SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #930 (98), Tuesday, December 23, 2003
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Khodorkovsky Waits for Bail Ruling
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After an odd and confusing day of legal activity, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was back behind bars where he started - but he wasn't denied bail. 
 
After a marathon session with several twists and turns, the Basmanny district court failed to decide if the Yukos billionaire should be freed or kept in pretrial detention for another three months, as requested by the Prosecutor General's Office. After two lengthy breaks in a hearing that started at 10 a.m., the court ruled late Monday to leave the fate of Russia's wealthiest citizen hanging until it reconvenes Tuesday at noon. 
 "The decision was made to adjourn until tomorrow because both the prosecutors and the defense were feeling ill," Anton Drel, one of Khodorkovsky's lawyers, said by telephone before abruptly hanging up. Ekho Moskvy radio reported participants "started falling ill" when the defense asked prosecutors to produce documents proving their claim that the official investigation into Khodorkovsky had been extended until March 30. 
 The Prosecutor General's Office announced the end of its preliminary probe of Khodorkovsky on Nov. 25. The court had been widely expected to quickly grant a request by prosecutors that Khodorkovsky be remanded in Matrosskaya Tishina prison until March 30. 
 The same court had previously rejected bail requests by Khodorkovsky and fellow Yukos founder Platon Lebedev, who is also being held on charges of large-scale fraud. Lebedev, who will have his own bail hearing Tuesday, according to Reuters, has been imprisoned since July. Monday's events, however, were far from routine. 
 At the start of the hearing, Judge Andrei Rasnovsky confounded the defense by upholding a motion to move the proceedings to Khodorkovsky's prison cell because there was a "security threat" to having him travel across town to appear in court. Rasnovsky later reversed his decision, saying he had been misinformed. 
 "I have to apologize, the information about there being a security threat was not confirmed, so the hearing will be held in the Basmanny court building," Interfax quoted him as saying. One of Khodorkovsky's lawyers, Vasily Aleksanyan, accused the Prosecutor General's Office of being behind the decision to relocate the hearing, prompting a heated denial from prosecutor office spokeswoman Natalia Vishnyakova. 
 "Lawyer Vasily Aleksanyan is lying," Vishnyakova told Interfax. When reached by telephone later Monday Vishnyakova said she was forced to use such strong language to get her point across. 
 "The court holds the hearing wherever it wants to. We had nothing to do with this." Aleksanyan later withdrew his statement. 
 As a result of the confusion, Khodorkovsky was five hours late for his first public appearance since being arrested at gunpoint at a Novosibirsk airport Oct. 25. 
 He appeared in court for his last hearing via closed-circuit television. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, Khodorkovsky smiled at reporters as he emerged from an armor-plated Ford van in handcuffs surrounded by a dozen heavily armed men. 
 Some 30 supporters were there to greet him carrying placards saying "Free Khodorkovsky," media reported. Khodorkovsky is being held on seven counts of large-scale tax evasion and fraud while the chief executive of Yukos and as a private citizen. 
 He faces up to 10 years in prison. Many observers see conservative elements in the Kremlin being behind the legal assault on Yukos and do not expect Khodorkovsky to be released on bail until after the March presidential election at the earliest. 
 The legal assault kicked into gear with the arrest of Lebedev in July, followed by the arrest of Khodorkovsky in October and the subsequent sequestration of some 40 percent of Yukos, Russia's largest oil company, held by Khodorkovsky and his allies. Tax authorities also say Yukos may have underpaid $5 billion in taxes, and the Natural Resources Ministry has put scores of the company's licenses for lucrative Siberian oil fields under review.


TITLE: CEC Tally Puts United Russia in Command
AUTHOR: By Francesca Mereu and Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Pro-Kremlin United Russia is assured of having 224 seats in the next State Duma, according to final election results released Friday, and with dozens of independent deputies set to join its ranks, the party may well end up with the two-thirds needed to change the Constitution.
 
United Russia won 37.57 percent, or 22,779,279 votes, in the Dec. 7 elections, slightly more than the preliminary count indicated, the Central Elections Commission said Friday. The party got 120 seats on the party-list vote and 104 seats in single-mandate districts.
 United Russia said Friday that it would nominate its chairman, Interior Minister Sergei Gryzlov, as the next Duma speaker and claim the chairmanships of all 29 Duma committees.
 To form the majority needed to change the Constitution, United Russia needs at least 300 of the parliament's 450 seats, or 76 seats more than it won in the elections.
 "This would be an easy task for them," Dmitry Orlov, a political analyst at the Center for Political Technologies think tank, said Sunday. "Many independent deputies will opt to join United Russia rather than form independent groups, or at least most of them will vote along with the pro-Kremlin party."
 Almost all of the 65 independent deputies are expected to gather around outgoing Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, who won a single-mandate district in St. Petersburg, according to media reports. Seleznyov, whose Russia's Rebirth-Party of Life bloc won just 1.88 percent nationwide, said several times before the vote that he would join United Russia if elected.
 Furthermore, United Russia can count on the votes of 19 single-mandate deputies who got into the Duma with the People's Party. The party was formed in 2001 on the foundation of People's Deputy, a Duma faction of single-mandate deputies who united after the 1999 elections. From the start, the faction has supported initiatives by United Russia.
 United Russia secretary Valery Bogomolov said Friday that party representatives were holding talks with deputies "to attract them into our faction."
 "We have talked with independent deputies and also with those who earlier shared various ideas," Bogomolov told the Interfax, stressing that a number of deputies have expressed interest in becoming members of United Russia. 
 As an example, he pointed to Pavel Krasheninnikov, a member of the Union of Right Forces and the head of the legislative committee in the previous Duma who decided to join United Russia last week. (See related story, page 4). 
 Bogomolov said United Russia was hammering out who would get the Duma seats, because 30 governors - including Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov - ran on the party list and do not plan to give up their jobs. 
 Bogomolov said Gryzlov was the only exception and expressed confidence that he would be elected speaker at the new Duma's first session, scheduled for Dec. 29.
 United Russia on Friday dismissed reports that it would split into five factions in the Duma, saying it would take advantage of parliamentary rules that ties the size of a party to its weight in deciding which bills get passed.
 With five factions, United Russia would have gained a clear majority on the agenda-setting Duma Council. But with a single faction, the party is more likely to win the chairmanships of all 29 of the chamber's committees.
 "United Russia is ready to take responsibility for all the committees," United Russia Deputy Oleg Kovalyov, who is in charge of organizing the first Duma session, said in televised remarks Friday.
 His remarks caused an uproar in the Duma on Friday.
 Rodina Deputy Sergei Proshin called the comments "undemocratic." "Million of Russians voted for parties other than United Russia, and this is meant to break their rights," he said in a brief interview.
 The issue is likely to ignite a war of words similar to when Fatherland All-Russia, Yabloko and SPS boycotted sessions in the last Duma after receiving a handful of posts in smaller committees. Key posts in influential committees went to the pro-Kremlin Unity faction and the Communists.
 According to final election results Friday, the Communist Party came in second with 12.61 percent with 7,647,820 votes, securing 40 seats on the party list and 14 in single-mandate districts. The party has 29 fewer seats than in the last Duma.
 The ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, or LDPR, has 22 more seats in the next Duma than the previous one, or 36 seats, after winning 11.45 percent, or 6,943.875 votes. LDPR did not get any single-mandate seats.
 The Rodina, or Homeland, bloc was the only other party that passed the 5 percent threshold to win Duma seats, and it came in fourth at 9.02 percent, or 5,469,556 votes. The bloc, created just two months before the elections, got 29 seats on the party list and seven in single-mandate districts.
 But Rodina co-chairman Sergei Glazyev told reporters Friday that 43 deputies have already signed up with his bloc - a number that would make it the third biggest faction. He did not say which deputies were joining.
 Glazyev will act as the leader of the Rodina faction in the Duma, while bloc co-leader Dmitry Rogozin will be nominated for the post of deputy speaker.
 A Rodina official said the bloc aims to secure "at least three Duma committees," and in particular hopes to get former Central Bank head Viktor Gerashchenko, who was elected on the Rodina ticket, named the chairman of the budget committee.
 In a brief interview after Friday's Duma session, Glazyev said Rodina has many professional deputies "able to head any Duma committee." 
 Glazyev also dismissed reports that the bloc was a Kremlin project aimed at taking votes away from the Communists, saying Rodina will not vote along with United Russia but play "an opposition role."
 "We have signed an agreement with our voters, and we will fulfill our promises. We will fight in next Duma," Glazyev said.
 Final election results also confirmed that Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces failed to cleared the 5 percent barrier, winning 4.3 percent and 3.97 percent, respectively. Some 4.7 percent, or 2,851,600 people, voted "against all."
 Turnout was 55.75 percent of all eligible voters, or 60,712,299 people.
 As Central Elections Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov announced the final results Friday, he was interrupted several times by representatives of the Communist Party who said the figures were falsified. A small group of Communist legislators and supporters protested outside the election commission headquarters during the announcement, demanding that ballots be re-counted by hand in 11 regions.
 The final results were validated after 15 commission members signed off on them. At least one member, however, said he had been forced to sign.
 "I had to sign the protocol. Otherwise it would be a case of me not performing my work duties," Yevgeny Kolyushin told Interfax. "But I must say that I doubt the validity of these figures, and I hope that we will get back to these figures after we consider the complaints we have received."
 The Communist Party said an alternative tally conducted with Yabloko and SPS found 60,000 discrepancies between the official results and those collected by its observers at polling stations. The alternative tally indicates that Yabloko and SPS broke the 5 percent barrier.
 Veshnyakov said that election officials would continue look into the complaints but that there were no legal grounds to prevent the announcement of the final results as scheduled Friday. 
 


TITLE: Animated Film Restores Confidence in Local Creativity
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg animation studio Peterburg has prepared a New Year's gift for Russian children and adults - a new animated film "Where Does the Old Year Go?" that is expected to screen on the two leading national channels ORT and RTR on Dec. 28.
 
The cartoon is one of the first in a new Russian series of 200 cartoons for children called "Smeshariki," or "Balltoons," to be produced by the studio's creative team of 30.
 The first screening of the cartoon will be the 24-hour transmission of an episode on the Web site Yandex.ru, beginning at midnight on Tuesday.
 The episode is a New Year's tale about the attempts of Krosh the Rabbit to prolong the old year so that he can complete his obligations. 
 Krosh is desperate to complete the 102 items he had on a list of things to do in the old year. He closes his door, even to his friends, hoping to keep the old year inside his house.
 "I didn't manage to become 10 centimeters taller this year!" he squeals.
 The new animated series is being developed as part of Peterburg's "World Without Violence" project, which aims to raise public consciousness of tolerance and mutual understanding.
 "'Smeshariki' is an alternative to the mass aggression that children absorb from modern TV screens and computers," said Indira Smirnova, PR manager of the project.
 "Our new project introduces children to the world of different funny stories, that takes them into a world of miracles and adventures," Smirnova said.
 The Smeshariki series stars a family of nine unusual and colorful personalities - Krosh the Rabbit, Hoggs the Hedgehog, Rammy the Sheep (Barash), Sweeny the Piglet (Nyusha), Mr. Crow (Kar Karych) and others - who speak to children using a fantasy language.
 All the characters are spherical, which, according to the producers, symbolizes kindness, unlike the irregularly-shaped characters of another current children's cartoon craze, Pokemon. 
 However, the creators of the new series hope their characters will result in spin-offs, as has happened with Pokemon, including accessories featuring images from the series that will help to fund more episodes.
 The Smeshariki characters always get into funny predicaments when they try to solve their problems and the solutions teach them about friendship and helping one another.
 Thus, one of the series' first episodes, "The Bench," tells the story of how Krosh and his friends save Rammy when he climbs a tree to catch inspiration for his poetry but gets stuck instead.
 After Rammy climbs up the tree, he realizes that he can't get down. His friends build a pyramid out of items they have on hand, but they are still unable to reach Rammy. Krosh, who has just finished building a bench, decides to add his handiwork to the pyramid. It helps, but when Rammy falls off the pyramid he breaks the bench.
 Krosh is annoyed about what happened to his bench, but he finds the strength to reassure Rammy that "friendship is more important than a bench."
 "All our characters are different, but none of them are negative," said Denis Chernov, director of the series. 
 "Our serial doesn't have any of the traditional antagonism between good and evil," Chernov said. "Our characters have many other everyday problems that they have to solve."
 All Smeshariki characters have distinctive personalities, which the authors have been developing for months while working on the project.
 Krosh, the leading character, is a restless, fidgety 10 year old. He has a drive for creative work, but he rarely completes it.
 Hogg, also 10 years old, is a serious and conscientious friend of Krosh. He is very disciplined but he lacks confidence, although he helps Krosh in his initiatives.
 Sweeny is a 12-year-old female who wants to look older than she is. Though she is rather fat, she considers herself an irresistible beauty and she uses her feminine powers to manipulate the others.
 Owl is a 50-year-old physical education teacher, who promulgates a healthy way of life, but is a big bore.
 The series is full of music and color, as well as humor, since it is a comedy.
 Production of the series started in 2003, and now the studio is working on the first 10 episodes.
 The serial is meant for children from three to seven years old, but the creators say adults can watch it as well.
 Each episode lasts 6 minutes and 30 seconds. 
 Smirnova said the cartoons are produced in the best classical traditions of Russian animation with the use of a modern information technology called Flash. She said the series will be translated into other languages and will be screened in other countries.
 The producers, who hope to finish the project by the middle of next year, plan to issue the series on video tapes and DVDs, and also run it on Russian TV channels.
 Smirnova said the project is non-commercial, and is sponsored by several ministries, including the Culture Ministry. She declined to say how much it had cost or who had paid for the series.
 In Soviet times, animated films were hugely popular among young viewers. National animation series such as "Nu, Pogodi," "The Adventures of Leopold the Cat," "The Adventures of Crocodile Gena and Cheburashka" and "Vacations in Prostokvashino" were as successful in the U.S.S.R. as Disney cartoons were in the United States.
 However, after the turmoil of perestroika production went into decline. Many children and adults switched to watching Western - mostly American - cartoons.
 Smirnova said production of the new series was a sign of revival of the Russian animation industry.


TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Ring Road Breaches
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The federal Audit Chamber found a series of spending irregularities that occurred during construction of the ring road around the city, Interfax on Monday quoted the chamber's press service as saying Friday.
 The chamber inspected the finances from September through November and found that recommendations by federal experts that the project cost for 2002 should have been 45.1 billion rubles not 66.2 billion rubles ($2 billion) were not heeded, the report said.
 When construction was halted for five months pending approval of certain documents, five months were lost. As a result of the freeze, only 11.8 percent of the funds were spent by July 1, 2002.
 Also, it was discovered that the city's ministry transportation subsidiary responsible for construction paid contractors prices differing between 10 and 40 percent for the same jobs during 2003.
 
 
<b>Yolka Sales Begin
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - More than 500 sales points for New Year trees, or yolki, have opened in the city.
 Interfax said the trees can be bought throughout the city.
 The price range is from 50 rubles to 70 rubles per meter. The trees belong to the natural-resources arm of the Leningrad Oblast government, which provided 120,000 trees. 
 An additional 50,000 trees were allowed to be harvested by individuals, the report said. 
 
 
<b>Starovoitova Prize 
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The annual Starovoitova prize for contributions to human rights and the strengthening of democracy in Russia was awarded in the city's Starovoitova museum on Saturday.
 Ruslan Linkov, who was the assistant of leading democrat Galina Starovoitova when she was assassinated in late 1998 and head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Democratic Russia party, said it was no accident that activist Valeria Novodvorskaya had won the prize.
 "She is almost the only person, politician, today who understands the necessity of defending democracy in our country and stands up for democratic rights," Interfax quoted Linkov saying.
 
 <b>Finnish Housing
 </b>

HELSINKI, Finland (Reuters) - Finnish construction company YIT said Friday it will start a residential housing joint venture with Zhilishsnaya Assosiatsia Ramenye for the Moscow area.
 "Construction will begin immediately and during the next year YIT will start up the construction of about 1,400 residential units in the area," YIT said in a statement. "In 2004, YIT will build about 3,000 residential units in Russia."
 
<b>
 EU Clears Slavneft Buy
 </b>

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) - European Union competition authorities cleared BP's purchase of half of its Russian partner TNK's 50 percent stake in oil company Slavneft on Friday.
 "The transaction will only have limited effects in Western Europe in relation to the sale of certain petrochemicals," the European Commission said in a statement.
 "On the worldwide market for the exploration of crude oil and gas, as well as the development and production of crude oil, the proposed transaction will not result in competition concerns," the commission added.
 BP agreed to merge its Russian assets with those of TNK in February, and paid $6 billion for half the combined company. The rest is owned by two blocs of private investors.
 
 
<b>EBRD-VTB Talks
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The EBRD said on Friday it planned to start formal talks with the government over buying a stake in state-owned Vneshtorgbank, or VTB, at the end of January 2004.
 The sale of a stake in the country's second-largest bank to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is seen as the first step before VTB takes more private investors on board.
 "The process of negotiating the terms and conditions under which the EBRD may acquire a stake in Russia's Vneshtorgbank continues and the EBRD is very satisfied with the cooperation shown by VTB's management so far," the EBRD said in a statement.
 "The EBRD plans to start formal talks negotiations with VTB's owner, the Russian government, by the end of January 2004." <b>Surgut Terminal On
 </b>

KIRISHI, Leningrad Oblast (SPT) - Surgutneftegaz oil company confirmed intentions to build a terminal in Batareynaya Bay in the Leningrad Oblast, Interfax reported Monday.
 Construction will start once the company's 2004 investment program is approved, the company's vice president said.
 The government of the Leningrad Oblast announced previously that the Surgutneftegaz terminal would be unnecessary. Vice Governor Grigory Dvas said demand for oil processing would be filled by existing terminals.
 The Surgutneftegaz terminal will cost $320 million and process 7.5 million tons of processed petroleum products a year.
 
 
<b>Port Capacity Soars 
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will boost capacity at its flagship Baltic crude port of Primorsk by 400,000 tons per month in January to 2.9 million tons (686,000 barrels per day), trade sources said on Friday.
 Traders said freight rates for Primorsk soared 500 percent as shippers hunted for scarce ice-class tankers ahead of winter shipping restrictions expected in the port from the new year.
 But weather would dictate how much the second unscheduled hike in as many months would bolster exports.
 "We're in shock," a trader said. "The program was finalized yesterday with a 100,000-ton increase."
 "Then in the evening the [Energy] Ministry called and said they were changing everything and the increase would now be 400,000," he said, adding this was the figure in the final program due for release early next week. 
 "Now there's a tanker deficit," he said.
 Crude pipeline monopoly Transneft, responsible for capacity to the port, declined to comment.
 
 
<b>$546M Svyazinvest Net
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Svyazinvest, the state-owned telecommunications holding, raised its estimate of 2003 profit to 16 billion rubles ($546 million), CEO Valery Yashin said at a St. Petersburg conference Friday, Interfax reported.
 In September, Yashin said Svyazinvest expected net income to rise to 13 billion rubles from 10.7 billion rubles. 



TITLE: Judge Says No Jury In Starovoitova Trial
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The trial of those accused of assassinating democratic State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova in November 1998 will not be heard by a jury, the St. Petersburg city court decided Friday.
 
On the last day of a final preliminary before the actual trial begins, prosecutors said having a jury decide the culpability of the six accused &quot;would not be expedient,&quot; although both the victim's family and the defense had wanted a jury trial.
 The hearing is scheduled to start Monday.
 &quot;We were confronted with a legal impasse because trial by jury is scheduled to start operating in the city from Jan. 1,&quot; said Ruslan Linkov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Democratic Russia party and Starovoitova's former assistant who was with her and injured when the assassins struck.
 &quot;The case was handed over to the court at the end of November and the preliminary hearing took place in December,&quot; he said. &quot;According to the law, a trial by jury has to start two weeks after the preliminary hearing finishes. Because it will start before the jury system is introduced, the court had no choice but to decide the way it did.&quot;
 Linkov said the court rejected all petitions filed by the defense on behalf of the six suspects on trial.
 &quot;There is still a chance that a jury trial will be held later because the defense can appeal,&quot; he said. &quot;But that's their business.&quot;
 On Friday the Prosecutor General's Office filed a request to extradite two suspects from an unidentified European country, Interfax said Saturday.
 Both suspects, one of whom was allegedly involved in organizing the assassination while the another allegedly provided assistance, are on an Interpol wanted list, but neither ordered the assassination, the report said.
 &quot;There is a middleman involved,&quot; Linkov said. &quot;I have a feeling this middleman has not been caught because he is blackmailing both investigators and the authorities.&quot;
 Meanwhile, Nikolai Kolmykov, a lawyer for Igor Lelyavin, one of the accused, said the defense would appeal to the Supreme Court with all petitions declined by the city court, including one insisting on a trial by jury, the Agency for Journalistic Investigations said Friday.
 Lelyavin is one of four suspects charged with abetting the assassins.
 The six suspects are Yury Kolchin, an officer in the General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, at the time of the crime, Igor Lelyavin, Vitaly Akishin, Igor Krasnov, Anatoly Voronin and Yury Ionov, all born in the city of Dyadkovo in the Bryansk region, according to local media reports.
 Federal arrest warrants have been issued for Sergei Musin, Pavel Stekhnovsky, Oleg Fedosov and Igor Bogdanov. Prosecutors have charged them with &quot;an act of terrorism or an attempt to kill a state or public figure so that she would cease carrying out her state or other political activity, or it was revenge for such activity.&quot;
 &quot;This is just one episode of the case, on which our work is finished,&quot; Interfax quoted an anonymous FSB source as saying Friday. &quot;The investigation itself will continue until all the criminals, including the person who ordered [the assassination], are brought to trial.&quot;


TITLE: Festival of Hanukkah Gains Popularity
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This week, the world's Jewish community is celebrating Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Dating back almost 2,500 years ago and celebrating one of the greatest miracles in Jewish history, Hanukkah takes place every year in mid or late December and lasts for seven nights and eight days. 
 
The exact days vary each year according to the most widely used calendar, which is the Gregorian calendar, but in the Jewish calendar the first day of Hanukkah always falls on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. This year, Hanukkah began on Friday night and runs through next Saturday morning.
 The major tradition of Hanukkah is to light the candles of the menorah, a ceremonial seven-branched candle holder that symbolizes the seven days of Creation. 
 On each night of Hanukkah, the menorah is lit in commemoration of a miracle that followed the Jewish victory over the Syrians in 165 B.C.
 When they came to the temple to reconsecrate it after the victory, the Jews found only a small flask of oil with whch they could light the menorah. The flask contained only enough oil for one day but, to everyone's surprise, the lamp burned for eight days - and by that time new oil was prepared and brought to the temple. 
 In commemoration of the miracle, candles are lit during Hanukkah. Menahem Mendel Pevzner, principal rabbi at the city's Grand Choral Synagogue, lights the menorah every day during Hanukkah.
 The increasing light recalls the greatness of the miracle and how it became greater each day. Candles are placed in the menorah from right to left, but lit from left to right. The highest candle, known as the Shamash, or &quot;servant,&quot; is used to light the other candles. Blessings are recited each night before each candle is lit. 
 &quot;Hanukkah is meant to be a festival that combines spirituality with action,&quot; Pevzner said. &quot;Its message is: don't just think good thoughts and be kind at heart, but do good things. Lighting the candles is a symbol of a positive action and the ancient miracle of the menorah is an inspiration for it.&quot;
 The Hanukkah lights are used only to commemorate the miracle and spread the news of it, not for other purposes such as reading.
 Mark Grubarg, head of the Jewish Community of St. Petersburg, stressed the cumulative aspect of Hanukkah. 
 &quot;Every new day of Hanukkah, one more candle is lit. So every day the magic light reaches more and more people,&quot; Grubarg said. &quot;I do hope that the light warms the hearts of many of you this week, and I also hope to see twice as many people here next year on Hanukkah.&quot; 
 Unlike in the Soviet years, when even being seen outside the synagogue could have meant losing your job or being denied the opportunity to make a trip abroad, today St. Petersburg Jews - both ordinary people and high profile figures - are proudly celebrating their most important holidays.
 Vaganova Ballet Academy rector Leonid Nadirov and St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly lawmaker Igor Rimmer attended the festival Saturday.
 &quot;I very well remember being here at the synagogue for the first time ever, in 1967,&quot; Rimmer said. &quot;Back then, of course, the festivals had a different flavor. Everyone was well aware that such a visit, if noticed, could cost you a place at the university or a good job, at the very least.&quot;
 President Vladimir Putin gave his nod of approval to the festival, meeting with two Jewish leaders in Moscow on Friday. He pledged that Russian leaders will work to ensure cultural diversity in the country.
 &quot;Russian society has demonstrated many times its complete rejection of any kind of xenophobia and all that hampers the normal development of the country, as a multinational and full-fledged state,&quot; Putin said, addressing one of Russia's chief rabbis, Berl Lazar, and Alexander Boroda, a prominent leader of the Jewish community.
 &quot;The cultural diversity of our county is a special asset, which needs to be treated with care and, when necessary, protected, and such a state policy will continue,&quot; The Associated Press quoted the president as saying.
 In St. Petersburg, Rimmer emphasized the relaxed and friendly atmosphere of this year's Hanukkah, with children dancing in circles and the elderly patiently lighting the Hanukkah candles over and over again after a strong wind had blown them out.
 &quot;I am really pleased to see the changes, and I am proud that my nation has been able to carry and preserve this light through the years of oppression,&quot; he said. &quot;This is just another sign that Russia is truly going in the right direction.&quot;


TITLE: Bashkortostan's Rakhimov Has Easy Win
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With his opponent effectively out of the race, Bashkir President Murtaza Rakhimov won re-election in a weekend runoff with 78 percent of the vote, according to preliminary election results released Monday.
 
&quot;My victory is indisputable,&quot; Rakhimov told reporters after casting his ballot Sunday, according to Reuters.
 Sergei Veremeyenko, a Kremlin-connected businessman who had stopped campaigning at least a week before the poll but whose name remained on the ballot, collected 16 percent of the vote, Bashkortostan's elections committee said Monday. It put voter turnout at 70 percent.
 The runoff was called after Rakhimov won only 43 percent of the vote in the republic's presidential election two weeks ago. A candidate needs a simple majority of more than 50 percent to win outright.
 &quot;People voted more responsibly&quot; this time around, Sergei Semyonov, a member of Rakhimov's election staff, said by telephone from Ufa.
 No independent and opposition observers visited polling stations Sunday. After the first round, international observers said the elections had &quot;elements of basic fraud.&quot;
 Even before the first round, Nikolai Petrov, an analyst specializing in regional politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center, was not debating whether Rakhimov would be re-elected but whether &quot;the Kremlin would let Rakhimov declare victory in the first round.&quot;
 Activists close to the opposition say Veremeyenko, who is connected to the so-called <i>silovoki</i>, a clan of former KGB and military officials in the Kremlin, was ordered by the Kremlin to bow out of the race after President Vladimir Putin met with Rakhimov between the two elections.
 It remains unclear what was discussed at the meeting.
 Semyonov said Rakhimov, who has run Bashkortostan since 1990, won another five-year term because he campaigned on issues important to the republic and because of his track record on the economy. In the past decade, he noted, Bashkortostan rose from 64th to 27th place among Russia's 89 regions in per capita income. Bashkortostan is one of only 10 so-called donor regions that contribute to the federal budget.
 Opposition figures have argued that the economy is not in good shape.
 In addition to Bashkortostan, run-off elections for regional leaders took place in three regions Sunday. In Sakhalin, acting Governor Ivan Malakhov won 53 percent of the vote to beat Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Mayor Fyodor Sidorenko. In Tver, deputy head of the State Sports Committee Dmitry Zelenin won with 57 percent, while In Kirov, former Duma Deputy Nikolai Shaklein won 63 percent. 


TITLE: Professional Army Unit Formed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The military has formed its first fully professional division, which is intended to serve as a model of army reform, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Monday. 
 
The 76th airborne division stationed in the northwestern city of Pskov started the transfer from draftees to professional soldiers in September 2002. 
 Ivanov reported Monday to President Vladimir Putin that the division had hired more than 5,000 volunteer privates and sergeants.
 &quot;The experiment has been completed successfully,&quot; he said at the start of a cabinet session, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency. 
 Despite statements from Ivanov, other military officials have reported that they found it hard to hire enough volunteers on a benchmark monthly pay of some 5,300 rubles ($170), about the same as the country's average wage. 
 


TITLE: Yabloko Won't Stand In Presidential Poll
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Yabloko said Sunday that it will not field a presidential candidate but stopped short of calling for its electorate to boycott the March election altogether.
 
&quot;The political situation in the country is such that just and equal presidential elections are impossible,&quot; Yabloko deputy head Sergei Mitrokhin said Sunday at the end of a two-day congress in the Moscow region, Interfax reported.
 Yabloko leader and two-time presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky reiterated complaints Sunday by his party, the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, and the Communists that the results of the Dec. 7 State Duma elections had been rigged. 
 Yabloko and SPS both failed to clear the 5 percent threshold to win seats in the next Duma.
 &quot;Our biggest mistake was we should have understood earlier that to win 5 percent in Russia, 20 percent of the vote must be gathered de facto,&quot; Yavlinsky was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 Yabloko and SPS tried unsuccessfully last week to come up with a single presidential candidate to run against President Vladimir Putin. None of the potential candidates tapped by SPS would agree to enter the race, and Yabloko only half-heartedly supported the initiative - causing some observers to suggest that Yavlinsky had made his mind up to run as the single candidate representing the liberal electorate. 
 Also, speculation swirled in the local media last week that Putin was pressing Yavlinsky to run for president in an attempt to give the election the aura of democracy. Yabloko and the Kremlin have denied the rumors.
 Yabloko's decision not to field a presidential candidate could be interpreted as a call for supporters to boycott the election on March 14. But the congress Sunday did not publicly make such a call - despite talks last week by Yabloko, the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, and the Communists about the possibility of teaming up for a boycott.
 Yavlinsky expressed hope Sunday that the liberals will be able to create a unified democratic opposition.
 &quot;Yabloko aims to create a big, serious party that will truly unite the democratic opposition over the next four years,&quot; he said at the congress.
 SPS leader Boris Nemtsov said Sunday that despite failure to agree on a single presidential candidate, recent talks between SPS and Yabloko ended up being &quot;much more meaningful&quot; than all of the talks they have had in the past, Interfax reported.
 The Yabloko congress voted Sunday to join forces with a democratic coalition with SPS and other liberal voices. Six prominent Yabloko members - Mitrokhin, Vladimir Lukin, Alexei Arbatov, Igor Artemyev, Boris Misnik and Viktor Sheinis - will represent Yabloko on the leadership council of the coalition when it is formed.
 In a separate development, another liberal-minded group, the Assembly of the Democratic Community, met Friday and called on the public to boycott the presidential election or vote against all candidates. 
 The organization appears to unite some of the early 1990s democrats who have drifted into the shadows of big politics in recent years, including human rights activists like Konstantin Borovoi, Lev Ponomaryov and Valeria Novodvorskaya. 
 &quot;Today, honest elections and honest vote counts are not possible in Russia,&quot; the organization said in a statement carried by Interfax. &quot;Therefore, the only way is to not participate in the upcoming election - which is not going to offer any alternatives - by boycotting it or voting 'against all.'&quot;
 But while many liberals were struggling to find a new place in Russian politics, some appeared ready to cooperate with the pro-Kremlin Duma winners.
 Pavel Krasheninnikov, one of only three SPS members who made it into the next Duma by winning single-mandate districts, joined United Russia last week. Krasheninnikov, a former justice minister, will be able to keep his SPS membership.

TITLE: Patrushev Says 5 Spies Caught in 2003
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev praised the work of intelligence agents Friday, saying the FSB caught five foreign spies this year.
 
His comments on the eve of Sunday's Day of the Chekists, an annual holiday for spooks, came as a regional branch of the FSB announced that the agency was for the first time investigating a case involving the sale of commercial secrets.
 &quot;Espionage and other subversive activities of 14 other career spies and of 37 agents of foreign governments, including two Russian citizens, have also been stopped,&quot; Patrushev told a meeting attended by President Vladimir Putin.
 He did not identify the nationalities of the other alleged spies. The two Russians are Anatoly Babkin, a technical university professor who was given a suspended eight-year sentence for spying for the United States with American businessman Edmond Pope, and former Foreign Intelligence Service officer Alexander Zaporozhsky, who was arrested during a visit to Russia. Zaporozhsky's wife has accused the security services of luring him back from the United States, where he had emigrated.
 The FSB has become increasingly powerful under Putin, and in a sign of its growing presence, its Sverdlovsk branch said Friday that it has opened a criminal case into the sale of commercial secrets from the Uralmash heavy machinery plant, owned by Kakha Bendukidze's holding United Heavy Machinery, or OMZ.
 &quot;In general, it is not the business of the FSB to protect trade secrets, but we have discovered signs of spying at the plant,&quot; a senior local FSB official, Alexander Valeyev, said at a news conference in Yekaterinburg, Interfax reported.
 Valeyev said two Uralmash employees are suspected of passing copies of technical documentation to two commercial firms connected to the plant. Uralmash identified the firms as NPTs Metallurg and the Uralskaya Liteynaya Co.
 Valeyev refused to provide details about the case, saying he did not want to compromise the investigation.
 His announcement came a day after OMZ and Vladimir Potanin's turbine producer Siloviye Mashiny decided to merge into a $1 billion per year company.
 Later Friday, Uralmash released a statement saying that its own employees had uncovered the alleged sale of trade secrets, not the FSB.
 &quot;This crime was discovered by employees and the Uralmash plant's security service,&quot; it said. It also denied that NPTs Metallurg and Uralskaya Liteynaya had any ties to the plant.
 Meanwhile, state-run polling agency VTsIOM released a survey Friday indicating that almost a third of its respondents thought the work of the country's security services has improved, while 44 percent felt that it remained the same as in recent years. Some 37 percent said the FSB is an updated version of the KGB, while nearly a third saw no difference between the FSB and the KGB.

TITLE: FSB Blames Suicide Bombings on Basayev
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Patrushev accused a group led by Basayev, known as Riyadus Salikhin, of organizing recent suicide bombings he said were aimed at sparking &quot;maximum political resonance&quot; by killing as many civilians as possible. 
 Patrushev did not specify the attacks, but he appeared to be referring to at least two suicide bombings this month - one that killed six people outside the National Hotel in downtown Moscow and another that killed 45 people on a train in the Stavropol region, near Chechnya. 
 A series of attacks that authorities say were suicide bombings, several of them by women, has killed nearly 300 people in and around Chechnya and in Moscow in the past year. Basayev has claimed responsibility for some attacks, but not the most recent ones. 
 Patrushev said Basayev has been urging other rebel leaders in Chechnya to train suicide attackers. He asserted that the organizers of the attacks enlist &quot;fanatically inclined&quot; women aged 16 to 30 to carry out bombings, as well as use women he claimed are abducted in various parts of Russia. 
 Basayev has been a key rebel field commander in both of the Chechen wars of the past decade. 
 In August, Washington classified Basayev as a threat to the U.S., and a few days later the UN Security Council put him on its official list of terrorists. 
 Patrushev said the UN designation was an official acknowledgment by the international community of links between the guerrillas fighting federal forces in Chechnya and international terrorism.

TITLE: Batch of State-of-Art Missiles Deployed After 2-Year Break
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia has deployed another batch of its state-of-the-art intercontinental nuclear missiles after a two-year break in the program caused by a funding shortage. 
 
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov inaugurated the new set of Topol-M missiles at the Tatishchevo missile base in the central Saratov region Sunday, describing them as a &quot;21st-century weapon&quot; unrivaled in the world. 
 &quot;This is the most advanced state-of-the-art missile in the world,&quot; Ivanov said in remarks broadcast by local television stations Monday. &quot;Only such weapons can ensure and guarantee our sovereignty and security and make any attempts to put military pressure on Russia absolutely senseless.&quot; 
 The Interfax-Military News Agency said six Topol-Ms were deployed Sunday. 
 The first 10 such missiles entered duty in December 1998, and two more sets followed in the next two years. The military had planned to continue the deployment in regular installments in the next two years, but only got the fourth batch of Topol-Ms out on Sunday. 
 The Topol-M missiles, capable of hitting targets more than 10,000 kilometers away, so far have been deployed in silos. Its mobile version, mounted on a heavy off-road vehicle, is set to become operational next year, the Strategic Missile Forces chief, Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov, said in televised remarks. 
 Izvestia said the Topol-M lifts off faster than its predecessors and maneuvers in a way that makes it more difficult to spot and intercept. It is also capable of blasting off even after a nuclear explosion close to its silo, the newspaper reported. 
 The Topol-Ms deployed so far have had single nuclear warheads, but it is planned to equip each missile with three individually targeted warheads, Izvestia said. 
 However, the Topol-M's chief designer, Yury Solomonov, told Izvestia that a severe money crunch had put the program in jeopardy. 
 Budget allocations for making Topol-Ms next year were halved without consulting its makers, he said.

TITLE: Affable Diplomat Troyanovsky Dies Aged 84
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Soviet diplomat Oleg Troyanovsky, whose affable personality ran counter to the stereotype of the stone-faced Russian official during the Cold War, has died, the Foreign Ministry said Monday. He was 84. 
 
Troyanovsky died Sunday after a long illness. No further details were immediately available. 
 Troyanovsky served for nine years as the Soviet Union's ambassador to the United Nations, where he earned the respect of his Western adversaries with his sense of humor and cool composure. 
 He calmly handled the furor over the 1983 Korean airline incident, listening with poker-faced indifference while the U.S. ambassador played a tape recording of radio transmissions from Soviet fighter pilots who shot down the Korean jumbo jet, killing all 269 people aboard. Troyanovsky later vetoed a resolution that would have condemned the plane's destruction. 
 But Troyanovsky could also be charming and lighten the mood in the United Nations when the occasion demanded it. In 1980, two members of a dissident Marxist group sneaked into the Security Council chamber and doused Troyanovsky and U.S. Ambassador William vanden Heuvel with red paint. 
 Unruffled, the paint-spattered Russian quipped, &quot;Better red than dead.&quot; 
 He was born on Nov. 24, 1919, in Moscow. His father Alexander served as the first Soviet ambassador to the United States from 1934-1938. While living in the United States, Troyanovsky attended Sidwell Friends, a Quaker prep school in Washington and spent a year at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. 
 He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1944 after two years of service in the Red Army. He served as ambassador to Japan from 1967 to 1976 - a post once held by his father. After leaving his post at the United Nations, Troyanovsky served as ambassador to China. 
 When Troyanovsky left the United Nations for the China ambassadorship in 1986, U.S. diplomat Herbert Okun praised him as &quot;a virtuoso performer for the Soviet Union at the United Nations; a smart, respected adversary.&quot;
 He retired and left China in 1990 but continued to keep a busy schedule, writing his memoirs and giving numerous lectures in Russia and abroad.

TITLE: City Shares Economic Plan
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Doubling city budget revenues in three years and providing all public employees with salaries above the subsistence level by the end of 2004 are key short-term tasks of the new city administration, according to St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko, who spoke at the general meeting of the St. Petersburg Joint Venture Association on Monday.
 
&quot;I'd like to confirm the program I announced during the election campaign and also say that the emphasis will be on improving the quality of life in St. Petersburg and on creating civilized conditions for business and an attractive investment climate,&quot; Matviyenko said.
 While admitting that the city economy relies on industry, she pointed out that it will be necessary to turn the economy on to a &quot;postindustrial&quot; path with key sectors being tourism, education and high technologies.
 The newly elected governor is also eager to change the city's general plan of development. The existing plan is valid until the end of 2005, but it doesn't reflect current goals, tasks and future prospects, she said. As a result, St. Petersburg's first plan of social and economic development through 2008 will be presented to the city Legislative Assembly in January 2004.
 This plan includes the following measures: developing medium and small businesses as a main incentive for strengthening the middle class, introducing strategic planning, optimizing budget expenditure by standardizing expenses and boosting competition for city orders. 
 To improve tender competition, the administration plans to change the rules for allocating construction sites to private companies. The investment and tender commission system will be completely replaced by auctions in the near future. At the same time, the price construction companies pay for a square meter of space for projected housing will jump from a low of $15 to at least $80 per square meter. 
 Meanwhile, the most ambitious goal of the new administration is to double budget revenues in three years, echoing the president's goal of doubling gross domestic product by 2010. 
 Next year's budget, however, is not very optimistic. Worth 85 billion rubles, the 2004 budget has a deficit of between 3 and 4 billion rubles, while projected revenues are lower than those in the 2003 budget. 
 &quot;We're not going to raise taxes, we just plan to bring companies out of shadow economies and to administrate taxes more effectively,&quot; Matviyenko said.
 Public employees will see their salaries go up an average of 1,800 rubles by the end of 2004, at a cost of 17 billion rubles to the city budget.

TITLE: Pulp and Paper Giant To Invest $250Mln
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: International Paper will consider investing $250 million in the Svetogorsk pulp and paper mill during the next five years, the corporation's president Robert Amen told journalists Monday.
 
The announcement followed a meeting with Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov, Interfax reported.
 The investment will be discussed by the international concern's board of directors during the first half of 2004. 
 The injection of cash will be used to increase production capacity, develop new products and pursue environmental protection. As a result, it is expected that wood processing and overall production will go up by 50 percent.
 International Paper investment in the mill over the past five years amounted to $150 million, Amen said. Production went up 60 percent during this period. The mill paid around 1 billion rubles in taxes.
 Sergei Pondar, general director of the Svetogorsk pulp and paper mill, told journalists the mill plans to boost production by 6 percent in 2003.
 Pondar said the mill leases land capable of yielding 200,000 cubic meters of felled timber per year. The mill consumes 1 million cubic meters of wood a year.
 International Paper owns 90 percent of the Svetogorsk pulp and paper mill.

TITLE: Total Eyes Sibneft Stake
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - French oil giant Total is considering buying Sibneft after it demerges from bigger Yukos, Vedomosti said Friday, quoting unnamed banking sources. 
 
Sibneft's owners are discussing the sale of a 92 percent stake to Total for $12 billion, the newspaper said, adding that other international oil majors, including U.S. ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco and Royal Dutch/Shell were also considering restarting talks with both Yukos and Sibneft. 
 Sibneft, Yukos and Total both declined to comment. 
 Analysts said they were sceptical of the report, however, and believed foreign buyers would stay away from Russia for a long time given relentless judicial pressure on Yukos after the arrest of its key shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky in October. 
 &quot;International majors are keen to boost their reserves and theoretically remain very much interested in Russian assets, especially given the stock price decline over the last few months,&quot; said Valery Nesterov of Troika Dialog. &quot;But in reality I don't believe that shareholders of Western majors would currently welcome acquisitions of very risky Russian assets. I don't think it will materialize within the next two years,&quot; he said. 
 Khodorkovsky faces massive fraud and tax evasion charges. Market players believe the Kremlin sought to punish him for political activities. Yukos' offices have been searched by prosecutors, and tax authorities claim the firm may have underpaid $5 billion in taxes. 
 Analysts say Sibneft used even more aggressive tax-minimization methods and is currently not facing legal troubles only because its key shareholder Roman Abramovich, owner of British soccer club Chelsea, enjoys better relations with the Kremlin. 
 
 <i>(Reuters, Bloomberg </i>

TITLE: Airbus Signs Russian Deal
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Airbus on Friday awarded Nizhny Novgorod-based Sokol a contract to supply components for its family of passenger jets, the first of several deals that are expected to open the global market to Russia's struggling aerospace industry.
 
&quot;With the signing of this contract we open the door for the Russian industry to participate in successful Airbus programs,&quot; Airbus chief operating officer Gustav Humbert told reporters at a signing ceremony in Moscow.
 Humbert said Airbus plans to buy $10 million worth of Russian-made components a year, a figure that will eventually rise to $40 million. Bids for new contracts will be accepted early next year.
 Under the terms of Friday's deal, Airbus will pay $3 million for 300 sets of floor grids for Airbus' A 320 family through 2008, with the first deliveries slated for November 2004.
 Although Sokol signed the contract, it will only assemble the components manufactured by privately held Irkut Corp., which makes the latest generation of Sukhoi fighters. 
 &quot;With this deal, we have just bought an entry ticket to the [global component] market,&quot; Irkut president Alexei Fyodorov said.
 The contract comes under the 2001 framework agreement signed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, or Rosaviakosmos, and its European counterpart EADS, the parent company of Airbus.
 Within this agreement, Airbus identified privately owned Kaskol Group as its lead partner. 
 Kaskol president Sergei Nedoroslev said the contract signed Friday is small but significant because it is an invitation to Russian manufacturers &quot;to participate in the production cycle of West European industry.&quot;
 Unlike its partner in pursuing component contracts, Irkut, which has become the darling of the industry for its Western management style and aggressive reorganization program, Sokol has been slow to adapt to the new market. 
 In October, a Nizhny Novgorod court ordered more than $1.8 million of Sokol's property arrested in an attempt to recover part of the company's $5.5 million debt to the local budget. Although Sokol general director Mikhail Shibayev said Friday that this dispute had been resolved, he refused to give details or even talk about his company's financial status.

TITLE: Survey Says Oil Prices To Fall 13% in 2004
AUTHOR: By Stephen Voss and Angharad Couch
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON - Oil prices will probably fall about 13 percent next year, the first drop in two years, as Iraq and non-OPEC countries such as Russia increase production, according to a survey of 27 analysts.
 
Crude futures in New York have averaged 18 percent higher this year than last and are 19 percent above 2001 levels. The rally, partly on an oil strike in Venezuela and the war in Iraq, boosted revenues for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and earnings for companies such as BP.
 &quot;We're looking at lower prices in 2004 but not by much,&quot; said Leo Drollas, deputy executive director of the Center for Global Energy Studies, founded by former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani. &quot;Oil was very high this year as demand was boosted by special factors.&quot;
 Crude futures rose to a nine-month high of more than $33 a barrel last week on the New York Mercantile Exchange, leading U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to warn about possible damage to the global economic recovery. New York futures are forecast to average $26.81 in 2004, compared with $30.96 so far this year, according to the Bloomberg survey.
 Current prices are &quot;very high,&quot; Abraham said in response to questions from reporters at a conference in Washington. &quot;Obviously the higher the cost of essential commodities does have an impact.&quot;
 The U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of 8.2 percent in the third quarter, the fastest since 1984. Growth will probably slow to about 4 percent in the current quarter, according to the median forecast from economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
 Brent crude oil, Europe's price benchmark, rose to more than $30 a barrel last week. Prices for next year are estimated at an average of $25.53 a barrel, compared with $28.45 so far this year, according to the Bloomberg survey, conducted Dec. 12-18.
 For the first quarter, analysts predict Brent will average $27.39. West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, is expected to average $28.77 in the period, the survey showed.
 The full-year forecast for Brent crude is 4.5 percent lower than the average of the most recent four-year period, and 44 percent above the previous four, 1996-1999.
 OPEC, whose 11 members supply a third of the world's oil, targets a price of $22 to $28 a barrel for an index of seven crude oils it monitors. The price was $30.73 on Friday.
 Ministers from OPEC-member states have said they are content to let the price stay at the top of the range, arguing that a weaker dollar has reduced the purchasing power of oil revenues. The dollar has dropped 15 percent against the euro this year.
 &quot;Prices are on the high side, but not too high if you bear in mind the recent decline of the dollar,&quot; Obaid bin Saif al- Nasseri, the United Arab Emirates' oil minister, told reporters Dec. 13 in Cairo. &quot;What we've gained in the oil price we have lost in the dollar's decline.&quot;
 Analysts this year generally underestimated the rise in oil prices. A Bloomberg survey of 27 analysts on June 2 predicted Brent would average about $24 a barrel in the third and fourth quarters. Actual prices were $4 higher than forecast in the third quarter and about $5 higher so far this quarter.
 &quot;This has been a year of supply-side shock for the oil market so it's no surprise we are at $30,&quot; said Irene Himona, an oil analyst at Morgan Stanley in London. &quot;As Iraq comes back, we should see more oil on the market, but it's coming back slowly.&quot;
 The price of oil in New York surged to $38 in early March, then dropped almost $10 by the end of the month as the U.S.-led war against Iraq progressed without hampering shipments from neighboring countries.
 Prices then moved higher again as traders and speculators focused on supply curbs by OPEC, low U.S. inventories and sabotage that slowed the pace of rebuilding exports from Iraq.
 Next year, the International Energy Agency predicts non-OPEC supply, including Russia, will rise by 1.5 million barrels a day, while world demand will increase 1.2 million barrels a day.
 Consequently, OPEC may need to reduce supply to prevent prices from tumbling, especially as Iraq, the only member without a quota, has said it intends to sell as much oil as it can.
 Most analysts polled, 18 of 27, said they expect OPEC to cut its quota ceiling of 24.5 million barrels a day when it meets Feb. 10 in Algiers. The group will probably reduce the quota by about 1 million barrels, according to the average estimate.
 &quot;OPEC will cut,&quot; said John Waterlow, a principal consultant at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. in Edinburgh. &quot;We'll have rising Iraqi and non-OPEC production, mainly from Russia, while at the same time, we'll have a normal seasonal downturn in demand for crude in the second quarter.&quot;

TITLE: Expats Go to Court Over Pension Tax
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - No one is throwing tea into the harbor just yet, but a new court case is setting the stage for a tax revolt among Western expatriates working in Russia.
 
On Friday an international consulting firm filed a query with the Constitutional Court, asking it to clarify why a company must pay the unified social tax for foreign employees when they cannot benefit from state pensions.
 &quot;It's a landmark moment&quot; for foreigners' rights in Russia, said Karina Khudenko, senior tax manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
 The bulk of the social tax is directed into the State Pension Fund, with smaller amounts going toward social and medical insurance. Foreigners were exempt from the tax before this year, when a new tax code went into effect.
 The government insists that foreigners working in Russia must pay Russian taxes.
 Akhmed Glashev, the lawyer who prepared the brief for Roedl &amp; Partner Konsu consultants, said the complaint centers on pension contributions. The codes requiring foreigners to pay the levy - and then prohibiting them from collecting it - are unconstitutional, he said.
 &quot;It is clearly unfair to charge the pension portion&quot; of the tax, said Khudenko. &quot;As for the social insurance and medical insurance part, there is nothing in the law that would give grounds not to charge that contribution on the income of expatriates.&quot;
 The unified social tax is a regressive payroll tax on the employer. Svetlana Meyer, senior manager at Deloitte &amp; Touche CIS, estimates that the effective tax rate on a $20,000 yearly salary is 18 percent, sliding down to 8 percent for $50,000 and to 5 percent for $100,000.
 From $20,000 and up, at least 79 percent of the tax goes toward pensions.
 Khudenko estimates that if expatriates were exempt from pension contributions, their annual medical and social insurance contributions would be capped at around $700.
 Only Russian companies and branches of foreign firms pay the tax.
 When a foreign employer sends workers to a Russian firm, it is not required to pay the tax because it is not registered in the country. Therefore it is hard to estimate how much money the Pension Fund receives in foreigners' contributions.
 Not a lot, reckons Khudenko.
 &quot;It would be much better for the image of the Pension Fund and the government in general to abolish these levies on foreign nationals,&quot; she said.
 The main opponent to the exemption, however, is not the Pension Fund but the Finance Ministry.
 In a letter dated Sept. 19, Natalya Komova, a ministry official, said companies must pay for all employees working in Russia &quot;regardless of the status of the employers [or] the employee, and also regardless of whether the wage payments take place in Russia or abroad.&quot;
 Komova went on to say that foreigners are indeed eligible for Russian pensions, but &quot;the question about the allocation of the pension to foreign citizens once they reach retirement age is under the jurisdiction of the Labor Ministry and the Pension Fund.&quot;
 None of these agencies could be reached Friday.
 The rates are not especially burdensome for high salaries, said Deloitte's Meyer, but the fact that pension benefits cannot be reaped gives rise to a sense of unfairness among Western expats.
 &quot;The pension contributions have sparked strong antipathy because they were not levied before, and because people feel they are not getting anything for them,&quot; she said.
 The case also touches on the issue of double taxation. Unlike most Western nations, Russia does not have a treaty with any other country ensuring that similar social contributions are not levied concurrently.
 Ilppo Eresmaa, executive manager at Roedl and the chief plaintiff in the case, says he is already paying hefty pension contributions in Finland. Americans, too, pay social security tax on money earned in Russia.
 &quot;Most countries tax foreigners but have provisions that when the foreign citizen leaves, the company is reimbursed,&quot; said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
 &quot;In Russia, they've only done the first part - they've imposed the tax.&quot;
 The complaint has met little sympathy in Russia.
 In theory, Western expats have a right to Russian social benefits, such as sick days and pregnancy subsidies, Vedomosti said in a recent editorial. And after all, rich Russians also have to support a system they are unlikely to use.
 &quot;The Russian press has been somewhat patriotic,&quot; said Eresmaa. &quot;They are talking as if we are taking away their pensions.&quot;
 &quot;Sure, this tax is not the largest one. But as a law firm, we feel it is our duty to our clients to lower taxes. We are looking for clarity in the tax code.&quot;
 The fairness of taxing foreigners is a tricky issue, said Deloitte's Meyer.
 &quot;The point of the law, I believe, is that the company that comes to the market supports the Russian social system. On the other hand, no normal expat would use one of those district clinics or file for a Russian pension.&quot;
 &quot;The Russians are saying, 'How do we know they won't assume Russian citizenship later on [and claim a pension]?' Well, theoretically, I have the right to fly into space - will they start charging a special tax for that, too?&quot; 

Pension Contribution for High Earners 

Percentage of contributions to the unified social tax that go toward pensions
 <strong>Annual Salary Pension Total UST % Going to Pensions</strong>
 $25,000 $2,938 $3,700 79%
 $50,000 $3,438 $4,200 82%
 $100,000 $4,438 $5,200 85%
 
 If pension contributions were exempt, the unified social tax for all incomes above $20,000 would remain flat at around $750.
 
 <i>Note: calculated at the weekend rate of 29.25 rubles to the dollar. </i></p>

TITLE: UES Power Production Up
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW - Unified Energy System, the world's largest power company by capacity, boosted power production 3.5 percent and heat output 1.8 percent this year as demand rose because of Russia's quickening economic growth and colder weather.
 
The company's power plants will produce 639 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 478.2 million gigacalories of heat this year, UES said in a statement e-mailed to news services.
 UES produces 71 percent of the power in Russia, where the economy is expanding for the fifth straight year. 
 The government expects the economy to expand 6.6 percent this year and add another 5.2 percent in 2004, as oil prices remain high, supporting growth in industries such as machinery, construction and services.
 &quot;Consumption of electricity in Russia grew this year because of the expansion of industrial output and because the year's first quarter was colder than in 2002,&quot; UES said in the e-mail.

TITLE: Mortgages Face More Legal Hurdles
AUTHOR: By Denis Maternovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With pro-presidential forces controlling the majority in the new State Duma, there is more and more talk of possible amendments to the Constitution, passed in 1993.
 
And some of the proposed changes to the Constitution - along with other legislative amendments currently under discussion - may have a direct influence on the development of the country's real estate market.
 &quot;One of the obvious suggestions that can now be easily made into law is to amend the declaratory constitutional clause that guarantees everyone the right to housing. Mortgages cannot develop at all with such a clause in place,&quot; a United Russia State Duma deputy told Vedomosti in early December, on condition of anonymity.
 But Yevgeny Chepenko, who heads the legal department at the State Agency for Home Mortgage Lending, or AHML, which provides refinancing for home mortgages and is working on the development of a unified federal system of home mortgages, called the deputy's statement &quot;nonsense.&quot;
 &quot;This is a substitution of concepts. The clause guarantees the right to housing and protects against arbitrary evictions, but has no relation to mortgages,&quot; he said.
 But other legal hurdles, albeit unrelated to the Constitution, still remain, market analysts said. Until they are overcome, the mortgage market - potentially one of the largest in Europe - is likely to remain relatively small.
 According to the World Bank report on Russian mortgages, prepared in February 2003, the mortgage stock is estimated at less than 0.1 percent of gross domestic product, or 29 billion rubles ($1 billion). AHML spokesman Andrei Vishnevsky places the figure higher, at 50 billion rubles, but that still puts the country far behind developed economies and other emerging markets. For example, the World Bank estimates that the European Union's mortgage stock is roughly 53 percent of its GDP, while in Colombia and South Korea it is 12 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
 According to Vishnevsky, this discrepancy is not surprising, given that in Russia there are currently as many as 38 mortgage-related laws awaiting approval. One of them is an amendment to the Civil Code, which currently prohibits a property owner's eviction if the apartment or house in question is the only accommodation available to the owner.
 The amendment, which would change the law to allow eviction, is likely to be approved in the first half of 2004, Chepenko said. Until that happens, the creation of a special housing stock for the temporary settlement of &quot;special evictees&quot; could solve the problem, said Yekaterina Komarova, a lawyer at CMS Cameron McKenna.
 Although setting up such a fund specifically for those evicted from their only available accommodation has been discussed for some years, in most regions it has never happened, said Dmitry Rayev, a corporate lawyer at Swiss Realty Group.
 &quot;It is difficult to set aside a special housing fund for the evicted, when other people are spending years waiting for a municipal apartment to be allocated to them,&quot; he said.
 The system of mandatory residency permits, or propiski - a remnant of the Soviet era, like the constitutional right to housing - further complicates matters.
 &quot;According to Article 292 of the Civil Code, the owner of the building, as well as his family members who live on the same premises, possesses the right to use the premises. And they retain this right even if the apartment's owner changes,&quot; Rayev said. &quot;Therefore, without the family members' consent to vacate the apartment, it will be transferred to the new owner with all the people registered there.&quot;
 And although mortgage agreements usually stipulate that the mortgagee or his or her family members cannot register at their new apartment until the mortgage is paid back, in reality this is not adhered to since often the mortgagee does not have an alternative address at which to officially register. This makes it extremely inconvenient for the bank in the case of a mortgage payment default.
 Other existing laws stipulate that the &quot;lender does not have the right to claim the property,&quot; said Gerald Gaige, head of Ernst &amp; Young's real estate services.
 Although a number of local and foreign banks - including Sberbank, Delta Credit Bank, Vneshtorgbank, and Raiffeisen - are now offering mortgages, they have so far been extremely cautious. No exact figure on the number of mortgages issued is available, but it is probably little more than a few thousand, experts said.
 There are very few default cases, making it difficult to really test the existing legislation and its practicality. The impossibility of evicting those who cannot pay back their mortgages remains a &quot;purely theoretical problem,&quot; according to AHML's Chepenko.
 Of the roughly 2,000 mortgages processed by AHML, there have been only three default cases and all of them were settled out of court, said the agency's spokesman Vishnevsky. Delta Credit bank, which has handed out 2,300 mortgages since 1998 - worth a total of $85 million - has not had any cases of default, the company said.
 Ernst &amp; Young's Gaige said there were &quot;no legal foreclosures in Russia&quot; both because the banks remain cautious and issue mortgages to the most reliable lenders and because there were very few cases of mortgage-lending to warrant proper statistics.

TITLE: Gazprom Profits To Rise 71%
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW - Gazprom expects its consolidated net profit in 2003 to rise 71 percent to 208.3 billion rubles ($7.12 billion) under Russian accounting standards, the company said in a statement Friday.
 
The profit for the year, helped by higher exports to Europe, where prices for the fuel rose to a 10-year high, would be the highest ever for a Russian company. 
 Gazprom posted a net profit of 121.6 billion rubles to Russian accounting standards last year. 
 &quot;Given strong prices for gas and an increase in Gazprom production, however modest, the market expected the company's profit to surge,&quot; said Timerbulat Karimov, an analyst Aton brokerage. &quot;Profit under Russian accounting standards is only a guidance to its international financial reports.&quot; 
 Gazprom, which supplies about a quarter of the European Union's gas through clients including Italy's Eni and Germany's E.ON, expects foreign sales to rise 24 percent this year to $16 billion. 
 The company gets 80 percent of revenue from exports because Russia caps gas and power prices to curb inflation and lower costs for companies such as Evrazholding Group, Russia's largest steel producer.
 The company is selling the fuel abroad at an average price of $126 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from $70 to $80 in past years, Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said last week.
 Exports outside the former Soviet Union will increase by 2.6 to 132 billion cubic meters of gas this year, more than enough to meet all of France's and Germany's needs. Supplies to the former Soviet states will rise 1.2 percent to 42.8 billion cubic meters.
 Gazprom expects unconsolidated profit will rise to 177.3 billion rubles this year, up from 53.5 billion rubles last year. 
 The company, which is also Russia's gas pipeline monopoly, plans to raise domestic supplies by 4.4 percent to 295 billion cubic meters of gas this year.

TITLE: Emerging Market Funds Receive Record Inflows
AUTHOR: By Todd Prince
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW - Emerging market equity funds are on track to receive their largest ever inflow of funds from investors as markets boom, according to EmergingPortfolio.com.
 
Dedicated emerging market equity funds have received $11.2 billion in net new cash through Dec. 17, surpassing the record of $10.9 billion in 1996, according to the Boston-based research company, which tracks 961 funds with $122 billion in assets.
 &quot;You get stronger economic growth, lower equity valuations and substantial earnings growth in the emerging market universe,&quot; Brad Durham, a managing director of EmergingPortfolio.com, said in an e-mailed statement.
 Investors increasingly are taking more risk for better returns as they try to recoup losses from the three-year bear market. Emerging market countries make up the world's 10 best performing stock indexes in 2003, with Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and Turkey more than doubling, according to Bloomberg data.
 The Standard &amp; Poor's 500 Index has risen 24 percent, while Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 50 Price Index has gained about 9 percent in local currency terms.
 Funds investing in Asia excluding Japan took in more than half the money pumped into emerging market funds, garnering $6.3 billion, according to EmergingPortfolio.com. That's almost double the record of $3.2 billion those funds received in 1996, helping lift those funds assets under management to $40 billion from $22 billion at the beginning of the year.
 Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa funds received $573 million through Dec. 17, the most since 2000, as the Turkish, Egyptian and Russian stock markets surged.
 The Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 Index has doubled in dollar terms, while the Cairo Stock Exchange's CASE 30 Index has risen 73 percent and the Russian Trading System Index has jumped 59 percent.

TITLE: Fashion Starts with Black and White
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The style of St. Petersburg's fashion legend Tatyana Parfyonova breaks all the widespread stereotypes of refined fashion designers.
 
Parfyonova shows up for the interview in black jeans, black shirt and black sneakers. Her dark hair is slightly rustled. She wears no make up. And she doesn't have even a drop of the arrogance that sales staff at many fashion salons use to scare customers. 
 Instead of impressive garments one finds fountains of ideas and incredible charm; when just talking to her one instantly feels at home.
 Parfyonova - a fashion designer whose name was ranked by Expert magazine among the five most popular St. Petersburg brands along with the Hermitage and the Mariinsky Theater - says her own modest garments are not just her style but &quot;professional necessity.&quot;
 &quot;I have an enormous number of black and white shirts because these colors help me work,&quot; Parfyonova explains.
 Her point is illustrated by a simple test.
 &quot;Look what happens when you wear bright clothes yourself and at the same time you design something from a different bright fabric,&quot; Parfyonova says.
 She pulls out one of her famed crimson scarves, then displays a sample of shimmering green fabric.
 The crimson clearly distracts from the green and doesn't allow the eye to concentrate.
 &quot;From my very childhood I liked all the crayon box colors and preferred to do bright clothes, but I always work in black or white shirts myself,&quot; she said.
 Parfyonova first entered the fashion world in 1995 with the opening of Tatyana Parfyonova Fashion House on Nevsky Prospect. Today the fashion house employs 50 people and manufactures several clothing lines.
 Over the past ten years clothes &quot;from Parfyonova&quot; and her famed scarves have come to signify good taste.
 Parfyonova's reputation reached such heights that, for the first time in the history of Russian museums, the Hermitage signed an agreement with the designer to produce accessories based on replicas from the museum's art collections.
 Thus, the Hermitage Internet shop now markets a collection of scarves with allusions to paintings by Gauguin, Fragonard and Van der Ast, and cushions with fragments of ancient Iranian embroidery.
 Scarves from these collections were presented by the Hermitage to the wives of Vladimir Putin, George Bush and Jacque Chirac.
 However, Parfyonova, who in 2001 was invited to meet Vladimir Putin along with Russia's most successful businesswomen, says she doesn't consider herself a businesswoman.
 &quot;If I were one, I'd already have several fashion houses and more clothing lines,&quot; she said. &quot;But our fashion house has managed to keep its 'chamber' style.&quot; 
 &quot;I'm more concerned with the quality of the things that I design than with quantity,&quot; she said.
 Parfyonova prefers to design pret-a-porte clothes, that is ready-to-wear clothes, as well as accessories.
 &quot;I'm interested in doing all kinds of clothes - coats, dresses, suits. Anything that looks real for wearing,&quot; she said.
 Most of Parfyonova's clients are either financially independent women or have successful husbands. Among them are about 100 regular customers. She says men are not frequent clients, although she designs for them, too.
 Irina Piotrovskaya, wife of Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky, became a regular client in 1998.
 &quot;Each of Parfyonova's things bears its own style,&quot; Piotrovskaya said. &quot;I think every woman can find something for herself at Parfyonova's shop.&quot; 
 &quot;Parfyonova has a unique sense for fashion trends. She's even ahead of fashion, guessing it at least half a year in advance,&quot; she said.
 Russian writer Tatyana Tolstaya characterized Parfyonova as a &quot;100 percent talented and bold&quot; fashion designer, and called her designs &quot;a feast for the eyes.&quot;
 &quot;She is not afraid of bright colors, and has a great feeling for human proportions,&quot; Tolstaya said, adding that she dresses in Parfyonova from head to toe.
 &quot;Parfyonova designed my coat, suits, dresses, pants, bags and scarves,&quot; she said. According to Tolstaya, Parfyonova's success comes from her creative impulse rather than from commercial interest.
 &quot;Parfyonova is also a great person, whom I like just to drop in on sometimes to have a talk... which sometimes also turns into a new dress,&quot; she said.
 Parfyonova has strict views about the female body. She says if a woman wants to dress well she should lose extra weight. &quot;But it should be done with the help of sports or a diet, not with the help of widely advertised magic pills,&quot; she said.
 Parfyonova said some of her strong opinions have developed with age. 
 &quot;Today I'm very concerned about clothes made of natural fur, and I often want to encourage people not to wear such clothes because it kills animals,&quot; she said.
 In line with her informal approach, Parfyonova names her dog, driving a car and classical music as hobbies.
 She thinks that the biggest problem of modern Russian society is &quot;the gap between the lives&quot; of different people.
 &quot;Some people can barely make ends meet, while those who have too much money lack sympathy for those in need,&quot; she said.
 Parfyonova calls herself a St. Petersburg patriot. She says she likes everything about the city, where she has lived since childhood.
 &quot;However, we should do something about our culture,&quot; she said. It's unbearable that some people still put out cigarettes against building walls.&quot;

TITLE: Finding a Common Language with Mr. Putin
AUTHOR: By Matthew H. Murray
TEXT: During the campaign for the Dec. 7 elections for the Russian parliament, President Vladimir Putin declared corruption a threat to national security that must be countered by imposing &quot;law and order.&quot; His proclamation followed the Oct. 25 arrest at gunpoint of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the controlling shareholder of Russia's largest oil firm Yukos, on grounds of forgery and tax evasion. Speculation is rife that officials loyal to the president singled out Khodorkovsky for criminal prosecution due to his growing financial support of opposition parties in the parliament.
 
The stakes raised by the Putin government's actions are high for Western governments, multilateral banks and foreign investors that have bet Russia is headed toward democratic capitalism. By leading Yukos to accept standards of corporate governance, Khodorkovsky had become exhibit A for the case that Russia should be included in western institutions as a market economy. In response to the prosecution, U.S. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have introduced a bill to exclude Russia from the G-8 group of market democracies. 
 On Dec. 7, the President's party, United Russia, along with nationalist parties that promise to re-claim Russia's wealth from billionaires such as Khodorkovsky, won effective control of the parliament. Now that Putin has consolidated his power and Khodorkovsky sits in jail awaiting trial, how will the president use his mandate to promote &quot;law and order&quot; and social justice? How should the west respond? 
 In order to attack corruption, the president must demonstrate that no one is above the law. Notwithstanding their recent commitment to corporate governance, Khodorkovsky and other Russian business leaders continue to use patrons in the government to secure favorable decrees, licenses, tenders and tax treatment. This practice has become so pervasive that Russia suffers from &quot;state capture,&quot; a condition where it cannot operate as a law-based state, regulate markets fairly and allocate resources efficiently. 
 Putin, however, cannot ensure equality before the law if government officials have the discretion to engage in selective prosecution. Following Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Russian prosecutor's office froze public trading in certain shares of Yukos, which have now fallen in price by over 30 percent. Yukos has been unable to merge with the Russian oil company Sibneft on terms that would have created one of the largest oil companies in the world. The result of the investigation is that Yukos' property is being re-distributed by prosecutorial fiat. 
 Putin has sought to assure western parties that Khodorkovsky will receive a fair and open trial. Many are inclined to give the president the benefit of the doubt. After a recent meeting with the president, the chair of the International Monetary Fund stated that the prosecution of Khodorkovsky does not signify a reversal of economic and legal reform. 
 Such &quot;happy talk&quot; misconstrues the dilemma the West faces in Russia today. Though the Putin government has adopted new commercial laws and criminal procedures, it has not shaped institutions capable of executing, adjudicating, or enforcing them. Absent such institutions, neither property nor contract rights are enforceable. 
 In the 1990s, despite concerns that Russia was privatizing state enterprises too quickly, the IMF, World Bank and foreign governments agreed to financially support the process. This &quot;Washington consensus&quot; was based on the belief that an independent judiciary and other institutions would sprout naturally to protect the private wealth of a middle class spawned by privatization. 
 Instead of a middle class, Russia's rapid privatization empowered a class of &quot;rent-seekers&quot; - those who profit by using access to power to control state assets. Instead of a rule of law, rent-seekers created the &quot;law of rules.&quot; Under this system, state institutions, including the public prosecutor, the courts and the bailiffs, can be manipulated to re-examine or reverse the privatization of Yukos or any Russian company. 
 Under the law of rules, there are no free rides for foreign investors. Any business, even one with clean hands, may have its property taken, its profits squeezed, its people prosecuted as criminals. For example, in the name of vaguely defined &quot;state interests,&quot; officials in Russia's regions have engaged in &quot;discretionary expropriation&quot; of foreign businesses sanctioned by local courts.
 The evidence is mounting that Russia seeks to engineer the construction of a market economy without a rule of law based on a strict separation of powers. In order to hold Russia accountable to protect private property, western stakeholders must find common language with President Putin over the precise role of institutions in building a law-based state. 
 Recently, Prime Minister Kasyanov declared that the Putin government will eventually seek to bring the public prosecutor under the control of the Ministry of Justice. In the meantime, to restore confidence in the investment climate, the Putin government must strictly define and curb the public prosecutor's discretion. Putin officials should clarify how a Russian court can exercise independent judgment where the public prosecutor, or any other government agency, is representing state interests.
 As a threat to Russia's national security, corruption should be a priority matter of mutual concern to president Putin and his supporters in the West. Western stakeholders should closely monitor the results of the president's efforts to re-capture the Russian state from special interests. For example, on Nov. 24, he created the &quot;Anti-Corruption Council&quot; to uncover conflicts of interest among government officials. In order to attack the institutional roots of corruption, however, Putin must also be convinced to empower independent courts and allow a free press.
 As a sovereign nation, Russia has the right to establish its own rules of the game. Western stakeholders, however, have the right both to know the rules and to expect that they cannot be changed at will. Currently, rent-seekers can control both process and outcome. Western parties are entitled to know whether Russia intends to build a market governed not by men, but by institutions and laws.
 
 <i>
Matthew H. Murray is president of Sovereign Ventures, Inc., a management consultancy firm specializing in Russia and the Independent States. </i>

TITLE: Russian and U.S. Interests May Diverge on Piracy Issue
AUTHOR: By Jeff Sommers
TEXT: A few weeks ago, U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow wrote in The St. Petersburg Times about the importance of protecting intellectual property in rebuilding Russia's economy; of course, readers know he really means in strengthening America's economy - that is his job and nobody should begrudge him for it. 
 
In fact, we should consider whether there is convergence of Russian and U.S. interests on the subject. Of course, we also need to entertain the possibility of Russia's and the United States' economic interests being in conflict. Trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS, as they are known among U.S. trade officials and corporate lawyers, have become the central concern of the U.S. government as it wrestles with the twin problems of a trade deficit and government red ink. The United States imports close to a staggering half-trillion dollars more per year in goods than it exports. 
 This dizzyingly high figure in part, when matched with credit, explains how Americans continue living the high life while their economic fundamentals are relatively weak. In the public sphere, too, we see excesses as the U.S. government under the Bush administration has been on a bender of binge spending, while simultaneously cutting taxes. Global investors are catching on to the unsustainability of this and are slowly retreating from U.S. investments: thus the recent fall of the U.S. dollar.
 The United States must stem this hemorrhaging or face the kind of &quot;structural adjustment&quot; that was busily applied to much of the rest of the world by U.S. Treasury Department-influenced institutions - the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - beginning in the 1980s. One of the few nations to have escaped this fate was China, largely because one of Mao Zedong's many quirks was to avoid foreign debt. When matched by his successors resolving to use their size to ignore all economic advice by U.S. experts, China is succeeding in its quest to become an economic giant.
 America's economy, however, does have some strengths. In dollar terms, the United States' largest export is entertainment. Other strong suits for the U.S. economy are in knowledge-related areas, where investment is high for developing new products, but which can easily be pirated or copied by others. 
 It is instructive, therefore, that Vershbow selected to use copyright protection of entertainment, America's largest export, to convince Russians to shape up and get with the TRIPS program. In part, his argument was compelling. Perhaps there are indeed many Russian musicians who cannot be commercially recorded because pirating makes it unprofitable for them to do so. Artists and intellectuals need some mechanism for securing rights to their creations. Yet in the United States, it is corporations - not the individuals who create knowledge and wealth - that hold most copyrights and receive the profits they create. These corporations have been wrestling with a crisis of profitability in a globalized market of production and have sought to maintain high profits through monopoly production based on copyright.
 But let's further examine the entertainment example selected by Vershbow in making his case for copyright protection. The citadel of entertainment is Hollywood. Balmy, sunny, southern California, one might assume, was chosen by the early 20th-century creators of this new industry to bask in the sun and glory of its still then-unspoiled environment. That myth makes good press copy, but the reality is less glamorous. 
 In the early 20th century, behemoth corporations on America's east coast were already busily patenting everything in sight. The United States at that time was experiencing something known as the Progressive Era, in which the excesses of big corporations were being curbed and the largest corporations broken up by new antitrust legislation. Large corporations responded to this assault by asserting greater control over any and all manner of technologies and manufacturing techniques through an explosion of copyrights and patents. This technique is again being used to restore profits.
 Hollywood and entertainment, that economic giant providing endless dreams and profits, like many infant industries, may never have survived had it slavishly followed copyright and patent regimes. Hollywood selected Southern California as its base to avoid the long arm of the law, enforcing east coast corporate patents on film cameras and other related equipment. Moreover, it had the additional advantage of being close to Mexico. So, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation did come, filmmakers often slipped over the border to Mexico and laid low a while. Hollywood depended on avoiding patent protections that, if paid, would have stifled this infant industry's development. 
 It is not only the United States' largest export industry that had to avoid patent protection in its infancy to survive. As American economist Michael Perelman notes, radio, which became a critical technology for delivering entertainment, stagnated at first because of endless patents placed on every component by large corporations, such as the then-giant, RCA. It was finally the U.S. Navy, needing radio communication, that stepped in, busted the patent monopoly and thus inadvertently allowed this technology to flourish. The same happened with aircraft, where it was the needs of the U.S. military again that prevented patent-led stagnation in aviation. In software and computers, that other engine of growth in the American economy, we see the need to avoid corporate copyrights and patents as a motivation for the early creators of this industry's move to Silicon Valley in northern California. As with movies and Hollywood many decades before, the technological illuminati understood they needed to escape east coast corporate oversight for their infant industry to survive and thrive.
 Historically, new industries and technologies have needed freedom from overly restrictive intellectual and patent laws. Moreover, developing countries require the same. Almost every successful developing country has copied technologies and industries from more advanced states. We need global agreements that are flexible and nimble enough to allow developing nations real transition periods in which they are not overly burdened by corporate copyright and patent laws.
 The creativity of individuals should always be rewarded, but the ability of corporations to seek global rents through draconian enforcement of these laws must be checked. Just as Vershbow sought to instruct Russia on the importance of this issue, somebody needs to educate the United States that pursuit of an overly strict TRIPS regime may further global inequality, while increasing resentment of corporations and even of America itself. Russia's growth will depend on it using its equity of human infrastructure and technology in ways that may sometimes displease corporate America. 
 Yet perhaps all could benefit from a truly enlightened negotiation of the limits and needs of copyrights and patents, evolving over time as Russia's economy advances to new stages of development. The process would surely be fraught with tensions, but the alternatives are unacceptable given our perilous times. As the late Israeli scholar and statesman, Abba Eban, once reflected, &quot;Nations typically do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options.&quot;
 Unfortunately, there is a kernel of truth in his amusing observation. As we approach the new year, let's hope that we do not exhaust all other options before doing the right thing. Let's continue to have an honest debate about economic development.
 
 <i>
Jeff Sommers is a U.S. professor of history and global studies and a research associate of the Institute for Globalization Studies in Moscow. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: A Visa Proposal, Elections and New Farmers
TEXT: In response to &quot;Cyprus to Open a Consulate General,&quot; an article by Irina Titova on Dec. 16.
 

 
Editor,</i>
 Russia would do well to modify its visa requirement to &quot;if you have $1,000 in cash and a valid credit card, you may enter.&quot; 
 
Worries about evil people entering the country can be handled via visual profiling of the entrants. 
 The influx of visitors from the United States would, in my opinion, quadruple in the first year.
 Canada &quot;sells&quot; citizenships to anyone who will invest $125,000 in the country (buy a business, etc.).
 I would also propose that Russia provide citizenship to anyone who invested $250,000 in the country, for instance by buying an apartment or a business. I estimate that 10,000 Americans per year would do this providing $2.5 billion dollars &quot;free&quot; to Russia every year. 
 Then change the tax laws such that anyone aged over 55 or who has income from sale of stocks and bonds, considered capital gains in the United States, would pay no tax on that amount. Instantly, Russia would become a tax-haven for Americans and we would - I guarantee - demand and get major improvements in infrastructure - roads, water, parks, healthcare and others - and all this could easily be paid for with the income gained from the Americans. The result, of course, would be lots of jobs for native Russians.
 Citizenship could also be granted to any American who simply moved there and lived for three years. The minimum U.S. social-security retirement payout is $800 per month, so this would pump more billions into the economy.
 If we wanted to get very creative, we could grant citizenship to any American who married a Russian lady who had a child and raised the child until they reached the age of 16 - a sort of &quot;instant welfare&quot; that would cost Russia nothing.
 
 <i>Paul Pencikowski,
 Los Angeles
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Dead and Buried?
 </strong></b>

 <i>
In response to &quot;A Funeral For Russian Democracy,&quot; a comment by Vladimir Kovalev on Dec. 11. </i>
 <i>
 Editor,</i>
 
An interesting article. However, from an outsider looking in, I see the Communists now have only 12 percent of the total vote. Isn't that the real goal? Get rid of the communist factions that have dominated Russia for so many years. 
 The Russian people will grow and change the governments as they desire, no longer having to live with the old ways of the Communist party. Change will come again, and I believe you will always see they will be changes for the better for an ever greater Russia.
 I am more upset by the United States and the European Union, complaining about this vote just as you are doing. I believe you should be very thankful that the years of communism are over, and that you should work hard to do away with the leftovers of the old communist ways in the government and at the level of the common people who live in old flats, tolerate poor heating, bad water, terrible streets, and crooked St. Petersburg police. 
 
 <i>John Readle,
 Indiana
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 It was with great sadness and little surprise that we watched the Russian elections. One had hoped that the burgeoning democratic process had gained a stronger foothold; apparently this was not the case. It does beg the questions: did it die a natural death, or was it murdered in its sleep?
 
As a U.S. citizen for whom St. Petersburg has become a second home, these have become issues of vital concern, as I watch a similar death of democracy unfolding in the United States. 
 Yes, we maintain the trappings and costumes of the same old play, but the actions on stage are becoming increasingly unfamiliar (or, perhaps, all-too-familiar to those of us who have had first-hand experience with a police state). 
 Here in the US, we don't even have the excuse of inexperience. Our democracy is simply dying of neglect, with the Cheney-Bush-Ashcroft cabal eagerly awaiting the moment when they can pull the plug on the life-support systems, and institute what your president cynically refers to as a &quot;managed democracy&quot; which in Russia, hopefully, may be a stepping stone toward a true &quot;Rule of the People&quot;; here I am afraid it is a stepping stone toward tyranny.
 
 <i>Rip Griffith,
 Atlantic City, New Jersey</i>
 

 <i>Editor,</i>
 Where are the grand democracies riding on freeways, referred to by the author? I think they are an illusion; a memory or ideal yearned for; but a thing of the past. What remains since the Sept. 11 victory in the corporate wars against humanity, is merely an assortment of veneers of democracy, with variations on the depth of the veneer. 
 
Sadly, the Russian electorate has merely mirrored exactly the situation in the older established democracies, where people are so worn down and so tired, they will do almost anything, and put up with almost anything, in order not to take any personal responsibility for anything, including their own hedonism and the future of their children. 
 Look around the Western world; witness the rise and rise of the corporations via WTO, World Bank, Free Trade Agreements, centralized state or corporate media, satellite &quot;news&quot; channels, and the rest of the sly Orwellian apparatus of total economic, political, and ultimately, mind control. 
 Witness the meteoric rise to power of the fascist neo-cons in the United States, and their ideological brethren in Britain, the EU, far-off Australia, and elsewhere. In your dismay at the election result please don't be too hard on the voters of Russia. They are human and frail as, increasingly, we all are.
 <i>
 Will Hassell
 Melbourne, Australia
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Fingerprint Checks</strong><i>
 </b>

 In response to &quot;Fingerprinting for U.S. Visas,&quot; an article printed on Dec. 5</i>
 
 <i>Editor,</i>
 Why does the United States have to keep changing visa requirements? As a frequent traveler to Russia from the US, I know that for every new regulation imposed by the United States there will be the same regulation imposed on US citizens by the Russian and other governments. Shouldn't we (the US government) be trying to make it easier and more convenient to travel around the world instead of more difficult? Might make understanding and tolerance grow if it was. Who knows others might get to know Americans, real Americans, not the ones on TV, movies and CDs.
 

 <i>Walter Brooke
 St. Petersburg, Florida</i>
 
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 I spent 8 months in Samara last year, and much time in St. Petersburg. Russia is very dear to my heart.
 
This is absolutely ridiculous! I am ashamed that the government of my country has the audacity to be so rude to the potential guests of this country, these guests being, above all, my friends. 
 All of these new so-called &quot;security measures&quot; do nothing but deter thousands of decent people from visiting the United States. 
 I am too embarrassed to even invite my friends and loved ones to visit me when they will be treated with such disrespect and have their privacy invaded. This is completely unconstitutional. The Homeland Security Department has way too much power. I can't wait to elect a president who has a sense of what is practical and just. 
 Until then, I will continue to do what I can, which is to maintain my dear, dear friendships in Russia. No politics will ever come in the way of the affection I feel for my friends in Russia. 
 
 <i>Elizabeth Keifer
 Ann Arbor, Michigan</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Textbook Tangle</strong>
 </b>

 <i>
In response to &quot;Textbook's Putin Pages Too Hot for Schools,&quot; an article by Maria Danilova on Nov. 28.
 
 Editor,</i>
 I disagree with the fact that the book has been banned. If Russia is to truly be a democratic country, with freedom of speech, I do not see it as a threat. Yes, you may say, well you live in America, you know nothing of Russia. No, I don't know that much, but what I do know is from first hand experience of traveling there the past three years.
 
If what the author of the history book says about Putin is true, then what is the big deal? He also does something good by leaving an open-ended questions for the students to think about and come up with their own decision. This is good because it causes the youth to try and find things out on their own, and not just accept one persons word as truth. Unless Putin has something to hide, I should think that he would be happy that the youth of his country has been given the challenge to expand their capabilities of thinking on their own. Thank you for your time, and God bless.
 
 <i>Sara Swain
 Walnut Ridge, Arkansas
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Old, New Oligarchs
 </strong></b>

 <i>
In response to &quot;Putin at Crux of Shift of Old Oligarchs to New,&quot; a comment by Andrei Piontkovsky on Nov. 21.
 
 Editor,</i>
 In wonderfully and classically lively Russian fashion, columnist Andrei Piontkovsky points out how mad his countrymen are in thinking President Putin (the proud KGB spy who &quot;cheerfully and enthusiastically&quot; testified to the authenticity of Yury Skuratov's genitals on videotape) represents some kind of improvement over his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Indeed, since Putin was hand-picked by Yeltsin, it is quite mad that Russians, who professed to despise Yeltsin, should have elected Putin in the first place.
 
Each time Russians change leaders, there are always some pie-eyed Pollyannas who proclaim a new era. It was so when Christianity came to Russia, and when Peter I sought to &quot;open his window,&quot; when Lenin replaced Peter, and when Yeltsin replaced Lenin. This is the chronic disease known as &quot;Russophilia.&quot; Each time, things only get worse, and they are worst of all now because this time, and it's a first, Russians have nobody to blame but themselves since they themselves elected Putin and are doing nothing to supervise him.
 Boris Yeltsin, cynic that he was, chose Putin because he believed he was the best Russia could hope for. It seems the people of Russia, Piontkovsky excepted, agree. More is the pity.
 
 <i>Lenard Leeds, 
 Atlanta, Georgia
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Tourism Fund Cuts
 </strong></b>

 <i>
In response to &quot;Dismay as Tourism Budget Slashed,&quot; an article by Galina Stolyarova on Nov. 18.</i>
 
 <i>Editor,</i>
 Having recently returned from a visit to St. Petersburg, I must say I am surprised by the attitude of the Legislative Assembly in cutting funding for tourism. The opportunities to make the city as popular a destination as Prague, Paris, Venice or London exist with the right planning and investment.
 
As a marketing professional with many years experience in the tourism industry, it is easy to see the potential St. Petersburg has to attract increased numbers of visitors who would bring welcome business and potential investment.
 The city does need medium priced hotels to suit the needs of 'short break' holidays. There is also a problem with service standards that are now common place across Europe but still lacking in many St. Petersburg establishments.
 What the city does have are the building blocks for a very profitable tourism industry. St. Petersburg has the history, the architecture and more importantly, the potential to grow.
 The 300th anniversary was an excellent way to promote the city to the world, but failing to capitalize on all the money and effort put into the anniversary will be a chance lost and history often reflects on opportunities not taken.
 
 <i>Kevin Rymell,
 Norwich, Norfolk 
 England.</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Farming Dreams
 </strong></b>

 <i>
In response to &quot;Large Farming Idea Hurts Little Farmers' Big Dreams&quot; an article by Yevgenia Borisova on Aug. 5. </i>
 
 <i>Editor,</i>
 I volunteered to assist farmers in Stavropol on production and marketing of agricultural products.
 
I am disheartened as I read your article. I was in Stavropol for three weeks in 1996 working with the new farmer association. While the challenges of the new associations were very evident, my new friends were determined that the free enterprise system could work for them, just as it works in the United States. I often compared the vision of these farmers with the visions of the early settlers in the our country who were given acres to start farming on in the mid 1800s. It is my hope that all farmers in Stavropol can have the opportunity to farm, no matter what the size of the farm is. 
 I am very appreciative of the farmers who I worked with who provided such a wonderful cross culture experience.
 <i>Randy Heitz, 
 Charles City, Iowa</i>
 
 <strong>
<b>Inadequate Media <br> 
 </strong><i>In response to &quot;Old Habits Must Die Before Progress Possible,&quot; a comment by Yuri Ushakov on Oct. 14.</i>
 </b>

 <i>Editor,</i>
 Excellent analysis by Yuri Ushakov. The ambassador must be aware of the wealth of warm and affectionate feeling among the U.S. public toward Russia. 
 The problem in my country is that relational progress is sorely under-reported. This is not because media have assessed a lack of internal interest in U.S.-Russian relations but that media forces calculate great political advantage would accrue to the U.S. administration if the full extent of the progress, in commercial affairs, in scientific developments, in international cooperation, in all fields were to become part of public awareness here.
 
We need coverage, coverage, coverage. Even summits suffer from poor placement within television schedules and minimal focus by reporters and commentators. 
 Within the very small community of sympathetic media, there is insufficient effort to provide balance, i.e., counterweight to the &quot;brown out&quot; and the dismissal of our mutual cooperation by the mainstream information sources.
 There will be no conversion of those sources but I judge that there is an opening to improved coverage by, for instance, MSNBC, Fox News, and a scatter of important newspapers throughout the country. It is totally unnecessary that any matter be positively slanted, only that Russian-U.S. cooperation and friendly relations be more extensively covered and examined on a steady basis.
 
 <i>Antoinette W. Vawter
 Pismo Beach, California </i>

TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
AUTHOR: By Chris Floyd
TEXT: <b>Best-Laid Plans
 </b>One of the constant refrains we hear from the malcontents carping about George W. Bush's triumphant crusade in Iraq is the charge - the canard - that the president and his crack team of advisers &quot;had no plan&quot; for the post-war period, that they've stumbled from crisis to crisis, changing policies without rhyme or reason, or have even &quot;plunged off a cliff,&quot; as erstwhile war-hawk Newt Gingrich declared last week.
 
But to anyone not blinded by partisan ideology or irrational Bush-hatred, the evidence clearly shows that Team Bush has always had a very specific plan for remaking Iraq - and is following it faithfully to this very day.
 Of course, it's not always easy to discern the president's steadfast adherence to principle through the defeatist fog of the liberal American media. For instance, this month saw perhaps the most significant progress yet toward the fulfillment of Bush's master plan, yet there was a not a word about it anywhere in America's media &quot;Establishment.&quot; No, Britain's Financial Times and South Africa's Sunday Times provided the unvarnished truth last week.
 We refer, of course, to the $40 million contract awarded by occupation authorities to a private security company called Erinys Iraq. This plucky start-up is one of the great success stories of the occupation, having already bagged big money to ride shotgun for Halliburton and Bechtel as they spread their beneficent tentacles throughout the conquered land. Now little Erinys will guard the Holy Grail of the entire invasion project: Iraq's oil industry.
 Erinys is a joint venture between a large South African freebooting firm and a few choice Iraqi investors. How choice? They are intimates of Ahmad Chalabi: leader of the Iraqi National Congress exile group, member of the Bush-appointed Governing Council, convicted swindler, darling of the Pentagon - and the Bush plan's designated tyrant-to-be, the Iraqi face of a compliant, corporate-run colonial outpost in Mesopotamia.
 This has been the plan all along: To install a &quot;strongman&quot; in Iraq who can &quot;hold the country together&quot; and protect the imperial flank while America &quot;projects its dominance&quot; over the oil wealth - and political life - of the Middle East and Central Asia. There's no great secret here: Team Bush has been talking about it for years in the corporate-funded &quot;think-tanks&quot; they inhabited during the Clinton interregnum. There, they published their dreams about a &quot;new Pearl Harbor&quot; that would &quot;galvanize the American public&quot; into supporting wide-ranging militarization at home and extensive &quot;interventions&quot; abroad. This vision was most clearly articulated in a September 2000 report published by the Cheney-Rumsfeld group, Project for the New American Century.
 Central to this dream - besides the Pearl Harbor bit, which those lucky duckies got only a year later - was the conquest of Iraq, a project that PNAC said &quot;transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.&quot; The crimes of their now-captured errand boy - most of which (including &quot;gassing his own people&quot;) were committed when he was being serviced and pampered by the Reagan-Bush administrations - were always irrelevant to the PNAC galvanizers, except as a PR pitch to help sell their &quot;transcendent&quot; invasion.
 And Chalabi was always their main man, the horse they were going to ride in on. Despite his conviction in Jordan for massive bank fraud, despite his dubious husbandry of the millions in covert aid thrown at him by U.S. officials, despite the fact that even the CIA finally washed its hands of him, dismissing him as an ineffectual poseur peddling false intelligence to inflate his importance and attract more funding, the PNAC boys kept faith with Chalabi, as American Prospect reports. 
 Thus when PNAC seized power in Washington, Chalabi's star rose again in the East. As Newsweek reports, his group was given a direct funnel to the White House for its &quot;intelligence&quot; about Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction - and Chalabi's non-existent popularity with the Iraqi people. He also supplied The New York Times with a steady stream of WMD scare stories that helped stoke the fever for war, the Washington Post reports. His private, American-funded militia was ferried into Iraq in the midst of the invasion and took part in the staged toppling of Saddam's statue by a small, hand-picked crowd in Baghdad - the much-televised symbol of &quot;victory&quot; in the war, Harper's reports. He was then named to Iraq's &quot;rotating interim presidency&quot; by the Bushist conquerors.
 Now, Chalabi's cronies at Erinys are hiring Chalabi's militiamen for the new &quot;security&quot; contract. In other words, Bush has given Chalabi armed control over Iraq's oil industry. This has drawn strident protests from other members of the Governing Council, who know exactly what it means: Chalabi's gun is pointed at the nation's jugular. But their voice is meaningless; Bush's word alone is law in Babylon. 
 That's why the occupation seems such a shambles. The stated policies don't really matter; they're just window dressing for the master plan. Thus they can be discarded the moment they're no longer politically expedient. What matters is getting the strongman in place - Saddam 2.0, a more obedient, more presentable, less quirky upgrade, who will &quot;invite&quot; a lasting American military presence and uphold Bush's arbitrary decrees granting foreign corporations a stranglehold on the Iraqi economy.
 Now, is this an <i>evil</i> plan, conceived in ignorance and arrogance, predicated on the war crime of military aggression, an act of terrorism on a scale than bin Laden could only dream of? You bet. But let's be fair: it <i>is</i> a plan. You can't say that Bush hasn't got one.
 
 <i>
For annotational references, see the Opinion section at www.sptimesrussia.com </i>

TITLE: Trial Begins For Suspects In Serbian Assassination
AUTHOR: By Misha Savic
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - The trial of the suspected assassins of Serbia's pro-Western prime minister opened Monday, with the focus on an alleged plot by gangsters and police to bring allies of Slobodan Milosevic back to power.
 
The trial - considered a crucial test for Serbia's judiciary - started amid maximum security in a high-tech courtroom in Belgrade surrounded by concrete walls and with bulletproof glass to protect defendants.
 A total of 36 suspected gangsters and members of an elite police unit face charges of allegedly forming a &quot;criminal enterprise&quot; that attempted to topple late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic's government, according to the indictment.
 The charismatic Djindjic was Serbia's first democratic leader in 50 years.
 However, only 21 of the suspects appeared in the court Monday, each flanked by two policemen. The remaining 15 will be tried in absentia, including the alleged mastermind of the assassination, Milorad Lukovic or Legija, a former French Foreign Legion fighter who commanded the elite &quot;Red Berets&quot; during Milosevic's war campaigns in Bosnia and Croatia.
 Among the first expected to testify was Zvezdan Jovanovic, a Red Berets commander accused of firing the bullets that killed Djindjic and wounded his bodyguard.
 Authorities have said the March 12 assassination was part of a plan by hard-line supporters of Milosevic to regain power three years after the former president was ousted by Djindjic's pro-Western coalition.
 The sniper attack that killed the prime minister in front of government headquarters in Belgrade touched off the arrests of thousands of underworld figures and Milosevic-era paramilitaries believed linked to the murder.
 Months of investigations and a countrywide crackdown on organized crime - which also shed light on some previously unresolved murders and abductions - led to criminal charges against the 36. Charges include conspiracy against the state, terrorism and first-degree murder, as well as some lesser crimes.
 The defendants could face up to 40 years in jail each.
 Djindjic's main foes included nationalists angered by his decision in 2001 to hand over Milosevic to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands, where he is on trial for his alleged role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
 War veterans - alarmed that they, too, might be extradited to the tribunal - allegedly plotted the assassination, together with the crime bosses who feared Djindjic would crack down on their lucrative drug trade, government officials said shortly after the assassination.
 The shooting of the foreign-educated prime minister shocked the nation. In a mass showing of grief, tens of thousands attended his funeral in Belgrade.
 The trial will also be a test for Serbia's judiciary, currently undergoing reforms after years of communism and Milosevic's autocratic rule.
 &quot;This is the trial of the century for Serbia,&quot; said Judge Maja Kovacevic, assigned to a special court set up for the proceedings.
 Among the reforms, a witness protection program was recently introduced, which allowed a deal with three crime figures who have been cleared of charges in exchange for testifying against the suspects.
 The trial, which may last for months, also comes amid trying times for the government, headed by Djindjic's successor, Zoran Zivkovic.
 Infighting in the Cabinet and allegations of corruption have precipitated early parliamentary elections in Serbia, to be held next Sunday. Opinion polls indicate the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party might garner the most votes.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: <b>China's Property Rights
 </b>

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese legislators on Monday introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee private property rights - the first such protection of the communist era.
 The change has been the object of extensive and heated debate within the ruling party.
 The proposed constitutional change is meant to bring China's legal framework in line with its increasingly capitalist economy.
 The proposed amendment on property says "private property obtained legally shall not be violated," according to Xinhua. It said that would put private property "on an equal footing with public property." Despite a lack of constitutional protections so far, millions of Chinese have plunged ahead in starting businesses and buying homes and stock share issued by state companies.
 
 
<b>Quake Claims 200
 </b>

MANILA, Philippines (AFP) - At least 200 people were killed or feared dead by weekend landslides that reportedly buried entire villages in the central and southern Philippines, as rescuers battled bad weather to reach the devastated areas.
 Villagers used shovels and their bare hands to dig bodies from the mud and debris brought down in landslides that officials said crashed into 160 villages in central Leyte province and the southern island of Mindanao.
 By Sunday, 83 bodies had been recovered and 120 people were still missing. Close to 100,000 people had been displaced or evacuated.
 
 
<b>Two Blasts Scare Kabul
 </b>

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Two heavy explosions heard in downtown Kabul on Monday were apparently caused by controlled blasts to destroy old weapons.
 The blasts jolted a city already on alert during a landmark constitutional convention amid concerns that Taliban insurgents may try and target the meeting.
 Kabul police could not confirm what caused the blasts, but also said they believed it was part of efforts to dispose of old weapons left over from two decades of war.
 
 
<b>Bird Flu Hits S. Korea
 </b>

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) - Nearly a million chickens and ducks will be slaughtered across South Korea to combat a highly contagious strain of bird flu that has spread across the country and could also infect humans, the government said on Monday.
 Avian influenza, which in rare cases can be deadly to humans, has caused poultry sales to tumble as authorities confirm outbreaks at farm after farm across the country.
 Since authorities last Monday confirmed the first bird flu among chickens at a farm 80 km southeast of Seoul, cases have since been discovered at eight more poultry farms. Six other farms are being tested for suspected infections.
 Faced with the rapid increase in cases, agriculture authorities have raised slaughter targets to about 950,000 birds among the 100 million chickens and eight million ducks in the poultry sector. <b>Williams Pulls Out
 </b>

PERTH, Australia (AP) - Serena Williams has delayed her scheduled return to competitive tennis to concentrate on preparations for the Australian Open.
 Williams, the No. 3 player in the world, has not played a tournament since winning Wimbledon in July. She had knee surgery on Aug. 1 and early last month said she had recovered well. 
 Hopman Cup director Paul McNamee said Williams withdrew from the mixed teams exhibition tournament to focus on her preparation for the Australian Open, which starts Jan. 19. 
 Williams had agreed to partner with James Blake at the Hopman Cup to defend the title the pair won last year. 
 McNamee said world Lindsay Davenport would replace Williams in the United States team. 
 "Serena regrets not being able to come back and defend her title," McNamee said. 
 Williams had a 38-3 record in 2003 and won the Australian Open and Wimbledon titles. She was a semifinalist at the French Open, then missed the U.S. Open after having surgery on her left knee. 
 
 
<b>Thai Dive Record
 </b>

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - A British dive instructor plunged to a depth of 313 meters off the Thai coast to set a new world record for the deepest scuba dive, a news report said Sunday.
 Mark Ellyatt took 12 minutes to make his descent off the resort island of Phuket in southern Thailand on Thursday, besting the previous mark by 5 meters, according to the Phuket Gazette newspaper. He then needed six hours and 40 minutes to safely return to the surface.
 Failure to ascend slowly can result in decompression sickness or death.
 "It's a lonely trip, like a trip to the moon," Ellyatt said.
 An independent verification of the record was not immediately available.
 The previous world mark of 308 meters was set on Nov. 6, 2001 by British diver John Bennett off the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, according to Guinness World Records.
 
 
<b>Gadhafi Doping Case
 </b>

ROME (AP) - Sports authorities handed the doping case of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's soccer-playing son over to the Italian soccer federation Saturday for a likely extended suspension.
 Saadi Gadhafi was temporarily suspended from the Serie A team Perugia in November after he tested positive for the performance-enhancing steroid norandrosterone. He denies intentionally doping and says medicine he took for back pain probably caused the positive result.
 The Italian National Olympic Committee said in Saturday's statement that, after Gadhafi's positive test, it had concluded its investigation and was handing the matter over to the soccer federation's justice agency.
 Suspensions for doping can be as long as two years. It was not clear when the soccer federation would offer a ruling.
 Gadhafi's case drew worldwide attention and brought a halt to his long-held aspirations to play soccer in one of the top leagues in the world. 



TITLE: Thousands Protest Over Muslim Veil
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Thousands of people, mainly Muslim women shouting &quot;The veil, my choice,&quot; marched through Paris on Sunday against presidential proposals to ban Islamic head scarves from public schools and maybe at work, too.
 
The protest, a cry of anguish from a rarely heard section of French society, was the first in Paris against President Jacques Chirac's announcement Wednesday that head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols, including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, should be banned from schools to protect French secularism.
 Chirac urged parliament to pass the law before the 2004-2005 school year starts in September. He also proposed giving company bosses the right to decide whether religious symbols can be worn at work and said a law should stop patients from refusing care from doctors of the opposite sex - aimed at Muslim women who have rebuffed male medical workers.
 Paris police put the number of marchers at 3,000. More than half were women, girls and even young children wearing head scarves. They marched in a boisterous, flag-waving column hundreds of yards long through rain to the Place de la Bastille, where the prison stormed at the start of the French revolution in 1789 once stood.
 Protesters said Chirac's proposed measures stigmatized France's estimated 5 million Muslims, the largest Muslim community in Western Europe, and made a mockery of cherished French values.
 &quot;Liberty, equality, fraternity - apart from women who wear the veil,&quot; said Fatima Boicha, a housewife and mother of two from a town west of Paris whose head and neck were covered with a brown scarf.
 &quot;The French state wants us to submit, to tell us what to wear and what not to wear,&quot; she added. &quot;None of these women here will take their veils off.&quot;
 Protesters sang the Marseillaise, the French national anthem, waved French tricolors - red, white and blue - and shouted &quot;Beloved France, where is my liberty?&quot; and other slogans. Some held their identity cards above their heads or pinned enlarged photocopies of their voter cards on their chests to show their French citizenship.
 In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in comments published Sunday that headscarves have &quot;no place&quot; among public school teachers. But unlike Chirac, Schroeder said he could not prevent Muslim school girls from covering their heads in the classroom.
 Debate over banning Muslim teachers from wearing headscarves has occupied Germany since its highest court ruled in September that teachers could wear them, unless states pass laws forbidding it.

TITLE: 'U.S. Soldier' Honored As Time's Person of the Year
AUTHOR: By Sara Kugler
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2003 is actually many people - the 1.4 million men and women in the U.S. military, which invaded Iraq and captured deposed leader Saddam Hussein.
 
The troops were singled out as the top newsmakers of the year because &quot;the very messy aftermath of the war made it clear that the mission had changed, that the mission had not been completed and that this would be a story that would be with us for months, if not years, to come,&quot; Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said Sunday.
 The 2003 Person of the Year package, on newsstands Monday, features an artillery survey unit from the 1st Armored Division to tell the story of the American soldier.
 The magazine's cover shows three of them - Sergeant Marquette Whiteside, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.; Sergeant Ronald Buxton, of Lake Ozark, Missouri; and Spcecialist Billie Grimes, of Lebanon, Indiana, all members of Survey Platoon, Headquarters Battery, 2nd Battalion in the 1st Armored's 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, based in Giessen, Germany.
 The magazine glorifies the soldiers but not the Bush administration for putting them in Iraq, calling troops &quot;the bright sharp instrument of a blunt policy,&quot; and leaving it to scholars to debate &quot;whether the Bush doctrine is the most muscular expression of national interest in a half-century.&quot;
 Buxton, one of those who graced the magazine's cover, called his stepmother Sunday afternoon to discuss the big news. Though the connection was bad, it was clear the soldier was proud, Dana Buxton said.
 &quot;He felt it was an honor for the troops,&quot; she said, &quot;and he was very pleased the troops were being honored on the cover.&quot;
 The selection echoes 1950, the year the Korean War began, when the magazine's editors picked the American GI for the cover, writing that &quot;it was not a role the American had sought, either as an individual or as a nation. The U.S. fighting-man was not civilization's crusader, but destiny's draftee.&quot;
 Time magazine knows the risks that the soldiers face first hand. On the evening of Dec. 10, Time writer Michael Weisskopf's right hand was blown off and photographer James Nachtwey was hit with shrapnel when a grenade landed on their humvee as the same soldiers honored by Time were stuck in Baghdad traffic.
 Grimes, the platoon's medic, treated the two journalists along with injured members of her unit. Weisskopf is recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Nachtwey is back in New York.
 Kelly said Saddam Hussein was not considered for Person of the Year in 2003 because &quot;he was on the losing side of this conflict.&quot;
 In 2001, then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was picked as Time's Person of the Year for leading the city's response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
 Last year, Time editors selected Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who wrote a scathing memo on FBI intelligence failures, and Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on corruption at corporate giants Enron and WorldCom.

TITLE: Successes, Setbacks for American Troops Follow Saddam Capture
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD - Acting on intelligence gleaned from the capture of Saddam Hussein, U.S. troops rounded up dozens of suspected rebels during two days of raids in towns where loyalty to the deposed president remains strong, officials said Sunday. Two Iraqis were killed.
 
Smashing down doors, troops went house to house in Fallujah, a center of resistance west of Baghdad, early Sunday. Troops of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment blockaded Rawah, near the western border with Syria, for a sweep dubbed Operation Santa Claws, the U.S. Army told Associated Press Television News.
 Rawah was put under a nighttime curfew, while the towns of Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad, and Jalulah, northwest of Baghdad, were also targeted. Support for Saddam has been strong in all of those areas.
 Soldiers arrested 60 Iraqis for questioning, and are seeking more than 100 senior members of Saddam's Baath Party and insurgents the military calls &quot;terrorists,&quot; said Lieutenant Brian Joyce of the 3rd Armored Cavalry.
 In one of the Rawah raids, a 60-year-old woman was killed when soldiers blasted open the reinforced steel door of her home, said regiment commander Lieutenant Colonel Henry Kievenaar.
 General Richard Myers, the chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said several hundred Saddam loyalists had been rounded up in recent raids. They include &quot;some of the leadership of this insurgency, absolutely, some of the cell leaders,&quot; he told Fox News Sunday.
 Myers tied arrests to Saddam's capture. &quot;Some of the information we gleaned when we picked up Saddam Hussein led to a better understanding of the structure of the resistance from the former regime elements,&quot; he said.
 Saddam was arrested Dec. 13 near his hometown of Tikrit, and the U.S. military has said soldiers also seized a briefcase containing documents that shed light on the anti-U.S. insurgency. The CIA is interrogating him in Iraq; Iraqi officials say the former dictator is in the Baghdad area.
 &quot;The only word I have is that he's not being cooperative. But other than that, I don't know,&quot; Myers said.

TITLE: Israeli Soldiers Refuse to Serve in West Bank
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM - About a dozen reservists from the Israeli army's top commando unit declared Sunday they would no longer serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, reflecting growing unease with Israel's hard-fisted policy in the Palestinian areas.
 
Thirteen reservists, including three officers, from &quot;Sayeret Matkal&quot; made their declaration in a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, according to Israeli media.
 &quot;We cannot continue to stand silent,&quot; they wrote, charging that Israeli military activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are depriving &quot;millions of Palestinians of human rights&quot; and endangering &quot;the fate of Israel as a democratic, Zionist and Jewish country.&quot;
 &quot;Sayeret Matkal&quot; is the top commando unit in the Israeli military and its most prestigious. Ex-Prime Minister Ehud Barak was once its commander, and another former premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, also served in the force, known for daring operations outside Israel's borders. Its soldiers rarely serve in the Palestinian areas.
 Sharon's office had no immediate comment. A military spokesman released a one-sentence statement criticizing the soldiers for &quot;using their uniforms and the name of the unit where they serve as a lever for publicizing their political views.&quot; The military would not respond to a question of how many reservists serve in the &quot;Sayeret Matkal.&quot;
 More than three years of Palestinian-Israeli violence has stretched nerves thin among Israelis and further fractured the consensus over the military, once the unquestioned pinnacle of Israeli society.

TITLE: Ferguson Plays Ferdinand to Top League
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LONDON - Manchester United ended a stormy week for the club with a 2-1 win at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday that swept them to the top of the premier league. 
 
United manager Alex Ferguson opted to include Rio Ferdinand two days after he was handed an eight-month ban for missing a drugs test. 
 But the England defender had little to do in a game dominated by the champions, at least for the first hour. 
 Ferdinand, who is expected to appeal against the ban which starts on January 12, was booed by the home fans but cheered by the visiting supporters. 
 The United fans spiced the atmosphere with unflattering chants aimed at FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who has expressed strong views on the controversy. 
 Blatter has warned Rio Ferdinand and Manchester United they can expect &quot;unprecedented repercussions&quot; if they challenge his eight-month ban in the civil courts.
 FIFA will wait to see how the case goes through the appeal process by the FA before deciding whether to extend the ban worldwide. That would rule Ferdinand out of moving to another club, even on loan.
 Meanwhile, soccer's European body UEFA said the eight-month ban was in line with its own guidelines.
 &quot;From a UEFA disciplinary standpoint, our view would be that this type of offense would carry at least a six-month ban so it is in line with what we would expect to happen if the player had failed to take a test during a UEFA competition,&quot; said spokesman Rob Faulkner.
 &quot;Our guidelines state a minimum of six months for a first offense so from our point of view it would seem appropriate.&quot; 
 Ferdinand, 25, has denied using drugs and passed a doping test 36 hours after he should have taken the original one.
 The FA ruled him out of England's final Euro 2004 qualifier in Turkey on October 11, but allowed him to keep playing for United, a decision criticized Blatter.
 The world's most expensive defender, Ferdinand became a &quot;cause celebre&quot; in domestic and international football, while the FA was widely criticized for its handling of the affair.
 Ferdinand's exclusion from the decisive game in Istanbul prompted threats of an unprecedented strike by his England team mates.
 They eventually backed down, but strongly criticized the FA's behavior saying that both Ferdinand and the England squad had been &quot;badly let down.&quot; England drew the match 0-0 to qualify for the European Championship.
 Ferdinand could also miss the start of England's qualifying campaign for the 2006 World Cup.
 The ban is one month less than that handed down to former Manchester United player Eric Cantona for attacking a supporter in the crowd at a premier league match in 1996 and the suspension given to former Chelsea goalkeeper Mark Bosnich for failing a drugs test.
 It far exceeds the three-month ban anticipated by the British media, though falling short of the maximum two-year suspension.
 With Arsenal held 1-1 at Bolton on Saturday, United knew victory would take them a point clear of London rivals Arsenal and Chelsea going into the hectic holiday program. 
 It looked plain sailing after first-half goals from John O'Shea and Ruud van Nistelrooy put them in control. 
 But a spirited fightback from a Tottenham side sliding dangerously close to the relegation zone ensured an anxious finale for Ferdinand and his fellow defenders. 
 Ferguson defended his decision to play Ferdinand, telling Sky Sports: &quot;I was very pleased with him. It was probably the best thing for him, to get everything out of his mind and concentrate on playing football. He acquitted himself very well in the circumstances. 
 &quot;His performances merit his place in the team. Since this all happened he has got better and better. He has great maturity and a great partnership with [Mikael] Silvestre so why should I leave him out?&quot; 
 Ferguson said before the match: &quot;He's had gruelling week. Yesterday in training I had a good look at him and I spoke to him. He wanted to play.
 &quot;He's got a good temperament and he is a good player. Hopefully he's going to be all right.&quot;
 United oozed class before halftime and took the lead after 16 minutes when O'Shea stole in to volley Darren Fletcher's corner past Kasey Keller. 
 United doubled their lead after 25 minutes when van Nistelrooy's deflected shot finished off a neat passing move. 
 But the champions got a wake-up call in the 62nd minute when Paul Konchesky's deep cross was volleyed across the area by the impressive Stephane Dalmat and Poyet bundled in from close range. 
 The home side then stepped up the pace with Dalmat and Frederic Kanoute applying some late pressure but United held out. 
 Tottenham manager David Pleat said: &quot;We showed tremendous spirit in the second half and I thought we deserved to draw. It's hard to chase a game against United but we did it well.&quot; 
 The game featured a meeting of American goalies - Tim Howard for United and Keller of Tottenham. This was the first time they faced each other in English soccer.
 United now have 40 points - one above Arsenal and Chelsea, who beat Fulham 1-0 on Saturday. The two London clubs also have an identical goal difference and goals tally. 
 Earlier on Sunday, Southampton climbed to fourth on 26 points after thrashing local rivals Portsmouth 3-0 at St Mary's. 
 The first goal after 34 minutes came direct from a Jason Dodd corner while superb second-half finishes from Marian Pahars - his first goal for 15 months - and James Beattie completed a comfortable success in the first league meeting between the south coast clubs since 1988. 
 Portsmouth remain stuck in the bottom three and manager Harry Redknapp was furious. &quot;I don't care about Christmas - we are going to train on Christmas Day and we play on Boxing Day [Dec, 26],&quot; he said. 
 &quot;I won't even eat my Christmas dinner. I'm going to be the most miserable person you've ever seen.&quot;
 
 <i>(Reuters, AP) </i>

TITLE: Foreigners Take Helm In Russia
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - No Russian club or Russian trainer has ever won a European soccer trophy, but next season two men with three European trophies between them will take charge at champions CSKA Moscow and Spartak Moscow.
 
One's an Italian, the other is Portuguese.
 Italian Nevio Scala, winner of the European Cup Winner's Cup and UEFA Cup with Parma, will be Spartak's fourth coach in a year when he takes over in January, while Artur Jorge, winner of the European Cup with Porto in 1987 is already in charge of CSKA, having taken over from Valery Gazzayev, despite the former Russian national coach's winning the army side's first title in 12 years.
 Scala and Jorge's arrival represents a revolution for Russian soccer. It means that when the new season starts next March at least four of the 16 Russian Premier League sides will have foreign head coaches. Zenit St. Petersburg, after coming second in its first season under Vlastimil Petrzela, will continue to be coached by the Czech, while his countryman, Jaroslav Hrebik, took over at Dynamo Moscow last month. In the ranks behind Russia's most successful team Lokomotiv, led by Yuri Syomin, is Portuguese coach Mariano Barreto.
 Unlike other major European leagues, the influx is a new phenomenon as Russian clubs, awash with money, look to get into the European elite and the even bigger money of the Champions League.
 Russian coaches have proven inadequate - with the exception of Yuri Syomin at Lokomotiv and Oleg Romantsev in his early days at Spartak - for the realities of modern European soccer.
 &quot;There's stagnation,&quot; said Vladimir Radionov, the general secretary of the Russian Football Union, welcoming the new arrivals. Among Russian clubs, it is the same faces in charge of clubs from one year to the next. 
 &quot;They go from one club to another, it's a closed circle, today CSKA, tomorrow Spartak and there's no fresh blood. We want that trainers to come who've played [and trained] in France, Italy and Spain,&quot; he said, saying it will help to teach Russian trainers new ideas.
 Officials had hopes that young trainers such Igor Shalimov and Sergei Aleinikov, 37, who took over at Uralan Elista and Torpedo Mettalurg after returning from lengthy spells playing and coaching in Italy, would be that fresh blood, but neither was a success. 
 There were calls last year for a foreign coach for the national team - a couple of eager businessman fans even offered to donate a $1 million to pay his wages - but the success of Georgy Yartsev in getting Russia to Euro 2004 means that is unlikely for the foreseeable future.
 Still, Jorge and Scala's appointments resulted in cautious words from the State Sports Committee head Vyacheslav Fetisov.
 &quot;You can judge it positively and critically,&quot; Fetisov said last month at a meeting with players and the coaching staff from the Russian national team, Interfax reported.
 &quot;The Russian training school has far from lost its potential,&quot; noting that a number of Russian soccer players were abroad gaining experience.
 &quot;Judging by their interest in training, I think there is sense in giving experienced soccer players a chance,&quot; he said, adding that veteran trainers such as Konstantin Beskov and Valentin Ivanov could provide advice.
 Both of the new coaches are examples of the new international, &quot;have ball, will travel&quot; type. Players of repute in their own right, Jorge won four league titles and played 30 times for Portugal, while Scala won the Italian Serie A as a player in a noted career. Both have coached all over Europe after success in their own countries.
 After winning the European Cup with Porto, Jorge has coached the Portuguese and Swiss national teams, taken Paris St. Germain to the French title in 1994 as well as coaching at clubs in Spain, The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. After leading Parma to European success, Scala went on to coach Borussia Dortmund, Besiktas and Shaktyor Donetsk. He took Donetsk to its first ever title but left after failing to get the team to the group stages of the Champions League.
 Although this is the first wave in the Russian league, it is not the first in Soviet history. The league had its fair share of trainers from the Soviet republics, as does the Russian league, but few know that trainers from outside the union successfully coached in the Soviet Union in, strangely, 1936 and 1937, at the height of the Stalinist repressions.
 That year, Czech Jul Limbek, took Dynamo Tbilisi to the autumn league title before going onto to coach Lokomotiv, football historian Aksel Vartanyan said.
 Such coaches exerted a huge influence on Soviet soccer, which was in its infancy. The first national championship had only begun in 1936 with the country in political and football isolation and many of the teams playing without any coaches at all. Limbek and others were no accidental choices, coming from countries that the Soviet Union had made some kind of detente with, like Czechoslovakia, as the fear of Germany had begun to rise with Hitler's rise to power. 
 Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, foreign coaches have taken longer to make their mark in Russia than in other former Soviet countries, partly through pride and partly though lack of finances.
 Soviet coaches were respected throughout the world, and figures such as Boris Arkadiev, Mikhail Tovarovsky, Viktor Maslov and Valery Lobanovsky are rightly considered revolutionaries.
 Trainers wrote respected theoretical books and passed on their knowledge on to their students. Konstantin Beskov, who last trained Spartak to the title in 1987, took something from Arkadiev who in learned from Mikhail Yakushin, all legendary coaches.
 Vartanyan said the English 4-4-2 system of Sir Alf Ramsay was foreshadowed by Maslov and that Valery Lobanovsky's Dynamo Kiev certainly influenced the soccer of the Dutch team of 1974.
 But if in Soviet times a coach could only be sacked with the Russian Football Union's say-so, the game is different now, run by businessmen eager for quick success and eager to pay for the best trainers to change Russia's poor record on the European scene.
 Gazzayev was sacked despite the title because he failed to get into the lucrative stages of the Champions League. Scala and Jorge were brought over with success in mind and are believed to be on $1 million a year wages.
 Both know that failure will see them sacked just as quickly.

TITLE: Finland Beats Sweden, Wins Baltika Cup Ice Hockey Title
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Kimmo Kuhta scored the winner 17 seconds from time Sunday to give Finland a 2-1 victory over Sweden and the Baltika Cup ice hockey tournament title. 
 
The tournament was the third of four legs of the European Hockey Tour, and featured each country's best players outside the NHL.
 Russia finished third in the four-team tournament, followed by Sweden.
 Andrei Kovalenko scored a tiebreaking goal in the penalty shootout to lead Russia to a 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic, which finished second. 
 The Czechs avoided defeat during normal time only with 2.5 minutes left on the clock, tying the game at 2-2. No goals were scored during extra time. 
 Coach Viktor Tikhonov's team was more successful in a series of penalty shots. Russian team captain Kovalenko scored three penalty shots one on one against Czech goaltender Dusan Salfizky. 
 The Russian team, after earlier losing to the title-winning Finns 1:3 but defeating Sweden also after a penalty shootout, collected 4 points from the tournament. The Czech team collected 5 points from the tournament. 
 It was Finland's first triumph at the tournament which started in 1967 as the Izvestia Cup and was renamed the Baltika Cup in 1997 after the Baltika Brewery, one of Russia's largest brewers, bought the rights to sponsor the competition. 
 Antti Aalto also scored for Finland and Tim Eriksson scored the lone goal for Sweden. 
 Finland (7-0-0-2) also won two previous events, the Ceska Pojistovna Cup in September and the Karjala Cup in November and leads the Tour standings with 21 points. Russia (2-2-2-3) and the Czech Republic (1-3-3-2) are tied at 12 points while Sweden (1-2-2-4) has nine. 
 The fourth leg, the Sweden Hockey Games, will be in February. The two best teams from four events will then play two legs for the title in April.
 
 <i>(RIA Novosti, AP)
 </i>

TITLE: Magic Victories Turn The Tide
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TORONTO - The Orlando Magic aren't the worst team in the Eastern Conference anymore. 
 
Led by Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard and new starting point guard Rod Strickland, the Magic won their third straight and for the sixth time in eight games Sunday - 104-93 over the Toronto Raptors. 
 Orlando improved to 7-21, percentage points better than the Atlanta Hawks (7-22). The Magic had a franchise-record 19-game losing streak earlier this season. 
 McGrady credits Strickland for turning the team around. Orlando is 3-0 since he became a starter. 
 &quot;He's doing everything for us. We have a solid veteran point guard. He's the reason why we're playing so well,&quot; said McGrady, who scored 29 points. &quot;Thank God we are in the East.&quot;
 Strickland had 14 points, eight assists and six rebounds, Howard had 20 points and 12 rebounds and Drew Gooden added 14 points and 14 rebounds. 
 &quot;I told the coaches when I got here that we just need that one win,&quot; said Strickland, who signed with Orlando on Nov. 25. &quot;When you lose that many games it's tough. You have to lack confidence to go through that, but winning breeds confidence.&quot; 
 Donyell Marshall had 19 points and 19 rebounds for the Raptors in their fifth loss in six games. Vince Carter added 17 points but had five turnovers and attempted just two free throws. 
 &quot;We didn't play hard,&quot; Toronto coach Kevin O'Neill said. &quot;We're very poor defensively right now. Inside we're getting beat up.&quot; 
 Toronto struggled with Orlando's zone defense. 
 &quot;It's the worst part of the game right now. It's something that should have never been put in the NBA,&quot; Carter said. 
 Orlando outrebounded Toronto 50-44. The undersized Raptors are 6-5 since trading Antonio Davis, their starting center, and Jerome Williams. 
 O'Neill said they're asking too much of rookie Chris Bosh and second-year forward Lonny Baxter, who are forced to play against veterans. 
 &quot;It's going to take a toll on those guys in terms of, not just fatigue, but a lot of things,&quot; O'Neill said. 
 Keith Bogans' jumper over Carter gave Orlando an eight-point lead with 8:05 left before Bosh helped bring the Raptors within four by grabbing two offensive rebounds and blocking a shot. 
 Strickland followed with a jumper and McGrady made a 3-pointer to give Orlando a 91-82 lead with 3:44 left, and Strickland grabbed an offensive rebound and made a layup with 58 seconds left to clinch the win. 
 Marshall missed a 3-pointer, and Howard made two free throws to give Orlando a 10-point lead with 36 seconds remaining. 
 McGrady, who played his first three seasons in Toronto, was booed throughout the game. 
 &quot;They ought to get tired of it. Every time they do that, I told them, they're just adding fuel to the fire,&quot; he said. &quot;It brings the best out of me and my teammates. It's all love though. They miss me here.&quot; 
 Asked if he would consider signing with Toronto if he opts out of his contract next year, McGrady said: &quot;It's too cold outside here for me.&quot;