had divorced another Russian woman, Yekaterina Kazakova, whom he met through a marriage agency. Kazakova's court petition claimed Indle hit her on the head with his fist, threw her against a wall and repeatedly pounded her head against it.
 Kazakova was granted a restraining order. An examination of Indle's email records showed that he had been in contact with a third Russian woman a month before murdering Anastasia.
 Supporters of the Mail-Order Bride bill argue that, had it been in place earlier, Anastasia might still be alive today.
 "Cases like Anastasia King have given the mail-order bride business a bad name," Representative Rick Larsen, one of the bill's sponsors, told the Associated Press. "I would think they would support any steps to ensure they're looked at more favorably."
 Critics of the bill, however, maintain that it will not prevent similar abuses in the future.
 One St. Petersburg agency, A Foreign Affair, has organized a petition against the bill. The U.S.-based company, which operates here and in Kiev, says the petition has been signed by over 1,000 of the women the bill is designed to protect.
 "I agree that it is a good idea to inform women of their rights regarding spousal abuse," the petition reads. "I do not agree that it should be mandatory for me to sign an authorization form for each and every man who wishes to obtain my contact information via the agency."
 "I gave my contact information to the agency in order to communicate with many different men, most of whom I will not be interested in and will not pursue any type of relationship with," it says. "I believe it will be a waste of my time and the agency's time, as well as make the entire process difficult for all concerned."
 Although no reliable statistics on the St. Petersburg marriage-brokering industry are available, business appears to be booming.
 "The most popular question we get here is, 'How do I marry a Russian?'" said Margaret Pride, head of the consular section at the U.S. Consulate. "If a day goes by and we don't get a question about marriage visas, I have to assume my phone line is dead."
 According to a report drafted for the U.S. Congress by the country's Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1999, approximately 200 companies worldwide specialize in introducing mainly Western men to women from the former Soviet Union, Latin America and Southeast Asia. It said that between 4,000 and 6,000 women move to the U.S. every year after meeting a husband.
 However, according to Petrova of Russian Brides Cyber Guide, the study is already outdated.
 "I would say [there are] about 1,000 companies in U.S., and probably 10,000 to 20,000 local companies in the former Soviet Union," she said, adding that the mail-order-bride business is popular in part because it is "very low cost to start."
 Yelena Kostennikova, a 32-year old St. Petersburg resident who has placed a profile with A Foreign Affair, said that she has not yet signed the local agency's petition, but intends to.
 "If I meet a man on the street or in a bar, I won't know anything about his criminal record," she said in a recent interview. "It would be impolite to ask."
 Asked why she wanted to meet a foreign man, she replied, "Russian men have forgotten how to take responsibility. Not in the material sense, but in the sense of taking care of others, of tenderness and mutual understanding."

TITLE: Sociologists: Matviyenko Ahead in Governor Race
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg sociologists said Monday that Valentina Matviyenko still has a substantial lead in the race for city governor, followed by Anna Markova, Mikhail Amosov and the option of voting against all candidates.
 
According to the latest research from the St. Petersburg State University Sociological Monitoring Center, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region would have garnered 25.6 percent of the vote had the election taken place last weekend.
 "Markova would get 4.4 percent, while Amosov would take 1.6 percent," the center's director, Svetlana Snopova, said at a press conference on Monday.
 The St. Petersburg Transit analytical center said that, between Aug. 22 and Aug. 29, Matviyenko was also leading "the federal and local information fields," meaning that her name was mentioned most often in the media.
 The center said that Matviyenko took 31 percent of the federal and 36.4 percent of the St. Petersburg information field. Vice Governor Markova followed, with 17 percent of the federal field and 13 percent of the local field. Amosov, the leader of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, took third place, with 11 percent of the federal field, while local pornographic-movie maker Sergei Pryanishnikov got 8.6 percent.
 Social-science professor Dmitry Gavra said that the current campaign for the post of governor of St. Petersburg is developing into a "cruiser"-type campaign. Campaigns of this type have one definite leader and a number of other candidates with noticeably smaller ratings following.
 However, most sociologists noted on Monday that research carried out in summer is likely to have been flawed, as many potential voters are on vacation.
 "The most active period of the campaign is just starting," said Roman Mogilevsky, the head of the St. Petersburg Sociological Research Center.
 According to Mogilevsky, the center's data showed that Matviyenko's rating has been rising and falling spasmodically since March, although still showing a net leap from 23 percent in March to 42 percent on Aug. 23 and Aug. 24.
 "According to our observations, the peaks of Matvienko's popularity were connected to events of a federal scale - such as St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations or meetings with President Vladimir Putinin - in which she participated," Mogilevsky said.
 The center's research also showed that 73.5 percent of those questioned thought that Matviyenko would win - even if they were not planning to vote for her themselves.
 "We also noted this psychological factor, which is linked to the human phenomenon of joining the majority," Mogilevsky said. Both Markova and Amosov polled under 1 percent.
 Mogilevsky said that sociologists' ratings are not the same as forecasts, as ratings are only a part of forecasts.
 "Our forecast for the results of the elections suggests that Matviyenko will gather 55 percent of votes, Markova will get 19 percent, 16 percent will vote against all [candidates], and Amosov will take 6 percent of the votes," he said. 
 Gavra added that one of the biggest questions surrounding the campaign is whether enough people will vote on Sept. 21 to avoid a second round of voting.

TITLE: Putin Keeps Navy's Flag Flying in Italy
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LA MADDALENA, Sardinia - Hours after a deadly nuclear submarine accident in the Barents Sea on Saturday, President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi toured one of the Russian Navy's flagships anchored off Sardinia during their three-day meeting on the Mediterranean island. 
 
Putin and Berlusconi toured the missile cruiser Moskva, the 186-meter flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, meeting with the commander and crew of the warship, which was anchored near La Maddalena naval base on a tiny island off Sardinia's northeast coast. 
 The tour had been scheduled before word came from the Russian Defense Ministry that a nuclear-powered K-159 submarine sank in a gale.
 At a news conference back on shore, Berlusconi said Putin had been at his side when he learned of the disaster. He offered condolences on behalf of Italy and its people. 
 In a demonstration flight for the two leaders during their tour of the Moskva, a bulky gray-bottomed Russian firefighting plane screamed over the sea and dropped clouds of flame retardant. Putin told the news conference the Be-200 craft "has no equal," and Berlusconi said Italian civil defense authorities would consider using it. 
 Putin insisted the warship's presence was not intended as a show of force or a security measure, saying its visit to the area happened to coincide with his own.
 "I did not bring the Moskva here. Thank God, our cruisers can still go on their own, our planes and missiles can fly," he said. 
 The Moskva was in the Indian Ocean this spring for joint exercises with India that marked Russia's biggest naval deployment since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Originally called the Slava, the cruiser was launched in 1979 and was the planned site of talks during a 1989 summit off Malta between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George Bush, although that meeting was moved to another ship because of bad weather. It underwent repairs from 1990 to 1999. 
 Putin said the ship's presence during his visit was a sign that "the level of trust between Russia and the NATO countries is rising. 
 "I think this is very important ... and we will continue further on this path," Putin told a joint news conference at the La Maddalena naval base. 
 Berlusconi agreed, noting that La Maddalena also is the site of a U.S. naval base. But he also said that military cooperation with Russia can give Europe more influence in the world and the might to act as a counterbalance to the United States. 
 Berlusconi was on hand when Putin's plane touched down Friday afternoon, and he briefly saluted the Russian leader as he emerged. The two shook hands and hugged on the tarmac before boarding a helicopter bound for Berlusconi's villa on Sardinia's posh Costa Smeralda.
 Speaking after a three-hour meeting at the villa, Berlusconi offered strong support for Putin in his desire for closer ties with Europe and called for the eventual removal of all visa requirements between Russia and the EU. As a start, Putin and Berlusconi said they were working on making travel between their countries easier, focusing at first on groups such as students, scientists and businesspeople. 
 With his sleeves rolled up and his collar open in the Mediterranean heat, Berlusconi also gushed with praise for Putin, saying his leadership is turning Russia into a democratic and economically advanced Western country. 
 "After the last century witnessed the confrontations between the West and the East, today the East is declaring its desire to be part of the West, part of Europe," Berlusconi said at a news conference. "And this is also thanks to President Putin."
 During a playful moment at the news conference, Berlusconi leaned his elbow against Putin's lectern and made a show of listening intently to one of his answers. 
 Putin's two teenage daughters spent some time at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa last summer, but Putin stepped off the presidential Il-96 jet alone Friday, despite Russian and Italian media reports that his wife and daughters would accompany him. A Kremlin official said they remained in Moscow.
 Putin wound up his visit Sunday with private activities at Berlusconi's villa.

TITLE: Gusinsky Freed on Bail, Russia Continues Extradition Bid
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - An Athens court freed Vladimir Gusinsky on bail on Friday, as Russian prosecutors continued to draft a request to extradite him to Moscow to face multimillion-dollar fraud charges.
 
Casually dressed in blue jeans and a bright blue T-shirt, a smiling Gusinsky made no comment as he walked out of the maximum-security Korydallos prison with his lawyers and headed for a luxury hotel. 
 "Mr. Gusinsky was ordered to be released on a 100,000 euro ($108,200) bail," his Greek lawyer Alexandros Likourezos said, according to Reuters. "He will stay in an Athens hotel and is not allowed to leave the country." 
 A council of three appellate judges accepted an argument from Gusinsky's lawyers that the former media magnate was not a flight risk and could not look after his business interests from prison.
 Gusinksy, 51, was arrested at the Athens international airport on Aug. 21 after arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv, reportedly for a family vacation. He had been jailed in the hospital wing of Korydallos since Aug. 25.
 Gusinsky was to have checked into the five-star Athenaeum InterContinental, but the hotel switchboard maintained Friday and Sunday that he was not staying there. 
 Russian prosecutors, meanwhile, said they soon will send Greece a formal extradition request within a week and a half.
 "If they release him, they release him. But they will not release the Prosecutor General's Office of the responsibility of trying to extradite him," Prosecutor General's Office representative Alexander Zhumaty said in Saturday's issue of Kommersant.
 Reached by telephone on Friday, Zhumaty said the extradition request still needs to be drawn up and translated into Greek.
 He also said prosecutors have yet to decide whether to send investigators involved in the Gusinsky case to Greece.
 Asked about a Russian-Greek agreement that gives either country 30 days from the day a suspect is detained to request his extradition, Zhumaty replied, "All I can say that we will meet the deadline set by the agreement." 
 Gusinsky was detained when passport officials found his name in their computers and contacted Russian law enforcers, who said he was wanted in Russia.
 The Prosecutor General's Office charged Gusinsky in 2000 with defrauding state-controlled Gazprom of a $250 million loan intended for his Media-MOST empire, which at the time included NTV television, Ekho Moskvy radio and other media outlets. Prosecutors then charged him in 2001 with laundering $97 million.
 Gusinsky and his supporters have denounced the charges as a politically motivated attack aimed to muzzle his media's critical reports of the government and the war in Chechnya.
 While the charges may have been prompted by a Kremlin attempt to gain control of Gusinsky's debt-ridden empire, the current effort to have him extradited is more of an inertia, said Alexei Makarkin, analyst with the Center for Political Technologies. 
 Having given up most of his media assets in Russia, Gusinsky no longer poses any serious threat to the Kremlin. But prosecutors simply have no choice but to continue pressing ahead with his case, Makarkin said, pointing out that if they had declined to seek extradition, embarrassing questions would arise about why the charges were filed in the first place. 
 "Of the two evils, they have chosen the lesser one," Makarkin said. 
 Thus, he said, prosecutors will continue to seek extradition even though their chances appear bleak, given that a Spanish court rejected a similar request in 2001 and that Interpol has refused to issue an international warrant, saying the case is politically motivated.

TITLE: If Your Mail Smells, The Stamps Are New
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia joined the list of countries that have issued stamps that smell with the "Gifts of Nature" series released last week. The circular stamps - fearuing strawberries, a pear, a melon, two apples and a pineapple - can be bought for 5 rubles each at most post offices nationwide.
 
Special scented gum on the reverse side provides the scent on the 630,000 stamps released. For collectors, the stamps aren't of particular importance except for the first-day covers postmarked Wednesday, the day the stamps were issued.
 But even if in the philatelist's world they may not be as exciting as the jasmine-tea-scented stamps from Norfolk Island, the stamps are a first for Russia and post offices on Wednesday sold more than 20,000 - about 20 percent more than on normal issue days, post officials said Thursday.
 But the stamps will be worth nothing, at least in the nearest future, stamp collectors said.
 "New issues are aimed at the younger collector," said Trevor Pateman, a British philatelist who specializes in Russian and Eastern European stamps. 
 Stamp shops often buy these kind of new issues back from collectors at 70 percent to 80 percent of their face value and then use them for their own ordinary post, he said.
 Marka, the company that has been printing Russian stamps since the country issued the first 10-kopek stamp in 1858, is pleased as punch with the scents.
 "Nobody's done fruit before," Marka Deputy Director Vadim Bekhterev said. "It's harvest time. It seems right."
 The stamps do smell fairly similar to the fruit they portray, although if sniffed in a row they begin to smell much alike - something between fruit-flavored chewing gum and soap. Licking them, however, only induces the familiar flavor known as the back of the stamp.
 Other countries have arguably produced more imaginative scents. The most well-known is the Swiss stamp produced for the 100th anniversary of the Swiss Association of Chocolate Manufacturers in 2001, which both looks and smells like chocolate. Britain issued a stamp smelling of eucalyptus in 1996 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine.
 In 1999, Brazil opted for the smell of burnt wood on their stamps to raise awareness for forest-fire prevention.

TITLE: Familiar Neighborhood Hit By Bomb
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two businesspeople were seriously injured when a bomb exploded on the first floor of an apartment building at 76 Nab. Kanala Griboyedova on Monday afternoon.
 
The bomb, which allegedly contained 400 grams of TNT, went off at about 2:25 p.m., the St. Petersburg department of the Emergency Situations Ministry said. It exploded when Bogatyr Kaparov, general director of the Krasnoye Znamya factory, was opening the code-locked door of the building, where he lives.
 According to the news Web site Fontanka.ru, the second man, Roman Yavorsky, the general director of Spetsobsluzhivaniye, was an accidental victim, having come out of the building a few minutes before to have a smoke.
 The Web site also said that investigators on Monday had not ruled out the possibility of an attempt on Kaparov's life.
 If so, it was not the first murder attempt aimed at the management of the Krasnoye Znamya factory. The factory's former director, Tatyana Burlakova, recently survived an assassination attempt.
 In April 1996, Pavel Sharlayev, a deputy director of the factory, was seriously injured after being shot several times. He died later in the hospital.
 Krasnoye Znamya was for some time part of the Kvarton concern, which has also seen its directors under attack.
 In April 2000, Kvarton General Director Gennady Ivanov was shot to death. In October that year, Ivanov's successor, Nikolai Yarulov, was found hanged in his office, although it was thought that he committed suicide, rather than being killed, as a note was found by his body.
 Krasnoye Znamya and Kvarton were locked in legal battles at the beginning of 2003 over financial disagreements.
 The area of Kanal Griboyedova where the bomb exploded Monday has something of a dim reputation. Several contract killings have been carried out in the area, including the muder in 1998 of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova.

TITLE: Tender Announced To Run TETS Plant
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Unified Energy Systems (UES) announced on Friday that it will hold a tender open to international utilities firms to chose a firm to manage one of its more modern installations, the Northwest Combined Heat and Power Plant (TETS), located in Olgino, a suburb to the west of the city.
 
The national power monopoly said that the managing company would be charged with overseeing an influx in investment total investment of $227 that UES says is needed to improve efficiency and production at the facility, which already supplies power to parts of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, as well as exporting electricity to Finland.
 According to the rules of the tender, which were set by UES' board of directors on Friday, the winner will be required to set up a Russian subsidiary or a joint venture in which foreign participation will be no less than 50 percent.
 "The international utility company must secure funds to complete the construction of a second 450 megawatt combined-cycle gas turbine and a heating-distribution network and improve efficiency at the plant in preparation for the higher level of competition that will be introduced gradually in the Russian energy sector in the near future," the company's statement said.
 The basic qualifications set out in the tender are that international utilities companies taking part must have annual revenues of no less than $10 billion, an investment rating of BBB- and higher according to either the S&P or Fitch ratings agencies, or BAA3 as defined by Moody's, experience in working in at least three other countries and a background in operating generators with capacities of no less than 10,000 megawatts.
 Business daily Vedomosti quoted UES specialists as saying that there are currently only 12 companies in the world (AEP, Duke Energy, E.ON, EdF, Endesa, Enel Produzione, Fortum, RWE, Tokyo Electric Power, Tractebel, TXU and Vattenfall) that meet all of the tender's requirements.
 UES said that applications will be accepted over the next four months and that a final decision will be made in December. the utility said that a contract would likely be signed by January.
 Northwest TETS is 47-percent owned by UES, while another 14 percent of the shares in the plant are owned by local power utility Lenenergo, which is also partly owned by UES. The first generator at the plant was put into service in December 2000, and another three are planned, each with a capacity of 450 megawatts. According to UES, the company invested $617 million in the station between 1993 and 2001.
 Jumping the gun by a day, Lenenergo General Director Andrei Likhachyov said at a press conference on Thursday that the local utility was exploring options to form a joint venture with a foreign company in order to take part in the tender

TITLE: Television Station Gets New Shareholder
AUTHOR: By Anna Shcherbakova, Gleb Krampeets and Anfisa Voronina
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Eurofinance bank has moved into the St. Petersburg television market, purchasing a 23.34-percent stake in local media outlet Petersburg Television.
 
At an auction for the stake that was held by the Leningrad Oblast Property Committee on Friday, the Eurofinance Group, a subsidiary of the bank by the same name bought the stake for 65 million rubles ($1.98 million) - 2 million rubles higher than the starting price. The other bidder for the stake was Politeks, a company that is listed in the city directory at the same address as the St. Petersburg office of Eurofinance.
 Eurofinance Vice President Andrei Galiyev said that the decision behind the purchase of the minority stake in Petersburg Television was based on the banks interest in becoming involved in the local market. He also said that the bank was also interested in acquiring interests in the media sector in other regions.
 Galiyev said that it was possible that the bank would later try to increase its presence on the St. Petersburg media market, including in the size of its stake in TRK Petersburg. Acting Governor Alexander Beglov said that the city had not received an offer from the bank to buy any additional shares in the station and that the city presently has no plans to sell any of its shares.
 But Eurofinance would be able to raise its stake in Petersburg Television without any help from shares purchased from the city. In June, Eurofinance completed an agreement with Baltinvestbank (formerly Balt-Uneximbank) on an option arrangement by which a controlling share in the latter could be transferred to Evrofinance by the end of this year.
 One source close to the deal estimates the chance that Eurofinance will exercise the option at about 80 percent. The addition of the stocks in Petersburg television currently held by Baltinvestbank would put Eurofinance's interest over the 25-percent barrier.
 The arrival of the new shareholder has hopes high at Petersburg Television. According to Igor Ignatiyev, the general director of the television company, the channel hopes that the purchase of the minority share will ultimately bring an infusion of between $2 million and $3 million, the figure that he says is necessary to maintain the quality of the station's programming, and to be able to compete with countrywide networks.
 But Eurofinance's Galiyev says that " an accurate assessment of the investment neccesary at the channel will take some time."
 According to officials at Gazprom Media, a 49-percent stake in which Eurofinance bought last year, the investment in the St. Petersburg media market is unrelated.
 "There's no problem with conflict of interests in relation to this deal," the general director of Gazprom-Media, Alexander Dybal, said. "So we can only applaud Eurofinance for finding a promising niche for its investment."
 A source close to the presidential representatives office in the Northwest Region, however, said that there was little doubt that the deal was aimed at strengthening the positions of NTV and Gazprom-Media in St. Petersburg.
 Roman Mogilevsky, the director of research at the Agency for Social Information, says that Eurofinance's purchase of the stake in Petersburg Television is connected with a shift in the political landscape in St. Petersburg and says that he hopes that the deal will help what was once a very popular television station to overcome it smore recent image as merely a regional outlet that is devoted solely to serving the interests of the St. Petersburg City Administration.

TITLE: Power-Plant Dam Threatens Railway
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In order to expand the Bureya hydroelectric power station, which came on line this June, the federal government must relocate some 50 kilometers of Trans-Siberian rail line - a 4 billion ruble ($131 million) task.
 Although the sum pales next to the massive capital poured into the Amur-region project, the government so far has been unable to cough up the funds.
 In order to stick to plans for the power plant to be fully operational by 2007, "construction [of the new tracks] should have started last year," said Tatyana Milyayeva, spokesperson for Unified Energy Systems, the electricity monopoly that holds a 70 percent stake in the plant.
 "We are now pushing for the government to set aside funds in the next year's budget to start construction."
 Bureya power station General Director Yury Gorbenko said that reservoir water will encroach on the Trans-Siberian rail lines only after the fourth or fifth units go into operation around 2005.
 During a visit to the Far East on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev was quoted by Prime-Tass as urging local officials to expedite the preparations for the flooding that will take place as the Bureya River is increasingly harnessed.
 The plant is expected to reach its full 2,000 megawatt capacity in four years, after the remaining five of the six units are brought on line incrementally, producing about 7.1 billion kilowatt hours of power per year. At that point, after more than two decades of construction, it will have cost the state budget an estimated $800 million, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. UES chief Anatoly Chubais in June put the total cost to the country higher, at $1.2 billion to date.
 "We support the Railroads Ministry in its push to start construction of new railroad routes as soon as possible," Milyayeva said.
 Six hundred people have been relocated from two settlements flooded when the first block became operational on June 30, Milyayeva said.
 Some ecology expert groups estimate that local residents should get $6,500 of compensation per hectare of flooded territory, which would amount to a total compensation package of over $400 million. The dam will flood 641 square kilometers, according to UES figures.

TITLE: Business News Set To Go Around the Clock
AUTHOR: By Denis Maternovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - RBC-TV, the country's first 24-hour business-news channel, is set to go on air Sept. 2, after signing cooperation agreements with CNN International and CNBC Europe.
 
The channel is to be "equal to leading Western news and analytical TV channels and adapted for the Russian audience," the company said in a statement.
 RosBusinessConsulting, a Russian business-information agency founded a decade ago, has secured $23 million for the project; $17 million from the agency itself and the remaining $6 million through a private-debt placement with Western investors.
 RBC said Monday that it expects the project to break even in two years.
 Its partnership agreements with London-based CNN International and CNBC Europe were not mentioned at the preliminary launch in May, although CNBC employees had been brought in to help train the new staff.
 The agreements allow RBC-TV to broadcast some of their content, and vice versa.
 CNN will provide general world news coverage in exchange for the rights to use RBC-TV's reporting. CNBC, meanwhile, signed a two-year agreement with RBC to allow the network to translate and use its daily market reports from Europe, Asia and the United States.
 "We can't send as many reporters to Iraq as CNN," RBC chairperson German Kaplun said Monday by telephone. "But we wouldn't want to anyway. We are not planning to compete with Russia's countrywide TV channels."
 Chris Cramer, the president of CNN International, said in a statement that the RBC agreement was "an important step for CNN in ensuring we work with the right broadcasters in this rapidly developing market."
 CNBC Europe's partnership with RBC comes as part of its strategy to develop local-language affiliates, having established similar agreements in Italy, Turkey and the Middle East, the company said in a separate statement.
 Despite RBC's high-profile partners, no more than 10 percent to 15 percent of daily coverage will come from CNN or CNBC, Kaplun told The St. Petersburg Times, adding that "we are first and foremost interested in local business news and trends."
 RBC-TV will broadcast in Russian only, said Yury Rovensky, the general director of RosBusinessConsulting, adding that there are no plans to launch an English-language service.
 For live coverage retransmitted from CNN or CNBC with a short delay, the channel will use Russian subtitles or voiceover, but pre-recorded programs will be dubbed.
 Rovensky said that RBC is prepared to tape special reports in English if requested by one of its partners.
 RBC-TV has a staff of 500 people, including more than 40 analysts from leading banks and financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank and Uneximbank.
 The channel will be broadcast to viewers in St. Petersburg and Moscow via satellite providers NTV Plus and Kosmos TV, cable networks Comcor TV and Divo TV, as well as via Internet provider Tochka.ru.
 The channel will initially be available to 2 million viewers, but is hoping to expand its audience to 7 million to 8 million in its first two years. The Comcon ratings agency estimates RBC-TV's potential audience at between 12 million and 14 million people.
 A pilot version of the channel has been up and running for a small selection of subscribers since late June. NTV Plus subscribers have seen RBC's logo on their list of available channels, though the broadcasts in reality were only accessible by technicians for testing.

TITLE: Deputy Backs Off Norilsk Complaint
AUTHOR: By Francesca Mereu and Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Staff Writers A State Duma deputy from Yabloko briefly put his party in the unlikely position of pushing for the revision of privatization results last week by filing a formal request to the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate the privatization of Norilsk Nickel, a core enterprise of Vladimir Potanin's Interros empire.
 
In a letter filed Thursday, Alexei Melnikov requested that a criminal investigation be reopened against Alfred Kokh, the head of the State Property Committee when Norilsk Nickel was privatized in 1995 and currently the campaign manager for the Union of Right Forces, a party that competes with Yabloko for the support of liberally minded voters.
 Even though Melnikov withdrew his request on Friday - the same day it made the front page of the Vedomosti business daily - observers and party colleagues were left wondering what prompted the attack.
 Melnikov has been one of the fiercest defenders of key Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev, who was arrested in July over an old privatization case. Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, seen as the real target of the case against Lebedev, has funded Yabloko.
 Melnikov explained his action by saying that he was responding to Kokh's declaration in early August that, as head of the campaign for the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, he planned a determined effort to try to steal votes from Yabloko.
 "It was my personal initiative. I did it without a previous agreement with the Yabloko leadership," Melnikov said Friday in an interview.
 Melnikov said he withdrew his request after "friends" called and persuaded him that the initiative would have been understood as Yabloko's support for revisiting the privatizations, he said.
 "Just now before the elections I don't want to ruin my party's reputation," Melnikov said. He did not elaborate on who the "friends" were.
 A Yabloko official, who asked not to be named, blamed the incident on Melnikov's tendency to take everything to heart. He is a "sensitive person" and was trying to do what is best for the party, the official said.
 Yabloko leader Gregory Yavlinsky's spokesperson, Yevgenia Dillendorf, said the party learned about Melnikov's initiative from Vedomosti on Friday.
 A 38-percent stake in Norilsk Nickel ended up in the hands of Uneximbank in a loans-for-shares auction in 1995 for $170 million - $140 million short of the state's asking price. The privatization was completed in 1997. The enterprise, in which Interros owns 63 percent, currently has a capitalization of $8.1 billion and in 2002 its profit was $584 million.
 Details of the Norilsk Nickel privatization, including Kokh's role, had already been scrutinized by prosecutors. In November 1999, the Moscow prosecutor's office opened a criminal case claiming that Kokh had exceeded his authority and caused losses to the state in the privatization of the plant. But the case was later closed in an amnesty.
 Further attempts to dispute the Norilsk Nickel privatization were also made by the Federal Audit Chamber, the State Duma's budgetary watchdog. Finally in 2000, a deputy prosecutor general sent a letter to Potanin giving him the choice of coming up with the $140 million or facing charges. Interros paid the money.

TITLE: Capitalists Are Cashing In on Sovier-Era Poster Art
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW -Thanks to the Kontakt-Kultura publishing house, Russians are once again hanging Soviet propaganda on their walls.
 
But neither political indoctrination nor profit is the goal of the small, family business, which has spent the past six years rummaging through state libraries and archives, digging out the best examples of Soviet and pre-Revolutionary poster art and digitally restoring and republishing them in all their original kitschy glory.
 "Our plan is to publish while we're still alive, while we still have access to the libraries, while we still remember the material," said Alexander Shklyaruk, Kontakt-Kultura's publisher and a veteran of the art world.
 "We want to publish all of this material, and then the next generation can do what they like with it," he said.
 Shklyaruk and his two partners - Alexander Snopkov, a retired permafrost lecturer who founded the company in 1988, and Snopkov's son, Pavel - run the business from the basement of a red brick, pre-Revolutionary courthouse in Moscow.
 The elder Snopkov, a collector of first-edition books and posters, founded the Kontakt-Kultura cooperative in 1988 to organize auctions, exhibitions and the occasional publishing projects. But it was more than a decade later, in 1999, that the company began to focus on poster reprints.
 The decision was partly inspired by the success of a batch of reprints of Grigory Shagal's 1931 poster "Down with kitchen slavery!" in which a liberated housewife throws open a door onto the bright new world of socialism while her colleague, still washing clothes in the foreground, looks on. The posters were released around March 8, International Women's Day, in 1997 and sold out quickly.
 While Shklyaruk and the Snopkovs poster project began on a "giant, Soviet scale" with a number of weighty poster collections published with the Russian State Library, it is their themed sets and their postcards, retailing at about 300 rubles ($10) and 10 rubles ($0.30), respectively, that have brought Soviet poster art back into fashion.
 "This undoubtedly attracted the youth to us," Shklyaruk said. Sales have grown consistently since the launch of the poster line in 2000. In the first six months of this year, the company sold more than a quarter-million posters and postcards.
 From Bolsheviks bayoneting portly landowners to stylish advertisements for Astrakhan caviar and critical perestroika-era posters, the Snopkovs and Shklyaruk have unearthed and published in total roughly 1,500 posters of the half-million gathering dust in the country's archives.
 "People asked me if we'd bought Panorama," Shklyaruk joked, referring to the state publishing house that carried out the Central Committee's propaganda orders. Panorama ceased production in the early 1990s, when funding dried up.
 According to Snopkov, the eternal themes of vigilance and drinking are consistently popular. One of the latest collections "Vice, get out!" is a best seller.
 "A one-night stand may flash like lightning," warns one poster under a picture of a wilting pink rose, "but tomorrow, perhaps, there will be illness and hospital."
 Another recommends that citizens abstain from drinking methylated spirits, since "it is sufficient to drink a small glass to go blind or even die."
 Many of the labor-themed posters find their way onto office walls and filing cabinets. 
 "Work is boring," explained Snopkov. "It's all about computers and money. But these posters definitely have a positive psychological effect."
 Snopkov added that <i>siloviki</i>, or those who work for the government's defense and security agencies, are particularly fond of the Cold War posters that warn incautious citizens against engaging in careless talk with shady, monocle-wearing types.
 But to think that the artists went about their work completely poker-faced would be wrong. They were aware of the limitations of their medium and tried to liven things up with in-jokes, painting their family and friends into the posters.
 &quot;This is what gives them their humanity,&quot; Shklyaruk said.
 In one famous Cold-War work of 1954, the artist Viktor Koretsky painted fellow poster artist Nikolai Dolgorukov as the citizen engaging in careless talk.
 As well as provoking an ironic chuckle at a rose-tinted vision of a world, where hearty workers beckon from the wheat fields and factories and peasant women pore over the works of John Reed in their spare time, Snopkov firmly believes that the posters play an educational role as well.
 &quot;We've never had a very good understanding of our own history, especially now and especially young people,&quot; he said sitting under a picture from the 1960s in which a rosy-faced cook humbly accepts the applause of a table of restaurant guests. &quot;Earn praise!&quot; the poster advises.
 &quot;If someone thinks to have a look at the date when the poster was made, then this is already making them think about what was happening at the time.&quot;
 Very few of the artists are alive today. The generation of poster artists died out in the 1960s and 1970s. Kontakt-Kultura pays between 18 percent and and 20 percent in royalties to their descendants or to the Russian Authors Association.
 While Kontakt-Kultura's profits are sufficient to allow them to continue publishing and producing their mainstream poster and postcard sets, the proceeds do not stretch to financing their own, larger publishing projects, for which outside help is required.
 The company has worked on a number of projects with Moscow City Hall's publishing committee and has published a weighty volume of 300 film posters with the Academy of Cinema. And UES chief Anatoly Chubais placed an order for a set of electrical energy-themed posters to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the company.
 Though the posters are a huge hit with tourists, Snopkov said that he has no plans to export. 
 &quot;Occasionally we hear about our posters being sold in London, New York or Paris, but for now our priority is Russia,&quot; he said. &quot;There's a Japanese Web site selling our posters, but we didn't set it up.&quot;
 And there's work enough in Russia. The generation of archivists and curators in museums and libraries that know the material first-hand are dying out. &quot;In literally five years' time, this will all be much harder. A new generation will come along that knows nothing and this information will be lost. So we are rushing. We use every opportunity.&quot;

TITLE: A Risky Month for U.S. Markets
AUTHOR: By Amy Baldwin
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - On Wall Street, September is sometimes seen as a curse, historically the worst month.
 
As the market enters this September, it has higher prices and upward momentum going for it. But, unfortunately, those gains could also work against the market over the next month - if U.S. economic or earnings data disappoints in the least, investors could rush to lock in profits.
 &quot;People are becoming a little bit wary, because the market has had a decent run going into a seasonally slow time .... If there is any type of crack in the market, I think people will react to it,&quot; said Brian Belski, fundamental-market strategist at US Bancorp Piper Jaffray.
 September is traditionally tough for the U.S. market for a variety of reasons. Companies often reduce spending as the end of the year approaches and they realize that much of their budgets have been used up.
 Individual investors often take the time to assess where their portfolios stand for the year and decide to pull back on stocks, thinking the market has already hit its high for the year.
 This year, Wall Street goes into September already having had a stunning advance. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard &amp; Poor's 500 index ended August with their sixth set of monthly gains. The NASDAQ composite index enjoyed a seventh consecutive winning month.
 The last time the Dow had a stretch of six or more consecutive monthly gains was the eight-month run from December 1994 through July 1995. The S&amp;P last had a six-month rally from January through June 1996.
 The last time the NASDAQ had a streak as long was the 10-month period that ran from December 1994 through September 1995.
 It could be tough for the gauges to pull off another winning month, historically at least.
 Since 1950, the month of September has produced total losses of 43.6 percent for the Dow and 27 percent for the S&amp;P, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac. On average, the Dow has declined by 0.8 percent in September, while the S&amp;P has forfeited 0.5 percent.
 Since 1971, the month of September has taken 25.8 percent away from the NASDAQ composite index, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac. On average, the NASDAQ has lost 0.8 percent in September.
 Combine historical tendencies with a market that some market observers fear is overvalued, and U.S. stocks could be doomed.
 &quot;That is a little dangerous,&quot; Belski said.
 The Dow is trading at levels not seen in 14 months, while the NASDAQ is at highs last witnessed 16 months ago. But, with those gauges managing to hold those levels for two weeks now, some on Wall Street believe those highs could end up acting as support levels.
 That means that the market might hover around those levels, rather than fall precipitously if September yields disappointing economic news or if companies issues profit warnings, said Brian Williamson, an equity trader at The Boston Company Asset Management.
 &quot;If you get any kind of negative sentiment, I think the market will work its way to these well known levels,&quot; he said.
 Many analysts believe any weakness will be short lived, saying that the U.S. economy is strengthening and investors increasingly want to buy stocks.
 &quot;I wouldn't be surprised if we see the market settle a bit between September and October,&quot; said Thomas F. Lydon Jr., the president of Global Trends Investments in Newport Beach, Califiornia. &quot;But I wouldn't be banking on a big correction in September and October because, even though the thinking is the market is overvalued, you also have the argument that we are seeing a nice recovery in the economy.&quot;
 Lydon believes that the market has more upside potential left in 2003, saying, &quot;I think we are going to see higher highs by the end of the year.&quot;
 Wall Street's main gauges ended the week higher. It was the fourth straight winning week for the Dow and the third for the NASDAQ , S&amp;P and Russell 200 index.
 The Dow ended last week up 66.95, or 0.7 percent, closing Friday at 9,415.82, while the NASDAQ had a gain of 45.13, or 2.6 percent, closing at 1,810.45 Friday. The S&amp;P rose 14.95, or 1.5 percent, closing at 1,008.01.
 U.S. markets were closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

TITLE: Whither Putin When the Yukos Affair Ends?
AUTHOR: By Lilia Shevtsova
TEXT: The Anti-Monopoly Ministry's approval of the Yukos-Sibneft merger three weeks ago would never have happened without the Kremlin giving the &quot;go ahead.&quot; The assumption of the pundit community, eager to switch its attention to the unfolding election vanity fair, was that the attack on Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was over.
 
However, it is worth deliberating on the significance of the Yukos affair for Russia and its future developments. The Kremlin crackdown on one of the country's business moguls is not just another twist in the ongoing political struggle - it says a lot about the very nature of the political system and may serve as a foretaste of shake-ups to come.
 Nearly all of the motives behind the attack on Yukos discussed in the media played some role. Yes, we've seen the results of a clash between competing &quot;families&quot; in President Vladimir Putin's entourage; yes, representatives of state-owned Rosneft and Transneft made an effort to prevent Yukos from encroaching on their territory; yes, the chekists were looking for a pretext to bolster the electoral chances of United Russia and People's Party and to get their hands on oligarchic resources; yes, Putin wanted to stop big business from interfering in the State Duma elections; and so on.
 But there have been exaggerations as well. Neither Putin nor his praetorians had any intention of starting nationalization - the president's hungry wolves were just hoping for a slice of the pie. Khodorkovsky was not punished for supporting Yabloko, the Union of Right Forces or the Communists, nor for the merger with Sibneft - all of this had been approved by Putin himself. Beside, Khodorkovsky is not alone in sponsoring candidates for the next Duma, nor is he alone in pursuing an aggressive business strategy (for a real predator, take a look at Oleg Deripaska). The president did not think seriously about using the attack for his election campaign. 
 Let us ponder what the whole affair means for Russia and Putin personally.
 The attack on Yukos proves that Putin, after four years in power, has failed to consolidate his power base. He proved incapable of dismantling the existing system based on incompatible principles, antagonistic elites and constant clashes. The lack of developed institutions makes these clashes vicious and the results unpredictable.
 Ironically the most devastating wars are waged between the two most interconnected elites: the business and bureaucratic elites. In 1996, business got the upper hand, defeating the clan of Boris Yeltsin's bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov. But even in government the tycoons failed to capitalize on their victory, and during Putin's presidency the state apparatus and its top echelon - the so-called power structures - have been taking their revenge.
 Summer events have demonstrated the oligarchy's inability to defend its position and form its own corporatist agenda. Russian moguls have been shown up as nothing more than appointees of the apparatus who have been handed the right to control private property and are supposed to act within strict boundaries. What happened to Boris Berezovsky and is happening to Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky proves that the oligarchy is a myth. Bureaucracy continues to be the dominant force within the Russian system of governance, as it has been through the ages.
 The permanent tug-of-war between the two elites has manifested itself in the dogfight between the old and new families surrounding Putin. The Yeltsinites have accumulated major financial and economic resources, moving recently to gain control over arms sales and planning to pocket the new Duma. Putin's praetorians have proven to be weaklings by comparison. Their attack on Yukos was in fact a counteroffensive, desperate and ill prepared.
 The chekists sought to prevent the Yeltsinites from forcing Putin to make a new deal with them before the presidential election in 2004. The president, apparently concerned about his limited &quot;sovereignty,&quot; let his people act. To shake off the suffocating embrace of the old family, Putin had the option of appealing to society and reining in the clans by introducing greater transparency into the political process. But instead, he unleashed his loyalists.
 Why now? The forthcoming elections are the catalyst. In Russian politics, the horse-trading takes place before - not after - the elections. The strategic objective, however, is not the elections of 2003-04 - it is all about the 2008 presidential election when Putin will be off the list of contenders. Both old and new &quot;families&quot; have started to prepare for their biggest challenge - the handover of power. All the key political actors understand that preparation for Putin's departure must start now. The upcoming elections are important primarily for the bargaining position they provide before the real deal is struck.
 Putin's absence during the whole affair demonstrates the nature of his leadership. He does not like to take sides openly and persists in the &quot;all things to all people&quot; approach that helped him during the 2000 presidential election.
 But this pattern was productive while he was posing as a stabilizer who was going to extricate society from Yeltsin's revolutionary cycle. Now Russia expects a more ambitious agenda from Putin and his evasiveness creates frustration. The recent decline in the president's popularity is a clear sign that he is moving in the wrong direction.
 Putin has allowed things to unfold. Now he faces the tough challenge of reining in his own people and dealing with the domestic and international ramifications of the Yukos scandal. Even if he succeeds in restoring &quot;shadow&quot; checks in the Kremlin, it will be a temporary truce - he cannot halt preparations for the post-Putin transfer of power. His second term may be wasted on keeping a lid on things. Unless Putin tries to change the system of clan wars and behind-the-scenes transfers of power, he is finished. He will not have the energy or stamina to pursue vigorous reforms and will end up a lame duck trying to keep the boat afloat.
 And what of the main hero of our story - Khodorkovsky? There were different reasons why people in the &quot;power structures&quot; were ready to go after him. But there is one major reason why he became the main object of this counteroffensive: While allied to it, Khodorkovsky is not a member of the Yeltsin family. The chekists still have no guts for a direct attack on Putin's godfather and his gang; they struck at Yukos instead, apparently hoping to make their decisive move next. Thus, Khodor, as he is called in Moscow, was used to issue a warning and as a pawn in the clash of the Kremlin clans.
 Nonetheless, why Khodorkovsky and not Pyotr Aven or Mikhail Fridman (who are not members of Yeltsin's clique either)?
 The reason is Yukos was the first Russian company that started to look for legitimacy not through maintaining cozy relations with the apparatus but by making the switch to transparency and legality. It was a challenge to the bureaucracy, which reacted immediately.
 The Yukos affair has proven that Russia's stability is not sustainable. The rules of the game can be reversed at any moment. Economic considerations and property rights can become hostage to the political struggle.
 It is true that the oligarchs who, in fact, aren't even oligarchs are not angels. There are no angels in Russian politics. Russian business has failed to initiate a dialogue with society and is still perceived as a hostile force. But at the same time, at least some oligarchs - Khodorkovsky among them - have understood that if they want to continue doing business in this country they have to change their behavior.
 
And in a situation where civil society is weak, these people may be the only force that can constrain the state. Cornered and exasperated, Putin in an attempt to free himself from old commitments has failed to find allies among big business and has moved in another much more dangerous direction - toward dependence on the &quot;power structures.&quot;
 
The way the Yukos story ends - if it ever ends - will tell us where Putin is headed and how Russia will develop in the next four years. Putin, it seems, is still deliberating.
 

 <i>Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Seeking a Private Defense Industry
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: For a week last month, the town of Zhukovsky in the Moscow oblast played host to the sixth Moscow Aviation and Space Show. The major networks hailed the exhibition as equal or even superior to its chief European rivals, France's Le Bourget and Britain's Farnborough.
 
In fact, none of the so-called innovations at the exhibition was really new at all. At best, the show featured upgrades of old designs. 
 There are objective reasons for this. The Russian budget can no longer support a Soviet-sized defense industry. No design upgrades will ever make that possible. There is also a more subjective reason. No sector of the economy is more hamstrung by government regulations than the defense industry, and no sector faces a similar threat of radical changes in its ownership structure.
 Two competing models of integration are at work in the Russian defense industry: top down and bottom up. Bottom-up integration occurs, for example, when a private company begins to buy up its component suppliers. The one truly successful example of bottom-up integration is Irkut, formerly the Irkutsk Aviation Production Association. The state owns just 14 percent of the shares in Irkut, yet the company, which recently signed deals with India and Malaysia for its Su-30MKI and Su-MKM fighter jets, is Russia's second-largest aircraft exporter. Irkut has already bought up the Beriyev Taganrog Aviation Scientific-Technical Complex, a producer of amphibious aircraft, and the Russkaya Avionika design bureau. The merger of Irkut with the Yakovlev design bureau was announced at this year's Moscow air show.
 Top-down integration occurs when companies are swept into state-owned holdings by presidential decree. These holdings become the fiefdoms of top officials. Budget money is allocated for developing new weapons and gets lost somewhere along the line. Two such holdings have been created to date.
 The first was Sukhoi, created when Industry, Science and Technology Minister Ilya Klebanov was top dog in the defense industry. Even Irkut was slated for inclusion in the Sukhoi holding, which would have spelled the end of bottom-up integration. The thought was that Sukhoi would provide a soft landing for Klebanov after his retirement from public service. But then Klebanov's star began to fade, and Irkut was left alone.
 Next came the Almaz-Antei holding, whose board of directors was chaired by Viktor Ivanov, the powerful deputy chief of the presidential administration. The general director of the missile-defense-systems maker was Ivanov's assistant, Igor Klimov, who was gunned down in June.
 So which model will prevail? This is a question of politics, not economics. A private defense industry is the breeding ground of a liberalism united with patriotism. Think what you like about the U.S. military-industrial complex but, over there, private defense firms form the foundation of the Republican Party.
 Public or private, the defense industry will always involve bribes. That's the nature of the beast. But if a private defense industry ever develops in Russia, Russia will no longer have to make do with the outdated weapons our soldiers use in Chechnya. Russia will produce the sort of state-of-the-art weapons that the Americans brought to bear in Iraq.
 
 <i>
Yulia Latynina is a presenter of the &quot;24&quot; news and comment program on REN TV. </i>

TITLE: Taking Sides in Exchange Over Visa Policies
TEXT: In response to &quot;Answers to Russian Complaints About Visas,&quot; a comment by James D. Pettit, on Aug. 29, &quot;The Real Problem? Visas&quot; a comment by Yuri Ushakov on Aug. 26, and&quot; U.S. Visa Mess Hits Students' Summers,&quot; an article by Robin Munro on Aug. 19.
 </i>

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 It has been nine years since Izvestia published an open letter to then-U.S. Ambassador [Thomas] Pickering regarding the humiliating treatment of Russian visa applicants by consular officers at the U.S. Embassy. Since that time, the outcry of the Russian public regarding the visa practices of the embassy has continued unabated, and dozens of critical articles in the Russian and Western press have been published. One would think that the embassy would take the steps necessary to implement cardinal changes in its Cold War-era handling of visa applications. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. As a U.S. immigration law practitioner with ten years of experience working in Moscow, I have come to the conclusion that two primary issues must be focused upon:
 
First, the U.S. Embassy's visa-refusal rate must be dramatically reduced. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow refuses 25 percent of all visitor visa applicants. In contrast, other Western embassies in Russia such as Britain and Finland deny fewer than five percent of all applicants.
 In response to the inordinate number of complaints that our office received during the summer regarding visa denials at the embassy, I personally conducted a brief, informal survey outside the embassy three weeks ago. I found that 19 out of 30 visitor-visa applicants leaving the embassy during a 45-minute period had been denied visas.
 It must also be noted that, according to its own numbers, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow denied 30,000 non-immigrant-visa applications in the most recent fiscal year. By charging a $100 non-refundable visa-application fee, the embassy received $3 million from applicants who did not receive visas.
 My second point is that visa applications must be handled objectively and transparently. Despite State Department rules that require consular officers to disclose the factual reason for a visa denial and advise the applicant of information that can be submitted to overcome a visa denial, applicants are handed form rejection letters and quickly dismissed. Routine requests to consular officials to discern information regarding visa applications are ignored.
 Another example of this policy of nondisclosure relates to the Green Card Lottery. The embassy is not advising Green Card Lottery-visa applicants in advance of the possibility that, due to newly implemented security checks, processing of their applications may not be completed by the Sept. 30 deadline for issuance of these visas. The result: A typical family of four that lives outside Moscow will incur more than $1,500 in non-refundable visa fees, as well as more than $1,000 in additional expenses for travel, lodging and medical-exam expenses, and may in the end, not receive their visas due to circumstances beyond their control, without being forewarned.
 The high refusal rate and the absence of transparency are not merely &quot;inconveniences inherent in any immigration system,&quot; as the new Consul General, James Pettit, has characterized the present plague of visa-related problems. These are conscious decisions made by policymakers. Sadly, judging by Pettit's comment, it appears that the current U.S.-visa regime will continue unchanged for years to come.
 
 <i>Kenneth White
 Managing Partner, White &amp; Associates
 Moscow
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 Pettit asks to have it both ways when he writes that rejection rates in Russia for U.S. visas are roughly the same as around the world but also claims that the United States has the largest exchange program with Russia. This is a comparison of percentage statistics with absolute numerical statistics. The awkward result: We turn down applications at the same rate, but there are so many applications that we can still boast of having the numerically largest quantity of exchange.
 
Secondly, the fee for U.S.-visa applications is noticeably less than the Russian equivalent. But it is absurd for this fee to be the same all over the world, across vastly differing levels of relative income. One hundred dollars is nearly a third of the monthly income of many Muscovites - I wonder what the figure is for Berlin?
 A Russian friend of mine was recently denied a visa for a Ph.D. program in the natural sciences at a well-known U.S. university. He paid $100 for a two-minute interview that took place in English, during which the consular officer never once looked at any of the documentation my friend produced to show he was not an immigration risk.
 Afterward, my friend was given a piece of paper informing him that he could check on the status of his application by calling a phone number that costs $1.60 per minute.
 
 <i>Tom Hurt
 Moscow</i>
 
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 Yuri Ushakov, Russia's ambassador to the United States, certainly raises an important point that needs to be addressed if Russia, the CIS and the West are to develop closer ties.
 
But, while I sympathize with the bizarre and seemingly arbitrary process that Russians are forced to endure in order to obtain a visa to the United States, I wonder if Ushakov has ever tried to help somebody obtain a visa to the Russian Federation?
 As a British citizen, I am entitled to invite almost anyone I choose to visit Britain by writing them an invitation letter (officially only three percent of Russians are refused visas to the United Kingdom).
 A Russian cannot do this - it is practically impossible for an individual Russian to invite a foreigner to Russia unless they are part of an accredited company or tour agency with good connections. Consequently, Russia sees very few Western tourists given its size and presence on the world scene.
 When I lived in Warsaw, friends would visit me regularly - few bother even trying to deal with the bureaucracy and cost of obtaining a visa to come to Moscow just for a long weekend.
 The United States estimates that between 15 and 20 percent of Russians who visit the United States do not return to Russia. How many Westerners who visit Russia stay on illegally? What is Russia so afraid of?
 President Vladimir Putin presses European leaders on his wish that Russians be allowed to travel freely within Europe, yet Russians cannot even travel and work freely within their own country. It seems that Russia wants freedom for its own citizens while they are abroad, yet is not prepared to budge on the issue of relaxing controls for foreigners entering Russia, or even movement within Russia.
 <i>Luc Jones
 Moscow</i>
 
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 It makes one wonder what the statistics really are? What percentage of visa holders overstay inside of the United States? Which countries are the worst offenders? I would sure hate to risk a happy mob of educated, cultured, multi-lingual young people running around loose in the United States.
 

 <i>Douglas Swartout
 Anchorage, Alaska</i>
 <strong>
<b>Freedom Ride
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Leather, Metal and Beer: Bikers Gather for Festival&quot; on Aug. 12.</i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 From your article, I am led to believe that Russian bikers are enjoying much more freedom than U.S. bikers, apart from some streets that have potholes the size of Buicks.
 
This is because U.S. cops DO love to pull bikers over just to give them a hard time, in some cities more than others. In most cities, however, over-zealous cops are just looking for an excuse for any kind of &quot;action&quot; against bikers, ranging from simply issuing a ticket to arrest and impounding of the bike, often for the most ludicrous and trumped-up reasons. I'd love to bring my Harley to Russia and drive from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, but I hate to think of the nightmare of importing (albeit temporarily) a motorcycle, keeping it from getting it stolen along the way, not finding a gas station every 350 kilometers or getting hassled by some traffic or city-cop in the middle of nowhere who forgot to read your article.
 Thank you for an anotherwise very interesting article.
 
 <i>P. J. Beck
 St. Petersburg</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Misunderstood
 </strong><i></b>
In response to the Russian privatization debate on the opinion pages of The St. Petersburg Times between Marshall I. Goldman (&quot;Share in the Credit, Share in the Blame,&quot; a comment on Aug. 5) and Anders Aslund (&quot;Yukos Attack Only Safe When in 'Silly Season,'&quot; a comment on July 25)</i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 The debate between academics Marshall Goldman and Anders Aslund shows the pitiful state of understanding of Russia in microcosm. Conspicuously lacking from their debate is any Russian voice, or any reference to eight centuries of Russian history.
 
Goldman will not put a dollar amount on the money he claims was &quot;stolen&quot; from Russians by the oligarchs. There is a good reason: if Russia has 12 oligarchs each worth $10 billion, that means $120 billion was &quot;stolen&quot; by them - less than a third of even the puny sum Russians produce in one year as GDP. Who in the world thinks this tiny sum, in a country of 145 million people, would be enough to make a significant difference in people's lives?
 The Soviet dictatorship destroyed Russia's economy with its insane attempt to race the U.S. in arms production. Relatively speaking, the oligarchs were only picking up scraps. The fact that Russia has sufficient funds to create a few billionaires does not mean that it had enough for everybody. The United States could easily give Russia $120 billion today to make up for its &quot;loss.&quot; Who thinks that would put Russia on the track to European-style prosperity? 
 Aslund is no better. Following Boris Yeltsin's lead, Aslund prefers to relegate Russians to barbarian status, assuming that the choice for them was between backsliding into another Soviet nightmare and dispersing assets (and political power) helter skelter so that they could be hidden under mattresses, safe from Zyuganov and his resurgent Communist cohorts. Any time Russia is not building gulags, Aslund thinks, it is a victory. Aslund harps on the old Russophile canard that, since the United States has had problems in the past, all Russia needs is time to come around. What he does not mention is that Russia has already existed as a country for more than twice as long as the United States, and that, today, Russians are busy erecting the same kind of feudal system of a few wealthy and many poor that existed before the Bolshevik revolution.
 Russians do not have, and never have had, the capabilities Goldman would like; he is a fantasist and dramatist worthy of Pushkin. At the same time, Russians are nothing like the hopeless incompetents Aslund thinks; the patronizing tone adopted by Aslund only helps Russians to rationalize their faults rather than correct them.
 Ironically, Goldman too contributes to this rationalization, spending precious little time asking why Russians were so passive while their future was being decided and preferring to heap blame on conspiracies in the upper echelons. 
 Not until Russians learn to face the music can they join the dance!
 
 <i>Lenard Leeds
 Atlanta, Georgia</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Soccer Welcome
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Chelsea Shareholder Situation Under Scrutiny&quot; on July 25.</i>
 
 <i>Editor,</i>
 Just a short note to say well done to Roman Abramovich.
 
I am an Englishman who spent two years in your wonderful country and I don't have a bad word to say about Russia. Unfortunatly, most English people are poorly educated and know nothing of Russia. They constantly quote the usual anti-Soviet rubbish about Russians being so poor, but Roman Abramovich has shut them all up. He has done more for Russian prestige in this country than Boris Yeltsin, President Vladimir Putin and Tatu put together.
 People here are talking of gangs of Russian billonaires coming to buy up our soccer clubs and take over our way of life. Abramovich has been on the front pages of every English newspaper, whereas Putin's visit at most got 200 words on page four or five
 So thank you Mr. Abramovich. You may not be the best Russian role model, but this one event is the best thing to happen for Russian forign policy in 40 years.
 Molodyets!
 
 <i>Mark Bullen
 Stevenage, United Kingdom
 </i>


TITLE: Options for Boarding the Good Ship Europe
AUTHOR: By Tim Gould
TEXT: Visit the Ukrainian town of Rakhiv, resting in the foothills of the Carpathians a few kilometers from the border with Romania, and some of the rhetoric accompanying the enlargement of the European Union takes on a different perspective. Just outside the town, a small roadside monument marks the spot identified by the Vienna Geographical Society in 1911 as the center of the European continent. The Viennese calculation has not gone unchallenged, as competing sites across Slovakia, Poland and Lithuania can testify. Yet it is still worth thinking of Rakhiv when hearing how EU enlargement heralds the &quot;unification of an artificially divided continent.&quot;
 
Ukraine will not be joining the European Union in 2004, or in 2007, or at any foreseeable moment after that. With the exception of the three Baltic states, the EU has been resolutely non-committal about extending membership into former Soviet territory. This is despite the fact that, as plausibly, &quot;European States,&quot; Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova are formally eligible for consideration.
 If membership is not on the table, what exactly can the EU offer its future neighbors? Can any objective short of membership harness the dynamism and positive incentives that characterized the process of enlargement, and avoid the emergence of new dividing lines in Europe?
 The answer, says European Commission President Romano Prodi, is a vision of the EU offering its neighbors &quot;everything but institutions.&quot; Prodi sees the emergence of a &quot;ring of friends&quot; across Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, bound together by shared values, open markets and borders, and enhanced cooperation in such areas as research, transport, energy, conflict prevention and law enforcement.
 The inspiration comes in part from the experience of the EU with the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Since the creation of the European Economic Area in 1994, three of the four EFTA countries - Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - have benefited from participation in the European single market and in EU programs while remaining outside the union itself. Together with Switzerland, also an EFTA member but with separate ties to Brussels, the countries of EFTA confirm the possibility of life in Europe outside the EU. Perhaps the residents of Rakhiv will one day enjoy the same rights to travel, work and trade in Europe as those currently enjoyed by the citizens of Reykjavik.
 Perhaps. The commission says the long-term goal for the EU's relationship with the wider Europe would be an arrangement resembling the European Economic Area. But in order for this to happen, countries like Ukraine would need not only to pursue a determined process of political and economic transformation. They would also have to grapple with the challenges arising from this particular model of international cooperation. As EFTA's experience shows, sharing a common space with the EU necessitates some delicate and complex living arrangements.
 A starting point is the EU's insistence that cooperation be based on the EU's own rules, which govern the free movement of goods, services, capital and people throughout the European single market. These rules run to tens of thousands of pages, and it is not obvious which should be considered the most important. In relation to the wider Europe, the EU appears to prioritize the free movement of goods, building on the disciplines of the World Trade Organization. But judging from the reaction from Russia, with which the EU has been discussing the idea of a European economic space since 2001, Moscow's pick of the freedoms at the heart of the single market is free movement of people and visa-free travel.
 The process of harmonizing legislation will also not be driven, as it was in the countries of Central Europe, by the explicit promise of membership. It is therefore more likely to be gradual and partial, encouraged over time by the growth of sectors and firms with a stake in the single market. In the absence of an overriding political objective, there will be greater resistance to those parts of EU legislation that are expensive to implement, such as environmental directives that require large capital investment.
 The operation of any arrangement resembling the current European Economic Area would be a significant step beyond such a selective approach. A common economic area relies on the principle of non-discrimination across the entire market; any request for exceptional treatment threatens to upset the overall balance of burdens and benefits. While negotiating the terms of their participation in the single market, EFTA states came to realize that they could no longer choose only those rules that appeared the most attractive or advantageous.
 They also had to be ready for mechanisms to ensure that these rules are implemented and applied in a uniform way. EFTA states that participate in the European Economic Area are subject to the same level of scrutiny as EU member states when it comes to putting their commitments into practice, including identical enforcement of the rules on competition and state aid.
 The offer of &quot;everything but institutions&quot; to the wider Europe therefore comes with weighty obligations attached. But there are, self evidently, no common institutions foreseen to decide the nature of these obligations, and this is where the prospects for a broad and highly integrated pan-European economic area start to look even more opaque.
 From an early stage in the discussions with EFTA in the late 1980s, the European Community has set great store by maintaining the autonomy and integrity of its own decision-making process. There are working groups and expert meetings where the participating EFTA states can influence the shape of new EU decisions, particularly when proposals for legislation are being drafted. But the EFTA influence does not extend to the EU Council or into the European Parliament, where single-market legislation is ultimately adopted.
 This was not the least of the reasons why the negotiation of the European Economic Area coincided with a series of applications from EFTA to join the EC. Seven EFTA states began the negotiations on the European Economic Area. By September 1992, six of them - all except Iceland - had applied for EC membership. Austria, Finland and Sweden did depart EFTA for the European Union as a result, but unsuccessful referenda prevented any others from following suit. Switzerland's voters rejected the option of joining the European Economic Area, and so Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein remained as the sole EFTA participants.
 That the European Economic Area continues to work well nine years later is testament to the common interest of all sides in the efficient functioning of the single market. It also bears witness to the pragmatism of the EFTA participants, which accept that the idiosyncrasies of the arrangement are - at least in part - a consequence of their own political decision not to take on EU membership itself.
 Yet, for all the apparent ease of its operation, the task of creating and sustaining a common economic space with the EU is a highly demanding one. In many ways, with broad coverage of EU rules along with mechanisms to ensure their application, it is comparable to the requirements of membership itself. Attaining this level of integration would be a considerable accomplishment for any of the EU's future neighbors. The countries of the southern Mediterranean might see this as the closest they will get to the EU. But the Eastern Europeans might well wonder why they cannot share EU institutions as well.
 
 <i>Tim Gould, an officer at the EFTA Secretariat in Brussels, previously worked for the European Commission Delegation in Ukraine. He contributed this comment to The Wall Street Journal. </i>

TITLE: Whose 'Bravado' Should Really Be Blamed?
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: Russian helicopters have been falling out of the sky. Two weeks ago, an Mi-8 helicopter crashed in the far eastern region of Kamchatka, killing the 20 people on board, including the governor of Sakhalin. Last week, two Mi-24 helicopter gunships collided in midair and crashed in sight of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, killing six men.
 
The Mi-8 was mass produced in Soviet times more than any other chopper in world aviation history (more than 20,000 were made). It was used as a military and civilian transport aircraft and also, with some additional armor, as a gunship. Thousands of Mi-8s were exported to Soviet allies around the world.
 Russian aviators like the Mi-8: It's a light, agile bird and easy to pilot. In much of Russia - with its vast spaces and often nonexistent or very bad roads - the Mi-8 is the vehicle of choice.
 The Mi-24 has a checkered reputation. It is a heavily armored helicopter gunship, not easy to fly, especially when fully loaded with munitions. But having armor makes one feel a bit safer in war zones.
 A Kalashnikov bullet can easily pierce the Mi-8 - in the side, through the cabin and out again. Mi-8 pilots wear flak jackets and put special armor plates under their backsides when flying in Chechnya. Passengers do as they please.
 The Mi-8s and Mi-24s have served well in many local wars in Asia, Africa and the former Yugoslavia. But after the demise of the Soviet Union, helicopter production virtually stopped and most of the choppers now in service are old, having done 20 or more years of service.
 Production of many spare parts has also stopped, making effective maintenance difficult. As Soviet stocks of helicopter components dwindled, cannibalizing very old choppers to extract spare parts to service not-so-old ones became standard procedure. But the parts from dismantled helicopters are also worn-out and can malfunction at any time.
 This crumbling fleet of helicopters is extensively used in Chechnya, the north of Russia, Siberia and the Far East. The military and small commercial air-transport companies more or less fly their choppers until they drop out of the sky - lacking sufficient funds to replace them, in a country where there is no system of leasing or buying new choppers on credit to replace old ones.
 The rapid demise of the helicopter fleet will surely become an acute national problem in the coming years, with almost half of the country becoming inaccessible by any modern means of transport. Helicopter crashes are already taking an ever growing toll in lives, including members of the ruling elite who are major users of transport helicopters.
 This problem is exacerbated by the lack of properly trained pilots. Most of the Mi-8 and other transport-helicopter pilots fly frequently, earning money for their bosses. But, since a growing number of choppers are in disrepair at any given time, flying patterns can be irregular, with some pilots worn out and others not fully ready because of lack of practice.
 There is also the growing problem of replacing aging Soviet-trained pilots with younger men. The profession has lost its Soviet-era prestige and the number of flying schools has dwindled.
 The pilots of Mi-24 gunships (which are much more difficult to pilot than the Mi-8) have much less flying practice, as it is impossible to use this helicopter for commercial or transport errands.
 Ivanov announced that the midair collision this week was the result of pilot &quot;bravado.&quot; A desire to impress the defense minister by flying in close formation may have indeed caused the crash, but the underlying problem may also be inadequate professional preparation.
 The Mi-24 collision happened during massive Soviet-style military exercises in the Far East, involving some 70,000 navy, army and air force personnel. When, in 2000, the Kursk nuclear submarine sunk in the Barents Sea - also during massive Soviet-style exercises - retired Admiral Eduard Baltin told journalists that it was a crime to send crews not fully ready for the task out on semicombat missions.
 By running ambitious military exercises, using old ships and planes with badly trained crews, military chiefs and Ivanov are asking for new disasters to happen and are risking hundreds of lives.
 This is indeed &quot;frivolity&quot; and &quot;bravado,&quot; criminal in nature.
 
 <i>Pavel Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based independent defense analyst. </i>

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: <b>Die Laughing
 </b>Here's a headline you don't see every day: &quot;War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals.&quot;
 
Perhaps that's not the <i>precise</i> wording used by the Washington Post this week, but it is the absolute <i>essence</i> of its story about the Bush Regime's new campaign to put Saddam Hussein's murderous security forces on America's payroll.
 Yes, the sahibs in U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraqi Raj are now doling out U.S. tax dollars to hire the murderers of the infamous Mukhabarat and other agents of the Baathist Gestapo - perhaps hundreds of them. The logic, if that's the word, seems to be that these bloodstained &quot;insiders&quot; will lead their new imperial masters to other bloodstained &quot;insiders&quot; responsible for bombing the UN headquarters in Baghdad - and killing another dozen American soldiers while Little George was playing with his putts during his month-long Texas siesta.
 Naturally, the Iraqi people - even the Bush-appointed leaders of the Potyomkin &quot;Governing Council&quot; - aren't exactly overjoyed at seeing Saddam's goons return, flush with American money and firepower. And they're certainly not reassured by the fact that the Bushists have also re-opened Saddam's most notorious prison, the dread Abu Ghraib, and are now, Mukhabarat-like, filling it with Iraqis - men, women and children as young as 11 - seized from their homes or plucked off the street to be held incommunicado, indefinitely, without due process, just like the old days. As The Times of London reports, weeping relatives who dare approach the gleaming American razor-wire in search of their &quot;disappeared&quot; loved ones are referred to a crude, hand-written sign pinned to a spike: &quot;No visits are allowed, no information will be given and you must leave.&quot; Perhaps an Iraqi Anna Akhmatova will do justice to these scenes one day.
 However, the sahibs' unabashed embrace of their soulmates in the Saddamite security forces did provide some sinister comedy in the Post story. The wary reporters and Raj officials displayed the usual hilarious delicacy in coming up with reality-fogging prose to protect the tender sensibilities of the American people, who must never be told what their betters are <i>really</i> getting up to.
 For example, the U.S. alliance with Saddam's killers - yes, the very ones who inflicted all those human rights abuses that, we're now told, were the onliest reason the Dear Leader attacked and destroyed a sovereign country in an unprovoked war of aggression - was described demurely as &quot;an unusual compromise.&quot; (As opposed to, say, &quot;a moral outrage,&quot; or &quot;a putrid stain on America's honor,&quot; or &quot;a monstrous copulation of rapacious conquerors with bloodthirsty scum.&quot;) However, the Post hastens to assure us that the wise sahibs do recognize the &quot;potential pitfalls&quot; of hooking up with &quot;an instrument renowned across the Arab world for its casual use of torture, fear, intimidation, rape and imprisonment.&quot;
 Those kidders! Surely they know this &quot;potential pitfall&quot; is actually one of the main goals of the entire bloody enterprise: to intimidate the &quot;Arab world&quot; until they straighten up and fly right - i.e., turn their countries over to Halliburton, Bechtel and the Carlyle Group. That's why you buy an &quot;instrument&quot; like the Mukhabarat in the first place. You certainly don't employ professional murderers and rapists if you are genuinely interested in building a &quot;decent, open, democratic society,&quot; as the Bushists claim in their imperial PR.
 But, like vaudeville troupers of old, the media-sashib double act saves the best gag for last. First the Post writers present the seamy Bush-Mukhabarat humpa-humpa as some great spiritual <i>agon</i> - &quot;an ongoing struggle between principle and-the practical needs of the occupation&quot; - instead of what it is: business as usual for the American security apparatus, which happily incorporated scores of its Nazi brethren into the fold after World War II, and over the years has climbed into bed with many a casually raping and murdering thug - such as, er, Saddam Hussein, who spent a bit of quality time on the CIA payroll.
 In fact, the entire Baathist organization - including the Mukhabarat - was midwifed into power by not one but two CIA-backed coups, as historian Roger Morris reports in The New York Times. And shall we mention the intimate relations between Saddam's regime and U.S. intelligence services back when Saddam was merrily gassing his own people - and the Iranians - with the eager connivance of Ronald Reagan, George Bush I and their &quot;special envoy&quot; to Baghdad, Donald Rumsfeld? Yes, let's.
 So the new alliance is no &quot;struggle&quot;: It's a veritable Bush family reunion, a happy homecoming for Rummy and his old Mukhers. But &quot;this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood&quot; - or to Post readers, anyway. Our vaudevillians, eager to keep the fleecy Homeland flock nestled comfortably in its cozy amnesia, skip the history and go straight to the punchline: Raj officials say that it's OK to hire the most hardcore killers, rapists and torturers - as long as you &quot;make sure they are indeed aware of the error of their ways.&quot;
 You guys! What yocks! &quot;So, Mr. Mukhabarat Man, are you indeed aware of the error of your ways?&quot; &quot;Oh yes, boss, I got my mind right!&quot; &quot;Not going to rape or torture anybody anymore?&quot; &quot;Oh no, boss, no - not unless <i>you</i> tell me to!&quot; &quot;Okey-dokey then! You're hired! Get on over to Abu Ghraib - you've got some interrogating to do!&quot;
 What? It's not funny? What do you mean? Look at those Iraqi kids over there, those American soldiers - they're grinning from ear to ear! No, wait - that's just their skulls. The new Bushabarat are using them for soccer practice.
 
 <i>
For annotational references, see the &quot;Opinion&quot; section at www.sptimesrussia.com. </i>

TITLE: Israel May Send Infantry Into Gaza Strip
AUTHOR: By Ian James
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM - Israel is prepared to send an infantry brigade into the Gaza Strip to stop Hamas rocket fire, Israel's army chief was quoted as saying on Monday, as troops critically wounded a 15-year-old Palestinian in a clash with stone-throwing youngsters.
 
Israeli leaders have repeatedly threatened tougher action to stop rocket fire from Gaza. Fighting has escalated there in the past two weeks, with Israel killing 10 Hamas operatives and a bystander in five missile attacks, and Hamas firing mortars and rockets toward Israeli communities.
 Also Monday, more than 1 million Palestinian youngsters in the West Bank and Gaza returned to classes. The Israeli military eased restrictions in some of the reoccupied West Bank towns to allow students to get to school.
 In the city of Nablus, hundreds of students threw stones at tanks and jeeps in several locations. Troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and also live rounds to disperse the crowds, witnesses said.
 In one incident, a Palestinian threw a firebomb at a tank near the main square, where about 70 stone throwers were assembled. The top of the tank caught fire, said Palestinian rescue worker Ala Aratrut, who witnessed the incident. &quot;A soldier from inside the tank began shooting randomly. The top of the tank was going round while the shooting went on,&quot; Aratrut said.
 A teenage boy fell to the ground after being shot in the head, the rescue worker said. Doctors said the boy, age 15, was in critical condition.
 The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
 Israel's cabinet convened Monday, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told ministers that there will be no letup in the campaign against Hamas and other militant groups.
 &quot;We are continuing our operations against Hamas and other terror groups to prevent them from harming Israel's citizens,&quot; he said.
 Israel's army chief, Liuetenant General Moshe Yaalon, was quoted by various Israeli media as telling the cabinet that he is prepared to send an infantry brigade into Gaza, if necessary, to stop Hamas rocket fire. A brigade would consist of about 3,000 soldiers, including fighters and support personnel.
 In the past three years of fighting, Israel has carried out several ground offensives in Gaza, but has shied away from reoccupying large areas of the densely populated coastal strip, instead focusing on air strikes. However, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday he was ready to order a ground offensive if rocket fire does not cease.
 In the past two years, Hamas has fired dozens of rockets at Israeli settlements in Gaza and at border towns in Israel, causing only minor damage and injuries. However, Israel considers the rockets a strategic threat, particularly last week's hit in the industrial zone of Ashkelon. Sharon has said he believes Hamas is trying to hit a large power station near Ashkelon.
 The Israeli military said Monday it is planning to build 40 to 50 bunker-type rooms for Gaza settlers, to protect them from rockets and mortars.
 In the Palestinian areas, meanwhile, a power struggle between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his beleaguered prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, is intensifying, with clashes over key appointments and control of security forces.
 Several Palestinian legislators, including Arafat allies, are lobbying to oust Abbas later this week after he presents a report on his first 100 days in office to parliament. It remains unclear whether the session will be followed by a vote of confidence.
 Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom suggested on Sunday that an already troubled U.S.-backed peace plan would be derailed if Abbas is ousted.
 &quot;Israel will not negotiate with a new government formed under the instructions and the influence of Arafat,&quot; Shalom said.
 Arafat reluctantly appointed Abbas as the Palestinians' first prime minister in April under pressure from Israel and the United States, which have accused Arafat of blocking peace efforts.
 Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia, considered a possible replacement for Abbas, said Sunday that the infighting is harming Palestinian interests. He said the external interference &quot;is complicating the crisis,&quot; but did not specify who he was referring to.
 Abbas has minimal support among Palestinians, many of whom say they distrust him because he has Israel's backing. And while Arafat also has lost popularity after failing to deliver on promises of statehood, the 74-year-old remains the symbol of dreams of independence.

TITLE: Libya Will Increase France Payments </strong>
AUTHOR: By Salah Nasrawi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TRIPOLI, Libya - A Libyan charity said Monday it would increase payments to families of those killed in a 1989 terror attack on a French airliner, a gesture that Libya hopes will persuade France to agree to lift UN sanctions.
 
In a statement Monday, the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations said that a privately financed &quot;fund for the victims of terrorism&quot; it had established - but not the Libyan government - would pay unspecified compensation to the families of the 170 people who died when the French UTA airliner exploded over the Niger desert.
 The charity is closely linked to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
 In response, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin indicated France might now be ready to see the UN sanctions lifted.
 &quot;We have always said that we uphold the principle of lifting sanctions, and of course we will be drawn very quickly toward a decision,&quot; de Villepin said on RFI radio.
 Gadhafi had announced the agreement in a speech a day earlier but offered no details. The foundation, which is headed by one of Gadhafi's sons and has played a major role in his efforts to clean up his image, portrayed the agreement as a humanitarian gesture.
 The Gadhafi foundation added without elaboration that the compensation agreement also would &quot;resolve&quot; the cases of six Libyans convicted by a French court in absentia in 1999 of bombing the plane and sentenced to life in prison. Libya never extradited the six - including a brother-in-law of Gadhafi who was an intelligence agent -and the foundation maintained Monday that the six were innocent.
 In his radio interview, de Villepin said nothing about the agreement addressing the six convicted Libyans.
 After the 1999 verdict, Libya agreed to transfer $33 million to France to compensate the victims, but Gadhafi said at the time that that was not an admission of guilt.
 Families of the victims have campaigned unsuccessfully to have Gadhafi tried in the bombing. The Libyan leader has long been accused of sponsoring anti-Western terrorism around the world.
 French families began lobbying for a new compensation agreement after Libya recently agreed to pay families of the 270 victims of the Pan Am bombing up to $10 million each. Families of the 170 victims of the French flight each received about $194,000.
 &quot;It's a matter of fairness,&quot; de Villepin said Monday. &quot;We wanted to take all these victims into account to apply the principle of fairness in relation to the Lockerbie attack.&quot;
 In contrast to the French case, Libya accepted responsibility for Lockerbie and, after intense international negotiations, handed over two of its citizens for trial in the West.
 In 2001, a Scottish court convicted a Libyan intelligence agent of the Lockerbie bombing, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. A second Libyan was acquitted.
 The Lockerbie agreement opened the way for Libya to be freed from UN sanctions that limited arms and oil equipment sales, air travel and diplomatic links to the north African country. The French government had threatened to block a British proposal to lift the sanctions, saying it wanted a better deal for the UTA victims' relatives.
 Gadhafi had spoken Sunday by phone with French President Jacques Chirac. In his speech Sunday, Gadhafi said France was &quot;embarassed&quot; by the Lockerbie deal and asked directly and through African and other Arab intermediaries for reconsideration of the UTA settlement.
 &quot;And therefore there was a solution by the foundation for this humanitarian issue,&quot; Gadhafi said. &quot;By this we have reached a new era with the West.&quot;
 On Lockerbie, Gadhafi said Sunday that Libya was compelled to pay compensation so sanctions could be lifted and Libya's name removed from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
 Gadhafi has been trying to bury his image as a rogue who sponsors terrorism and meddles in the affairs of nations from Africa to the Philippines. In recent years he has tried to bring his country into the global economy and be accepted as a statesman ready to solve regional and international crises.
 


TITLE: New Signs Of Taliban Resistance, 10 Killed
AUTHOR: By Noor Khan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: QALAT, Afghanistan - Suspected Taliban fighters attacked a government checkpoint and ambushed another group of Afghan soldiers along the main road linking the south with the capital, killing at least eight soldiers, Afghan officials said on Monday.
 
The attacks came a day after two U.S. soldiers were killed in a 90 minute gunbattle with insurgents in eastern Paktika province, near the border with Pakistan. Four suspected Taliban were killed in that fighting.
 Guerrillas from the former radical Taliban regime recently have appeared to regroup, launching bolder attacks against Afghan government targets. Four U.S. soldiers have been killed during fighting in less than two weeks.
 The attacks on the Afghan soldiers, both near the southern Zabul province mountain range that has been the site of a week of fierce skirmishes, appeared to be an attempt by the insurgents to distract government forces from the main battle, said Khalil Hotak, the provincial intelligence chief.
 A large group of rebels attacked an Afghan checkpoint late Sunday in Shajoi - several miles from the main fighting and about 32 miles northeast of Qalat - killing four soldiers and taking the remaining two soldiers captive, Hotak said.
 And early Monday, suspected insurgents rode up to another group of Afghan soldiers protecting the Kabul-Kandahar road in Shajoi, killing four soldiers and setting their vehicle ablaze, Hotak said.
 &quot;They are trying to distract us from the fighting,&quot; he added, speaking from a command center in Qalat. &quot;They want to spread our forces out.&quot;
 Meanwhile, a provincial religious leader, Mulvi Abdul Rahman, said that he had spoken to tribal elders in the area and asked them to pass along an offer on behalf of the Zabul governor to the Taliban: Lay down your weapons and we will allow you to return home.
 Rahman said he had not received a response, but that negotiations to end the battle peacefully where ongoing.
 &quot;Both sides - the present government and the Taliban - are all Afghans. We are all the same people and we have been fighting for 23 years,&quot; he said. &quot;Now, I would rather we negotiate rather than fight, so these [Taliban] fighters can go home and help rebuild Afghanistan.&quot;
 Up in the mountains, U.S. warplanes have been pounding Taliban positions and Afghan and U.S. troops have been pushing across gorges and ravines in an effort to smash the Taliban hideouts, killing dozens of suspected insurgents in one of the fiercest battles since the fall of the hardline regime.
 General Haji Saifullah Khan, the main Afghan commander in the area, said by satellite phone that fighting had slowed Monday and there had been a lull in U.S. bombing.
 &quot;We are advancing and getting closer and closer to some Taliban positions,&quot; he said from Larzab, one of the front-line locations.
 Khan said Sunday that intelligence from an informer indicated Taliban reinforcement fighters had arrived in the area, in the Dai Chupan district of Zabul.

TITLE: Bush Pressured To Make Changes In Iraqi Policy
AUTHOR: By William C. Mann
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Democrats and Republicans alike are telling U.S. President George Bush he must get international help in rebuilding Iraq and tell the American people how much it will cost and how long it will take.
 
Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican from Indiana and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, estimated it will cost the United States $30 billion over five years, not counting military spending.
 &quot;I think that is a period of time that will bring stability and give certainty to the Iraqis that we're not going to leave,&quot; Lugar said on &quot;Fox News Sunday.&quot;
 While Lugar provided the only specific numbers, the cost of rebuilding Iraq and calls for more openness about U.S. plans in the country have been a concern among lawmakers, and were the subject on Sunday's talk-show circuit.
 Representative Marty Meehan, a Democrat from Massachussets, said Bush needs &quot;to get a UN Security Council resolution so we're not seen as occupiers in the region.&quot;
 &quot;We basically need to have a discussion in this country with the American people about why Iraq is important and who is going to share the burden of paying for it,&quot; said Meehan on CNN's &quot;Late Edition.&quot;
 Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, wrote Sunday in a Washington Post op-ed article that &quot;the administration should level with the American people about the cost and commitment required to transform Iraq.&quot;
 &quot;There is an insufficient sense of urgency in Washington, and needs on the ground in Iraq are going unmet. Contrary to administration assurances, our military force levels are obviously inadequate,&quot; wrote McCain, who recently returned from Iraq.
 Representative Christopher Shays said the United Nations is a necessary part of the Iraq equation now, no matter how distasteful the idea might be to the Bush administration.
 &quot;I think we should have done it weeks and weeks ago,&quot; said Shays, also appearing on CNN. 
 &quot;We need the UN, not only to draw in other military forces and other civilian forces from other countries, but we need them to help coordinate ... the nongovernment agencies,&quot; he said.
 Bush spoke by telephone Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi about possible international cooperation in Iraq, the White House said. 
 Putin, visiting Berlusconi on the Italian island of Sardinia, said Saturday that Russia would welcome an international force under UN auspices - but under U.S. command.
 Last week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage raised the possibility of bringing in the United Nations but keeping control in the hands of the United States.
 Senator John Kyl, a Republican from Arizona and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on ABC's &quot;This Week&quot; that continued U.S. control is essential.
 &quot;We made the commitment to do what was right. We've followed it through,&quot; Kyl said. 
 &quot;If the countries of the United Nations basically will agree with the United States on that approach, then it would be very good to have them participate. But we don't want to turn the political control over to the United Nations,&quot; he said.
 Kyl said 24,000 foreign troops already are in Iraq alongside U.S. forces, with British and Polish officers heading separate multinational divisions.
 McCain maintained, however, that &quot;it is the number and quality of military forces, not the number of countries that send them, that matters.&quot;
 The Lugar formula for Iraqi redevelopment - $6 billion a year over five years - would be in addition to military expenses currently running about $3.9 billion a month.

TITLE: Blake Fans No Problem For Federer In New York
AUTHOR: By Janie Mccauley
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Roger Federer's fan club barely stretched beyond the man wearing a red Swiss flag T-shirt and dangling the country's flag over the rail of the middle deck. Even with the minimal fanfare, the reigning Wimbledon champion still foiled things for the local favorite. 
 
It took Federer 2:01 to beat ever-popular American James Blake 6-3, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 on Sunday night to reach the U.S. Open's round of 16 for the second straight year. Federer, playing his first match under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, was one set up after just 23 minutes, and exhibited both poise and an amazing array of shotmaking. 
 &quot;I always felt in control of the second set,&quot; Federer said. &quot;They were cheering him on, which is normal. ... Obviously, when you get into a tiebreaker you never quite know, but I felt good going into the breaker.&quot; 
 No. 1 Andre Agassi advanced after waiting 24 hours to complete his third-round match against Yevgeny Kafelnikov. Agassi had a one-set lead and trailed 1-0 in the second when play was suspended by rain Saturday.
 Agassi, the oldest top-seeded male in the Open era, didn't have to spend too much more time on the court, winning 6-3, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4, but he was frustrated he had to come back at all. 
 &quot;For the match to get called, and to be the only match that didn't finish yesterday, I think was a mistake, an oversight in judgment,&quot; said the 33-year-old Agassi.
 No. 4 Andy Roddick smacked a 224-kilomter-per-hour ace in a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Flavio Saretta, allowing just five points in his first 12 service games.
 Roddick will play Xavier Malisse, a 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) winner over Dmitry Tursunov. 
 For the first time since 1981, the top eight seeds in the men's draw have advanced to the round of 16. 
 The second-seeded Federer is trying to become the first man since Pete Sampras in 1995 to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the same year. 
 Federer remained steady through a stressful second set that both players will certainly remember for a while. 
 One game lasted 13 minutes and featured eight break points and 10 deuces before Blake finally held serve.
 Another of Blake's service games had six deuces, and he also won that one. 
 Federer had a total of 20 break points in the set but converted just one - when Blake dropped behind 3-2 with consecutive double-faults. Blake drew even at 5-5 by breaking back when Federer missed two straight forehands, but Federer remained calm through the tiebreaker. 
 &quot;His demeanor is also one of the best on the court,&quot; Blake said.
 &quot;He seems very emotionless until it gets to the end of the match, and then he lets it all out, as you saw at Wimbledon,&quot; he said. 
 Now Federer will face No. 13 David Nalbandian, who's won all four of their matches. 
 &quot;I've beaten him in juniors,&quot; Federer said, chuckling. &quot;It's about time for me to beat him.&quot; 
 Theatrical Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui, seeded 22nd, beat No. 10 Jiri Novak 7-6 (6-1), 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) to set up a fourth-round match against No. 7 Carlos Moya, who beat Nicolas Massu 7-5, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. 
 When El Aynaoui won, he threw his racket in delight, laid on his stomach along the baseline punching his arms to the ground, then jumped up and leapt against the wall and into the arms of his trainer.
 That was just the beginning. He then stripped off his shirt and slung it into the stands, held up a Moroccan flag and draped it over his shoulder to sign autographs before hoisting his racket into the seats. 
 &quot;I want to make it long, more suspense,&quot; he said jokingly. 
 The 31-year-old El Aynaoui lost 21-19 to Roddick in the Australian Open quarterfinals this year in the longest fifth set in Grand Slam tournament history. 
 Nalbandian beat No. 20 Mark Philippoussis 7-5, 6-7 (12-10), 6-3, 6-2 in a match between the last two runners-up at Wimbledon. Philippoussis out-aced Nalbandian 34-5, but also committed 74 unforced errors. 
 No. 12 Sjeng Schalken, a 2002 semifinalist, ended the run of qualifier Ivo Karlovic 7-6 (8), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3), and will meet No. 8 Rainer Schuettler, runner-up to Agassi at the Australian Open in January. Schuettler beat Alberto Martin 6-1, 6-4, 6-2. 
 The only past champion in the women's field, third-seeded Lindsay Davenport, advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating No. 19 Nadia Petrova 6-0, 6-7 (8-6), 6-2. Davenport will play No. 24 Paola Suarez, who got past Yelena Likhovtseva 6-2, 3-6, 7-5. 
 &quot;The first set is how I wanted to play,&quot; she said. &quot;I played real aggressive, was in control of the points, then slowly through the middle of the second set until the end I stopped being in control of points. I was making a lot of careless errors. Then she started serving a lot better.&quot;
 &quot;But, you know, the first set gives me a lot of encouragement,&quot; she said.
 Davenport has won a total of three Grand Slam titles, but No. 1-ranked Kim Clijsters and No. 5 Amelie Mauresmo both are aiming to claim their first. 
 Clijsters moved into the final eight by beating No. 17 Meghann Shaughnessy 6-2, 6-4, while Mauresmo was a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Tamarine Tanasugarn.

TITLE: Clemens Leaves Boston Again, But Cheers Abound This Time
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOSTON - Roger Clemens walked off to a standing ovation and came out for a curtain call, tipping his cap and waving to fans who saw what may have been his last pitch at Fenway Park. 
 
&quot;It was very special,&quot; he said. &quot;It gave me the opportunity to say thank you.&quot; 
 And it gave Boston fans, who often booed Clemens after he left Boston following the 1996 season, a chance to show appreciation even though the New York Yankees were on their way to an 8-4 win Sunday over the Red Sox. 
 &quot;It was exciting and that's what it should have been,&quot; Jason Giambi said. &quot;The reason why they boo him is because they miss him. And Boston fans are just like New York fans. They love great players.&quot; 
 The victory was the 100th for Clemens at Fenway Park, where he wore the home uniform from 1984 to 1996, compiling a 192-111 mark for Boston. He plans to retire after this season and could pitch again in Boston, where he is 100-55 in 199 regular-season starts, only if the teams meet in the playoffs. 
 The win boosted the Yankees to a 5 1/2-game lead over the Red Sox in the AL East, although they lost Derek Jeter, probably for at least three games, with a rib cage injury. 
 After losing Friday's opener of the three-game series and trailing Pedro Martinez 3-0 on Saturday, the Yankees took two of three. 
 &quot;It's nice in that they're obviously the team chasing us,&quot; Aaron Boone said, but &quot;we've got to continue to play well this month and if we do we'll be where we want to be.&quot; 
 Clemens (13-8) struck out three, walked two and allowed four runs on six hits in 6 2-3 innings. He left after throwing 112 pitches, the last a ball that walked Gabe Kapler to load the bases with two outs in the seventh. 
 Then came the cheers. 
 &quot;I've always had great fans when I pitched here,&quot; Clemens said. &quot;When I walk around town here, I still have a ton of friends.&quot; 
 He rebounded from a 13-2 loss Tuesday to the Chicago White Sox in which he allowed four homers and nine runs. On Sunday, he got plenty of support with a three-run first inning. 
 &quot;I don't think he had his best stuff,&quot; Boston's Todd Walker said. &quot;But Roger at 75 to 80 percent is better than anyone out there.&quot; 
 Boston threatened in the ninth, loading the bases against Jeff Nelson on singles by David McCarty and Lou Merloni and a two-out walk to Jason Varitek. But Mariano Rivera got his 31st save when he struck out Nomar Garciaparra. 
 The loss dropped Boston 1 1/2 games behind Seattle in the wild-card race after the Mariners' 3-0 win over Baltimore. 
 The Yankees took a 3-0 lead in the first on RBI singles by Williams, Jorge Posada and Aaron Boone. They came after knuckleballer Tim Wakefield (9-6) hit Johnson with a pitch and walked Giambi after getting 0-2 counts on both. 
 The Red Sox made it 3-2 in the third after a single by McCarty and a double by Doug Mirabelli put runners at second and third. One run scored on a passed ball charged to Posada. The other came in on Walker's single. 
 Clemens retired 11 of the next 12 batters before Trot Nixon walked and McCarty singled in the seventh. Mirabelli struck out, but Kapler walked and Antonio Osuna replaced Clemens. 
 Bill Mueller singled to center for two runs, making it 8-4, but Varitek flied out.
 
 q 
 
 
PHOENIX (AP) - Grief-stricken Barry Bonds, drained by the emotions that followed his father's death, was hospitalized for exhaustion as a precaution Sunday night. 
 
The decision was made after Bonds took batting practice and dressed for the game. Then the Giants announced that Jeffrey Hammonds would replace Bonds in left field and bat fourth. 
 The day before, Bonds came out of his first game since his father's death because of an accelerated heart rate - up to 160 beats per minute. 
 Conte said Bonds' resting heartbeat was down to 65 Sunday, but he showed other signs of being overwrought after losing the parent he relied on for hitting tips, support and advice. 
 Manager Felipe Alou didn't believe Bonds returned from bereavement leave too soon. 
 &quot;That kind of stuff doesn't go away - especially mentally,&quot; said Alou, who recalled taking a season off after losing a child during spring training. &quot;It's not going to go away in one week or one month. People take a long time. 
 


TITLE: Beckam Scores Quickly in Real Opener
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MADRID - David Beckham scored his first Primera Liga goal for Real Madrid while his former team, Manchester United, lost for the first time in eight months in the Premiership. 
 
Beckham took just two minutes to score in his Spanish league debut. The England captain scored off a low cross from Ronaldo, who later added the second goal. 
 James Beattie headed in the winner against U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard as Southampton edged Manchester United 1-0. 
 Arsenal, which was second to United last year, topped Manchester City 2-1 and took sole possession of first place. It is the only Premiership team with a perfect record after four games. Sylvain Wiltord and Freddie Ljungberg scored for Arsenal. 
 In Italy, defending champion Juventus began its season by routing Empoli5-1, getting two goals each from Alessandro Del Piero and David Trezeguet.
 
 <strong>
England.</strong> Arsenal opened a 3-point lead at the top of the standings with a 2-1 victory at Manchester City, after Manchester United lost 1-0 at Southampton on Sunday. 
 
Arsenal recovered from a Lauren own goal with strikes by Sylvain Wiltord and Freddie Ljungberg to make it four straight wins, its best start since 1947.
 Defending champion Manchester United, the only other team that had managed to win its first three games, was sunk by James Beattie's 88th-minute header and remained second with nine points. 
 Cameroon defender Lauren, under pressure from Trevor Sinclair as he ran towards his own goal, sliced the ball past a bemused Jens Lehmann to give Manchester City a 10th-minute lead that it did not look like losing as Arsenal failed to spark in the first half. 
 However, French forward Wiltord, left unmarked in the box, scrambled an equalizer three minutes after the break and Arsenal dominated the rest of the match. 
 Lehmann saved twice in a minute to deny Antoine Sibierski and Nicolas Anelka during a lively Manchester City spell midway through the second half, but a defensive mix-up between China's Sun Jihai and former Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman allowed Ljungberg to poke the visitors ahead after 72 minutes. 
 Veteran defender Martin Keown then came close to a second own goal in the 88th minute when he deflected the ball against his own crossbar, but Arsenal survived. 
 Manchester United looked jaded as it suffered its first league defeat since last December. 
 Two long-range shots by Diego Forlan, both parried by Paul Jones, were the nearest it came to scoring, and American goalkeeper Tim Howard made good saves to deny Beattie and Kevin Phillips. 
 The game looked to be heading for a draw, which would have been Southampton's fourth in a row, until Howard failed to collect a Graeme le Saux corner and Beattie accepted the gift from point-blank range. 
 
 <strong>
Italy.</strong> Defending Juventus led a sweep of season-opening victories for the top Serie A clubs as it crushed Empoli 5-1 on Sunday. 
 
Strikers Alessandro Del Piero, David Trezeguet and Marco Di Vaio scored in Turin, but it was a different story at the San Siro, where Inter Milan struggled against Modena before late goals sealed a 2-0 victory for last season's runner-up. 
 Both Rome-based clubs won. Lazio, inspired by former AC Milan midfielder Demetrio Albertini, outclassed promoted Lecce 4-1, and AS Roma beat Udinese 2-1. 
 Juventus was far too strong for its Tuscan opponent, which narrowly escaped relegation last season. 
 Juve started with all three recent signings - defender Nicola Legrottaglie, midfielder Stephen Appiah and striker Fabrizio Miccoli - in an offensive line-up spearheaded by del Piero and Trezeguet. 
 Empoli managed to close down Juve in the game's early stages, but fell behind after 16 minutes when Gianluca Zambrotta looped a perfect cross for del Piero to beat goalkeeper Luca Bucci. 
 The visitors wasted a chance to equalize three minutes before the interval, when striker Tommaso Rocchi scuffed his shot, but del Piero doubled the home team's lead in the 51st minute with a curling free kick. 
 Ten minutes later, Trezeguet scored the first of his two goals, turning a Pavel Nedved corner into the net as Empoli's defense fell to pieces. 
 Del Piero's replacement, Marco di Vaio, completed the rout from the penalty spot in the 85th minute, before Empoli striker Antonio di Natale snatched a consolation two minutes from time. 
 At the San Siro, Inter struggled to get the better of a well-organized Modena. 
 In the 14th minute, a counterattack inspired by Inter midfielder Cristian Zanetti left Obafemi Martins with only the keeper to beat, but the 18-year-old Nigerian striker clipped the ball wide. 
 Inter missed the target repeatedly in the second half, as winger Andy van der Meyde and Italy striker Christian Vieri wasted one-on-one situations against Modena goalkeeper Marco Ballotta. 
 Vieri finally broke the deadlock in the 85th minute, controlling a cross by defender Thomas Helveg before beating Ballotta from close range, and defender Marco Materazzi sealed victory with a dipping free kick four minutes later. 
 
 <strong>
Spain.</strong> Walter Pandiani came off the bench to earn Deportivo la Coruna a 1-0 win at promoted Real Zaragoza in its first league game of the season on Sunday. 
 
The Uruguayan striker, recalled from a loan spell at Real Mallorca to help make up for the departure of Roy Makaay, headed in from a Victor cross for the only goal after 67 minutes of an even game. 
 Deportivo's Galician neighbor Celta Vigo had a less successful start against Murcia, another promoted club. 
 Celta, playing in the Champions League for the first time after finishing fourth last term, went ahead with a Savo Milosevic header after 32 minutes, but Murcia kept plugging away and got the equalizer midway through the second half. 
 Pablo Contreras bundled over Francisco Maciel in the box, and Luis Garcia, who had earlier struck a post with a snap shot from outside the area, scored from the penalty spot. 
 Defending champion Real Madrid, inspired by new signing David Beckham, got its season off to a good start with a 2-1 victory over Real Betis on Saturday. 
 Beckham got the first goal in the second minute and started the build-up to the second, scored by Ronaldo after Juanito had equalized for Betis.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Moses Returning?
 </b>

PARIS (AFP) - Edwin Moses officially announced a return from self-imposed sporting exile on Sunday - his 48th birthday. 
 The former 400-meter-hurdles world-record holder and two-time Olympic champion's aim is to qualify for the US Olympic trials next year - a time of 0:50.55sec - but he will resist the urge to run on the Grand Prix circuit. 
 "Without doing 50.55 seconds you don't get to the Olympic trials. If you don't get in the first three places you don't go to Athens," said Moses. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm going to Athens to look like a jerk." 
 
 
<b>Tverdovsky Returns
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky is returning to Russia after playing last season for the Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils.
 He signed a two-year contract with Avangard Omsk of the Super League on Aug. 23, the Russian club said on its Web site. Tverdovsky became an unrestricted free agent in June.
 Tverdovsky, 27, was traded to the Devils last season. He had an erratic season that was limited by a head injury. He played 50 games, finishing with five goals and eight assists.
 He began his pro career with Russia's Krylya Sovietov.
 
 
<b>Makalele Moving
 </b>

LONDON (Reuters) - Claude Makelele completed his move from Real Madrid to Chelsea late on Sunday, less than 12 hours before the Champions League qualifying deadline, the Premiership club announced on Monday. 
 The 30-year-old has signed a four-year contract for an undisclosed fee, Chelsea said on its official Web site. 
 The French midfielder's move to London went through as planned, despite a disagreement over the player's cut of the transfer fee. 
 Chelsea and Real Madrid had reached agreement on Friday for a reported fee of 24 million euros, but doubts about the transfer emerged on Sunday when Makelele's agent said his player was expecting Real to pay him 15 percent of the fee. 
 However, Real's sporting director, Jorge Valdano, rejected the agent's claims on Sunday night as he announced that the transfer was going through. 
 Makelele's signing has lifted Chelsea's billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich's spending on players to well over Pound100 million ($157.8 million). 
 "That's it. No more. We've finished," Chelsea Chief Executive Trevor Birch said on the club's Web site. 
 
 
<b>... and Again ...
 </b>

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Anna Kournikova's stint as a roving reporter at the U.S. Open has come to a premature end after the glamorous Russian found quizzing fellow players uncomfortable. 
 Kournikova, sidelined by a back injury, also told tennisreporters.net that she had been eating too much during her days spent roaming the grounds of the hardcourt grand slam. 
 Kournikova said she had not been comfortable putting fellow players on the hot seat. 
 She added that she had just wanted to try TV out and would not be working as "entertainment reporter" for USA Network next week. 
 Not many had embraced Kournikova's new role as reporter. The New York Post summed up her performance in a single headline, "Anna's TV gig makes her tennis look good."
 For the first week, Kournikova, microphone in hand, prowled the players lounge in a micro-mini, red bra and fur-trimmed boots giving viewers an insight as to what went on.