SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #910 (78), Tuesday, October 14, 2003
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TITLE: Officials Blamed For Poll Malaise
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: "There is a clear parallel between the shelling of the White House in October 1993 in Moscow and the recent gubernatorial elections in St. Petersburg," one of the election's candidates, Sergei Belyayev, wrote in an open letter to President Vladimir Putin this week. 
 
The letter was published in Russian by Vedomosti and Kommersant, and can also be read on page 12 of this issue of The St. Petersburg Times. 
 "Of course, tank tracks are not yet rumbling through the streets of your hometown and mine; nor is there the smell of gunpowder yet," Belyayev wrote. "The siege is being imposed by officials, and attempts are being made to manipulate citizens' consciousness via newspapers and television channels. Officials are using administrative resources as though they were an iron sword, even as far as searches, arrests and libel."
 In the letter, Belyayev also condemned the use of Putin's name in the campaign by the Kremlin-backed candidate, now governor-elect, Valentina Matviyenko. 
 "The hypocrisy of the authorities is that, having accused everyone else of breaking the law, they themselves then break it more often than not," Belyayev wrote.
 Belyayev, a former property minister, also worked with Putin in the St. Petersburg city government, where he was head of the property department. His most recent prominent public role was as head of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.
 The presidential press-service said Monday that it was not aware of Belyayev's letter, adding that they usually don't make comments on open letters. 
 Belyayev said Monday that all St. Petersburg newspapers he contacted refused to publish the letter - even as a paid advertisement, marked as such. 
 "We have been to all publishing houses - Izvestia, Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti, all dailies and weeklies - only to be rejected," Belyayev's aide Alexei Yemelyanov said . "Sometimes they would give us no explanation, while at other times they said they "were told" or even "ordered" to do so - without saying who was behind the order."
 Although the letter appeals directly to Putin, Belyayev has little hope of getting a reaction from the Kremlin, but is seeking to draw the attention of the public, Yemelyanov said. 
 "Before we decided to write an open letter, we had been trying to arrange a meeting with the president for several months," he added. "His administration kept telling us that the president was too busy with other things to schedule a meeting with Sergei Belyayev."
 Belyayev warned in the letter that the St. Petersburg scenario will likely be repeated in other Russian regions. He also said that suppression of mass media might be a first step to further removal of freedoms .
 "First the press gets silenced, then the businesses get strangled, and then the whole country eventually comes under tough and thorough control," Belyayev said. In the letter, he is asking the president to end this practice.
 "We remember what it is to suffocate free speech, we remember what fear is, and how right gained by force differs from right granted by common consent," the letter's ending reads. "What is next, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich? You can still change things."
 But Alexei Titkov, a political analyst with the Carnegie Center in Moscow, said that Belyayev's letter is much more about his own political goals than about democracy and freedom of speech. 
 Titkov said Belyayev's move was a sign of despair, indicating that the former State Duma leader of the pro-government party Our Home is Russia has completely lost his political weight and influence in state and governmental circles. 
 "What the author has in mind is apparently first and foremost the forthcoming elections to the State Duma."
 Although Belyayev is already too late to win the backing of a particular political party, he is likely to compete as an independent candidate, he added. 
 "He might try to exploit his image as a victim of the recent gubernatorial elections," Titkov said. "And considering the likely splitting of votes in St. Petersburg, I wouldn't completely rule out his victory."
 As for the thesis of the letter, Titkov disagreed with the parallel the author drew between the events of October 1993 and the recent elections. 
 "The comparison is uneven," he said. "In 1993, the state didn't need the public to make a decision, and cared much less. But the elections in St. Petersburg have shown that a 'no-alternative' style of elections causes voter protest, and would pose a threat during elections to the Duma." 
 Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with INDEM, said Belyayev is far too late with his complaints. 
 "He is so late, in fact, that the situation is nearly laughable," Korgunyuk said. "In the vast majority of regions, elections have routinely been held with a heavy use of administrative resource since the mid-1990s."
 As a shining example, Korgunyuk cited the 1998 presidential elections in Bashkortostan, where the Central Election Commission of Bashkortostan refused to register two candidates in competition with President Murtaza Rakhimov, thumbing its nose at a Supreme Court ruling. 
 "Rakhimov simply squeezed out all the strong rivals, using administrative resource at the highest level and leaving only his understudy in the race," he said. 
 As for the city elections, they show that the last stronghold of democracy in Russia has fallen, Korgunyuk said.
 "The forthcoming elections to the Duma also will not be free from massive governmental pressure, and it is going to be a test for the country's voters: whether they are happy with such methods or not," he said. "I am afraid the results will be discouraging for those still seeking to find democracy in Russia."

TITLE: Robberies Target Tourists
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Tourist Industry Union begged city police last week to undertake urgent action after numerous cases of street robbery sparked letters of complaint from foreign tourist operators in September.
 
The branch said it appeared that the crowds of gypsies who appeared in downtown St. Petersburg found a new source of income this summer - attacking foreign tourists.
 "Crowd of gypsies started surrounding tourists and stealing from them this summer," Sergei Korneyev, head of the branch, said Friday. "The police have to do something about it as soon as possible, because this looks like a developing trend. If it is ignored it could grow like a virus."
 Greencastle Travel Ltd., a British tour operation based in Hereford, England, sent a letter Sept. 3 to the branch complaining that of a group of 35 elderly tourists, 21 were robbed on two consecutive days in August. On both occasions a group of gypsy children encircled the tourists in broad daylight on Nevsky Prospekt, near the Oktyabrskaya Hotel. The children prevented the tourists from moving in any direction.
 "It would appear that St. Petersburg is now the Crime Capital of Europe and, as professional tour operators, we have to question the wisdom of sending any more groups of tourists to St. Petersburg," Stuart Nicholls, sales manager for Greencastle Travel, wrote in the letter. "It seems that crime is completely out of control and the St. Petersburg authorities are doing absolutely nothing about it." 
 If such robberies continue, British tour operators will have no alternative but "to discourage tourists from visiting St. Petersburg," Nicholls added.
 "I know that street crime is a problem in most major cities throughout Europe, but to have more that half the people in one group involved in robbery of some kind is beyond belief!" Nicholls wrote.
 Last month, a group of young people beat up and robbed an elderly couple from the United States in Pavlovsk. 
 Shortly after the incident, police detained six adolescent gypsies who were allegedly responsible next to the Pavlovsk station. The group had also knocked over a statute in the "Twelve Paths" pavilion in Pavlovsk park, police said.
 "We know statistics on crimes against foreigners are very low in the city compared to general statistics on all crimes, but incidents of this kind seriously damage the image of the city as a tourist destination," said Korneyev. "This looks especially critical in the 300th anniversary year, which we had hoped would lead to more tourists visiting the city." 
 The tourism union has asked for more police to patrol Nevsky Prospekt. In turn, the union intends to create a special leaflet with basic information about whom to contact if a crime should occur and how to behave in St. Petersburg.
 "On May 27, when St. Petersburg was filled with police, a colleague of mine escorted a group of German journalists from ZDF channel... [and] they were robbed on Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa, next to the Grand Hotel Europe," said a written complaint to the union, signed by Pavel Netupsky.
 "A group of gypsy children stole from their bags, which, among other things, contained their travel documents. Tourists were shouting for help [in English], but a police patrol standing near the spot did nothing to stop the theft and ignored their request. The police did not show up even after a Russian representative in the group called 02 [the police phone number]. Nothing was done until the police press service was contacted," Netupsky wrote.
 The tourism union sent a letter with its proposals to the police in October.
 Pavel Rayevsky, spokesman for the St. Petersburg police, said officers already plan to put more patrolmen on beats around Nevsky Prospekt, with one of the main aims being making the street safe for foreign tourists.
 "We had [a plan] to double the number of patrols on Nevsky Prospekt and were trying to solve financial questions with the former [city] administration, such as being paid for the patrol work, new uniforms and cars. We solved the car question, but failed with the rest of financing," Rayevsky said Monday.
 "We will definitely do something in the future. We're going to solve this question with the administration, taking into account the results of the recent [gubernatorial] elections," he said.

TITLE: Novgorod Cross Languishes in Madrid Academy
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russian and Spanish officials are discussing the return to Novgorod of a cross from one of Russia's oldest and most significant churches - Novgorod's St. Sophia Cathedral - that was taken to Spain during World War II.
 
"This cross belongs to Russia, and it should come back to Russia," said Fernando Polonio, head of the Spanish Association for those Missing in Action in Russia, in a telephone interview from Toledo on Monday.
 Polonio led a delegation that about two years ago informed the Novgorod authorites that a cross in a military academy outside Madrid belongs to St. Sophia. He raised the topic again when visiting Novgorod this September.
 The cross from the main dome of St. Sophia's is believed to have fallen to the ground during shelling or bombardment in 1942, when Novgorod was occupied by Spanish military units, the so-called Blue Division, that were fighting alongside the German army. The division of Spanish volunteers was sent by Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco to help Hitler on the Eastern front.
 At some point, a Spanish officer serving in Novgorod ordered the cross to be taken out of the Soviet Union, where he feared the cross could be destroyed because of the atheistic Soviet regime's hostile attitude to Christianity, Polonio said.
 The cathedral, which dates back to medieval times, is associated with the coming of Christianity to Russia and the Novgorod republic, where many important events in Russian history took place. The exact age of the cross is not known.
 When the Novgorod administration heard of the find, officials, including the region's progressive governor, Mikhail Prusak, wrote a letter to the Russian embassy in Madrid urging it to work with the association to find ways to return the cross to its rightful home in a Russia, where the constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
 Transit from the Iberian Peninsula to northwest Russia will require complicated diplomacy, not least because of the time since the war ended.
 However, for the last two years little has happened, though both the Spanish and Russian public are aware of the problem and both sides want the cross to be back in Novgorod.
 In September, when the association's delegation came to Novgorod, the topic was brought up again, and the matter was publicized in the hope that this might expedite matters, Polonio said.
 A representative of the Russian Embassy in Spain, who declined to be identified, said on Monday that a year ago the embassy sent an inquiry to the Spanish Defense Ministry but had received no reply.
 "You know, the wheels of diplomacy sometimes turn slowly," he said in a telephone interview from Madrid.
 The embassy has some doubts that the cross in question is really the one from St. Sophia's Cathedral, he added.
 No one from the embassy has inspected the cross for themselves, but based on discussions by telephone with the military academy, the representative believes the cross in Madrid is only about 2 meters or 3 meters high, he said.
 "It might very well be an Orthodox cross from Russia, but it seems to be too small for such an important cathedral as St. Sophia's," he said.
 The diplomat said the cross should be identified by experts, but said that no expert has yet inspected it.
 "Anyway, we are still waiting for the Spanish to reply," he said. "We don't want to rush, because that might spoil everything."
 Polonio said he had no doubt the cross belongs to St. Sophia's, and expressed his confidence that the Russian embassy and Spanish authorities were doing everything possible to solve the matter.
 Polonio said that for the Spanish soldiers who brought it to Spain, the cross wasn't a military trophy, but a symbol of their memories of their comrades who died in Russia.
 Sergei Flyugov, head of the Novgorod Oblast Youth Comittee, said the return of the cross is important for Russia, not just because it belongs here, but mainly because of its power as a symbol of reconciliation, and because its return could become a significant symbol of the two countries' cooperation.
 "This case could become an excellent example of international diplomacy, which would show that people's good will can solve important questions," Flyugov said.
 Father Alexander Ranne, head of the education department of the Novgorod Diocese, said the return of the cross would be "a very significant and important event" for both Novgorod and Russia.
 "This cross is our relic and treasure," Ranne said.
 Flyugov said that in order to expedite the return of the cross, it is time for federal authorities to become involved, which could lead to greater results.
 Flyugov said Novgorod has been working with with the Spanish association for more than five years, ever since its members first came looking for the remains of the Spanish soldiers who died in the region during the war.
 Flyugov said about 5,000 Spanish soldiers died in Novgorod region, adding that the locations of most of the soldiers's graves are known. However, it takes a lot of time and energy to find their relatives, who normally want to return the remains to Spain, he added. 
 The remains of only 24 Spanish soldiers have returned to their native land.

TITLE: 'The Nose' Goes Astray in Frankfurt
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG - The famous illustration of the nose from satirist Nikolai Gogol's story of the same name that was stolen from the Frankfurt Book Fair last week has been recovered.
 
The illustration was the centerpiece of a display of illustrations at the book fair, where Russian publications are this year's main feature.
 RIA-Novosti reported Friday that Igor Shutnyev, a French citizen and former resident of Minsk, took the illustration on Thursday.
 The work of art is by Sergei Alimov and was used to illustrate a special edition of Gogol's works. It was valued at 4,000 euros ($4,680). 
 Alimov is in Moscow, but his brother, Boris, head of the creative union of book artists for the Moscow Union of Artists, is at the fair and was outraged by the theft. 
 According to Russian media, the suspect told other people in the fair's Russian pavilion that he had just been given the painting and asked for help wrapping it. When help was not forthcoming, he left the pavilion without attracting attention.
 RIA-Novosti cited Nelly Petkova, director of the "Russia - Guest of Honor" program at the fair as saying that the next morning the suspect was seen in a Marriott hotel in Frankfurt. Staff from the Russian pavilion were discussing the menu of Russian dishes being prepared for a festival of Russian cooking on Sunday, she said.
 "The unlucky thief went up to a chef and offered to sell him the painting," Petkova said. 
 "The Russian staff of the exhibition standing nearby immediately recognized the stolen illustration."
 "One of them tried to engage the 'seller' in conversation while the others called the police." 
 Petkova said the painting was slightly damaged and without its frame, but that it would be returned to the exhibition.
 Shutnyev was detained by the police.
 Artistic portrayals of the nose, which belongs to one Major Kovalyov, seem to take on a life of their own.
 In Gogol's short story "The Nose," Kovalyov wakes up one morning to discover that his nose has vanished and is wandering around St. Petersburg wearing a uniform, impersonating a state councilor and causing him trouble.
 Last year, a 100-kilogram sculpture of the nose went missing from the side of an apartment building on 11 Prospekt Rimskogo-Korsakova in St. Petersburg. 
 It has recently been returned to its former position.

TITLE: Matviyenko Pushes Court Relocation
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A debate is under way whether to move the country's highest courts from Moscow to St. Petersburg - and the Central Bank to Krasnoyarsk and the Cabinet to Yekaterinburg.
 
St. Petersburg Governor-elect Valentina Matviyenko is pushing to move the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Supreme Arbitration Court to the Imperial Capital.
 Matviyenko told reporters Friday that the issue is being considered by federal authorities and it is now up to the president to nix or back the plan.
 Vremya Novostei reported that the plan has made so much progress that authorities are looking at two buildings in downtown St. Petersburg to potentially house the courts.
 Matviyenko said the relocations would raise St. Petersburg's status and benefit the city in other ways. She did not elaborate.
 State Duma Deputy Valery Galchenko, a proponent of moving some state agencies out of Moscow, said the creation of several political, judicial and business centers in the country would give regional economies a shot in the arm and help consolidate the nation. He submitted a bill to the Duma on Oct. 1 that, if passed, would put the seat of the Cabinet in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, the Central Bank in Krasnoyarsk in western Siberia and the Constitutional Court in Vladivostok in the Far East.
 Analysts dismissed the notion that putting the judicial branch in St. Petersburg would translate into more money for the city.
 "I don't think this would increase investment attractiveness and revitalize economic life," said Konstantin Simonov, head of the Center for Current Politics in Russia think tank. "The status of the judicial system in the hierarchy of power is not that high."
 He said he believed Matviyenko's drive to move the courts is an attempt to show off her clout with federal authorities.
 The Supreme Court also does not appear to be open to the proposal. "I don't know any of my colleagues who would embrace the idea," Supreme Court Judge Vladimir Koval told Izvestia last week.
 He said many of the court's 100 judges and 450 assistants and consultants would not agree to the move and this would mean due process would be interrupted as replacements were recruited and trained. Veniamin Yakovlev, chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court, echoed the concerns in an interview published in Gazeta last Thursday.
 Reached by telephone Friday, Constitutional Court officials refused to comment about the plan.
 Critics argue that the biggest downside about the move would be the cost. Judges would have to be given new apartments, and federal officials would have to travel from Moscow to attend hearings.
 Mikhail Barshchevsky, the Cabinet's representative to the Constitutional, Supreme and Supreme Arbitration courts, told Izvestia that such expenses would be "unjustified" and the move "inexpedient."

TITLE: Report: Putin Will Tap Finance Chief
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Governor-elect Valentina Matviyenko has not yet decided who will fill the key position of head of the city's finance committee, waiting for President Vladimir Putin to make the choice for her, Gazeta newspaper reported Monday.
 
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref visited St. Petersburg on Saturday to discuss financial matters and to convince Matviyenko to appoint Sergei Dyomin, the former deputy head of the committee, and not Dmitry Lebedev, head of Menatep bank's St. Petersburg branch.
 The newspaper said Lebedev is Matviyenko's favored candidate. 
 The discussion resulted in an agreement that this year the federal budget will transfer to St. Petersburg 2 billion rubles ($65.8 million), including 1.5 billion rubles to continue construction of a ring road around St. Petersburg, 300 million rubles to finance further renovation of the broken Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya metro line and 270 million rubles to continue renovation of historical sites left unfinished after the 300th anniversary celebrations.
 "Two hundred and seventy million rubles is the figure that was mentioned in the draft of the 2004 federal budget during the anniversary celebrations, when people were asking if the state would continue to finance projects in St. Petersburg," Irina Malyavkina, spokeswoman for the committee to protect architectural sites, said Monday in a telephone interview.
 The money is already assigned to be transferred to continue the renovation of the Smolny and Kazan cathedrals, the Admiralty, the Peter and Paul Fortress and other sites that are under federal supervision. 
 Malyavkina added that about 600 million rubles (about $197 million) would be allocated from the city budget for the same purposes.
 The restoration of the metro line, which collapsed in 1995, leaving hundreds of thousands of city residents cut off from the city center, was promised by former governor Vladimir Yakovlev during his election campaign in 1996. 
 The work has not been completed because political battles delayed financing of the project. The next date named by Matviyenko to complete the renovation is the summer of next year.
 The finance committee question, however, has been put aside pending presidential approval.
 "This is not a question I can answer. I can't say anything on questions of the staff appointments," Matviyenko's spokeswoman Galina Gromova said Monday.
 Gazeta also reported that Gref, Kudrin and the governor-elect failed to reach a compromise as to who would be appointed to head the local arm of the City Property Committee. 
 The committee is to be split into two parts, a federal and a local one. The federal one is likely to be headed by Valery Nazarov, who headed the committee in Yakovlev's government. Matviyenko wants Andrei Martynov, vice president of Sankt-Peterburg bank, to head the local one, Gazeta said.
 That bank is tapped to handle the city's budget finances, Boris Vishnevsky, a member of Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, said Monday. 
 He is displeased that Moscow wants to decide city matters.
 "It is not the president's business to be engaged in formation of regional governments," Vishnevsky said. 
 "His duties are written down in the constitution and it doesn't say anything about it," he added. "He said there would be a dictatorship of law established in the country. So let him follow the law, not break it."

TITLE: Controversial Press Coverage Law Challenged Before Polls
AUTHOR: By Anna Dolgov
PUBLISHER: Special to The Moscow Times
TEXT: The Constitutional Court started hearings Monday on a petition by lawmakers and journalists challenging the constitutionality of a new law that sharply restricts media coverage during election campaigns. 
 
The law, which came into force this summer, bans the media from publishing critical reports or commentary beyond the bare facts about candidates. Journalists and commentators are not allowed to make predictions about what consequences a candidate's victory might entail. They also are banned from publishing any information that might prompt voters to support or oppose a candidate. 
 "The law is based on the opinion that the media has no right to comment on the events that they are covering," State Duma Deputy Valery Grebennikov, who defended the law in court, told reporters during a break.
 The law's wording is so vague that nearly any report can be declared improper, critics argue. Dozens of reprimands and fines have already been imposed on newspapers in the run-up to the Dec. 7 parliamentary vote. A media outlet can be closed down for the duration of the campaign if it steps over the line too many times, although none has been shut so far.
 Beside restricting the freedom of speech, the law also robs voters of an opportunity to make informed choices in an election, said lawyer Pavel Astakhov, who represents opponents of the law.
 "An election held in the conditions of a total ban on any information beside that released by candidates and political movements cannot be considered free and democratic," Astakhov told the court Monday. 
 Advocates of the law insist that the restrictions are aimed at blocking the widespread paid-for reports that tainted the coverage of previous election campaigns. 
 "These restrictions are a forced measure," said Yury Sharandin, a Federation Council envoy to the Constitutional Court. "I hope that in a few years such restrictions will become unnecessary." 
 Even if a journalist finds out potentially damaging facts about a candidate, he may be banned from making them known to the public. But proponents of the law insist that since critical reports may be published as advertisements paid for with the campaign funds of a rival candidate, no infringement on media or citizens' rights is taking place. 
 "Restrictions are placed only on the dissemination of information, but certainly not on searching for it and obtaining it," Sharandin said.
 "Nobody is blocking a journalist from going to an interested party and saying, 'Here is some information, go ahead and publish it,'" he said.
 The court is expected to rule on the petition within three weeks.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Student Kills Librarian 
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City police on Sunday detained a Railway Transport College student suspected of setting fire to the college library and murdering the librarian, Interfax cited the criminal police as saying.
 The library burned down on Thursday and the body of the librarian was found in the ashes. Initially, it was suspected that she died of carbon monoxide poisoning, but later police found knife wounds on her body, Interfax reported.
 The investigation discovered that a 16-year-old student had wanted to prevent a parents' meeting at the college and brought fuel to the library to set it on fire. The librarian tried to prevent him and was murdered, Interfax quoted the police press-service as saying.
 
 
<b>Institute To Remain 
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Vavilov Horticulture Institute, which has the world's largest herbarium and seed collection, is to remain in the two historical buildings on St. Isaac's Square, Interfax reported Monday.
 Such was the decision of the Upper Arbitration Court of Russian Federation, which on Oct. 8 canceled a decision this year by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who wanted to the buildings to become federal property and send the institute to different premises. Interfax quoted institute director Viktor Dragavtsev as saying that the buildings remain the property of the Russian Agriculture Academy.
 Kasyanov's decision caused controversy and protests by Vavilov's scientists as well as the City Historical Archive staff, whose historical building was also meant to be vacated for federal purposes.
 Dragavtsev also said that recently the institute was visited by the expert commission of the Food and Agricutlural Organization, which came to determine the institute's financial situation and to save the world's best plant genebank. The commission made the decision to allocate $6 million for the institute's building repairs.
 
 
<b>Shutov Still in Prison
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Yury Shutov, a deputy in the Legislative Assembly, has been taken from a St. Petersburg detention center to Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina prison, Interfax reported.
 "This case causes me personal perplexity," Interfax quoted Deputy General Prosecutor Vladimir Zubrin as saying. "It's been in court for two years, and the court hasn't gotten to considering it yet."
 Shutov was an adviser to former mayor Anatoly Sobchak and is the author of book "Sobchachye Serdtse." He was arrested in spring 1999 on the charge of organizing a criminal group. 
 
 
<b>Murder Suspects Held
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police on Sunday detained suspects in the murder of five people, Interfax reported Monday. The five people were killed in a communal apartment in the town of Slantsy in Leningrad Oblast on Friday. The police, who orgranized the search, detained three people aged 17 and 18 who are suspected of committing the murders while drunk, the report said.
 
 
<b>Pedestrian Bridge
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city's Architecture and Town Planning Committee announced Monday that the city's first pedestrian bridge with shops on it is to be built, Interfax reported. The new bridge will replace a pedestrian bridge across the Smolenka River, located on the opposite side of Ulitsa Beringa. 



TITLE: Second Journalist Slain in Tolyatti
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A year and a half after the editor of the Tolyatti Review newspaper was gunned down, his friend and successor was stabbed to death outside his apartment building.
 
Both killings were seen by their colleagues and investigators as contract hits aimed at silencing the newspaper, known for its hard-hitting investigative reports of organized crime and official corruption in Tolyatti, the hometown of AvtoVAZ, the country's largest automaker.
 The Press Ministry expressed its indignation at the attacks on journalists who were &quot;carrying out their professional duty.&quot;
 Alexei Sidorov, 31, was stabbed several times with a rough, handmade knife as he approached the entrance to his apartment building on Kommunisticheskaya Ulitsa at about 9:50 p.m. on Thursday.
 Sidorov's colleagues said he managed to get to the building's door and call his wife on the intercom.
 &quot;She ran out but the ambulance arrived too late. He was already dead,&quot; deputy editor Rimma Mikhareva said by telephone from Tolyatti.
 The killer fled. Russian newspapers, citing witnesses, said there were two accomplices.
 Yevgeny Novozhilov, deputy prosecutor of the Samara region, where Tolyatti is located, said he had no doubt that it was a contract hit, almost certainly related to the journalist's work.
 &quot;He wrote about practically all of the leaders of our crime gangs. I think the order [to kill him] came from there,&quot; Novozhilov said in televised remarks.
 Sidorov took over the paper after its previous editor, Valery Ivanov, was shot to death in the parking lot near his home on April 29, 2002. The killing has not been solved.
 The murder of a second editor has shocked the Tolyatti Review staff, most of whom had worked with Sidorov and Ivanov since the paper was founded seven years ago.
 &quot;No one has any doubts about what it is,&quot; Mikhareva said.
 She would not speculate on which of the paper's investigative reports might have cost Sidorov his life and pointed more generally to its refusal to back down after Ivanov was killed. &quot;We believed that Valery's death was meant to silence the paper, but it remained as implacable as it was at the beginning when Alexei was running it,&quot; Mikhareva said.
 Shortly after Ivanov's death, Sidorov said in a television interview, rebroadcast Friday by Channel One, that he was determined to investigate the killing of his boss, whom he had helped found the newspaper.
 Izvestia reported Saturday that Sidorov had been conducting his own investigation into Ivanov's murder.
 Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov promised on Friday that experienced investigators would be assigned to the Sidorov murder case. &quot;We know that two years ago another employee of this publication was killed. So for us it is a matter of honor to solve it,&quot; Gryzlov said in televised remarks.
 Prosecutor General's Office officials made similar statements following the murder of Ivanov.
 &quot;We know the names of the killers but we cannot make them public yet,&quot; Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said in October 2002.
 The reaction of the Press Ministry to Sidorov's murder came instantly. &quot;The leadership of the ministry is indignant at the murder and has sent an appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to take the investigation under special control,&quot; Mikhail Seslavinsky, a deputy press minister, told Interfax.
 &quot;We believe that all the investigations that the paper conducted caused hatred on behalf of people connected with criminal business,&quot; Seslavinsky said.
 &quot;The journalists just carried out their duty. It is impossible that there is a situation in the country where they are killed for carrying out their professional duty.&quot;
 More than 200 journalists have been killed in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Interfax reported, citing Igor Yakovenko, head of the Russian Union of Journalists. 


TITLE: Researcher Walks On Razor's Edge
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When she started her career, Olga Kryshtanovskaya signed a pledge for the KGB that she wouldn't poll people about Communist Party bosses. Today, the social researcher has collected some of the most comprehensive archives on Russia's pinnacle of power, from President Vladimir Putin's team to the powerful business barons.
 
Kryshtanovskaya has headed a department studying the political and business elite at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology for the past 14 years. As such, she says rather matter-of-factly, &quot;I can at any time pull a list of people who are the elite up on my computer and say what they are like.&quot;
 Kryshtanovskaya was put under the spotlight for a study that found a growing number of former KGB and military officers are securing senior government posts. Among the other research projects tucked away in her files is one tracing the career of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky from the basement office where he started out as a chief of a Communist Party-affiliated business that charged a commission for cashing the accounts of Soviet enterprises.
 Kryshtanovskaya set up her department in 1989, after perestroika had wiped out some Soviet taboos about studying the ruling elite and a former dissident was named the head of the Institute of Sociology.
 She picked the elite because she found the topic challenging. She said she also felt a civic responsibility to reveal to the public what she could about those in power. 
 The first steps were not easy. The team was not sure how far it could go in its investigations. A KGB officer posing as a postgraduate student worked in the department's office for a year and followed researchers to interviews, Kryshtanovskaya said.
 &quot;It felt like walking on a razor's edge,&quot; she said. But that tumultuous time also had its bonuses. &quot;$200 could buy you information from the KGB or the Finance Ministry.&quot;
 Kryshtanovskaya, however, said her department has never published any of this kind of information, partly because it was &quot;fragmentary&quot; and partly because &quot;its time hasn't come yet.&quot;
 &quot;We were pioneers in Russia. It was unbelievably difficult to get any information, but we burned with enthusiasm,&quot; she said.
 Being pioneers meant that researchers lacked research techniques and had to learn on the job. Sometimes research required &quot;exceptional detective abilities,&quot; as was the case with a study describing the emerging class of millionaires in the waning days of the Soviet Union in 1991. &quot;No one knew who actually was a millionaire. Finding them was like tracking down a criminal,&quot; she said.
 Struggling to find leads for the study, commissioned by the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, she and her team asked well-known people whether they were millionaires, interviewed them if they were, and begged them for further references.
 In another example, researchers ended up joining forces with an unusual partner to wrestle responses from tight-lipped bank officials for a report about banks.
 &quot;We found a powerful state agency that was interested in the same material, and we sent our requests for information under the letterheads of that agency and ours,&quot; Kryshtanovskaya said. She refused to identify the agency.
 Kryshtanovskaya's group gathers information by scanning newspapers, collecting stale official biographies and interviewing the subjects of their research.
 Former media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky, whom Moscow is currently trying to extradite from Greece on fraud charges, was the hardest person to nail down for an interview. Her department called his office 120 times before he agreed to talk.
 Since its inception, Kryshtanovskaya's department has completed 34 studies for clients such as Russian and foreign research foundations, the Russian government and newspapers. The latest project, &quot;Putin's Elite,&quot; will be in progress until 2005. Kryshtanovskaya was reluctant to name specific clients, saying only that foreign organizations have been the main ones in the past three years. She said her first major contract came from the Economic and Social Research Council, a leading British research agency. In 1991, the organization ordered a study of the Brezhnev-era elite.
 Apparently impressed with the department's work, the Russian government in 1995 asked for an investigation into regional authorities. The reason, Kryshtanovskaya said, was because federal officials &quot;didn't trust their special services.&quot;
 Kryshtanovskaya's main team numbers 14 people, but can swell up to 200 for some studies.
 Apart from the large number of former KGB officers in the government, Kryshtanovskaya's research has found that a third of those currently in the elite - 3,000 - were also among the elite before the Soviet collapse.
 What also has remained the same is that authorities are continuing to keep close tabs on researchers. Kryshtanovskaya said that after the release of the study about former KGB officers, she was grilled by Kremlin officials who wanted to know who was behind the research and who paid for it.
 &quot;Now the same feeling of danger as in the beginning has re-emerged,&quot; she said. &quot;I feel that I am walking on a razor's edge again.&quot;

TITLE: Sunken Sub Commanders 'Ignored Safety'
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: A navy officer revealed new details of alleged official negligence in the fatal sinking of a mothballed nuclear submarine in an interview published Monday. 
 
Captain Sergei Zhemchuzhnov, who has been charged with violating instructions in connection with the Aug. 30 sinking of the K-159 submarine as it was being towed to a scrapyard, said he was aware of the potential dangers but had to fulfill orders from superiors. Nine of 10 crewmen on board were killed when a howling storm ripped the pontoons from the submarine in the Barents Sea. 
 Zhemchuzhnov, who led the towing operation from aboard the tugboat, told Kommersant newspaper that the pontoons used in the towing dated back from the 1940s and leaked air. In addition, they were hastily welded to the rusting submarine's hull, which was &quot;no stronger than foil,&quot; he said.
 &quot;A structure built of such components can hardly be called reliable,&quot; he said. 
 Zhemchuzhnov said a military research institute had been in charge of the entire operation. 
 &quot;As an officer, I didn't have an opportunity to express my personal opinion and had to fulfill the order,&quot; he said. 
 The navy commander, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, has said Northern Fleet commanders disregarded safety rules when they authorized the towing of the submarine despite a bad weather forecast. He also said the tugboat moved faster than allowed by official instructions. 
 Even after the storm ripped off some of the pontoons and the submarine tilted on its stern, Northern Fleet commanders did not move to evacuate the crew from the submarine, Kuroyedov said last month. 
 Zhemchuzhnov said he repeatedly reported developments to the Northern Fleet commanders but they were slow to react. 
 &quot;I had the impression that the commanders simply couldn't believe that anything might happen to a mothballed submarine,&quot; he told Kommersant. 
 Zhemchuzhnov said he ordered the crew to get ready for evacuation and leave the submarine without further orders if it started sinking. One sailor was rescued from icy water and two bodies were found, while another seven crewmen apparently never made it out of the submarine. 
 President Vladimir Putin has suspended the Northern Fleet's commander, Admiral Gennady Suchkov, but so far only Zhemchuzhnov faces criminal charges.


TITLE: Traffic Police to Lose One Bribery Source
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In about a year, the traffic police will lose one of their favorite ways of exhorting bribes from drivers - issuing car roadworthiness certificates, or tekhosmotr, the Cabinet decided Thursday.
 
The decision was one of several reached at an administrative reform meeting aimed at revamping the country's bureaucracy by stripping ministries and other state agencies of some of their powers.
 &quot;Nowhere else in the world are the police in charge of car technical inspections,&quot; Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin told reporters after the Cabinet meeting. &quot;It's as odd as if we were to make the police in charge of the quality of the roads.&quot;
 Alyoshin said the task of issuing roadworthiness documents would be moved into the private sector and participating companies would be licensed and controlled by the Transportation Ministry.
 &quot;The traffic police's task will only be to make sure that cars on the roads have certificates indicating that they are in proper condition,&quot; he said.
 Currently, a vehicle is subject to technical inspections every two years if it is less than five years old and every year afterward. The procedure is notoriously corrupt, and many drivers pay bribes to avoid hassles.
 Officially, the fee for an inspection is some 1,000 rubles ($33), but the average driver ends up paying about $100 to get the certificate in a timely manner.
 It was unclear Thursday how much private companies might charge for the inspections.
 Alyoshin noted that at the very least the switch would limit a source of corruption for traffic police.
 The Cabinet also decided Thursday that the Labor Ministry and State Construction Committee will only be able to suspend the activities of companies through the court, that the Justice Ministry will no longer be able to limit the number of notaries working in a region and that various licensing powers will be taken away from the Transportation and the Industry, Science and Technology ministries.
 Alyoshin said a special commission formed by the government last year to look for excessive and overlapping powers at state agencies has found 450, and 84 of them have been removed or are being removed.
 Alyoshin cautioned that work would have to be intensified if the commission is to complete its task by a Feb. 24 deadline.
 Only after this work is completed will administrative reform move to the next stage, he said.

TITLE: American Builds His 'Flying Tractor'
AUTHOR: By J. Quinn Martin
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - When American entrepreneur Glen Gordon decided to manufacture and sell his innovative &quot;flying tractor,&quot; Russia was about the last place he thought he'd build it.
 
But over the last three years, Gordon and engineers from a young company based at Moscow's Khrunichev space center have struck up an improbable U.S.-Russian business alliance that is bearing fruit this fall in the form of 30 Russian-made Sherpa airplanes. This first shipment of planes, able to take off and land on a strip of land the length of a hockey rink, is on its way to the United States for sale. Hundreds more are to follow.
 &quot;We were told dozens of times: 'You'll get over there and the Russians will steal your project,' &quot; Gordon said in an interview during a visit to Moscow.
 He admits he was wary in 1998 when representatives from Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika asked if they could photograph the prototype Sherpa he was flying at an air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. But he consented, and the Russians proceeded to tell him they wanted to manufacture his unusual plane - in Moscow.
 It took some convincing, but Gordon and Byron Root, his American partner and co-designer of the Sherpa prototype, agreed to the Russians' proposal.
 A team of top aeronautic engineers began work on the plane three years ago at the Khrunichev plant in western Moscow, where the Soviets made spy planes and bombers in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, churned out rockets and ballistic missiles at the height of the Cold War and built the space station Mir in the 1980s.
 A native of Portland, Oregon, Gordon said he has encountered none of the corruption or organized crime he would have expected from reading papers back home. He trusts his partners completely and delights in having sealed the deal with Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika with a handshake.
 Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika was spun off from the flagship of the country's space industry, Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, in 1997 as a private aviation technology company.
 The firm furnishes Boeing's Moscow research center with 60 engineers and has a few other projects in the works. The company has financed the development and production of the Sherpa on its own and general director Yury Pervushin said the flying tractor ultimately will either make or break his company.
 To date, Sherpa Worldwide Inc., a U.S.-registered company that Gordon heads, and Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika have operated under a buyer-seller agreement, with Sherpa purchasing completed plane kits from Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika. Gordon and his team then assemble and market the planes in the United States.
 Gordon says he dubbed the plane a &quot;flying tractor&quot; because it is equipped with 42-inch Chevy truck tires. It can land in plowed fields and can carry up to 1,360 kilograms of weight.
 The Sherpa may be useful for everything from gold mining in Siberia to emergency medical flights in the United States, Gordon said. One of the four models has room for two gurneys plus a medical team - and it costs a fraction of the price of a helicopter.
 Three of the four Sherpa models are now on sale. The five-seat T-411 costs as little as $90,000, while the 10-seat, fully certified C-700T sells for as much as $895,000. Engines are not included.
 The plane is an old tube-and-fabric design, and it takes its name from the Nepalese porters. The most rugged model can carry 1 1/2 tons of cargo.
 &quot;That's more weight than you want to put in your damn pickup. This isn't a little play toy,&quot; Gordon said, speaking in the lobby of the Proton Business Hotel near Khrunichev.
 Gordon is convinced the Sherpa venture will be a commercial success and Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika will be a full partner with a 50 percent stake in Sherpa Worldwide once sales take off.
 He said the engineers were skeptical that a Western buyer was willing to split revenues with them.
 Today Pervushin, the sole member of the Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika team with a background in business, says Gordon's promise of a 50 percent stake is important, but he is cautious in his optimism. He cited an old Russian saying: &quot;Don't divvy up the fur of an unkilled bear.&quot;
 If U.S. sales are successful, Gordon and Khrunichev-Aviatekhnika plan to launch a Moscow-based company that will sell the plane in this part of the world.
 The first models of the Sherpa were shipped as kits to the United States in July and went on display at the Oshkosh air show where Gordon first met his partners five years ago.
 For Gordon, a self-employed businessman who lived through the Cold War, the Sherpa has become as much about U.S.-Russian friendship and being a part of Russia's transition to capitalism as it is about making money.
 On their first trip to Moscow less than three years ago, Gordon and Root came with low expectations.
 These days, after six visits, one would be hard-pressed to find a more enthusiastic advocate for doing business in Russia than Gordon. His eyes sparkle as he describes Russian engineer's clever design innovations. &quot;The wing is a work of art,&quot; he says, adding that &quot;these guys are working their tails off.&quot;

TITLE: India to Buy Russian Planes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW DELHI - India signed a deal Friday to buy Russian surveillance planes outfitted with Israeli-made radar systems - a purchase that Pakistan warned would upset the balance of power in South Asia.
 
Israel's advanced PHALCON radar systems are to be fitted on converted Russian-made Ilyushin transport planes that India will purchase from Moscow.
 The $1 billion deal, finalized during the visit to India last month by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was signed Friday morning, Indian Defense Ministry spokesman Amitabha Chakrabarti said.
 India's Defense Secretary Ajay Prasad signed the agreement with retired Maj. Gen. Yasi Ben Hanan, head of Sibat, the Israeli defense ministry's licensing agency for the PHALCON.
 Mikhail Denisov, the first deputy chairman of Russia's State Committee for Military Technical Cooperation, also signed, Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin said.
 India has been seeking to strengthen its defenses by acquiring airborne warning and control systems that can detect aerial threats and serve as a platform to direct Indian combat jets to targets.
 Pakistan, however, has criticized what it called India's weapons shopping spree. The two countries have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.
 &quot;We believe that such defense deals will upset the conventional military balance,&quot; Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. The PHALCON deal is &quot;worrying for us,&quot; but Pakistan can defend itsefl, he added.

TITLE: Limonov Deputy Freed, Not Extradited to Latvia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The leader of the Latvian branch of Russia's radical National Bolshevik Party was released Monday from Moscow's Lefortovo prison after prosecutors said the charges against him were politically motivated.
 
Vladimir Linderman, a friend of writer Eduard Limonov, had disappeared three weeks ago after he went out to buy newspapers.
 His family and friends only found out what happened to him last Tuesday evening after receiving a letter saying he was in Lefortovo prison.
 Linderman, also known as Abel, 40, was detained at the request of Latvian authorities, his lawyer Sergei Belyak said last week. 
 Latvian Embassy spokesman Atis Lots confirmed that Linderman is wanted in Latvia, where in addition to the other charges he also faces charges of illegally possessing explosives.
 Linderman was accused of involvement in an alleged plot to kill Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and stage a coup last year. A resident of Riga, he effectively ran the National Bolshevik Party for the past two years while Limonov, the party's leader, served a prison term.
 Shortly before Linderman's release Monday, the General Prosecutor's Office said Latvia's charges were politically motivated and that for this reason Lativa's extradition request would be declined, local media reported.
 After Linderman went missing on Sept. 24, his family and friends, afraid he had an accident, looked for him in the city's hospitals and morgues. &quot;His family did not know what to think and was looking for him in all the morgues,&quot; Belyak said. Linderman is the father of four.
 Prosecutor General's Office spokesman Vasily Glushchenko confirmed last week that Linderman was detained pending an extradition hearing but said he did not know why Linderman was denied access to a lawyer for so long.
 He suggested that it could be because those who detained him were not familiar with extradition procedures.

TITLE: Doors Open Wider for ExxonMobil
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In the government's strongest endorsement yet of a possible sale of a stake in YukosSibneft to global oil giant ExxonMobil, Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said Friday that Russia would welcome such a deal as a &quot;positive step.&quot;
 
&quot;Of course, it fills us with pride that discussions are under way with the first company in the world, ExxonMobil,&quot; Yusufov said at a news conference for foreign reporters, AP reported.
 &quot;And to receive the addition of such a strong partner, we believe that would be a positive step.&quot;
 His statements capped a week of growing murmurs of approval about an Exxon deal. First, President Vladimir Putin confirmed in an interview with The New York Times on Oct. 4 that talks on a sale were going on, but said that although the Russian government welcomed foreign investment, it expected to be consulted first.
 Then, on Tuesday, an unnamed government source seemed to crack open the door for Exxon, telling Interfax there were no legal barriers for it to buy a large stake in YukosSibneft.
 The door was opened wider Thursday when First Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told a conference in New York that the government would have no objections to a foreign company taking control of Yukos.
 &quot;There are increasing signals from Russia that it would welcome a deal. It seems that this could be coming to a head,&quot; said Paul Collison, senior energy analyst at Brunswick UBS.
 But with Yusufov apparently giving the nod of approval for Exxon to come in just one day after law enforcers stepped up the pressure on Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky in new raids, many observers were left scratching their heads as to what the Kremlin's endgame is. In those raids, investigators seemed determined to leave their mark, emptying entire filing cabinets and even kicking through a wall to seize a computer in the company's business compound in the elite Moscow region village of Zhukovka. (See story on page 8.)
 Some analysts have speculated that Khodorkovsky has been pushing for a sale of a stake in his company to a foreign oil major as a way of gaining protection from further Kremlin attack. The Yukos founder has been under fire from prosecutors since July when they jailed core Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev on fraud charges and also opened investigations into alleged tax evasion, murder and attempted murder by company officials. Observers have seen the onslaught as a response to Khodorkovsky's financing of opposition parties amid a battle for position ahead of elections between two opposing Kremlin clans.
 But others say that under such tense circumstances, the only way the normally ultra-conservative ExxonMobil could go in would be for it to receive assurances that Khodorkovsky's role in YukosSibneft would be diminished after the sale - a prospect that could dovetail with Kremlin wishes to rein him in.&quot;[The sale of a stake to a foreign oil major] could be a double-edged sword for Khodorkovsky,&quot; said Alexei Mukhin, the director of the Center for Political Information. &quot;On the one hand, it could make him untouchable. But on the other, it could end up diminishing his clout. That's what the Kremlin could be eyeing.&quot;
 In what appears to be growing activity surrounding a possible deal, Putin met with Exxon CEO Lee Raymond during his visit to the United States in late September. Then, Raymond returned the visit and came to Moscow two weeks ago where he met with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Just over a week ago, the Financial Times, citing sources close to the negotiations, reported Exxon could buy a 40 percent stake in YukosSibneft for $25 billion. Neither of the companies, however, will comment on a possible deal.
 Chevron is also rumored to be considering buying a stake as a race heats up between multinationals for a chunk of Russia's reserves.


TITLE: Kremlin Rift Widens Over Gazprom
PUBLISHER: The Moscow Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Friday that the government would decide on restructuring Gazprom in the next few months, an apparent turnaround on comments made the day before by President Vladimir Putin that seemed likely to slam the brakes on any prospect of reform.
 
The restructuring of Gazprom &quot;doesn't depend on elections,&quot; Interfax reported Kasyanov as saying.
 Kasyanov said the government would first have to grapple with setting domestic pipeline tariffs and with finding a way to allow independent producers access to pipelines before any sweeping reform could be conducted on Gazprom itself. &quot;If we say that Gazprom is a monopoly, there's nothing wrong with that,&quot; he said. &quot;If that monopoly is efficiently regulated by the state, then it's in order.&quot;
 &quot;We intend to keep state control over the gas pipeline system and over Gazprom in the future,&quot; Putin told reporters Thursday, during talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Yekaterinburg. &quot;We're not going to break up Gazprom,&quot; Vedomosti reported him as saying.
 Analysts said what appeared to be conflicting signals were a clear sign of a continuing deep divide in the Kremlin and in the government between free market advocates and those in favor of a more statist approach on ways to conduct a much-needed restructuring of the gas behemoth.
 &quot;Kasyanov tried to correct the president. [Putin's] statements were seen negatively for the investment climate as a flat-out refusal to reform Gazprom,&quot; said Valery Nesterov, energy analyst at Troika Dialog. &quot;But Kasyanov's in a difficult situation. He also tried to step back and call for the creation of a market around Gazprom before touching the company itself by creating a role for independent producers and giving them access to pipelines.
 &quot;A fight is inevitable now on how much the state should cut back its functions while not losing control,&quot; he said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Baltika Boosts Export
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Baltika brewery exported 9 percent more beer between January and September 2003 than during the same period in 2002, or 8.113 decaliters more, the brewery's press service reported to Interfax.
 Baltika exports beer to 27 countries of the world, including Great Britain, Germany, Iran and Israel. Iran receives shipments of nonalcoholic beer, while Israel buys kosher beer.
 An earlier report stated that Baltika beer accounted for 70 percent of all beer exported from Russia.
 Baltika operates plants in St. Petersburg, Tula, Rostov-on-Don, Samara and Khabarovsk. 
 
<b>Apatit Investment
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - The Fosagro is investing $65 million in Apatit, according to a Fosagro press release reported by Interfax. The investment is being made in developing production, construction of capital assets and purchase of equipment.
 Apatit purchased eight pieces of mining equipment for a total of $4 million in 2003. An additional six machines will be acquired by the end of the year at a cost of $7.74 million. A total of $13 million will be invested by the end of the year.
 Apatit is owned by Fosagro, a major producer of phoshorous-rich mineral fertilizers that covers the entire range of production, from phosphorous mining to manufacture of finished products. Operations are located in the town of Apatity, Murmansk Region.
 
 
<b>Severstal Board Meets
 </b>

MOSCOW - Severstal shareholders voted in absentia on Sept. 26 to go ahead with a possible deal with SeverGal involving the Arselor international concern to produce galvanized rolled metal for the automotive industry, Interfax reported Monday.
 Shareholders also approved credit deals with Promstroibank and the Metallurgy Commercial Bank, on whose supervisory boards member of the Severstal board of directors sit.
 Severstal, located in the Vologda Region, is one of the country's largest metal producers.
 
 
<b>NW Telecom
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Elektrosvyaz of Kaliningrad Region, a subsidiary of Northwest Telecom, a St. Petersburg company, signed an agreement with the Swiss Ascotec Anstalt AG for purchase of 300 eXANTO pay phones, Interfax reported on Monday.
 The pay phones will be installed on Kaliningrad's busiest streets, in hotels, movie theaters and other public places.
 The new telephones will provide international, SMS and e-mail services payable by local phone card. The owners plan to expand payment options to Visa and Mastercard credit cards, as well as phone cards issued by Polish and Lithuanian telecommunications companies.
 
 
Komienergo Output
 

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Komienergo reduced output during the first nine months of 2003 by 1.9 percent over last year's figure, Interfax reported Monday. 
 The company produced 2,174,636 kilowatts during the period in 2003.
 Two of Komienergo's main shareholders are UES and Sberbank, who hold 48.99 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively.
 Komi is a republic in Russia's far north. 



TITLE: Lawyer Outcry: Yukos Raids Illegal
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: ZHUKOVKA, Moscow Region - A day after prosecutors raided Yukos-related offices, lawyers on Friday condemned the searches at the business center in the suburb of Zhukovka, saying the documents seized by investigators will not hold up in court because they were confiscated illegally.
 
The investigators searched the office of the lawyer of jailed Group Menatep director Platon Lebedev on Thursday, following a trail of alleged tax evasion by Menatep, which controls 61 percent of Yukos.
 The lawyer, Anton Drel, who also represents Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said his ability to defend his client has been severely impeded.
 Drel said investigators took hundreds of files, a computer, confidential personal material, such as his tax declarations, and, most importantly, files on the Lebedev case and other clients not related to Yukos.
 Prosecutors denied they took any files on the Lebedev case. They said they were collecting information on Yukos' international financial transactions to track funds they said were accumulated through tax evasion. They said Drel was more than just a lawyer for Lebedev, acting as a consultant for Yukos transactions with offshore companies.
 &quot;I am not a Yukos lawyer,&quot; Drel said. &quot;But I don't deny that I am Mr. Lebedev's lawyer and Mr. Khodorkovsky's lawyer, and as part of my legal profession, I consult them in regard to those things that they ask of me.&quot;
 It was the second time prosecutors had searched the Zhukovka building. During the first raid, on Oct. 3, they searched the office of Vladimir Moiseyev, a childhood friend of Khodorkovsky and the head of Menatep subsidiary GML Management Services S.A., which owns the building. The same day, prosecutors searched a Yukos-sponsored orphanage, also headed by Moiseyev. Prosecutors have described Moiseyev as &quot;the head of Yukos' financial transactions abroad&quot; and said they believe funds acquired through tax evasion where channeled through GML.
 After a press conference held by Yukos and Menatep lawyers on Friday, Yukos bused journalists to the Zhukovka business center to see the damage prosecutors caused. One wall was knocked down to remove a server.
 Moiseyev, who was in his Zhukovka office, refused to speak to the journalists.
 During Thursday's raid, prosecutors also searched the office of State Duma Deputy Vladimir Dubov, a Menatep shareholder. Lawyers said the search violated the deputy's right to immunity from prosecution. Genri Reznik, head of the Moscow attorneys chamber, who also attended the press conference, said prosecutors are &quot;openly wiping their feet on the State Duma.&quot;
 In searching Drel's office, Reznik said they &quot;infringed upon the very foundations of the legal profession.&quot;
 Prosecutors said the search was legal because the office that Yukos claims belongs to Dubov actually was used by programmers. &quot;A piece of paper that said 'Deputy Dubov's Office' on it was taped to the door leading to these rooms,&quot; Interfax quoted Prosecutor General's Office spokeswoman Natalya Vishnyakova as saying.
 When journalists arrived at the Zhukovka center on Friday, the door to Dubov's office had been removed and was leaning against a shelf in the middle of a mess made by investigators the previous night. They demolished a wall to take a server labeled Sibintek out of a room adjacent to Dubov's office that appeared to be a computer center.
 Vishnyakova said the server contained Yukos financial data and weighed almost a ton.
 Drel denied this, saying Yukos had no servers in the Zhukovka center. Sibintek is a software company spun off from Yukos in 1999 and currently part of the Menatep holding. It was raided by prosecutors in August.
 Thursday's raids ran parallel to a separate investigation at Yukos headquarters in Moscow, where investigators searched the offices of Yukos security official Alexei Pichugin, who was arrested in June on charges of murder and attempted murder.
 Interfax cited Vishnyakova as saying the search uncovered Yukos schemes to push out its competitors by initiating criminal cases against them. Yukos denied any wrongdoing.


TITLE: Old Habits Must Die Before Progress Possible
AUTHOR: By Yuri Ushakov
TEXT: The Camp David meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush demonstrates the growing strength of the U.S.-Russian relationship, which has not only survived but transcended disagreements over Iraq. Even if our two presidents did not see eye to eye on every issue, they have developed a remarkable mutual understanding. They believe that basic American and Russian interests are quite similar in many key areas. The task now is to move beyond this fundamentally important understanding. And the two presidents do so - they are able to discuss the most difficult issues not merely frankly but constructively, as leaders of countries that have every reason to wish one another well. 
 
Unfortunately, this constructive attitude is not universal in Russia or in the United States. Not everyone in our countries is ready to accept the new reality. Many are still constrained by or obsessed with bad experiences of the past. Obsolete stereotypes remain an obstacle to achieving our full potential in the common struggle against terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and in our efforts to address other challenges. In my country, for example, there are still some who assume that American gains are somehow always at Russia's expense. This is most definitely not a view held by President Putin or the Russian government. On the contrary, we supported the United States in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, because we knew, perhaps better than others, how important it is to win the war on terrorism. 
 As our president observed at Columbia University and in the talks at Camp David, outdated views of Russia still exist in the United States. Americans' perceptions of developments in today's Russia are still colored by Soviet policies and practices, which also have a palpable legacy in U.S. law and policy. 
 One example of this attitude may seem minor but in my view is appalling. It concerns the continuing requirement for Russian citizens working for the United Nations to provide advance notice to American authorities when they travel outside a 25-mile radius from UN headquarters. Why are Russian employees singled out while citizens of other states of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe are exempt from this rule? This is how the Cold War mentality works. 
 The Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974 is a more profound and notorious case. This legislation was originally introduced to facilitate free Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. Today no one disputes that free emigration is a reality in Russia. In fact, the problem for Russians seeking to travel to America is not in leaving their country but in entering the United States. Yet Jackson-Vanik is still on the books. 
 Let me be blunt. The amendment does not substantially damage Russian commercial interests. But it does damage Russia's interest in better relations with the United States because it contributes to a view in Russia that some in America, including in Congress, are determined to apply the same old standards and to retain as many sticks as possible - even symbolic ones - while dealing with my country. 
 Yet another example is the Nunn-Lugar program to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. Why is the money under this program being presented as some kind of a prize that may or may not be awarded to us? It is obvious that the program brings benefits not only for Russia but also for the United States and the rest of the world in reducing nuclear threats. Still, this brilliant idea of mutual threat reduction has for some become as a tool of punishment for &quot;misbehavior&quot; on our part. 
 The stereotypes influence Americans' perceptions of the complex and painful problem of Chechnya. No one knows better than Russians the difficult predicament we face in Chechnya. We do not ask for any specific assistance, but we do believe that, at a minimum, others who suffer from terrorism should not use the situation in Chechnya for the sake of traditional propaganda. That would not be friendly, especially after the successful elections in Chechnya and while the political process there is moving forward. 
 Russia is not trying to score PR points on the tragic loss of innocent lives in the course of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither do we seek to use such incidents to portray the United States as a villain. We recognize that the environment and circumstances in these two countries are quite extraordinary. I hope that Americans might reflect on this in considering the dilemmas Russia faces. 
 Presidents Putin and Bush have given considerable momentum to the U.S.-Russian relationship, but we must work together to bury old stereotypes and mutual mistrust if we are to translate that momentum into tangible results. The legacy of the Cold War cannot be allowed to undermine success in our strategic partnership and in the war on terrorism - a war in which we are on the same side. We should not remain hostages of our own prejudice about each other. Let's destroy the phantoms of the past. 
 
 <i>Yuri Ushakov, Russia's ambassador to the United States, contributed this comment to The Washington Post. </i>

TITLE: Will the Poor Benefit From GDP Growth
AUTHOR: By Vitaly Kartamyshev
TEXT: The central theme of the World Economic Forum meeting held in Moscow 11 days ago was the much-touted goal put forward by President Vladimir Putin to double GDP in a decade.
 
However, Russia's industrial growth and success are not just about facts and figures on a balance sheet. It is vital that any such development should improve the lives of the Russian people and that secure livelihoods and a secure future for all should be the fruits of economic growth and stability. The strength of the economy depends on the country having transparent public institutions and a vibrant private sector that help to meet people's needs.
 According to Goskomstat estimates, in 2002 Russia had 39.9 million people living below subsistence level, and the gap between rich and poor widened. Goskomstat also shows that 10 percent of high-income-earning Russians shared 29.6 percent of total cash revenues in the first quarter of 2003, while 10 percent of low-income families shared just 2 percent.
 An increase in GDP could lead to a substantial improvement in people's standard of living, but this cannot be taken for granted. It would be a bitter irony if, despite GDP rising, poor people were plunged further into poverty.
 The focus, therefore, should be much more on sustainable and equitable economic growth. This issue is already on the agenda and at the WEF meeting there was some reference made to the need to enhance the income and employment security of ordinary Russians. For example, Andrei Illarionov, chief economic adviser to the president, sagely observed: &quot;Only when people see the benefits of economic reform at the household level can you bring about more sustainable growth.&quot; This understanding that the polarization of rich and poor can lead to greater instability and social disenchantment is particularly pertinent, as in Russia there is increasingly striking evidence of pockets of poverty existing side-by-side with excessive wealth.
 There is a fundamental need for the development of small and medium-sized businesses, which could potentially help bridge the gap between rich and poor. They could be given a boost if steps were taken to reduce over-regulation and inspection, and a simpler taxation system was introduced. SME development could be an important engine for sustainable and equitable growth, with small entrepreneurs not only securing a stable income for their families but also providing employment for others. Oxfam's experience in many parts of the world is that this can provide a path to stability and sustainable growth within communities.
 The impact of sustainable and equitable economic growth could be enormous, providing stability and security for people in even the poorest regions of Russia.
 
 <i>Vitaly Kartamyshev is policy officer at Oxfam's Russian office, which opened a year ago. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Bulls Kick Away at Misconceptions
AUTHOR: By Eric Kraus
TEXT: If bull markets classically climb a &quot;wall of worry,&quot; then surely the RTS must be fitted out with ropes and pitons! Repeatedly this year we have been warned that the Russian bull was to be slaughtered - by reform fatigue and political volatility, by the Yukos scandal or the &quot;summer doldrums,&quot; even by the dread &quot;September effect.&quot; All proved to be nothing more than the hobgoblins of underemployed minds.
 
In a recent opinion piece on these pages, James Fenkner likened the current RTS rally to the Nasdaq bubble. The comparison seems patently absurd: Although the notorious tech bubble was also liquidity-fueled, it was built upon the &quot;new economic paradigm&quot; - valuation metrics developed ad hoc when the old ones became hopelessly stretched. The Russian boom is driven by old-fashioned values: retained earnings, minerals in the ground, dividend yields and hugely undervalued hard assets. Tellingly, and unlike the situation preceding the 1998 meltdown, the market has surged almost entirely on local buying - increasingly wealthy Russians investing in their own economy.
 Fenkner tendentiously suggests that the local analyst community has engaged in a self-serving game of hype-the-market - again, analogous to that seen in the later phases of the U.S. Internet bubble. This is nonsense. Most senior analysts in Moscow lived through the August crisis and at least until recently, research by the local houses has ranged from fairly conservative to chronically bearish. Last year, one well-respected Russian oil analyst - systematically pessimistic about oil in general and the Russian market in particular - summarized his conference presentation with a warning about the four most expensive words in finance: &quot;This time it's different.&quot; Well, this time it HAS been different.
 Though the Russian market has no dearth of problems (e.g. regulation, transparency, liquidity), conflicted analysis is simply not one of them. Given that there has been precisely one large IPO over the past several years, the fact that Moscow analysts are paid from the profits of their trading desks, not from corporate finance mandates, should be intuitively obvious. While many local houses make most of their money on &quot;special situations&quot; - buy-backs, takeovers, etc. - these are confidential. God help the analyst who refers to any of them in public! Indeed, from the broker's standpoint, markets are symmetric: Frightening clients into selling into rallies can generate huge trading profits.
 Given stagnant G-7 economies and a resurgent Asia, global emerging markets are back in fashion - especially the commodity exporters. This is by no means confined to Russia. Markets from Brazil to India, Argentina to Thailand are rocketing; indeed, in September, Eastern European equity markets marginally outperformed Moscow.
 Several purported &quot;misconceptions&quot; were listed:
 &quot;The economy is growing, therefore the equity market must rise.&quot; This does not necessarily follow, but by increasing the general level of liquidity as well as demand for those goods and services that are represented in the RTS, roaring GDP growth has allowed a sustainable revaluation of the market - unlike the growth-free bubbles seen in Russia in 1997... or on Wall Street today.
 &quot;High oil futures do not guarantee a high future oil price.&quot; Indeed they don't - they do, however, constitute the single best predictor for an otherwise notoriously difficult to price forecast. I have long argued against the doomsday scenarios of oil analysts - local and global. In fact, these have proved almost comically inaccurate. Even the futures curve, in continual backwardation, has proved far too conservative. The &quot;sophomoric error&quot; is actually to compare current nominal prices with their 30-year average without accounting for inflation.
 &quot;Russian oil reserves are cheap.&quot; If they aren't, then why is Moscow swarming with international oil men desperate to buy them? Far from having reached anything remotely approaching the levels of their global peers, a barrel of oil reserves worth $1 on the balance sheet of LUKoil is worth $11 on the books of &quot;geographically diversified&quot; Exxon Mobil (think Nigeria, think Colombia). Admittedly, they are not strictly comparable: Russian oil companies are hobbled with low domestic prices, but an 11-fold discount seems overly conservative.
 Similarly, the assertion that BP halved TNK's declared reserves because it thought them overstated suggests ignorance of SEC regulations; this adjustment is purely a technicality based on the &quot;one-offset rule&quot; imposed in the aftermath of U.S. small-cap oil frauds. Obviously, BP thoroughly audited TNK reserves before its purchase. Regarding depreciation, the GAAP/IAS accounts available for all oil majors calculate it to international standards. Furthermore, most Russian oil assets have already been depreciated, and there is a good 30 years of potential production from current fields with only maintenance.
 Russian price/earnings, or P/E, ratios remain fundamentally cheap - greatly so compared to G-7 markets, substantially even to their emerging market peers. The energy sector is the exception, but to value UES and the energos on the basis of P/Es is patently absurd: All are to be broken up and restructured over the next 18 months. Russian energy should be priced in terms of replacement values and price per megawatt capacity.
 If there is one certainty, it is that, like every other market, at some point the RTS will correct. The question is when, from what level and, crucially, by how much. To sell now, with Russian and Western players competing for a limited supply of assets, in anticipation of a 10 percent sell-off from levels 25 percent above the present, is not intuitively obvious.
 For those of us who survived the long nuclear winter that followed the August '98 collapse, preaching in the desert when all the world believed the term &quot;Russian finance&quot; to be a misnomer, the recovery of the Russian markets has been a marvelous vindication of our faith. The current pace of the rally indeed provokes vertigo; yet, when the inevitable correction does occur, it will likely prove nothing more than a healthy bout of profit taking, preliminary to the further rerating of Russian financial markets.
 
 <i>
Eric Kraus, chief strategist and head of equities for Sovlink Securities, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. His full views can be found at: www.sovlink.ru. </i>

TITLE: How Yukos Keeps Law And Order In the Press
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: At a meeting with foreign journalists on the eve of his trip to the United States, President Vladimir Putin said that the case against Yukos involved &quot;possible links of individuals to murders.&quot; &quot;In such a case,&quot; Putin said, &quot;how can I interfere with the prosecutors' work?&quot;
 
Then on Oct. 3, the Prosecutor General's Office raided a Yukos-funded orphanage and a business center belonging to the company in the Moscow region, seizing financial documents. 
 Reading between the lines of Putin's statement, I think he was berating the law enforcement agencies. 
 The procedure is simple. First you take a murder that occurred somewhere in the vicinity of Yukos, for example, the 1998 murder of Nefteyugansk Mayor Vladimir Petukhov. Petukhov got himself into a conflict with the Chechen mob over the city market, and with Yukos over some big-money construction contracts. 
 Then you scour the local prisons for some low-life who has been cooling his heels for three months awaiting trial for the murder and rape of a 13-year-old girl. You make him an offer he can't refuse. &quot;You'll get 20 years for murder, but you won't last a month before you get whacked in your cell,&quot; you tell him. &quot;But if you confess to murdering Petukhov three years ago, you'll get three years and be out in one on an amnesty.&quot;
 Finally, you take an employee of the Yukos security service and break him with threats and psychotropic substances until he says that Mikhail Khodorkovsky personally ordered the hit. That's it. Yukos is screwed.
 But instead of a cut-and-dried operation like this, the prosecutor's office has accused Yukos of tax evasion and privatization violations, tossing in a few extra criminal charges.
 Why, you might ask, has law enforcement squandered an opportunity that the president himself saw so clearly? The thing is, an ineffective, corrupt system functions according to three basic laws.
 Law 1: The cogs in the system don't like to work. They like to take it easy. The operation I described above would be laborious and time-consuming.
 Law 2: The cog doesn't really have to do its job so long as the boss is convinced it's keeping busy. Here publicity comes in. And when you arrive at an orphanage with machine guns and a search warrant, you're guaranteed some publicity.
 And most importantly, Law 3: When government agencies get used to serving private ends, the number of private ends they serve goes through the roof. The more charges you hurl at Yukos, the more you can serve other clients. What do you get for rooting around in the prisons looking for desperate criminals? Nothing. 
 If the state really went after Yukos, the company wouldn't stand a chance. Commercial enterprises are no match for the law enforcement army.
 When that army seeks not to conquer, but to plunder, however, its soldiers quickly break ranks in search of chickens, butter and eggs. In this situation, even the wise pronouncements of the commander-in-chief about the criminal nature of the case against Yukos are not enough to restore order.
 
 <i>
Yulia Latynina is a presenter of &quot;24&quot; on RenTV. </i>

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: <b>Red River
 </b>
On March 17, 2003, George W. Bush appeared before the American people to announce that he had ordered the invasion of Iraq. In a short speech, Bush declared that there was &quot;no doubt&quot; that Saddam Hussein possessed a storehouse of weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to the security of the United States and the world. 
 This was offered as a straightforward and unambiguous statement of fact, unqualified by any caveats. It was, of course, a blood libel, the culmination of an intensive propaganda campaign designed to whip up war fever in the populace with lurid images of Saddamite nukes mushrooming in Manhattan and robot spy drones spraying anthrax all over Boise, Idaho. Later, with the bloodletting underway, chief warlord Don Rumsfeld bolstered this iron certainty about the existence of Iraq's fearsome weapons, announcing forthrightly: &quot;We know where they are.&quot; He even pinpointed the location: &quot;the area around Tikrit,&quot; Saddam's hometown. Again, there was no ambiguity, no doubts, no qualifications.
 Then last week, the Bush Regime's own CIA hireling, David Kay, leader of the search for Saddam's smoking guns, confirmed what the rest of the world has known for months: there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was not even an active program to develop them. In the face of these facts, the Bushists - and the lapdogs they keep kenneled on that little island north of France - were reduced to making the ludicrous argument that their war of aggression was justified by Kay's alleged discovery of some evidence that Saddam had a plan to one day re-start a weapons program that could have led to the development of WMD somewhere down the line. This assumed, of course, that any such new capabilities would not have been immediately destroyed by the ongoing Anglo-American bombing campaign against Iraq (which raged unabated for 12 years) or taken out in a limited strike like the 1998 Desert Fox operation, or - and here's a novel idea - circumvented by the presence of United Nations inspectors crawling all over the country.
 In fact, there were many options short of war that could have been taken had Saddam actually possessed any WMD. Kay's report, along with dozens of pre-war intelligence concerns that have since come to light, show clearly that there was absolutely no justification for launching a full-scale conquest of Iraq in mid-March 2003. Even by the barbaric standards of the Bush Regime, which holds - in contravention of international law and American tradition - that aggressive war is justified under certain conditions, the invasion of Iraq was a wanton criminal act. Their own evidence proves that their own conditions were not met. Even by their own lights, the Bushists cannot justify the decision to go to war in March. 
 No, that particular date was chosen for one reason only: to get the long-planned conquest of Iraq out of the way before George W. Bush's presidential campaign next year. Thus, every Coalition soldier killed in Iraq has died solely for the personal aggrandizement of George W. Bush. Every one of the estimated 30,000 innocent Iraqi civilians killed in the invasion (according to a detailed body count carried out by an anti-Saddam Iraqi dissident group) died for the personal aggrandizement of George W. Bush. And the soldiers and civilians go on dying, day after day.
 All this blood and destruction so that Bush might remain in power, and dole out the plunder of two nations - Iraq and America - to the gilded corporate mafia he represents. And now the greatest prize in the history of the world beckons: domination of the world's oil reserves, precisely at the point when the rising, insatiable demand for oil is about to exceed the remaining supply. Nations will be increasingly desperate, willing to pay any price - financial and political - to those who control access to the precious, dwindling resource. 
 For the criminal mind, this is indeed a prize worth lying for, worth cheating for, worth killing tens of thousands of innocent people for. And as often noted here, a gang that doesn't blanche at aggressive war will certainly have no scruples about subverting the political process - by any means necessary, even violence - to maintain their power. 
 Yet the political fate of George W. Bush is insignificant. What matters now is the fate of the Republic itself. Always an imperfect instrument - as are all human constructions - and buffeted by decades of militarization and vast corruption, the Republic nevertheless has served as a vehicle to carry forward some of the best instincts and noblest aspirations of our fragile, conflicted and unstable human nature. But Bush has crossed the Rubicon. He has taken the worst aspects of U.S. society to unprecedented extremes, breaking down the already-weakened civic and social structures of the Republic. The center will not hold; the rule of law will be replaced by the rule of shock and awe, the rule of arbitrary force, rampant corruption, witless diversion, sugared piety, aggressive nationalism and empty pomp. These perverted values are already ascendant in American public life today. 
 With Bush's criminal war and autocratic decrees - remember, he's asserted the right to imprison or even kill any American citizen he designates an &quot;enemy&quot; - the traditional restraints on arbitrary power have been broken, and the pattern of lawless tyranny established. Even if Bush himself should fall, someone else - perhaps more charming, clever, capable, seductive: a true Caesar instead of a clownish thug - will step in and take these developments to their inevitable conclusion.
 
 <i>
For annotational references, see the Opinion section at www.sptimesrussia.com </i>

TITLE: Elections, a Rhino, Visas and the President
TEXT: In Response to &quot;City Chooses Putin's Envoy,&quot; an article by Vladimir Kovalev on Oct. 7</i> 
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 As an American former resident of St. Petersburg whose wife is still a Russian citizen and St. Petersburg resident, and having just returned from St. Petersburg after leading a delegation of St. Petersburg Florida Local Government Tourism Leaders, I wish to congratulate Valentina Matviyenko and the residents of St. Petersburg on her election as the next governor. As St. Petersburg continues building its reputation as a year-around world tourism destination city and a city open for business development and investment the experience of Governor-elect Martviyenko will prove to be her most valuable asset and that of the city. Tourism builds understanding - understanding attracts business development and investment - business development and investment expands employment - employment expansion increases salaries all leading to better living conditions for the residents plus creation of educational and employment opportunities for St. Petersburg's next generation. 
 <i>
Frederick Cornelius
 St. Petersburg, Florida</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Putin's Reflection 
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;In Putin, Populace Sees What It Wants to See?,&quot; a comment by Olga Kryshtanovskaya on Oct. 10. </i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i> 
 I like Mr. Putin. I appreciate what this man is doing for my country despite the well-orchestrated hue and cry of the opposition. The president is certainly delivering the goods beyond hollow phrases and PR-oriented public dressing-downs of his subordinates. Yes, he is walking a tightrope - anybody does who takes the trouble of managing the mammoth enterprise named Russia. 
 
True, grievances are many, but why blame Putin for what we ourselves have failed to do? The finale of the article is plain silly - Putin is somebody working day and night to keep the government and the country on course. The majority of Russians want their country to regain its status as a world power. They are not just happy with Putin's achievements in the international arena - they also find his general performance good and they appreciate the magnitude of his job. 
 Yes, many Russians are impressed by Putin's honesty and decency. Not a bad record for a president who, according to Olga Kryshtanovskaya, is &quot;nobody.&quot; 
 <i>Eugene Leonenko 
 Moscow</i>
 
<b>
 <strong>Oligarchs 
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Democracy, In Putin's Own Words,&quot; an editorial on Oct. 10.</i>
 

 <i>
Editor, </i> 
 I think President Vladimir Putin's reference to &quot;state-appointed oligarchs&quot; is quite clear. The reference is to Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar, who 10 years ago basically gave Russia's assets to this fine handful of oligarchs. 
 
To my mind, the fight between Putin and the oligarchs is more an argument concerning the divine origins and rights of the state versus anybody's right to buy the state, provided they have the money. 
 The average Russian citizen, however, will not benefit, regardless of who wins the argument. The only way the average Russian citizen wins is if Russia's assets are returned to the people as a commonwealth (to use an old English concept) and democratically controlled, or disposed of, from there. 
 Meanwhile, it does not bode well for the Iraqi people that Gaidar has a new job in Baghdad, courtesy of the United States. But, I guess that is another story covering another shakedown. 
 <i>Chuck Wynns 
 Salem, Oregon</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Kyoto Treaty
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Putin Casts Doubt on Kyoto Treaty Ratification,&quot; an article by Greg Walters on Sept. 30.</i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 President Vladimir Putin is to be commended for his sensible and pragmatic position on global climate change. Unlike many other world leaders, he seems more interested in getting to the bottom of the scientific and economic issues than winning a trumped-up political struggle on climate policy against imaginary opponents. Russian scientists are obviously encouraged to voice a wide range of scientific views on the subject, and Putin has clearly been open to hearing their opinions.
 
He is an example to leaders throughout the world on how to deal wisely with this issue. In contrast, the Canadian government scrapped plans to hear views from Canadian scientists. It describes scientists who voice doubts of about its climate policy as &quot;dissidents&quot; and it has done what it could to dismiss, marginalize, and stigmatize them.
 There is a wide range of views among scientists because none of the fundamental problems of climate science have been solved. In fact these fundamental problems have become progressively &quot;unsolved&quot;, because of an ongoing revolution in the scientific understanding of complex systems like climate. This makes the notion of certainty even more far-fetched than it was when the modern concerns of global warming first surfaced in 1988. Nonetheless, many governments act on a doctrine of certainty about climate change, while paying lip service to &quot;uncertainty&quot;. Not only is this paradoxical, but when the fundamentals are up in the air, it is not even certain what uncertainty means.
 Listening first to the full range of views on the science simply reflects honestly the state of our knowledge. There is no substitute for a government to take the time to listen to its own scientists, despite politically correct folklore about a scientific consensus through the UN's panel. Putin deserves every credit for bucking that global political correctness and listening to a range of scientific opinion. 
 <i>
Christopher Essex
 London,
 Ontario, Canada</i>
 

 <strong>
<b>A Horse or a Rhino?
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Clowns Put Horse Up for Election,&quot; an article by <br> Galina Stolyarova on Sept. 12.</i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 A few decades ago, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, people were not satisfied with any candidate for the election for city's mayor. So, they nominated Cacareco, the zoo's rhino. And he won! Of course, somehow they managed to take away Cacareco's charismatic triumph, and the second placed candidate took office.
 <i>
Carlos Gershenson 
 Brussels, Belgium</i>
 <strong>
<b>
 End of Reich Filmed
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;City's Shabby Image Just Fine for German Film,&quot; an article by Irina Titova on Sept. 19.</i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 I have read alot about the Nazis and World War II. I look forward to seeing this film in the United States. The Gerrman people need to know about the horrors of the Nazis during World War II. The Nazis braught grief and despair to the German people. They nearly destroyed a nation. 
 
I hope the people who practise racism and and anti-semitism, can see this film and finally learn that being a racist and anti-semitic is wrong and cruel. 
 <i>Carlos Ceja
 Tijuana, Mexico</i>
 <strong>
<b>Reconciliation
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;German Veterans Come for Church Dedication,&quot; an article by Irina Titova on Sept. 23.</i>
 

 <i>
Editor,</i>
 I often read about World War II, especially the Eastern Front. It is good to know that Germany and Russia are mending fences, however gradually. 
 
I can understand and relate to why Russians who lived through World War II, or what they call the Great Patriotic War, can't get over what Germany did to their Motherland; it's not easy when atrocities and hatred are involved. 
 But as Germany now has a non-Fascist government while Russia's is no longer communist, a lot of objective facts can now come to light. May German and Russian reconciliation continue.
 <i>John Warne 
 Makati City, Philippines</i>
 
 
 <i>
Editor, </i>
 I am an English-born Australian who served in the Army and twice went to war in Vietnam. Australia and Vietnam are now also close friends. 
 
What a wonderful story about the German war cemetery. Thank you to the Russian people for such a generous gesture of reconciliation, and to the German people for funding the church. It is so sad to think that this new and great friendship was born out of the deaths of so many people. It is beholden on all members of the human race to learn from this, while many do, however, many do not.
 <i>Brad Golding 
 Gosford, New South Wales, 
 Australia</i> 
 <strong>
<b>Visa Agonies
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;The Visa Wall Has To Come Down Soon,&quot; a comment by Deborah Anne Palmieri on Sept. 19.</i>
 
 <i>Editor,
 </i>I agree with Ms. Palmieri - the visa system is antiquated, cumbersome, and arbitrary. I've lived in the United States since 1977 and still have trouble inviting Russian relatives for a visit to Florida. 
 
Even after several visits to the U.S., having proved many times over that they have no desire to remain in there, my sisters are routinely denied their permits on a first try. It seems the Consular division is in the business of making money rather than helping visitors to the U.S. 
 <i>Irene Guy
 Melbourne, Florida</i>
 
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 I completely agree with Ms. Palmieri's opinion that normalizing the U.S.-Russian visa regulations will positively impact the relationship between the two countries. 
 
I also believe that if the U.S. consular authorities start showing a minimal level of respect to the Russian citizents applying for U.S. visas, it will lead to an improved image of the United States, which has suffered dramatically over the last few years. 
 The American side needs to understand that, contrary to the consulates' &quot;presumption of guilt,&quot; most Russians traveling to the U.S. do not intend to stay in the country and work illegally for $2 an hour. Refusing visas to relatives wanting to visit their children and granchildren in the U.S. only escalates negativity and hatred toward America. 
 Working in the U.S. higher education system I have seen a lot of foreigners continuing coming to the U.S. from all over the world, including from countries that harbor terrorism. If it is all right for a Saudi Arabia citizen to come and live in the U.S., how come a widowed Russian woman can't come to see her newly born grandchild or a friend? 
 If this is the way American national security works, we all have a lot to fear. 
 <i>Olga Phelps
 Horsham, Pennsylvania</i>
 
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 Although Russia does have visa restrictions, the burden of those restrictions is often exaggerated. I have always found the Russian visa system to be efficient. Also, once I have a visa in hand, there has never been any doubt in my mind that I would be permitted to enter. This is not something that the Canadian government guarantees with a visa to Canada: it can still deny access when you arrive in the airport or at the borders.
 
Russian invitations can be purchased online, the Russian embassies are reasonably quick and accessible and it is still relatively the case that Russia has gone much further towards visa liberalization than the United States or Canada.
 <i>Barrie Hebb 
 Halifax, Canada</i>
 <strong>
<b>OVIR Not Charming 
 </strong><i></b>
Editor,</i>
 I visit Russia many times with my wife, who is Russian and have always found the people to be charming and very open.
 
After the rules changed about visitors reporting to the local OVIR upon their arrival, I was shocked and never thought visitors could be treated this way.
 I duly went to OVIR to register myself, and was met with such hostility from the officer we saw. Maybe he had a bad day, but to treat visitors to your city like dirt and make them want to go home is something else.
 I found him unhelpful and aggressive - if a tourist visiting Britain was treated like that, they would be sacked.
 I have always loved visiting Russia, and still shall, but I don't look forward to my next visit to OVIR.
 <i>Peter Berry
 Portsmouth, Britain
 
<b>
 </i><strong>Bush's Bad Example
 </strong><i></b>
Editor,</i> 
 Those who would criticize President Putin for his handling of Chechnya need only look at how the United States is handling its own &quot;war on terror.&quot; There still is no coherent U.S. exit strategy from Iraq and many Americans regard the Bush administration's justification for the war as bogus. No weapons of mass destruction, no ties to 9/11, and no real links to al-Qaida have been found.
 
Then we have the U.S. Patriot Act and proposed Patriot Act II. Arbitrary detentions, no access to legal counsel, deportations, and proposed stripping of U.S. citizenship are all in the works or have already occurred. &quot;Special courts&quot; have been created for wiretapping and prisoners are still being held in Guantenamo without ever being charged.
 I would ask President Putin to not follow these examples of the United States. Putin should let Russia now set the example by respecting human rights and the rule of law - even when it has to deal with terrorists or murderers - because if you act like them they are the ones who win.
 <i>Joseph Otrhalek 
 Miami</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Election Laws</strong>
 <i></b>
In response to &quot;Can Media Cover the Elections?&quot; an editorial on Sept. 16.</i>
 
 <i>Editor,</i>
 Although the new law on media coverage of election campaigns appears draconian, is there not a case for stricter penalties to prevent the mudslinging and uncompromising bias that has been a feature of past election coverage? 
 
Surely no one has forgotten the oligarch cabal that relentlessly portrayed Yeltsin in a positive light in 1996, while mercilessly attacking Zyuganov. The vitriol-soaked 1999 Duma elections were little better. 
 By 2000, we were once again faced with complete media bias toward Vladimir Putin, when he received over three times as much coverage as rival candidates over the main television channels, and where the formula &quot;(ORT+RTR)+VVP = Victory&quot; was particularly apposite.
 I appreciate the evidence that Putin has clamped down on certain media and oligarchs, but isn't it also possible that such laws are a sad indictment of previous election coverage? 
 Perhaps now we will begin to see a more balanced and objective election campaign. 
 But the likelihood is that several publications and channels will be shut down during the campaign, and the world media will jump on the bandwagon of Russia's unfree press.
 <i>James C Warren,
 Reading,
 Britain</i>
 
 
 


TITLE: Poles Mark 25 Years Since Pope Elected
AUTHOR: By Beata Pasek
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KRAKOW, Poland - Troubled by television pictures of a stooped and frail Pope John Paul II, Poles celebrated the 25th anniversary of their native son's papacy Sunday with prayers for his health and memories of his inspiration for their overthrow of communism.
 
Throughout this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, church leaders, former school chums and well-wishers cheered the former Karol Wojtyla, the cardinal from the southern city of Krakow whose Oct. 16, 1978 election as pope strengthened an oppressed nation.
 Churches and central squares were festooned with yellow papal banners as Poles expressed their affection for John Paul in Masses, concerts and national television specials.
 The pope briefly addressed his countrymen in a live television feed from the Vatican. The smiling 83-year-old pontiff, his hands trembling as he sat in an armchair, expressed gratitude for his long tenure.
 &quot;God allowed me to see the 25th year of the pontificate,&quot; he said in Polish. &quot;Thanks to God, thanks to the people.&quot;
 That set off cheers from the thousands gathered to watch him on a huge screen in Krakow's Market Square.
 The pope planned a satellite address later Sunday, four days before his actual anniversary.
 The anniversary gave Poles a chance to reflect on a turbulent quarter-century, especially the peaceful collapse of communism across Europe in 1989 that owed much to the pope's moral authority.
 In a special anniversary Mass, Cardinal Jozef Glemp praised the pope for &quot;undoubtedly&quot; inspiring the fall of communism with remarks made during John Paul's first papal visit to his native land in 1979, a year before the Solidarity movement took shape.
 &quot;We remember the words of the pope from the first pilgrimage (to Poland) in 1979 when he said: 'Let the spirit come down and renew the face of this land,'&quot; Glemp told worshippers in the small, baroque St. Mary's church in Warsaw.
 Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity worker movement that ultimately toppled communism, credited John Paul with giving Poles the courage to rise up.

TITLE: Surgeons Successful in Parting Twins
AUTHOR: By Jamie Stengle
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DALLAS - Told that his 2-year-old twin boys were no longer joined at the top of their heads, their father - who had just endured the wait through 34 hours of surgery - fainted.
 
&quot;At one point when someone came up and said, 'you have two boys,' the father jumped to my neck and he hugged me and he fainted and I cared for him,&quot; said Dr. Nasser Abdel Al, head of neonatal surgery at a Cairo hospital where the Egyptian twins were taken shortly after their birth.
 &quot;He told me that he never dreamt of such a moment,&quot; Abdel Al said.
 Abdel Al was with the family for the marathon surgery over the weekend at the Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
 &quot;The mother on the other hand was crying like everybody else,&quot; said Abdel Al, describing the scene Sunday when the parents of Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim learned of the successful operation to separate the boys.
 At a news conference Sunday afternoon, part of the medical team talked about the road ahead for the boys.
 &quot;We're very pleased with the surgical outcome,&quot; said Dr. Dale Swift, one of five pediatric neurosurgeons involved, &quot;but the post-surgical care is extremely important - really can determine your outcome. So right now, we're waiting.&quot;
 The surgery began Saturday morning and ended late Sunday afternoon. The twins, who had an intricate connection of blood vessels but separate brains, were physically separated earlier Sunday, about 26 hours after they entered the operating room. Doctors then went to work covering the head wounds.
 The boys were to remain in a drug-induced coma for three to four days.
 The twins were listed in critical but stable condition. Concerns now include stroke, the risk of infection and how the wounds will heal.
 The boys were born on June 2, 2001 by Caesarean section to Sabah Abu el-Wafa and her husband, Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim.
 The Dallas-based World Craniofacial Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps children with deformities of the head and face, brought the boys to Dallas.

TITLE: U.S. Vows To Hunt Bombers
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. administrator in Iraq vowed to hunt down those responsible for a car bomb attack that shook central Baghdad, killing at least six bystanders and wounding dozens of others.
 
The attack outside the Baghdad Hotel on Sunday was the seventh fatal vehicle bombing in Iraq since early August. The bombings have killed more than 140 people.
 &quot;We will work with the Iraqi police to find those responsible and bring them to justice,&quot; Iraq's U.S. civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said after Sunday's bombing. So far, none of the planners of the previous bombings have been found.
 Two cars exploded nearly simultaneously on Sunday, but military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo said Monday that it was unclear if the second car was part of the attack or if its fuel tank had been ignited by the first blast.
 The Pentagon said gunfire from Iraqi guards and U.S. personnel aborted the plan to hit the hotel, home to officials of the U.S.-led occupation authority here and reportedly some members of Iraq's interim Governing Council.
 At least one guard was reported among the six bystanders dead; the two drivers also were presumed killed, but was not clear if one or both were suicide attackers. One member of the 25-seat Governing Council, Mouwafak al-Rabii, told Al-Jazeera satellite television he suffered a slight hand injury.
 Elsewhere in Iraq, other attacks on Americans continued.
 On Monday, the military said a U.S. soldier was killed in a land mine explosion and a second was slightly wounded in Beiji, 120 miles north of Baghdad.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: <b>Terrorist Killed
 </b>

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo praised security forces Monday for an operation that killed one of Asia's most-wanted terror suspects, whose escape from Philippine police headquarters three months ago embarrassed the government.
 Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi, a suspected bombmaker for the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, was shot dead Sunday after he and his companion opened fire on a joint police-military team that tried to stop their vehicle, said national police chief Hermogenes Edbane.
 "The death of Al-Ghozi signals that terrorism will never get far in the Philippines and that the long arm of the law will eventually get them," Arroyo said in a statement, adding that "this event should lift much of the anxieties of our people."
 "I would like to commend all military and police forces involved," she said.
 
 
<b>Martial Law in Bolivia
 </b>

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Soldiers patrolled the streets after Bolivia's president declared martial law in the city of El Alto to quell bloody protests over a proposal to export gas to the United States and Mexico. Sixteen people were reported dead in the unrest.
 Hospital and human rights groups officials said some 30 people were hurt in El Alto, a poor industrial city 10 miles outside the capital, La Paz.
 The demonstrators are angry about a plan proposed by President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to export gas from Bolivia's mammoth reserves in the southern region of Tarija to the United States and Mexico.
 
 
<b>Mystery Illness in N.Y.
 </b>

NEW YORK (AP) - Health officials said Sunday they had found no evidence of a feared outbreak of viral encephalitis on Staten Island.
 On Saturday, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said it was concerned about an outbreak of the potentially deadly illness after five people were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with encephalitis, an inflammation of brain tissue.
 One of those people was released from the hospital, and two others were found to have underlying health conditions that explained their illnesses.
 The two remaining patients were still in critical condition Sunday with encephalitis-like symptoms. The cause of their illnesses hadn't been determined, and it was unknown if their cases were related.
 
 
<b>Belarus Asylum Fire
 </b>

MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A fire believed to have been set by a psychiatric patient engulfed a Belarusian mental hospital Sunday, killing 30 patients and reducing much of the century-old wooden building to ash.
 One of the 62 patients who lived at the hospital in the village of Randilovshchina, some 150 miles west of the capital, Minsk, was missing. Emergency officials said they did not know whether he ran away or died in the pre-dawn blaze.
 Another 31 patients had minor injuries, officials said. No hospital staff were in the building when the fire started. 



TITLE: Golden Goal Seals World Cup Victory for Germany
AUTHOR: By Barry Wilner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARSON, California - Now the German national women's soccer team have something to brag about too. 
 
In winning their nation's first Women's World Cup on Sunday, the Germans are bringing home a championship trophy to place next to the three owned by their countrymen. Their thrilling 2-1 victory over Sweden on Nia Kuenzer's goal eight minutes into overtime was worthy of celebration. 
 &quot;We'll have a banquet when we get home and I think there will be a lot of media there and the president of the federation,'' said Birgit Prinz, the &quot;most valued player&quot; of the tournament. &quot;I hope that it will have a giant impact on women's soccer. In Germany, women's soccer is growing, so hopefully it will help it out.'' 
 Anyone who saw the Germans and Swedes at Home Depot Center should be enthused about the women's game. Both teams were dynamic in attack. If not for the brilliant work of goalkeepers Silke Rottenberg of Germany and Sweden's Caroline Joensson, the score could have reached double digits. 
 Germany, which outscored opponents 22-3 in reaching the final including a 3-0 semifinal win against the defending champion United States won the championship thanks to an unlikely source. 
 Amid such stars as Maren Meinert, who was named the &quot;most valued player&quot; of the last US season, where she plays club soccer, Prinz and Bettina Wiegmann, it was Kuenzer who headed home the golden goal off a long free kick by Renate Lingor. Kuenzer had entered the game just 10 minutes earlier. 
 &quot;[The] bench players' role is to support the team whether they are on the field or not, whether they get subbed in and out,'' Kuenzer said through an interpreter. &quot;When we get in we want to create a spark for the team and contribute.'' 
 What Kuenzer contributed will go down in German soccer lore. 
 &quot;Every soccer player dreams of scoring the deciding goal in the World Cup. But expect it?'' 
 She vigorously shook her head and laughed: &quot;No.'' 
 The Swedes, who got a first-half goal from Hanna Ljungberg she nearly won it at the end of regulation with two penetrating moves believe the game ended unfairly. They were livid about the free kick awarded by referee Floarea Ionescu. 
 &quot;I don't think that was a free kick, but things like that happen,'' Ljungberg said of the seemingly innocent play in which Victoria Svensson was whistled for a foul. &quot;You need to play on even though the referee makes a mistake.'' 
 While Sweden will go to the Olympics with nearly all of its World Cup players, Germany will not have Meinert and Wiegmann, who are retiring. For both, there couldn't have been a sweeter parting. 
 Meinert put Germany ahead even after a somewhat listless first half. Prinz sent a pass to the right wing to Meinert, who had three steps on the defense in the first minute of the second half. Her right-footed shot from 15 yards glanced off Joensson and into the net. 
 &quot;That goal was a big lift for us, coming so soon,'' Prinz said. 
 Both teams had a handful of outstanding opportunities to win it in regulation time, but Joensson and Rottenberg wouldn't allow it. 
 Then Kuenzer connected, and her teammates piled on in front of the Sweden net. Most of the Swedes lay motionless and stunned on the ground. 
 &quot;I was confused,'' Kuenzer said of her momentous goal. &quot;I wasn't sure what happened, and then my teammates are jumping on top of me and we are all on the ground.'' 
 The result was similar to a German overtime win for the European Championship in 2001. 
 On Saturday, the United States beat Canada 3-1 for the bronze medal. The Americans made a point of how important it was to not mail in the third-place game, and they stormed the Canadians in the second half. 
 &quot;This team never ceases to amaze me in the way they rise up,'' U.S. star Mia Hamm said. &quot;Despite the emotions that we were going through us all week, we were able to come out and give a really strong performance against a team that we needed to.''

TITLE: Chicago's Dream Alive Despite Florida Loss
AUTHOR: By Ben Walker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MIAMI - With the Chicago Cubs set to clinch their first World Series trip in 58 years, Josh Beckett of Florida buzzed Sammy Sosa in pitching a two-hitter and leading the Marlins to a 4-0 win Sunday in Game 5 of the National League championship series, putting Chicago's date with destiny temporarily on hold. 
 Even more notable was that Beckett became the first pitcher to throw a postseason shutout against the Cubs since Babe Ruth did it for Boston in the 1918 World Series opener. 
 &quot;We needed a good outing from a starter. I knew that going in. They had roughed us up pretty good,'' Beckett said. &quot;We needed to pitch better.'' 
 Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Lowell and Jeff Conine homered and the Marlins played the role of ultimate spoiler in closing the gap to 3-2 and send the series back to Wrigley Field. 
 &quot;I had an idea we were going to go back home,'' Cubs manager Dusty Baker said. &quot;Now we're going back to our fans and our people, and it's going to be exciting and electric.'' 
 Despite nearly a century of failure, the Cubs aren't about to panic. 
 Mark Prior is set to start in Game 6 Tuesday night against Florida's Carl Pavano. If he's needed, fellow ace Kerry Wood will pitch Game 7 the next day as Chicago tries to reach the Series for the first time since 1945. 
 &quot;We feel confident with those guys on the mound, especially after a loss,'' Baker said. 
 Only five times in World Series play have teams come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven matchup. 
 The Marlins began their comeback behind Beckett, who struck out 11 in the first complete game of his 51 starts in the majors. He also tied the NLCS record for fewest hits allowed in a complete game. 
 Beckett's signature moment came in the fourth, when he came close to Sosa. The tension wasn't nearly as high as it was between the Yankees and Red Sox at Fenway Park in the ALCS a day earlier, but it had the ballpark buzzing. 
 &quot;He overreacted a lot. I don't know if he was trying to pull a Boston Red Sox-Yankee thing,'' Beckett said. &quot;It was pretty ignorant. I'm not trying to hit him.'' 
 Beaned earlier this season, Sosa admitted he might have gotten too riled up. 
 &quot;He probably wasn't throwing at me,'' he said. &quot;But because of what happened before, maybe that was my reaction.''