SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #935 (3), Friday, January 16, 2004
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TITLE: Disregarding Setbacks, Yukos Bids for Sibneft
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Shortly after a Moscow court rejected an appeal to release jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and place him under house arrest, Yukos announced a bid to take full control of Sibneft.
 
"Sibneft is our subsidiary. ... This means we are entitled to the company's profits and should have our people on the company's board," Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin said in a telephone interview.
 Yukos and Sibneft agreed to merge into the world's fourth largest oil company last year, but the deal fell apart after the arrest of Khodorkovksy on tax and fraud charges. Observers believe the Kremlin was angered by his political and business ambitions and is behind the legal attack.
 The Moscow City Court on Thursday upheld a decision by a lower court to keep Khodorkovsky locked up at least until March 25 - well after the March 14 presidential election.
 Khodorkovsky, who was arrested at gunpoint Oct. 25, told the three judges that he had never tried to hide before his arrest and asked to be allowed to wait for his trial at home.
 "I promise that I will not hide from the investigators," he said via a televised link from the Matrosskya Tishina pretrial detention center.
 The judges, however, ruled that Khodorkovsky posed a flight risk.
 Khodorkovsky's lawyers said they may appeal to the Supreme Court.
 In another sign that investigators are pushing full steam ahead with the legal attack on Khodorkovksy and his allies, the Interior Ministry said Thursday that key Yukos shareholders Leonid Nevzlin and Vladimir Dubov have been put on a wanted list.
 Nevzlin, who has been living in Israel since last summer, has been charged with evading 26.7 million rubles ($925,000) in taxes, Interfax reported, citing Interior Ministry sources. Dubov, who is also believed to be in Israel, is being sought on charges of fraud and the illegal acquisition of property. 
 "The Prosecutor General's Office sent the relevant investigation materials to the Interior Ministry in early January," the source told Interfax.
 It did not take Yukos long to fire back. It called for an extraordinary Sibneft shareholders meeting at which it plans to elect five Yukos representatives to the six-member board.
 Legally, Yukos shareholders continue to control 92 percent of Sibneft, while Sibneft's core shareholders have a 26.01 percent stake in Yukos. Yukos also paid them $3 billion in cash.
 Sibneft shareholders pulled out of the merger with Yukos as state pressure on Yukos' senior managers and key shareholders increased, but the two companies have yet to work out the terms of their divorce.
 A Sibneft board was to be elected Dec. 30, but Yukos boycotted the meeting after it learned that the names of its nominees had been dropped from the ballot. Sibneft officials had indicated that due to pending divorce, Yukos was not expected to put any representatives on Sibneft's board. But Yukos appears to think differently.
 "We own 92 percent of Sibneft, so we must be represented on its board," Shadrin said.
 In addition, Yukos wants to put Sibneft's financial results as of Oct. 3 on its books, he said.
 "We are also entitled to its profits. As shareholders, we can demand dividends and make decisions on how the profit should be spent - be it to shareholders or investments into the business," he said.
 Sibneft refused to comment about Yukos' announcement. The company's board has to set a date for the extraordinary shareholders meeting by Monday. 
 Sibneft's revenues for 2003 are expected to total $6.6 billion. If Yukos succeeds with its claim, it would be entitled to add about a quarter of the amount to its own expected revenues of $16 billion, said Kaha Kiknavelidze, an oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog investment bank.
 But while Yukos de jure has the right to control Sibneft, market watchers were scratching their heads Thursday about the possible motives behind its announcement. 
 "The timing of it suggests it's quite an aggressive move," said Roland Nash, the chief strategist at the Renaissance Capital investment bank.
 Stephen O'Sullivan, the co-head of research at United Financial Group, said Yukos may be playing its Sibneft card in an attempt to free Khodorkovsky. This theory is logical because although Yukos controls Sibneft, it has little influence over Sibneft's many subsidiaries, making full control over the company a remote and possibly difficult goal, he said.
 "Sibneft has better connections with people in the Kremlin - so if you are looking for an easy escape, it could put in a good word with the people in the Kremlin," he said.
 Nash, however, expressed doubt that any attempt at bargaining would be a good idea. "Bargaining with the Kremlin is a dangerous game - Putin holds all the cards," he said.
 He said Putin's key cards could well be Yukos production licenses, which are held by the state. Many of Yukos' licenses have been undergoing checks by the Natural Resources Ministry for weeks. The ministry has said it may announce some of its findings by the end this month.

TITLE: Aid Offers To Victims Of Purges
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The children of those repressed by Stalin's regime should apply for compensation, a representative of the Leningrad Military District Prosecutor's Office said Thursday.
 
In the 13 years since the end of the Soviet Union, the office has reviewed 20,000 convictions dating back to the 1930s and overturned 13,000 of them.
 The most serious cases were so long ago that most people who were adults at the time are dead, but the children of those who were rehabilitated receive about 95 rubles 13 kopeks a month ($3.30), plus discounted communal services payments, officials say.
 "People who were born in the 1930s and '40s are so old even this small amount of money is a reasonable supplement to their pensions," Konstantin Baryshnikov, head of the office's department for rehabilitation said Thursday in a telephone interview. "Not all of them have children that can help them financially." 
 The department regularly sends staff throughout the Northwest regions, which include the Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Murmansk regions, to tell those rehabilitated that they have a right to be compensated for their parents' suffering under amendments to the federal law on the rehabilitation of relatives of those imprisoned on political charges in Stalin's time. The law came into effect in 2002 and 2003.
 "Political charges" is sometimes a euphemism; some people either executed or thrown into the gulag were taken from their homes merely to make up secret service quotas. Others, especially in St. Petersburg's case, were targeted merely because they were highly educated or had family abroad.
 Baryshnikov said just under 700 people applied for compensation last year, significantly down on the about 2,000 who applied in 2002.
 "The compensation differs depending on each region and is determined by a local law. In villages, for instance, such people get free firewood or coal. In St. Petersburg there is a discount on communal services," he said.
 The prosecutors said they regret that such a small number of people apply for the assistance.
 "On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad, the Leningrad Military District Prosecutor's Office continues to work on the rehabilitation of citizens prosecuted for political reasons," Interfax quoted Igor Lebed, head of the District Prosecutor's Office, as saying Monday.
 About 15,000 children of rehabilitated citizens live in St. Petersburg, according to the local branch of Memorial, a human rights organization defending the rights of people imprisoned for political reasons.
 Dina Kondratenko, 72, a Memorial member whose father was shot after both her parents were imprisoned in 1937, said there are also about 300 people in the city who were once jailed and who have since been rehabilitated. These people have the right to receive compensation of 1,700 rubles ($58) per month, according to the new legislation.
 "We couldn't reach all of them in time," Kondratenko said Thursday in a telephone interview. "They're just dying one after another. We've been trying to push though legislation to pay a compensation of the same kind for the children of rehabilitated people. The Legislative Assembly did something about it, but [former] governor [Vladimir] Yakovlev did not agree."
 "Some of these people [survivors of Stalin's repressions] received up to 17,000 rubles ($580) for a few months in a row of last year," she said.
 Meanwhile, the Legislative Assembly is in the process of introducing a bill to raise the payments for children of rehabilitated people to 500 rubles a month ($17.20), while it has already succeeded in pushing through a law to boost payments for children who were with their parents in custody or in mental clinics to 900 rubles a month ($31).
 "We have been trying to include all categories of [rehabilitated people's] children, but former governor [Yakovlev] vetoed the bill," said Dmitry Svistelnikov, a member of Yabloko on the Legislative Assembly's social commission. "This time we have already passed the bill and it is ready for the governor [Valentina Matviyenko] to inspect."
 "The cost of this bill [for the city budget] is 40 million rubles annually," he said. "We sent the bill to the governor this week and if City Hall does not give an answer within a month we have the right to put it on the agenda of the Legislative Assembly ourselves," he said.
 Galina Zaborschikova, head of City Hall's department for pensions, financial assistance and social payments said she has not heard anything on the legislators' initiative so far.
 "I don't know anything about it," she said Thursday in a telephone interview. "It is possible such a question is under discussion and it is possible that there is a discussion about the children. But we shouldn't talk about it now and excite people in advance; nothing is clear yet."

TITLE: One Conscript Dies, 50 Hospitalized After Chilly Stopover
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A young conscript from Lyubertsy has died and 50 others are in hospital after being forced to stand outside in the piercing cold while their plane was being refueled en route to Magadan - their first deployment.
 
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered a thorough investigation into the outbreak of pneumonia and severe respiratory illness among the recently drafted border guards, who were among a group of 118 conscripts flying to the far eastern region from the Chkalovsky air base outside Moscow.
 "They were left in the wind and cold, and all are now hospitalized," Putin told a meeting of top brass from the Federal Security Service, which oversees the border guards.
 "This case must be thoroughly investigated, and the guilty should be punished. That's how it will be," he said.
 About 50 conscripts were hospitalized upon their arrival in Magadan in early December. One conscript died Jan. 2, and 25 remained in serious condition Thursday. NTV television identified the victim as Vladimir Berezin and said he was drafted in Lyubertsy, on Moscow's southern outskirts, just a month before his death.
 "How can we talk about the possibility of reinforcing personnel if we are going to encounter these kinds of cases in the future?" Putin said.
 The Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, which investigates crimes by and against servicemen, said Thursday that it is investigating the outbreak but has yet to pin down exactly where the conscripts fell ill and who is at fault. Colonel Mikhail Yanenko, a spokesman for the military prosecutor's office, no charges have been filed yet. FSB and Defense Ministry officials are assisting military doctors in the investigation.
 Some 200 conscripts and 17 border guard officers boarded the plane at the Defense Ministry's Chkalovsky air base on Dec. 5 to fly to the Yelizovo base on Kamchatka Peninsula, the chief of the armed forces' mobilization department, Colonel-General Vasily Smirnov, told Interfax. The plane made transit stops in Novosibirsk and Vozhayevka, near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, he said.
 It took eight hours to refuel the plane at Novosibirsk and the conscripts stayed on board the plane during that time, Smirnov said. 
 One of the conscripts told Rossiya television at a Magadan hospital on Thursday, however, that they were forced out of the warm plane to wait in temperatures below minus 25 degrees Celsius. He also said that they had spent a night in unheated barracks during an earlier transit stop.
 Upon their arrival in Yelizovo, some conscripts were hospitalized with pneumonia while others were sent to Magadan on Dec. 24, Rossiya reported. Berezin was in that group.
 Most troops rely on the Defense Ministry to ferry their conscripts by air, and FSB spokesman Vadim Shibayev was quick to suggest Thursday that the conscripts got sick at Chkalovsky. He said the conscripts spent 24 hours waiting for the flight in an unheated facility where they had to sleep on the floor, Interfax reported.
 A FSB spokesman reached by telephone Thursday confirmed the incident, but refused further comment.
 Channel One reported that the conscripts fell ill after being stranded outside during a stop in temperatures of around minus 25 degree Celsius.
 Smirnov and other Defense Ministry officials denied any wrongdoing. Colonel Vitaly Gusak, a spokesman for the ministry's Moscow Military District, told Interfax that all of the conscripts were in good health before they left.
 Another Defense Ministry official said it was the border guard officers' responsibility to ensure that their charges were safe and sound. "They bear a responsibility once they are given command of conscripts," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "What happened to these children is outrageous. One should ask why the officers themselves remain healthy, whether it is because they abandoned them."
 The outbreak is the latest blow to the prestige of the underfunded armed forces. Last January, one soldier died and 250 were hospitalized with pneumonia after being forced to walk back to their barracks from a bathhouse in frigid temperatures in the southern region of Rostov-on-Don. The same regiment suffered another bout of pneumonia in July.
 Border guards, Defense Ministry troops and other divisions of the armed forces continue to rely on teenage conscripts to fill their ranks even though the Kremlin has approved a plan to bring in more enlistees.

TITLE: Rodina Leader Admits Party In Two Minds
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Rodina co-leader Dmitry Rogozin denied a split in his nationalist bloc Thursday but conceded he had differences with co-leader Sergei Glazyev.
 
Speculation has swirled in local media that Rodina, which made a surprisingly strong showing in recent State Duma elections, is on the verge of splitting after Glazyev announced he is running for president - even though a faction of Rodina is backing the candidacy of former Central Bank head Viktor Gerashchenko.
 "There are formidable differences in interpretations with regards to the presidential campaign," Rogozin said, Interfax reported.
 He said, however, that the differences were "normal" and simply part of discussions within Rodina.
 His comments came as party sources said in a newspaper interview that the bloc would split within "one to two weeks." 
 Rogozin and Glazyev's relationship has deteriorated so quickly that the two leaders can barely bring themselves to greet each other, sources told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
 Before the Dec. 7 elections, political commentators predicted the bloc would last only a few months.
 Rogozin, who is a deputy Duma speaker, opposes Glazyev's candidacy because he fears it will stir up the wrath of the Kremlin, which wants to make sure that President Vladimir Putin scores a stunning victory in the March 14 presidential election, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.
 "If Sergei Yurievich runs in the election, it's clear that we will be crushed" by the Kremlin, a Rodina insider was quoted as saying.
 "We had plans to win a position in the government, even that of the prime minister," the insider said. 
 "Now there's no point in thinking about that." 
 The newspaper pointed out that Rogozin may have a more personal motive behind his opposition - if Glazyev finishes second in the election he could eclipse Rogozin and take total control of the bloc.

TITLE: EU Official Urges Georgian Pullout
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia - The European Union's foreign policy chief called on Russia on Thursday to honor its agreement to close its military bases in Georgia. 
 
Russia agreed at a European summit in Istanbul in 1999 to close its four bases in Georgia. Troops have withdrawn from two of the bases and a deadline for withdrawal from the remaining two has not been worked out. 
 The issue, a consistent irritant between the two countries, has taken on new prominence since the election Jan. 4 of Mikheil Saakashvili to replace Eduard Shevardnadze, who resigned in November in the wake of street protests. 
 "The position of the European Union is that the agreement that was signed in 1999 in Istanbul be carried out," the EU's Javier Solana said after meetings with Saakashvili and other senior officials.
 Aslan Abazhidze, the leader of Georgia's autonomous Adzharia region and a fierce opponent of Saakashvili, met with high-level officials in Moscow on Thursday to discuss economic ties with Russia, Itar-Tass reported.

TITLE: Kingmaker Borisov A Liability to Paksas
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The man who made Rolandas Paksas president of Lithuania a year ago could now bring down the embattled head of state in a political scandal that has rocked the Baltic nation.
 
Yury Borisov, a former Soviet air force officer and businessman with ties to the Russian arms industry, is the eminence grise in the Paksas presidency.
 Paksas faces impeachment on a raft of charges, including that he was blackmailed by Borisov and that he granted the businessman Lithuanian citizenship in violation of the constitution.
 "The president's opponents had to find a scapegoat in the struggle for power," Borisov said in a telephone interview from Vilnius. "But I am just a cog in this machine."
 Cog or not, Borisov has been stripped of his Lithuanian citizenship and on Tuesday was denied a residence permit. The Migration Department ordered him to leave the country next week.
 "I will only leave in handcuffs," he said.
 Borisov, 47, is an ethnic Russian who has lived in Lithuania since age six. His wife, three children and parents all possess Lithuanian passports.
 Borisov also held Lithuanian citizenship until last year, when he forfeited it for a Russian passport. He said he needed it so that his St. Petersburg-based aircraft-repair firm Sparc could compete in Russian tenders. 
 Fortunately for Borisov, by that time he had cozied up to the new Lithuanian president, the only man in a position to overrule a limitation on dual citizenship. 
 Through his Kaunas-based helicopter repair company, AviaBaltika, Borisov contributed $450,000 to Paksas' 2002 election campaign, helping him beat out incumbent Valdas Adamkus.
 Adamkus won the first round of voting, but Borisov's involvement led to Paksas winning the second round with 55 percent against Adamkus' 45 percent.
 Shortly after being inaugurated, Paksas reinstated Borisov's Lithuanian citizenship by presidential decree. 
 The Lithuanian State Security Department first aired suspicions last fall that Paksas was being blackmailed by Borisov. Other charges involved the president's alleged links to organized crime and foreign intelligence services.
 The department made public tapes in which Borisov apparently threatened to make Paksas "a political corpse" if the president failed to keep a promise.
 The parliament, or Seimas, set up a special commission to study the materials and determine whether or not Paksas is compromising Lithuania's national security. 
 On Dec. 31 the Constitutional Court found Paksas' decree granting Borisov citizenship to be unconstitutional.
 By law only ethnic Lithuanians can have dual citizenship. But the president may grant citizenship to someone for service to the country. 
 "We don't know of another case in which a president granted citizenship to a financial sponsor," Andrius Kubilius, an opposition leader and former prime minister, said in a telephone interview. 
 His conservatives pushed for the impeachment process that began three months ago. "Citizenship may be granted to someone for great service to the state, but not for service to the president," Kubilius said.
 Paksas, for his part, has denied all allegations of wrong-doing and claims the move to impeach him is part of a conspiracy. 
 Paksas has said the decision by the Constitutional Court, which essentially stripped Borisov of his Lithuanian passport, was "politicized."
 Borisov flatly denies having any ulterior motives in bankrolling the Paksas campaign.
 Borisov has already said that he will appeal the decision of the Constitutional Court retracting his Lithuanian citizenship at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
 The Foreign Ministry in Moscow has maintained a neutral position on the Borisov affair, saying "it is too early to comment on the situation."

TITLE: Yabloko, SPS Form Unified Bloc for Assembly Elections
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Liberal parties Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, have agreed to run as a unified bloc in Legislative Assembly elections in district No. 4 and district No. 39, Interfax reported Thursday, quoting the parties' representatives.
 
There are still debates within the parties over what to call the bloc, the Union of Democratic Forces or just the Democratic Bloc, Maxim Reznik, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, said after the board of the unified bloc met Thursday afternoon. A final decision was to be taken Friday.
 The parties have agreed a candidate from Yabloko will run in district No. 4, which was left vacant after former governor Vladimir Yakovlev's ally Sergei Tarasov went to work as a vice governor in Governor Valentina Matviyenko's government.
 District No. 39 has been made an SPS responsibility, although Leonid Romankov may be allowed to run with Yabloko support if not elected as the city's human rights representative, RTR reported Thursday. The district's post was left vacant after former Communist faction legislator Yury Savelyev was elected to the State Duma for the Rodina bloc.
 Eight candidates have declared their interest in running in district No. 4 and 11 in district No. 39.
 Reznik said the parties did not discuss a joint candidate for State Duma elections in district No. 207.
 "It wouldn't have any political meaning because the results [of these elections] won't change the State Duma," he said.
 The Duma seat, for which "against all" received more votes than any candidate in Duma elections last month, will be held at the same time as presidential and Legislative Assembly elections on March 14.
 Critics have blamed the parties' failure to form a liberal-democratic alliance as one of the reasons why not enough votes were received to pass the 5-percent entry barrier in the Duma elections. However, a Communist Party tally taken from observers at polling stations suggested that both parties had enough votes, but that election officials had reassigned their votes to United Russia, pushing their level of support below the barrier.

TITLE: Kremlin Taps City's Nazarov Kremlin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin has appointed Valery Nazarov, vice governor of St. Petersburg and head of the city property committee, to manage the Kremlin administration's control department.
 
Nazarov will oversee the implementation of presidential decrees in a position that Putin once held himself.
 Nazarov replaces Yevgeny Lisov, a holdover from Boris Yeltsin's presidency whose name was circulated as a possible candidate for prosecutor general shortly after Putin took office.
 Lisov's departure had been widely expected after presidential chief of staff Alexander Voloshin, the last major Yeltsin-era figure retained by Putin, left in late October and was replaced by Dmitry Medvedev.
 Nazarov's acquaintance with Medvedev - and Medvedev's deputy Dmitry Kozak - goes back to their years of service in the St. Petersburg government.
 Nazarov, 49, is said to be on good terms with German Gref, his predecessor on the city property committee, who is now economic development and trade minister.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Danish Re-Burial
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The re-burial in St. Petersburg of Maria Fyodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, the last tsar, will take place on Sept. 26, the anniversary of the Danish princess' arrival in Russia in 1866, Interfax quoted the Danish Embassy as saying Tuesday.
 The wife of Alexander III, Princess Dagmar, as she was known in Denmark, outlived her husband and son and was buried in Copenhagen in 1928. She expressed her desire to be buried in St. Petersburg in her will.
 Interfax said Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, will take part in the ceremony. 
 The re-burial has been the subject of protracted negotiations between Denmark and Russia.
 
 
<b>Starovoitova Memorials
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - School No. 397 in the city's Kirov district is to be named after slain democratic State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova, who attended the school, Interfax reported Tuesday.
 In addition, a plaque will be placed at 91 Kanal Griboyedova where Starovoitova lived when she was assassinated in 1998 and a square is to be named after her, the news agency said.
 The decisions by City Hall were a result of a request made in 2002 to President Vladimir Putin and had been decided very quickly under the regime of new governor Valentina Matviyenko, Olga Starovoitova, the deputy's sister, was quoted as saying.
 
 
<b>Tkachyov Dies
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Former vice governor Gennady Tkachyov has died after a long illness, Interfax reported Tuesday.
 The 59-year-old chaired City Hall's committee on external relations under then governor Vladimir Yakovlev from 1996. In May 2002 he stood down due to poor health.
 
 
<b>Priest Detained 
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City police have detained a priest on suspicion of stealing from the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov after icons and church utensils went missing on Sunday, Interfax reported Tuesday. 
 A 25-year-old priest who works in the church was detained and the missing items recovered, the report said.
 
 
<b>Bell to Ring in May
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The first time a new Tsar-Kolokol, or Tsar of Bells, will be rung will be at the festival of the Holy Trinity on May 30, Interfax reported Thursday.
 The bell, which was cast at St. Petersburg's Baltiisky Zavod, has arrived at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius monastery at Sergiyev Posad outside Moscow. 
 It weighs 72 metric tons, is 4.55 meters high, and has a 4.5 meter diameter. 
 
 
<b>Jail for Art Thefts
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Vasilevsky Island court on Wednesday sentenced Oleg Maltsev to eight years in jail for stealing 16 paintings from the Academy of Arts, Interfax reported.
 Citing a court official, the agency said Maltsev turned off the alarm in the building in early December 1999 brand cut the pictures from their frames.
 The seriously damaged works, including those of Repin, Kramskoy and Shishkin were recovered four days later at Maltsev's home, the report said. 



TITLE: Handling of Dubrovka Queried
AUTHOR: By Caroline McGregor
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Presidential hopeful Irina Khakamada distinctly sharpened her rhetoric against President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, arguing in a full-page open letter in Kommersant and at a briefing with reporters that Putin has built &quot;a society based on lies&quot; - first and foremost hiding the truth about what happened at Dubrovka in October 2002.
 
Khakamada wrote that after she negotiated with five of the Chechen rebels who took some 800 people hostage at the theater, she came to the conclusion that they &quot;did not plan on blowing up the theater, and the authorities were not interested in saving all the hostages.&quot;
 The rebels were hoping for negotiations, she said, and her calls for talks to end the standoff were ignored.
 The day after she met with the rebels she was summoned by Alexander Voloshin, then Putin's chief of staff, who &quot;in a threatening tone ordered me not to interfere,&quot; she said in the letter. 
 Pressed for more details at the news conference, Khakamada said after a moment's pause, &quot;He was terribly displeased.&quot;
 None of the male rebels wore explosive belts, she added, and she said she found it suspicious that all the hostage-takers were killed, leaving nobody to question about who was behind the attack.
 Though friends voiced concern for her personal safety, she said she decided to speak out after receiving an appeal Tuesday from relatives who lost loved ones, asking the 10 presidential candidates to help them find answers.
 &quot;If the president is building democracy and not a dictatorship ... he must answer for everything that happens in the country, particularly in such events,&quot; she told reporters.
 No public inquiries have been opened, and the government has remained tight-lipped on the gas that special forces used to end the siege - although it is blamed for the deaths of many of the 129 people, most of them hostages, who ultimately perished.
 &quot;President Putin made his choice to hide the truth,&quot; Khakamada wrote, saying that if she becomes president, she will expose the truth about Dubrovka and &quot;about many other crimes by the authorities.&quot;
 &quot;We have a society based on lies, a society in which democracy is used only as a formal procedure, a society based on a completely closed nature and, most importantly, a society based on fear,&quot; she said.
 Khakamada has spoken out against the president before, but never so bluntly. Her remarks were perceived as an attempt to establish her credentials as an independent candidate in face of critics who contend that she is running at the Kremlin's behest, since without its approval, her candidacy would be dead in the water.
 Skeptics argue that her participation is advantageous for the Kremlin because in the eyes of the West, the presence of a serious democratic politician casts a veneer of legitimacy on a one-man race in a way that the presence of others, like bodyguard-cum-candidate Oleg Malyshkin, of the Liberal Democratic Party, does not.
 Khakamada defiantly denied any cooperation with the Kremlin, arguing that it is in the Kremlin's interest to circulate those rumors. &quot;The most convenient way to discredit an opponent is to say they have been bought off by the Kremlin.&quot;
 She said in an interview with this week's Yezhenedelny Zhurnal that she had been forced to take a softer line against the Kremlin than she would have liked during the State Duma campaign to maintain a united front with other leaders of her Union of Right Forces, or SPS, party, like longtime Kremlin insider Anatoly Chubais.
 After campaign strategies largely attributed to Chubais resulted in the party's dismal performance in the Dec. 7 poll, the party was paralyzed by fingerpointing. Leaders of the broader liberal constituency were riven by personal and ideological divisions.
 Khakamada's announcement that she would run took many of her fellow liberal politicians by surprise. After Yabloko and SPS failed to agree to throw their support behind a single candidate, various factions began to discuss either boycotting the election entirely or encouraging pro-democratic voters to cast their votes &quot;against all&quot; on March 14, as ways of refusing complicity in elections they believe to be a farce.
 Khakamada dismissed this Wednesday, saying a vote &quot;against all&quot; was merely a way to &quot;be afraid with honor.&quot; A boycott, she said, was &quot;dangerous for the democracy we have, because - it means citizens are in fact rejecting a democratic procedure.&quot;
 She said she decided to run after other liberal candidates whom she was prepared to support, including Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov, Chuvash Governor Nikolai Fyodorov and Yabloko co-founder Vladimir Lukin, said they would not. Establishing oneself as an opponent to the Kremlin &quot;takes courage,&quot; she said.
 Staying in the race will take more than courage. Collecting the 2 million signatures needed to get her name on the ballot by Jan. 28 remains a &quot;very difficult&quot; task, she said. As of Monday, her campaign staff said they had gathered 150,000, less than 10 percent of the total.
 Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, said that although there is no way for Khakamada to prove she is not masterminded by the Kremlin, &quot;I rather tend to trust her.&quot;
 Khakamada stands to gain little by toning down her criticism, she said, and &quot;why would she agree to be timid? She'll lose the respect of people like liberal journalists whose support she needs.&quot;
 Even if she entered the race on her own, the Kremlin has full control to help or prevent her from collecting the needed signatures, Lipman said.
 Dmitry Orlov at the Center for Political Technologies linked Khakamada's emboldened criticism of Putin to the announcement by top Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin that Open Russia, the embattled oil firm's civil society organization, will financially support her campaign.
 The letter, which Orlov called &quot;unexpected,&quot; is &quot;evidence of her cooperation not with the president but with opponents of the president.&quot;
 Khakamada confirmed at the news conference that Yukos was helping fund her campaign.
 Nevzlin, who has not returned from Israel since the October arrest of his partner, former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said in a statement Wednesday that he was stepping down as deputy chairman of Open Russia to help with her campaign.
 With Yukos and the Kremlin locked in a vicious feud, Lipman doubted that Yukos would give money to Khakamada if she were indeed a Kremlin puppet. &quot;Ironically, Yukos is paying for the Kremlin to look more democratic.&quot;
 <i>See comment, page 8. </i>

TITLE: Lawyer Sees FSB Role In 1999 Bombings
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Former intelligence officer Mikhail Trepashkin said he had evidence supporting a hair-raising theory that the Federal Security Service participated in the deadly 1999 apartment house bombings. He also suspected there was an FSB link in the Dubrovka theater siege.
 
Trepashkin, a practicing lawyer, planned to lay out some of the evidence in the Moscow City Court, which on Monday sentenced two men to life in prison on charges of helping carry out the bombings. 
 But on Oct. 22, a week before the trial started, he was stopped by police outside Moscow and arrested on changes of illegal arms possession. Police claimed to have found a gun in his car; Trepashkin says the gun was planted after he was stopped.
 Three weeks later, on Dec. 15, he was transferred to the Matrosskaya Tishina prison and put on trial on charges of divulging state secrets and illegally possessing ammunition - a separate case that prosecutors opened in 2002 but only recently finished investigating.
 Trepashkin's wife, his lawyers and friends said in interviews that the two-pronged legal attack stems from Trepashkin's investigation into suspicions that could deal a stunning blow to the FSB.
 If it hadn't been for the October arrest, &quot;the court would have had to study the evidence,&quot; said Trepashkin's lawyer in the gun case, Yelena Liptser.
 Trepashkin was to represent at the bombings trial the sisters Alyona and Tatyana Morozov, who lost their mother in the blast on Moscow's Ulitsa Guryanova. The replacement lawyer &quot;was unprepared for the trial, and the court denied him time to study the case, so he didn't bring anything up,&quot; Liptser said.
 Did Trepashkin have any damning evidence? &quot;Apparently so, if he ended up behind bars,&quot; Liptser said.
 But Nikolai Gorokhov, Trepashkin's assistant and a member of the defense team, said Trepashkin had just wanted to raise some troubling questions. &quot;There was no direct evidence, but there definitely were some murky facts that had to be investigated,&quot; he said.
 Trepashkin's findings suggest that a man named Vladimir Romanovich rented the basements in the Moscow apartment buildings that exploded. The explosives that destroyed the buildings were stored in the basements.
 He said Romanovich was an intelligence officer whom he knew from his days in FSB service. Romanovich died after being hit by a car in Cyprus a few months after the bombings, he said.
 The FSB, which denies having anything to do with the bombings, says another man, Achemez Gochiyayev, rented the basements and planted explosives there. Gochiyayev remains at large. 
 According to Trepashkin, Gochiyayev knew Romanovich as a business partner and was aware of the locations of the basements, but he didn't plant the explosives. Furthermore, it was Gochiyayev who alerted police about two other basements rented by Romanovich in Moscow, allowing them to safely defuse bombs that they subsequently found there, Trepashkin said.
 Trepashkin unearthed his evidence after an Independent State Duma commission asked him to investigate the bombings in the summer of 2002. The commission was formed by then-deputies Yuly Rybakov, Sergei Yushenkov, Sergei Kovalyov and Yury Shchekochi-khin.
 A decade-long career in the FSB meant Trepashkin knew the right avenues to get information, Gorokhov said. &quot;He had many connections and friends. He knew where to go,&quot; he said in a telephone interview.
 Trepashkin made no secret about his investigation and growing suspicions, giving interviews to newspapers and Ren-TV, a channel controlled by Unified Energy Systems.
 &quot;Troubles began as soon as he began cooperating with the commission and disseminating information,&quot; Gorokhov said. 
 He said authorities began receiving anonymous complaints about Trepashkin and the Military Prosecutor's Office called him in for questioning. The Military Prosecutor's Office opened its criminal investigation into Trepashkin at the end of 2002.
 If convicted of the charges of divulging state secrets and illegally possessing ammunition, Trepashkin faces up to 10 years in prison, said his lawyer in that case, Valery Glushenkov.
 The charges are based on a search of Trepashkin's apartment, in which investigators claimed to have found 30 classified copies of FSB documents that Trepashkin kept from his time at the agency and 22 cartridges, Glushenkov said.
 Prosecutors say Trepashkin showed the documents to FSB officer Viktor Shebalin when asked for advice, thus revealing state secrets about the ways FSB operates, according to Glushenkov.
 Trepashkin said he did show some of the documents to Shebalin, but they were not classified. The rest of the documents in question and the cartridges were planted, he said.
 Misfortune has followed many members of the Duma commission looking into the bombings. Yushenkov was killed near the entrance to his apartment building in April, and Shchekochikhin died in a hospital later that year after apparently suffering food poisoning.
 After Trepashkin's arrest, another member, Otto Latsis, editor of the liberal Russky Kurier newspaper, was beaten unconsciousness. Kovalyov and Rybakov failed to win re-election to the Duma in last month's elections.
 Several other people have suspected that there was a connection between the bombings and the FSB. One of them is former FSB Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Litvinenko, who fled to Britain and was granted asylum. Last year, a Moscow court convicted him in absentia on charges of abuse of office and stealing explosives and sentenced him to 3 1/2 years in prison.
 After Trepashkin took up the bombings investigation, Chechen rebels seized the Dubrovka theater in a hostage crisis that left scores of people dead. Trepashkin suspected that the FSB was involved there as well. 
 &quot;This could not have happened without their knowledge,&quot; he told his wife, Tatyana, who wants her husband to back down. 
 &quot;In the best-case scenario, they will jail him for a long time. In the worst-case scenario, they won't be that ceremonious,&quot; she said 
 The word &quot;ceremonious&quot; can be a euphemism for being killed.

TITLE: Russia Reneges on Agreement To Return Rathenau Archive
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia has reneged on a promise to Germany to return archive material that landed in Soviet hands during World War II, Der Spiegel reported, citing a leaked communication sent by the Russian Foreign Ministry to its German counterpart.
 
Russia has decided to declare the Rathenau Archives to be &quot;compensatory restitution&quot; for damages inflicted by German forces in World War II, the German weekly said.
 The Rathenau Archives are a collection of some 70,000 documents that belonged to Weimar Republic Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, who was assassinated in 1922 by far-right extremists in Berlin. Rathenau was Jewish and the archives were effectively confiscated from his family when they were forced to flee Germany before the World War II.
 The documents were confiscated by the Soviets in 1945 and quickly disappeared into a secret archive in Moscow.
 In 1992, researchers were given access to the archives for a short time, after which Germany asked for the documents to be returned. In April 1997, then-President Boris Yeltsin returned 11 folders to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as a sign of good will. 
 Last year, Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi promised that the archives would be returned to Germany in full.
 &quot;The Rathenau Archives are much more valuable for us than for the Russians,&quot; Wolfgang Bindseil, a spokesman at the German Embassy in Moscow, said Tuesday. &quot;If a Russian icon were found in Germany, we would give it back without discussion.&quot;
 Bindseil declined to comment on the Der Spiegel report, noting that there was no official communication from the Russian side regarding the archive.
 A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also declined to comment.

TITLE: Drivers Divided on Policy
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky and Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Gone are the days when men piled out of their cars after a fender-bender to argue over who caused the accident and what the damages were worth.
 
With the nationwide introduction of mandatory third-party car insurance on Jan. 1, a time-tested Russian ritual may have fallen by the wayside.
 No longer will arguments over accidents end with one angry man emptying the contents of his wallet into the other's hand, at which point both drive away - or walk, depending on the damage.
 What used to take a few emotionally charged minutes to resolve may now drag on for months, as drivers who already hold insurance can attest. Most motorists will be unfamiliar with the bureaucratic hassles of insurance forms, police reports and frequent trips to traffic cops and insurers.
 Although voluntary third-party car insurance has been available for years, it became a legal requirement for every driver only two weeks ago.
 Nevertheless, only 12 million of Russia's 30 million registered cars are insured, according to the Russian Union of Automobile Insurers.
 The liability insurance, which has been a requirement for car owners in the West for decades, gives drivers coverage for damages they may render to others.
 Although the concept of insuring others against accidental harm may be uncontroversial, many Russians are wary of the government's claims that the new rules will civilize road behavior.
 Many view it as just another bureaucratic hassle.
 &quot;If it had been done right I wouldn't be complaining, because I have always had insurance anyway. I feel more secure that way,&quot; said Renat Volokhov, a Moscow gypsy cab driver.
 &quot;But the law doesn't take into account people who already have insurance. I was forced to spend an extra $150 on the required insurance - even though I was already insured.&quot;
 Technical glitches in the legislation have many drivers up in arms.
 But there is nothing motorists can do, as police have been empowered to impose hefty fines - or even tow cars - for not possessing the proper paperwork.
 Also, cars will not pass the required annual technical inspection without a valid insurance policy.
 &quot;For the first few days after New Year's, they [police] weren't asking for insurance papers. They said they hadn't got the order from above yet,&quot; Volokhov said. &quot;But the last time I was stopped they looked over my insurance papers carefully.&quot;
 Traffic police officials said that leniency in the days after New Year's was not official policy and amounted to random acts of kindness on the part of individual cops.
 Uninsured drivers face fines of 500 rubles to 800 rubles ($17 to $27), a spokesman for the traffic police said.
 Under separate legislation approved in December, cars can also be towed if they lack the proper paperwork. Towing is an altogether new practice in Russia.
 Even though local governments have been empowered to impound cars since Jan. 1, officials have not yet equipped themselves with tow trucks or the necessary storage lots.
 The infrastructure will be up and running by mid-March, traffic police said.
 Drivers also complain about dealing with notoriously tight insurance companies.
 One Moscow driver who bought the new insurance last summer said that he faced months of hassle with a claim.
 The driver, who requested anonymity, said that an insurance agent initially evaluated damage to his car at $1,500. Later, he charges, the company reduced that claim to less than half that amount.
 &quot;I decided to push for the full amount,&quot; the indignant customer said. &quot;They said that I had asked for too much - even though I had a licensed appraisal - and said they only would give me $700. Now I have to go through the whole procedure again.&quot;
 Not all drivers are unhappy, however. Some motorists are pleased with the new rules and say insurers are behaving correctly.
 &quot;I got my front end mashed by a guy who was going through a red light, causing $500 in damages to my car,&quot; said Mikhail Orlov, a car parts dealer.
 &quot;It took me two days to get all the paperwork done - one day with the police and one day at the insurance company.&quot;
 Although Orlov's case was handled quickly, he said he was displeased with the manner in which insurance is sold.
 &quot;There's no real competition. All the insurance companies have the same prices and the same coverage,&quot; he said.
 Orlov suggested the legislation could have been drafted to require insurance companies to provide the same coverage while allowing them to set their own competitive prices.
 Third-party car insurance can be purchased almost anywhere in Moscow and around the country.
 The cost of an insurance plan depends on a number of factors, including the region where the car is being registered; the age and driving experience of the motorist; the number of people on the policy; and the car's age and make.
 In Moscow the average cost is $150 for a year of coverage. A one-year policy in St. Petersburg costs an average of $120. The Russian average is $100, according to the auto insurers' union.
 Coverage per year is a maximum of 400,000 rubles or $5,520 for car repairs and $8,275 for medical expenses.
 In St. Petersburg, according to information published Wednesday by the traffic police, between 50 percent and 60 percent of all car drivers have acquired mandatory insurance. Local insurance companies observed two bursts of purchasing activity: in July and shortly before the New Year.
 &quot;We expect another jump in sales in March, when most pensioners who do not use their cars in the winter take them out of their garages and will need insurance,&quot; Alla Orlova, a spokeswoman for Class insurance company, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
 According to the law, Russian citizens may obtain coverage for either six months or a full year.
 The law is also valid for foreigners entering Russia for a short-term visit or living in the country permanently. They can buy two-week, one-month and half-year policies.
 Vladislav Burdei, head of Progress-Neva insurance company's department for foreign citizens, said there are practically no catches to working with foreigners. All documentation is translated into English, and the rules are universal. However, according to Burdei, the maximum payout for car repairs for foreigners seems too low at 120,000 rubles.
 Although the rules for insurance are identical, some companies are eager to vary them to attract more customers, for example, by offering larger coverage amounts. Rosno recently increased the maximum payout limit to 1 million rubles. Alexander Ostapenko, head of the company's transport insurance center, said the extra coverage will cost 30 rubles and is intended for cars with engines with more than 100 horsepower.
 Opinions on the new law among St. Petersburg drivers vary. Vasily Lebedev, a 63-year-old motorist, considers the law to be a new tax. &quot;I can't understand why there's no discount on the standard tariff for pensioners and handicapped people. This law certainly hits the poor hardest,&quot; he said in an interview Thursday.
 Yet another driver from St. Petersburg, 34-year-old Irina Tankhileyeva, says she owned third-party liability insurance for years before it became mandatory. Knowing that other drivers are also insured makes her feel safer. &quot;I hope this law will inspire more sensible and responsible behavior and make driving in Russia less dangerous,&quot; she said.

TITLE: Healthcare Reform Gets Kasyanov Nod
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov tentatively approved a controversial health insurance project at this year's first Cabinet meeting Thursday. 
 
Although there is general consensus that the healthcare system is in dire need of an overhaul, the legislation drafted by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry has faced strong opposition from insurers and the Finance Ministry, which both have raised concerns over its fiscal viability.
 Kasyanov said the reforms need to be pushed through and criticized the current state of healthcare, saying social issues and medical insurance would be government priorities this year. 
 Speaking on Channel One television, he said the current system was merely intended to serve as a bridge between communist-era medicine and a market-based healthcare system.
 &quot;It is clear that today the system has become obsolete,&quot; he said.
 Most Russians, who cannot afford private insurance, have to rely on shoddy state medical coverage. 
 The ministry has proposed a radical reform of the present system, which distributes lump sums to state healthcare organizations. 
 The ministry wants money to go directly to patients, rather than hospitals, giving medical professionals an incentive to provide quality care. 
 According to the ministry's plan, Russians would receive healthcare worth 793 rubles to 1,712 rubles ($27 to $59) per year, depending on their age.
 &quot;Spending should be targeted at each patient,&quot; said Galina Bronnikova, spokeswoman for Mikhail Dmitriyev, the deputy economic development and trade minister who drafted the law. &quot;This will make it possible to spend available funds more efficiently so that there is no need to increase the tax burden.&quot; 
 The reform foresees up to 40 regions joining the new system when it starts operating at the beginning of next year.
 The plan calls for the healthcare system to run without a deficit by 2008, when the remaining regions are expected to have signed on.
 Industry experts are doubtful that simply redistributing funds will resolve the system's annual deficit of 40 billion rubles ($1.3 billion).
 &quot;There are only two ways the government can provide the health coverage that we are promised,&quot; said Vladimir Gurnus, first deputy general director of Rosno, one of Russia's largest insurance companies. 
 &quot;It can either increase the total amount of funding or offer less services than patients are nominally guaranteed today. Otherwise patients will continue to have to pay for medical services out of their own pocket. I don't think the new legislation addresses this issue,&quot; he said.
 The ministry insists that deficits will be covered under the reform. The plan calls for more tax revenues going into the Federal Health Insurance Fund and less into the 89 regional funds. That way the central government could redistribute money to poorer regions running deficits.
 Insurers are critical of the planned reform because it foresees a new insurance system that would require existing companies to create new subsidiaries dealing exclusively with state-run healthcare. 
 The Finance Ministry has also opposed the draft legislation, preferring a national healthcare system that would resemble a commercial insurance operation, rather than having insurers merely handle financial transactions.
 The Finance Ministry's concerns may be addressed over the next month when a working group headed by Deputy Prime Minister Galina Karelova prepares the final version of the law before it is sent to the State Duma for approval.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Petmol Upgrade
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg's Petmol dairy plans to purchase Tetra Pak equipment worth $15.5 million, Interfax reported Thursday.
 Petmol deputy director Sergei Polyakov said the equipment will be acquired under terms of leasing for a period of five years. The company made a downpayment of 15 percent of the deal.
 Once the lines are up to speed Petmol expects to increase revenues by 40 percent in 2004 over 2003.
 
 
<b>Ford To Up Output
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Ford Motor Company's subsidiary in the Leningrad Oblast plans to boost auto production by 37.5 percent in 2004, Interfax reported Wednesday.
 Henrik Hensen, president of Ford Motor Company in the CIS, said the Vsevolozhsk plant will produce 22,000 Ford Focus cars in 2004.
 
 
<b>8M Euros in Bread
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Khlebny Dom will invest 8 million euros in upgrading the Murinsky bakery in St. Petersburg, the company's financial director Yulia Kolesnikova told Interfax Tuesday.
 In 2004-2005 the Murinsky bakery will be completely overhauled and new lines will be installed, Kolesnikova said.
 Khlebny Dom plans to increase its share of the St. Petersburg bread market to 30 percent by 2005, from 23 percent.
 In 2002 Khlebny Dom, which is 75-percent-owned by Fazer Bakeries Ltd., a full subsidiary of Finland's Fazer, netted 75.083 million rubles.
 
 
<b>35M Euros for Timber
 </b>

PETROZAVODSK, Karelia (SPT) - JMC Finance Oy, a Finnish company, intends to invest 35 million euros in building two timber plants in Karelia and a furniture factory in Petrozavodsk, a Karelian government source told Interfax Tuesday.
 The government of the Republic of Karelia has drafted an agreement to be signed Jan. 21.
 The new timber plants are slated to open in two years, and the factory should start producing modern furniture within five years. 
 
 
<b>Silovye Mashiny
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Power engineering company Silovye Mashiny has completed the merger of its incorporated companies, ZTL, LMZ, Elektrosila, and the Energomashexport Company, into one company, Prime-Tass reported Thursday.
 The companies will continue to operate as subsidiaries of Silovye Mashiny.
 ZTL, LMZ, and Electrosila have already been excluded from the state register of legal entities, the company said. <b>$10Bln Debt Sales
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - The government plans to sell 291 billion rubles ($10.1 billion) of domestic debt this year, Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing a Finance Ministry proposal to the government that will be reviewed Thursday.
 The paper said 70 billion rubles in bonds would be swapped for non-traded securities held by the Central Bank. The ministry plans to raise 259 billion rubles from selling the debt, of which 118 billion rubles will be used to repay earlier loans. Net borrowing will rise to 141 billion rubles.
 External debt accounts for 85 percent of total borrowing. The government plans to cut the share of external debt to 75 percent by 2006, the paper said.
 
 
<b>LUKoil No.1 Again?
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - LUKoil said it may have pushed Yukos off its pedestal as No.1 oil producer in 2003, as it bought new assets while Yukos agreed to dissolve its $13.9 billion takeover of Sibneft.
 LUKoil spokesman Alexander Shadrin said Tuesday that the company's crude output, including projects outside the country, rose 2 percent to 81.5 million tons (1.63 million barrels per day) last year.
 Yukos raised oil production for the full year by 17 percent to between 81.2 million and 81.5 million tons, Shadrin said.
 But analysts said Yukos would probably end 2004 as the country's biggest oil producer. Yukos plans to raise output at least 8.6 percent this year, more than double LUKoil's planned production growth of 4 percent.
 
 
<b>Refinancing Rate Cut
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Central Bank moved Wednesday to ease the upward pressure on the ruble by narrowing the gap between domestic and international rates by cutting its key refinancing rate.
 The bank said in a statement that it would cut the rate to 14 percent from 16 percent, effective Thursday.
 Commercial banks do not usually borrow from the Central Bank at this rate, but it is commonly used as a reference rate for overdue payments by banks and companies.
 Chris Weafer a strategist at Alfa Bank, said the cut was a small step in the right direction. "It's part of what we expect to see in terms of the government's efforts to try to stop the ruble from becoming too strong, which would be damaging for domestic sectors and to control the speculative capital inflows into the country," he said.
 The last time the bank changed the rate was June 2003, when it cut the rate by two percentage points.
 
 
<b>Moody's: Moscow Ba1
 </b>

LONDON (Bloomberg) - Moscow city's debt ratings were raised by one level Wednesday by Moody's Investors Service, which cited the country's growing economy.
 The city's issuer and debt ratings were raised to Ba1, the highest non-investment-grade rating, from Ba2, Moody's said in a statement from London. The government's foreign debt is rated a level higher at Baa3, the lowest investment-grade rating.
 "Moscow continues to play a crucial role in the economic lifeline of the country," Moody's said. "Many of the nation's largest industrial concerns are headquartered in the city and it remains Russia's primary recipient of both foreign and domestic financial and human capital."
 Moscow's foreign debt is rated BB at Standard &amp; Poor's, level with the federal government's rating and two steps short of investment grade.
 The upgrade will help Moscow as it plans to sell about 400 million euros ($486 million) in eurobonds this year. 



TITLE: Putin Tells Cops To Obey Law
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Law enforcement agencies must &quot;rigorously observe the rights of economic entities and citizens&quot; while fighting economic crime, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
 
&quot;While exposing violations of the law, security agencies must not exceed their authority,&quot; Putin told an annual meeting of senior security officials.
 &quot;The law enforcement system as a whole must be able to professionally and competently protect honest businessmen from criminal and, if necessary, from administrative pressure,&quot; he said.
 The meeting was attended by the heads of all the agencies responsible for national security, including the Federal Security Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Supreme Court and the Security Council.
 While praising the work of the security agencies as a whole, the president pointed out areas demanding increased attention, including the protection of Russia's long state borders, curbing of illegal migration and safeguarding against foreign and industrial espionage.
 Russia &quot;is actively integrating into the world economy, so it is necessary to protect inventions and technologies from industrial espionage and other forms of unfair competition, which inflict huge damage on the country,&quot; he said.
 &quot;The competitiveness of leading industries and the attractiveness of business in Russia greatly depend on that.&quot;
 Putin also said that the security services must make anti-terrorist efforts their highest priority and urged them to coordinate their operations with their foreign colleagues.
 &quot;In neutralizing and eliminating terrorist networks, the actions of the special services must be tough and systematic,&quot; he said.
 &quot;Along with the traditional methods it is necessary to actively use the most modern forms and methods of work.&quot; 
 Putin, a 16-year veteran of the KGB and former head of the FSB, emphasized the importance of coordinating their actions within the framework of the international anti-terrorist coalition, as well as with regional organizations. 
 &quot;We have seen many times that the pooling of potential multiplies our opportunities, making the fight against terrorism more efficient,&quot; he said. 
 The situation in Chechnya and in the Northern Caucasus region, which has witnessed several deadly terrorist attacks during the past year, must remain under the &quot;special control of the FSB&quot; and other security and law enforcement agencies, Putin said.
 
 <i>(SPT, AP) </i>

TITLE: Insurance Scams Could Damage
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - It was raining, and the roads were slick. A sedan made an illegal left turn and rammed the front end of another car.
 
It seems like a typical accident that could have happened anywhere in Russia. Injured passengers are treated by a Russian doctor, the paperwork of the case is handled by a Russian lawyer. The broker who sold the insurance that will pay for car damage and medical treatment is also Russian.
 However this accident took place not in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but in the Russian community in Brighton Beach, New York. And although the accident was genuine, the passengers of the Russian-owned car were participating in an insurance scam that has already cost U.S. insurers hundreds of millions of dollars in false claims.
 With the introduction of obligatory third-party car insurance in Russia on Jan. 1, insurers here are bracing for an avalanche of similar fraud on a scale that may dwarf anything seen in the United States.
 The new law requires all drivers to hold liability insurance for any damages they may cause to others on the road, as motorists in the West have been required to do for decades.
 In the United States, insurers became open to abuse when a &quot;no-fault&quot; clause was added to insurance legislation two years ago. The clause gave uninsured participants in a car accident, such as passengers, the right to seek medical treatment at the car insurer's expense.
 Damages that Russian insurance companies are required to pay are small compared to what their U.S. counterparts have to pay out.
 The maximum payout in Russia per year is $5,520 for car repairs and $8,275 for medical treatment. In the United States, claims can easily go into the tens of thousands of dollars.
 &quot;Even $500 is enough in this country&quot; to tempt people to break the law, said the claims officer of a large insurance company, who wished to remain anonymous.
 Like others in the industry, he expects domestic drivers to commit fraud for a lot less money than their relatives in Brooklyn.
 Scamming insurers has become so rampant among Russians in the New York area that U.S. police have dubbed their investigation Operation BORIS, for Big Organized Russian Insurance Scam.
 The formula for car-insurance scams is simple and easily reproducible here.
 The owner of a private medical clinic in Brighton Beach hires runners to scout out accidents on the roads. The runners approach uninjured Russian passengers and convince them to claim they have received costly medical treatment at the clinic.
 Depending on the amount of treatment they are documented to have received, crash &quot;victims&quot; can get up to $5,000 in cash for signing their name on a medical bill.
 The scout is paid a set amount per &quot;victim&quot; collected, with the rest of the booty going to the owner of the medical clinic, courtesy of insurers.
 In the car accident described, which happened a few months ago, the passengers approached a medical clinic of ill-repute on their own initiative. The method is widely known among ordinary Russians living in New York.
 In Russia, insurers are aware of Operation BORIS and say the situation could become even worse here.
 &quot;In 2004, we expect 20 percent of all claims [for car repairs] to be fake,&quot; said Alexander Vaskov, who heads the Russian Union of Auto Insurers' anti-fraud department. That translates into $1.5 billion dollars in losses.
 Medical treatment, which the new third-party insurance also covers, will potentially be even more damaging to Russian companies. But because doctor's bills haven't started coming in yet, the union has not made an estimate of the possible extent of fraud.
 In an ingrained culture of bribe-taking, Russian insurers fear that it's no stretch of the imagination to see police officers participating in insurance scams - a dimension to the problem not evident in Operation BORIS.
 The potential for insurance fraud in Russia could thus be greater than in the United States. Besides dishonest passengers and crooked doctors, the police and even employees of insurance companies could be on the take, Vaskov said.
 &quot;A typical ring would include the participants of a car accident; a police officer who will write up a fake crash report; and an insurance broker who can provide coverage after the fact.
 &quot;With the health system in a state of impoverishment, it's not hard to imagine doctors participating by charging for unnecessary medical treatment,&quot; Vaskov said.
 There is no easy way for insurers to prevent this type of crime.
 &quot;The problem is that insurance fraud is very hard to spot. Insurers only find out they've been tricked long after the scam has happened,&quot; Vaskov said.
 The only way insurance companies can deal with the problem is by staffing large claims review departments and looking for cases where the same cars or people have been involved in more than the average number of accidents per year.
 &quot;Essentially you have to go over every single case,&quot; he said. &quot;Big companies in Moscow might be able to handle this, but in the regions, insurance companies lack the resources.&quot;
 The auto insurers' union is currently setting up a unified database that will store case histories, but the system will only be up and running in six months.

TITLE: Local Showroom Loses Volvo Dealership Title
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: For the first time in 10 years Swedish auto maker Volvo broke off a contract with a local dealer, St. Petersburg's Sigma Motors. The company sold about 200 Volvos last year, but lost official partner status when it failed to open its own service center.
 
Sigma Motors operates two showrooms in St. Petersburg. The company started selling Volvos officially in 1995 and Volkswagens in 1999.
 Disha Papke, general director of Volvo International in Russia said Volvo retracted Sigma's dealership license at the end of 2003 because the Russian car seller failed to fulfil certain obligations.
 Sigma Motors general director Vladimir Tikhomirov confirmed on Tuesday that relations with Volvo had fallen through, but declined further comment. SwedMobil and CarLine, the other two Volvo dealerships in St. Petersburg also declined to comment.
 Sigma's failure to open an in-house service center prompted the breakup. Until mid-2003 Sigma Motors rented a service center from Alarm Motors. But the agreement between Sigma and Alarm was broken when Alarm signed a deal with Ford, said Alarm Motors general director Roman Slutsky.
 &quot;Volvo has made the rules for dealers tougher in terms of company standards and quality of service,&quot; one Volvo showroom manager said. The Swedes were not pleased by Sigma's servicing their cars at the Volkswagen center, the same manager added. He could recall only two cases in which a dealership license had been revoked due to unacceptable quality, when the Renome firm that sold Renault automobiles and the Astrum dealer of Opels lost their dealership licenses.
 Papke said this was the first time Volvo had broken off with a regional dealer in Russia.
 Experts said to meet the requirement Sigma would have had to build a new center. Slutsky of Alarm Motors said that no non-dealership-owned service centers in St. Petersburg met manufacturers' requirements.
 Mikhail Logutenko, general director of the Laura Co., a General Motors dealer, estimated the cost of building a service center at between $2 million and $5 million. Major foreign automakers require that the service center be collocated with the showroom. &quot;Considering that Sigma's showroom is located in a prestigious part of town on Moskovsky Prospekt, building a service station there would have been costly,&quot; Logutenko said. 
 Papke of Volvo International said he thinks SwedMobil and CarLine should be able to handle the demand for Volvos, although he didn't rule out the possibility of Volvo looking for a third dealer.
 UFG analyst Yelena Sakhnova said Volvo's following a strict dealership policy is one way the company improves the brand's ability to compete. Like other European cars, Volvo prices are set in euros, putting the brand at a disadvantage as compared to American and Japanese makes. 
 Last year official Volvo dealers in Russia sold 5,027 new cars. According to market participants, about 800 new Volvos were sold in Russia, 200 by Sigma, and about 300 each by Swed Mobil and CarLine. The latter is part of Moscow's Rolf holding.

TITLE: Air Force Upbeat, Despite Crashes
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Despite a series of accidents that culminated in the first crash of a Tu-160 strategic bomber, the air force had a good 2003, and after a long break received a batch of modernized jets, its commander said Wednesday.
 
At the end of the year, the air force received five upgraded Su-27SM Flanker fighters fitted with new avionics as part of an ongoing modernization plan and will have 20 more Su-27 jets upgraded to that standard in 2004, air force commander Vladimir Mikhailov told reporters at an annual briefing.
 &quot;We have chosen a single type of modernization for the Su-27 that allows us to concentrate our resources,&quot; Mikhailov said. &quot;And 20 more jets were transferred to the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aviation production association for the upgrade at the end of last year.&quot; He said that one regiment would be fully re-equipped with this jet in 2004, with the first Su-27SMs initially being flown by test pilots at the Lipetsk combat training center.
 Mikhailov said the Su-27SM contains the best avionics and has new air-to-surface capabilities as well as all-weather and nighttime strike capabilities. He added that the Su-27SM was an interim fighter for use before a fifth-generation model developed by Sukhoi joins its ranks in the next decade.
 &quot;It lacks in stealth and does not have the weapons that will have to be fitted on the fifth-generation fighter,&quot; he said.
 This year the air force plans to receive its first Su-34 Flanker strike derivative, formerly known as the Su-27IB, eight of which have been produced at the Sukhoi's facility in Novosibirsk. After repeated delays due to underfinancing, the program is now back on track with improved avionics, he said.
 Another long-overdue delivery, the new generation S-400 long-range air defense system, will be inducted this year, Mikhailov said.
 The recent deliveries have been a welcome change for a cash-strapped air force that for years has been unable to buy new aircraft. Defense plants have been rolling out jets mostly for foreign customers, and those planes are superior to those in the Russian air force.
 Mikhailov lamented that only 15 percent of the arms procurement budget goes to cover the air force's needs, but would not provide precise figures.
 Chronic underfinancing cost the air force dearly last year. In November, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov blasted the air force, saying that &quot;none of the air regiments comply 100 percent with the requirements of constant combat readiness due to poor training and the poor technical maintenance of aircraft.&quot;
 Although the average number of flight hours for pilots was doubled to 40 last year, human error was blamed for an astounding series of 11 crashes that killed 23 people. Among them was the crash of a MiG-29UB on a training flight in June and a collision of two helicopters during maneuvers near Vladivostok. Ivanov, who was attending the Vladivostok event, accused the pilots of &quot;negligence, showing off and air hooliganism.&quot;
 The biggest blow to the air force's reputation came in September when a Tu-160 crashed 33 minutes after takeoff.
 An investigation cleared the four crew members, who died in the crash, of wrongdoing and blamed a 1997 decision not to put liquid nitrogen into the plane's fuel tanks in certain cases.
 Mikhailov said Wednesday that Tu-160s will resume flights Friday or Saturday.

TITLE: Gazprom Pays Out $90M?
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Gazprom has paid Yakov Goldovsky, the ex-president of its petrochemicals holding Sibur, $90 million in exchange for disputed stakes in the latter's subsidiaries, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
 
Goldovsky was arrested and jailed for eight months during investigations into allegations of asset stripping at Sibur in the shake-up after Alexei Miller, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, was appointed Gazprom CEO in May 2001.
 Goldovsky was released in September 2002 after receiving a seven-month suspended sentence for abuse of office.
 He and another executive had initially faced other charges, including embezzlement and money laundering, but were acquitted for lack of evidence.
 Vedomosti reported that Goldovsky had struck a deal with Gazprom in April 2002 to return the shares in exchange for promissory notes valued at 17.8 billion rubles ($620 million), and Gazprom increased its stake in the Sibur holding from 50.7 percent to 75.7 percent.
 When the promissory notes did not materialize, Goldovsky's representatives threatened to go to court. But in December 2003 Goldovsky and his partners received $90 million from Gazprombank, the paper reported, citing Gazprom sources.

TITLE: State Fires New Shot in Vodka War, Challenging Trademark 'Doubles'
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Once again the state is challenging a vodka trademark registration, only this time it has nothing to do with its long-standing foe, vodka magnate Yury Shefler. 
 
Soyuzplodoimport, the state company created to manage Stolichnaya, Moskovskaya and other famous vodka brands it wrested from Shefler's SPI Group in 2002, has filed a complaint against the registration of the trademark Cristall, Kommersant reported Tuesday, citing a source in the state trademark and patent agency Rospatent.
 The challenge could threaten the 13 vodkas from the so-called Cristall &quot;black label&quot; range of premium vodkas, which are produced by Sergei Zivenko's Kristall Trade and Industrial Group, a $400 million-a-year operation based around the Kristall distillery in Kaluga. 
 Soyuzplodoimport argues that the name Cristall is similar to the point of confusion to one of its trademarks - Kristal - which is bottled in the Krasnodar region.
 On Tuesday Soyuzplodoimport spokesman Vladimir Uvatenko was unable to elaborate on the government's case but emphasized that the Kristall trademark had belonged to the state &quot;since time immemorial.&quot;
 &quot;Soyuzplodoimport has no legal or factual basis for disputing [this registration],&quot; said Yakov Mastinsky, a lawyer for the Kristall Trade and Industrial Group. 
 &quot;Why are they doing this? Before they were involved only with SPI, but today they are objecting to a trademark belonging to us. The management of the group considers this action an attempt to camouflage their business failures.&quot; 
 Both Soyuzplodoimport and Sergei Zivenko fell under the Audit Chamber's beady eye during investigations last year into the handling of vodka brands in which the state had an interest. 
 Until now the legal efforts of Soyuzplodoimport have been focussed against Shefler's SPI Group, which continues to fight in the courts over brands it argues were taken from it illegally. 
 Shefler took over the brands in 1997 after gaining control of the privatized organization, founded in Soviet times, to which the brands were registered. As president of that company he sold some 42 trademarks, including the internationally popular Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodkas, to a company that was to become SPI's representative office in Russia for a mere $300,000. 
 In late 2001 Deputy Agriculture Minister Vladimir Loginov launched the government's campaign to take over the trademarks. 
 The privatization of the former Soviet-era agency was ruled illegal, as was the subsequent sale of the trademarks. Shefler was later banned from exporting his vodka from Kaliningrad. By mid-2002, the trademarks were under the control of Loginov as the newly appointed head of Soyuzpolodoimport.
 According to the finds of the Audit Chamber's investigation, unveiled last October, Soyuzplodoimport generated just 25 million rubles ($870,000) in revenues over the first nine months of the year.
 &quot;It spent the money on itself, nothing was trnasferred to the budget,&quot; a chamber spokesman said at the time. But he added, &quot;This is not a criminal offense.&quot;
 Shefler now manages his business from outside Russia, after the Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against him in the light of allegations by Loginov that Shefler had threatened to kill him. 
 Soyuzplodoimport's new target, Zivenko, featured in the second Audit Chamber probe.
 This time the chamber was looking into the sale of trademarks at Moscow's Kristall distillery, the biggest in Russia, in which the state controls a 51 percent stake through Rospirtprom, a government holding company created in 2000 to manage the state's interests in distilleries throughout the country. Zivenko was its general director until July 2002, when he was replaced by a former tax police major general.
 In what some observers have called a golden parachute deal, structures affiliated to Zivenko purchased the popular Gzhelka trademark and the 13 Cristall brands from the Kristall distillery in August 2002, for 131 million rubles and 35 million rubles respectively. 
 When Zivenko was fired as head of Rosspirtprom the state vodka holding management loyal to him dug in at the Kristall distillery. 
 The sale diffused the standoff and formed a cornerstone of Zivenko's Kristall Trade and Industrial Group. The Audit Chamber, however, ruled that these sales were &quot;ineffective for the state&quot; though there was, again, no evidence of a criminal offense.

TITLE: No Contest
AUTHOR: By Masha Lipman
TEXT: Prominent liberal politician Irina Khakamada has announced that she will enter the presidential race. The election will be held in mid-March, and Khakamada's last-minute self-nomination was unexpected, even by her own party, the Union of Right Forces.
 
The liberal constituency is disconcerted by the recent defeat of Russia's two liberal parties in the parliamentary elections in December (neither is represented in the new Duma). Liberals are confused and in doubt about what to do. Khakamada may be a popular figure and a proponent of democratic values, but her potential supporters find it hard to believe her nomination was not coordinated with the Kremlin, and they are reluctant to compromise their votes by taking part in a Kremlin-directed game.
 Indeed, in today's Russia, all politics are tightly overseen by the Kremlin. Another way to put it is: No public politics are left in Russia. The parliamentary elections in December were a vivid illustration of state power: The president's aides secured a pro-Kremlin majority of more than two-thirds in the Duma, which has basically become a one-party body.
 With President Vladimir Putin virtually uncontested and democratic procedures dramatically compromised, the liberal parties were considering boycotting the presidential election. Until Khakamada's self-nomination, the choices for Russian liberals were confined to voting against all candidates or abstaining from voting altogether. Putin's &quot;rivals&quot; were picked by his aides to better set off the Russian president. As a result, the forthcoming race had begun to look like an absurd joke.
 Two veteran presidential candidates, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and the ultranationalist buffoon Vladimir Zhirinovsky, will not run. The two seasoned political players may have known better than to come out as Putin's direct opponents. Rumor has it that they made their decisions after &quot;consultations&quot; in the Kremlin. Putin's aides may have indeed disliked the idea of the incumbent being opposed by politicians with tangible support, especially ugly ones such as Zhirinovsky.
 The Kremlin has effective leverage over party leaders: It may easily strip any party of financing. With oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky in jail, no businessman in his right mind would sponsor a party without Kremlin approval. Defiance of the Kremlin has become very unpopular among the Russian elites, business and political alike.
 Each of the two party leaders came up with a proxy. Zhirinovsky, who never misses an opportunity to turn politics into a farce, nominated his bodyguard. The man's name is Malyshkin, which may be roughly translated as &quot;Mr. Little One.&quot; Not much is known about Mr. Little One except that he has a hearing problem and that he thrashed a Zhirinovsky opponent after a heated televised debate during the recent Duma election. Zyuganov's party nominated a second-tier colleague.
 Among the other candidates are the super-rich pharmaceuticals king Vladimir Bryntsalov and the speaker of the upper house, Sergei Mironov, who is running for president, oddly enough, as an ardent supporter of the incumbent. The nationalist Rodina (Motherland) party, created by Kremlin aides shortly before the December Duma elections, has nominated two of its leaders for president. Ivan Rybkin, a loyal hand of the exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, has also submitted his nomination.
 It is broadly understood that any of these contenders may be removed from the race or withdraw his nomination should the Kremlin deem his participation undesirable. Another understanding is that Putin will not humiliate himself by participating in political debates with such puny competitors.
 The only remaining problem was that such a noncompetitive and politically meaningless election might fail to excite the voters and thus cause a low turnout. Now, with Khakamada in the race, even this minor problem appears to be gone: If a liberal politician such as Khakamada takes the election seriously, it's harder for critics to dismiss it as meaningless. The idea of the boycott will likely fade away (At least some of Khakamada's party colleagues, taken unawares by her announcement, will probably endorse her self-nomination; they may also be joined by some in the liberal Yabloko party). She may even be allowed to criticize Putin - something that has become unheard of in today's Russia. After all, it would inject some excitement into the campaign and make it look more legitimate.
 Khakamada knows that her participation suits the Kremlin; she claims she'll take advantage of it. She seems highly motivated to run as a full-fledged opposition candidate. Of course, she can in no way be a true competitor to Putin: Her party got less than 4 percent of the vote in December, and she suffered a dramatic defeat in a single-mandate race in St. Petersburg. She has other things going against her, including being female in a male-dominated political world and her unusual ethnicity (she's half-Japanese). In fact, the Kremlin may still bar her from running against Putin. To get her name on the ballot, Khakamada will need to collect 2 million signatures in support of her nomination. The deadline is Jan. 28, and the success of this hard and costly task will depend on the Kremlin's goodwill.
 Khakamada flatly denies that her nomination has been coordinated with the Kremlin. But in the tightly managed world of Russian politics, such a claim is naturally met with skepticism. This is the odd paradox of Khakamada's candidacy: The only way she can prove her bona fides would be to fail to gather the 2 million signatures required to get her name on the ballot, since that would mean the Kremlin had sabotaged her efforts. That would also mean, of course, that she'd be out of the race, such as it is.
 
 <i>Masha Lipman is editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra Journal. This comment first appeared in The Washingon Post. </i>

TITLE: Georgia's Fate Depends On Russia, U.S.
TEXT: Ever since Georgians came together to elect 36-year-old Mikheil Saakashvili as their next president the country has been gripped by a sense of hope.
 
Georgians talk about how the new government will now go after corrupt officials and businessmen and get the economy back on its feet, and how ordinary people will now work honestly for the good of the country. Their optimism, so naive sounding, makes you pray they will not be too disappointed. 
 Saakashvili faces an enormous task, and much depends on whether he is up to it. But Georgia's future also depends on Russia and the United States and on what kind of relationship they forge with his government. 
 Both countries have been jockeying for influence in Georgia, and since Saakashvili's election on Jan. 4, Washington has wasted no time in staking its claim. President George W. Bush was quick to congratulate him and invite him to Washington, and Secretary of State Colin Powell said he would attend his inauguration. Promises of money and support have come tumbling in. 
 Perhaps the Americans should take it a little easy, knowing how sensitive Russia is to U.S. moves into its backyard, and acknowledge that Russia is not going away.
 Russia, on the other hand, seems in a muddle. In the days after the election, when Saakashvili's overwhelming victory was well assured, the Foreign Ministry stalled, saying Moscow would form its position on the new president only once the official results were in. 
 Saakashvili has made overtures to Russia by saying he wants to build a new more constructive relationship and proposing that his first foreign trip be to Moscow, but President Vladimir Putin has been decidedly cool. 
 Speaking before the election, Putin also said Russia wants nothing more than to mend ties, and he repeatedly has said that the territorial integrity of Georgia should be preserved. Yet Russia's continuing role in stoking separatism in Abkhazia, Adzharia and South Ossetia, and the dispute now escalating over Georgian demand for the removal of Russia's military bases speak louder than words.
 It seems time, however, for Russia to move forward and accept the idea of an independent state on its southern border and do what it can to make Georgia stable and economically viable. 
 Russia's security would be better served if Moscow used its influence to help Tbilisi end the conflicts with the separatist regions and at the same time restore normal trade links through those regions, so essential to Georgia's economic recovery. 
 Georgia should not be a battleground between the United States and Russia. Both countries should think less about their own interests - the security of an oil pipeline, wounded pride at the loss of an empire - and work together to prevent Georgia from becoming a failed state. In the end, both of their interests would also be served.

TITLE: Winter Witness To Return Of Soviet Habits
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
TEXT: My current mood might merely be the result of winter in St. Petersburg; everything looks gray, the sun barely shines, it is freezing cold and you need to turn on the lights in the kitchen so that you can see at 10 a.m. Each new day hardly awakens your desire to wake up again. 
 
Or my mood may be in response to a photograph printed in one of the latest issues of Der Spiegel magazine that apparently shows a woman wearing a military uniform shooting a handcuffed man lying on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to the Dubrovka theater early on the morning Oct. 26, 2002. 
 When I saw it, it seemed to me that not much has changed in the law enforcement agencies' approach to justice since the 1930s, when millions of people had been taken by the NKVD secret police from their homes, separated from their families, taken to prisons and then shot without a proper trial. Is this what President Vladimir Putin's &quot;dictatorship of the law&quot; will look like in the long run? What else can I think of when I see what looks like one of his subordinates executing a witness whose hands are bound together and in conditions when Russia has a moratorium on capital punishment? What else can I think after seeing the rapid development of a &quot;Putin Scare&quot; syndrome in the country? 
 A similar thing happened recently when one program in the humorous Gorodok series on Rossiya state television where the authors were stopped from running a televised version of popular jokes about the character Vovochka, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported Tuesday. (Vovochka is the diminutive of Putin's first name)
 Another report in the same issue came from Yekaterinburg, where the management of a local kindergarten confiscated several toy rabbits that happen to sing the song, &quot;I Want a Man Just Like Putin.&quot; It is rather hard to imagine more ridiculous developments, but I think, after these anything is possible.
 I heard another reminder of Soviet times on Echo Moskvy this week when it reported the confiscation of the entire edition of a book containing the results of an investigation into the 1999 bombings of Moscow apartment buildings, in which more than 200 people died.
 The 4,000 books were confiscated by the Federal Security Service, or FSB. The book's authors said the FSB could be shown to have had a direct involvement in the planning of the bombings. 
 &quot;We remember how 20 years ago the [KGB] came to [our apartments] for searches,&quot; said Alexander Podrabinek, an editor for the the books' publisher, the Prima information agency. &quot;Everybody knew it was dangerous to read certain books, that they could be jailed for it. Now society is again being given the signal that to read such books is dangerous.&quot; 
 My impressions that Russian society is getting closer to a state described in George Orwell's &quot;1984&quot; increased significantly after I visiting the Bolshoi Dramatichesky Theater or BDT, last week.
 I had not been there for ages. In the buffet I found crowds of people looking exactly the same as 10 or even 15 years ago. They were rude and pushing each other in long lines for ice-cream, Coca-Cola and champagne. 
 My girlfriend and I were not allowed to return to our seats after the third call. She said that if she told her to friends back home about this, nobody would believe her. 
 &quot;If someone wants to do business in Russia, [that person] should come to BDT first, the best place to see where Russia is at at the moment. The walls have a new coat of paint and Coca-Cola is available. The rest is the same; the people are the same,&quot; she said. 
 Maybe it is time to remember the words of Karl Marx who said in the 19th century that &quot;history tends to repeat itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.&quot; 
 The question is how far the farce will go and is there a danger it could turn into tragedy?

TITLE: wine revives spirit of britpop
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Britpop might be long gone, but its spirit will be revisited as the underground club Moloko is hosting a Britpop event this week. Organized and headlined by the veteran English-language band Wine, it will feature a more recent crop of local British pop music lovers.
 
The event is called - in Wine's frontman Alexei Winer's typically weird sense of humor - a <i>pseudo</i> festival, while he calls his band &quot;a phantom, the band that has never existed. There was no member in this band except for me.&quot;
 Winer (real last name Fedyakov) is the band's sole remaining founding member who writes the songs, sings and plays guitar, while the rest of the band has changed quite a few times. 
 The band's most memorable lineup was that of the early 1990s, which included Katya Sidorova on drums, Quebec's Caroline Druen on flute, and ex-Akvarium cellist Seva Gakkel - then the coordinator of the seminal alternative TaMtAm club, which folded in 1996.
 Even if Wine's music had nothing to do with punk, which dominated TaMtAm, the most of its history has been connected to the influential venue, which discovered some of today's best-known local bands.
 Though it was formed over 12 years ago and has recorded a dozen home-produced albums, Wine released its debut CD only in December 2003. Called &quot;Wine Not?&quot;, in reality it is a re-release of the band's tape from 2000.
 &quot;I chose it because it's the most integral record,&quot; said Winer. &quot;It's also the best in quality and the most commercially correct. All the songs are so good that there are no hits on it - it's just impossible to choose.&quot;
 Winer says that Wine's next album will be probably a lo-fi collection of his home recordings.
 &quot;I'm not interested in the process of turning an idea into a product,&quot; he said. &quot;I always wanted to release home recordings. Why torture yourself, rehearsing with a band, going to a studio, and in the event the sound would go wrong or something. You better sit at home and do it as you like, from the heart. Let the quality be worse, but it can be somehow disguised.&quot;
 Between November 2000 and June 2003 Wine did not exist at all, with Winer moving abruptly to France and having spent over two years in Paris baking rolls for living and recording his songs on a Porta studio at home. Wine reformed, with bassist Kostya Kremlyov and drummer Igor Kvavchenko, in June 2003.
 &quot;It looks like there remain almost no places where you can play for your own pleasure,&quot; he said. &quot;Many places have turned into small restaurants with live music, there's no such enthusiasm anymore as there once was.&quot;
 After the hiatus, Wine had to win over the local club public once again. 
 &quot;It's strange - when I came back, people started to recognize me only because we started to engage in hooliganism a lot at concerts.&quot;
 According to Winer, the festival's idea came from younger bands, Kosmos.com and Membrana, who approached Moloko manager Yury Ugryumov about a possible Britpop event. Ugyumov, in his turn, redirected them to Winer, because of his reputation as a local Britpop pioneer. There even exists a theory that Wine was playing Britpop even before the music emerged in Britain.
 &quot;That's what my bassist says,&quot; Winer said.
 &quot;In 1990/91, we started to play something similar to The Kinks, only using a fuzz box - which 100 percent fits the stylistics of Britpop. I am the gray cardinal of Russian Britpop.&quot;
 Unlike St. Petersburg, there is a strong following of British music in Moscow, says Winer.
 &quot;It's serious there,&quot; he said. &quot;Every summer, every Friday they get together, rent a boat, where we all float, play and drink. Two hundred people come to the boat and you say 'hello' to everyone, because you know everyone. Everyone wears the right T-shirts, listens to the right records and knows all the lyrics.&quot;
 In addition to his own material and the usual set of covers, from David Bowie's &quot;Heroes&quot; to The Smiths' &quot;Big Mouth Strikes Again,&quot; among others, Winer said he would add some newer covers for the Moloko event.
 &quot;We'll play what it's easy to play, where there's one chord,&quot; he said.
 Featuring in the festival will be also The Littlewater, the local pop-rock band, singer and pianist Natalya Artyomova and Dmitry &quot;Morrissey&quot; Darin of the band Parni.
 The event can give a good chance for the younger bands that take part, Winer reckons.
 &quot;For them it's a celebration, too,&quot; said Winer. 
 &quot;In Moloko, they're being told, 'Bring your demos,' but here I put them on the bill so they can play at the legendary place even if only once in a lifetime.&quot;
 According to Winer, a 50-percent discount off the entrance fee will be available for those wearing the &quot;right&quot; T-shirts. &quot;What the right T-shirt is, I'll be deciding myself at the entrance.&quot;
 
 <i>Britpop Pseudo Festival, with Wine, The Littlewater, Kosmos.com and Membrana, at 7 p.m. Saturday at Moloko. Links: www.brit-pop.by.ru </i>

TITLE: stalinist high-rises back in vogue
AUTHOR: By Susan B. Glasser
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moscow developers in the 1990s built great towers of glass, hoisted dizzying neon signs along once-gray avenues and invested millions of dollars in shimmering new buildings whose main architectural style was best described by one critic as &quot;late Las Vegas.&quot; 
 
But tastes have changed since the excesses immediately following the breakup of the Soviet Union, when anything Soviet was out and anything that smacked of Western-style modernism, no matter how tacky, was in. Not so in the Russia of President Vladimir Putin, whose political slogans of stability and restoration of Soviet-era symbols have been mirrored in the changing landscape of Europe's largest city. 
 The design concept of the moment is what architects here call neo-Stalinism, in homage to the style decreed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who reshaped Moscow after World War II. Seven imposing skyscrapers and a host of shorter cousins were built in Stalin's time, meant to emphasize the grandeur of the victorious Soviet state. 
 In the capital, where demand has soared for pricey apartments and construction sites ring the city center, new buildings evoking the Stalin era are selling out, according to developers and real estate agents. 
 One such palace for the new rich is called Nostalgia. &quot;This is what remains from Soviet times for me personally,&quot; said Tatyana Samuelyan, one of Nostalgia's first residents. Another is Triumph Palace, a massive tower rising just off Leningradskoye Shosse, marketed as the long-planned but never built eighth Stalin skyscraper. The building's luxurious accouterments include an in-house fitness center, underground parking and direct Internet hookups for the capitalist era, but its design is copied directly from the workshops of socialism. Its spire went up last December, making Triumph Palace, at 264 meters, the tallest residential building in Europe. A year before completion, its 960 apartments have all been snapped up. 
 The new buildings, said architecture writer Yevgenia Mikulina, play off buyers' &quot;subconscious connection with wanting to be great and glorious and respectable.&quot;
 But the buildings, many of which were conceived soon after Putin's rise to power in late 1999 and are just now opening, are not only an echo of the changed political and cultural climate. More subtly, they reflect Russian notions of what constitutes status. In terms of Moscow addresses, the seven Stalinist skyscrapers were considered the height of unattainable luxury, with solid construction, relatively luxurious materials, high ceilings, classical details and prime locations. The country's best architects designed them; Stalin personally approved key details of their construction. 
 Reminiscent of the Art Deco skyscrapers of New York, the Stalin-era versions also boast Gothic towers and spires ordered by the Soviet leader. 
 Only the best-connected Muscovites linked to the party elite could ever hope to obtain an apartment in one.
 Even decades after they were built, the Stalin-era buildings maintained their aura of exclusivity - especially when Russians compared them with the shoddy concrete block edifices that proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s, cookie-cutter compounds that now dominate in Moscow and other Russian cities. 
 The new buildings in the Stalin style explicitly appeal to consumers who have the money to buy what previously could not be bought at any price - and with modern conveniences.
 Mikulina, deputy editor of the Russian edition of Architectural Digest said: &quot;It's a dream come true, something which looks really old and wonderful but it's new, the water is working, you have the Internet and modern interiors.&quot;

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Jet Set, the branch of the notorious, all-elitist Moscow nightclub of the same name, began operating in St. Petersburg in December. But though aimed at titillating egos of would-be big shots, the club promises a surprisingly decent music program, which includes such acts as Portishead and Morcheeba some time this year.
 The club's live events start this Saturday with <strong>Jazzinho Sonico,</strong> the smaller, club version of the London-based band Jazzinho, which blends nu-Bossa and dance.
 Jazzinho is led by Lisbon-born vocalist Guida de Palma, who sings both in Portuguese and English. &quot;Jazzinho,&quot; which could be translated as &quot;Sweet Little Jazz,&quot; is her own term for her style.
 At Jet Set, she will be backed by DJ Lucia Possa and percussionist Anselmo Neto.
 The live concert is part of a &quot;Viva La Summer&quot; party night which includes those usual nightclub routines such as a swimwear fashion show and activities involving beauties and luxury cars.
 The night starts at 10 p.m., though the band won't start playing until around 1 a.m.
 The club's website, at www.jetset.spb.ru, lets you log on only after giving the positive reply to the question &quot;Are you VIP?&quot; and an overuse of the three-letter abbreviation on the site could be depressing to the gentler public. However, Jet Set's spokesman said that the Christmas party held at the place earlier this month, drew as many as 1,500 party-goers.
 Jet Set is located at 58b Furshtatskaya Ulitsa. Call 275-9288 for details.
 A more modest and democratic venue called <strong>Zoom Cafe Club,</strong> opened earlier this month, will also host its first live concert. 
 Local musician <strong>Lavrenty Manga,</strong> who plays such instruments as the <i>shakuhachi</i> (a traditional Japanese bamboo flute), and the <i>bansuri</i> (a traditional Indian flute) and the <i>shenai</i> (a kind of Indian oboe), will perform his world fusion on Friday.
 The place itself is small, with only between 40 and 50 seats available. Originally designed as a literary cafe, it has a small library both in English and Russian. Poetry readings will take place at 5 p.m. on Saturdays. Saturday nights are reserved for dance parties, with either electronic music and salsa.
 Zoom Cafe-Club is located at 22 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. For more information, check www.cafezoom.ru or call 972-1805. 
 While Wine and Moloko will celebrate British pop music with the <strong>Britpop Pseudo Festival</strong> this Saturday (see article, this page), the GEZ-21, or the Gallery of Experimental Music will host the second traditional Beatle New Year Party in cooperation with Kolya Vasin, Russia's self-styled &quot;Beatlefan No.1.&quot;
 The program includes Beatle film screenings and live set from The Sunflowers.
 The other events this week include <strong>Akvarium</strong> playing for the first time since the autumn ballyhoo around Boris Grebenshchikov's 50th birthday. The band will play at Stary Dom on Thursday.
 <strong>Wine</strong>, which headlines the Britpop event at Moloko this Saturday, will also play its regular gig at Zavodniye Yaitsa club on Friday. The place is located at 48 Furshtatskaya Ulitsa. Call 275-8896 for details.
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: greece is the word at new taverna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Connoisseurs of Greek cuisine will be happy to know that a pleasant new Greek restaurant has recently opened in the city's center.
 
Billing itself as the &quot;first Greek restaurant in St. Petersburg,&quot; Oliva's interior design follows a Greek folk motif. It has a VIP room that can be reserved by request, along with four dining rooms to accommodate its guests. In fact, the restaurant is quite large. &quot;It is the biggest one I've ever seen, really,&quot; a diner said.
 Before the meal, the hostess offered a tour of the restaurant's four dining rooms, each with a different theme. The first was the &quot;Sunny Hall,&quot; a cheerful yellow room, perfect for lunch on a day needing some sunshine. Next was the &quot;Central Hall,&quot; the largest room, decorated with ethnic hangings. Then came the &quot;Clay Pot Hall,&quot; which features a collection of variously sized terracotta pots along the wall. The final room is the &quot;Bronze Hall,&quot; accented by circular metal wall ornaments. The &quot;VIP Hall&quot; is quite a small room and seems best suited for privacy rather than a party or a large business lunch. Those wishing to experience a more festive atmosphere are better off in one of the dining rooms.
 One of the best choices for either lunch or dinner at Oliva is the salad bar. For 170 rubles ($5.80), guests can fill their plates with stuffed grape leaves, roasted peppers, a variety of salads, marinated eggplant, fried zucchini, herbs and olives. 
 The stuffed grape leaves were authentic and flavorful, while the tzaziki sauce - a yogurt, cucumber, garlic and herb concoction - was delectable. However, those who dislike garlic should avoid the sauce because Oliva's version is prepared with lots of this pungent ingredient. The steamed and breaded zucchini was a delicious highlight and the other salads were clearly fresh and appealing. But steer clear of the marinated eggplant, which was saturated with vinegar. The salad bar allows guests to sample a fairly wide variety of tasty offerings. Those with large appetites should note that only one trip to the salad bar is permitted.
 The Arnaki Frikase for 130 rubles ($4.40), lamb dish with a lemon and spinach dressing, was tasty, but tough. Purists will enjoy the authentic <i>zapikanka musaka</i> for 80 rubles ($2.70), a casserole of ground meat with a rich sauce. A diner visiting Oliva for the second time said she ordered and enjoyed the dish each time. These entrees were served <i>a la carte</i> as in many restaurants in St. Petersburg and did not include salad, vegetables or a side dish.
 Those who enjoy <i>spanokopita</i> will be disappointed by Oliva's bland attempt at the feta and spinach pie. The dish lacked the usually intense flavor of the feta cheese and the filo pastry was more dense than crisp and flaky. The same was true of the filo used for Oliva's <i>baklavas</i>, a traditional Greek dessert also made with nuts ad honey. However, the dessert was still flavorful and the portion large enough to share after a full meal. 
 Oliva offers Greek house wines as well as a small variety of French, Italian, Spanish and German wines. However, the Greek house red tasted diluted. The restaurant does offer other alcoholic beverages, including the traditional Greek spirit ouzo. For those who prefer non-alcoholic beverages, the restaurant offers the usual soft drinks and juices as well as a Greek compote.
 The service at Oliva was friendly, but slow by western standards. A dish that would be considered an appetizer or side dish in many Greek restaurants was brought after the main course. The waitress also took great care in laying out the various utensils - at least three forks and three knives in one case, which was a bit of unnecessary pomp and circumstance considering the casual atmosphere. The selection of main courses was limited at Oliva and did not include gyros, a popular lamb dish offered by many Greek restaurants. The management, however, said it plans to add a new item to the menu each week.
 Located on Bolshaya Morskaya, Oliva's menu prices don't reflect it's central location. Dinner for two amounted to about 620 rubles ($21.30), and included a shared salad bar, shared appetizer, two entrees, three drinks, one glass of wine and a shared dessert.
 Oliva does not currently offer live music or Greek dancing, but its management said it is planning to have a group come from Greece at some point. Waitresses at the restaurant sport a uniform inspired by folk costumes.
 In all, Oliva is a casual, tasty choice to meet friends or a new culture. It is certainly worth a return visit, if not habitual visits.
 <i>

 Oliva Greek Taverna, 31 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul., Tel. 314 6563. Dinner for two with alcohol 620 rubles ($21.30). Menu in Russian only (English promised). Links: www.tavernaoliva.ru </i>

TITLE: hidden treasure displayed to all
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Closed to the public for nearly a century, St. Petersburg's Lomonosov Porcelain Factory Museum threw its doors open again over the New Year. On display are 600 masterpieces from over 260 years of Russian porcelain making - from luxurious ceremonial dinner services ordered by Catherine the Great to Bolshevik propaganda chess sets pitting nobles against Soviet workers and peasants. 
 
Russia's oldest producer of porcelain and one of the first in Europe, the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory was established in 1744 by decree of Peter the Great's daughter, Elizabeth. Known in tsarist times as the Imperial Porcelain Manufacturer, the factory was an exclusive supplier to the Romanov family and its noble relatives. The museum was founded a century later by Emperor Nicholas I, with donations from the Winter Palace and other royal residences. Open to the public, the museum was nevertheless a fashionable destination for Russia's nobility. But in the Soviet period, the museum instituted a closed-door policy, restricting access to factory workers and privileged guests. 
 In late December, the museum opened those historic doors to the public at large for the first time in nearly a century. Occupying two large halls of the Lomonosov porcelain factory, it showcases over 600 masterpieces from a storehouse of 30,000 items.
 The first hall features early artworks from several private Russian porcelain factories, including the famous Moscow Gardner Factory and several German and Austrian companies.
 But the second hall is devoted entirely to the Lomonosov factory's imperial period, from the first laboratory experiments with porcelain to modern vases and graceful figurines. Another hall, scheduled to open later in 2004, will accommodate Soviet-era porcelain art.
 According to museum director Tatyana Kudryavtseva, even pre-revolutionary shoppers would have found it nearly impossible to find the factory's products in retail shops, as most of the orders came directly from the royal family. The tsar understood the genuine value of the imperial porcelain masterpieces. Beginning in the last quarter of the 19th century, every royal order was produced in duplicate - one for the Romanovs, and another for the factory museum. The Soviet and subsequently Russian governments continued the tradition.
 &quot;In tsarist Russia, the factory and later a visit to the factory and its museum was a special treat for the royal family guests who were taken there and received porcelain masterpieces made there,&quot; Kudryavtseva said. In the Soviet era, exclusive access became the rule. The museum's guest books read like a &quot;Who's Who&quot; of Russian history, with signatures of the Romanovs, poets Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova, and artist Kazimir Malevich.
 &quot;This collection is a treasure that everyone should be able to see, not just the few who know about the museum's existence at the factory,&quot; Kudryavtseva said. &quot;But naturally, this place is sacred for anyone involved in the porcelain industry here, as this is exactly where it all started, where the first local porcelain was made. It was crucially important not to move the museum from the factory because the masterpieces of the past provide so much inspiration for the new masters.&quot;
 After the 1917 Revolution, the Imperial Porcelain Manufacturer was nationalized and dedicated to Soviet propaganda. In the tireless struggle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people, no object was considered too insignificant. Factory workers made ink pots in the shape of a woman reading Stalin's historical works or embroidering a Soviet flag. Tea sets were stamped with heroic revolutionary leaders. Dishes were emblazoned with scenes from grand communist projects such as the Baikal-Amur Main Line railroad.
 &quot;These kind of propaganda techniques were particularly important during the first years of the Revolution,&quot; said art historian Irina Vazhinskaya, head of the arts department of the Museum of the Political History of Russia. &quot;Propagandists had to transform the mentality of the people and make them accept new political ideas and a new lifestyle. The first Soviet propaganda porcelain was created by some of the most talented and acclaimed artists in the country.&quot;
 Indeed, in the 1920s, legendary avant-garde artists Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Lyubov Popova, Vasily Kandinsky and Malevich developed sketches for porcelain products.
 As with many other companies, perestroika brought uncertain times to the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. Viewed as a national cultural treasure, ownership of the factory became an emotive issue. In 1993, the plant was privatized and controlling stakes given to the staff and the Property Ministry. Six years later, however, the factory fell into foreign hands when the US Russia Investment Fund (run by Delta Capital Management), the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts &amp; Co. (KKR) and Stoomhamer Amsterdam acquired a controlling stake. 
 For some of the factory's artists, the idea of foreigners gaining control of the factory was initially upsetting. In early 2002, porcelain collector Galina Tsvetkova, who is married to NIKoil president Nikolai Tsvetkov, began buying up shares in Lomonosov Porcelain from the foreign share-holders. By the end of that year, Tsvetkova had acquired all Stoomhamer Amsterdam and Delta Capital Managment's shares, to own a total of over 75 percent, while KKR retained a portion of their shares.
 Unlike the factory, the museum was never privatized and has remained state-owned under the auspices of the Culture Ministry. On condition that the collection itself not be moved, the museum cme under the jurisdiction of the State Hermitage Museum in 2001. Two years later, the museum has finally opened to the public, and it is Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky's hope that local guides and tour operators will quickly add it to their excursions. With the Hermitage's help, the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory plans to reproduce various artworks from the museum's extensive collection for retail. 
 Long a mirror of political trends, today's Lomonosov Porcelain Factory has climbed aboard the St. Petersburg birthday bandwagon. To celebrate the city's 300th anniversary in 2003, the factory produced a special coffee cup and dish with panoramas of the city by 19th-century artist Ivan Bilibin. The coffee sets were presented to heads of state and other guests of President Vladimir Putin attending the jubilee festivities. Now, the set is also on sale at factory shops.
 
 <i>The Lomonosov Porcelain Factory Museum is located at 151 Prospekt Obukhovskoi Oborony. Metro Lomonosovskaya. Tel. (812) 560-8300. Entrance costs 50 rubles for Russians and 200 rubles for foreigners. For further details, see www.lomonosovporcelain.ru </i>

TITLE: 'rings' trilogy ends in triumph
AUTHOR: By Kenneth Turan
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: It took one ring to rule them all, and now there's one film to end it all, to bring to a close the cinematic epic of our time, the one by which all others will be judged. &quot;The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King&quot; has finally arrived. 
 
Powerfully imagined two times over, first by the matchless fantasy mind of J.R.R. Tolkien and then by the bravura filmmaking of director Peter Jackson and a cast and crew that reached 2,400 souls, &quot;The Return of the King&quot; is a fitting climax to a story about the quest to rescue the world from evil that has had us profoundly in its grip from the start. 
 Like anything restlessly and eagerly anticipated, &quot;Return&quot; will inevitably be quibbled with. At three hours and 20 minutes, it is both formidably long and unsure where it ought to end. The film's critical human moments include some of the strongest of the trilogy, but because &quot;Return&quot; by definition has to showcase battles that will literally end all battles, the brevity of those character beats at times threatens the critical human thread with unraveling. 
 That doesn't happen, which is a tribute not only to this film but to the deep emotional connection with its numerous characters we've stored up and carry with us. In its belief that this story has meaning as well as excitement, &quot;Return,&quot; written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Jackson, has made its made-up world as completely real on the psychological level as its up-to-the-moment visual effects have on the physical. 
 Not only have we spent hour after involving hour with these characters, but the actors who play them (and to whom they will likely be forever linked) have put in so much time with them - literally years - that they've to an unusual degree actually lived these parts. 
 To look at the faces of Elijah Wood as Frodo and Sean Astin as Sam, Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, is to see the signs of triumphs and disappointments that only the genuine passage of time can create. As Jackson himself has said, &quot;the moment you film a close-up of Ian McKellen, you don't want to cut to a wide shot anymore because Ian is so compelling.&quot; 
 While it can be easier to come up with a persuasive physical reality than a psychological one, that shouldn't detract from how much success the &quot;Rings&quot; team, led by production designer Grant Major and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, has had in doing so here. This film's crowning achievement is white-stoned Minas Tirith, the kingdom of Gondor's seven-level city of kings that, in a smooth combination of miniatures and built sets, looks like a flabbergasting cross between an Italian hill town and a wedding cake. 
 Yet for all of this, it is as characteristic of &quot;Return&quot; as its predecessors that some of its most memorable moments are its simplest. The presenting of a newly forged sword to a key hero, the lighting of a series of signal fires to warn the neighboring kingdom of Rohan that Gondor is under attack, are successful precisely because they bring a kind of magical directness to the proceedings. 
 Similarly, &quot;Return&quot; begins with a scene of two young men fishing that is almost deceptive in its artlessness. For one of the men is Smeagol, and this flashback to how he comes to possess the ring and how that object's corrosive power gradually devolves him into the sniveling Gollum is a timely reminder of the ring's ability to bend the minds of every creature. 
 More than the previous films, &quot;Return of the King&quot; has a sinister end of days feeling about it, a doomsday sensibility as the very skies seem to darken and it becomes clear that the climactic battle between the forces of good and the Dark Lord Sauron, he of the fiery, all-seeing eye, is only a matter of time. 
 As Gandalf, that master of the epigram, puts it, &quot;things are now in motion that cannot be undone.&quot; 
 The best hope of a positive outcome - the quest of the hobbits Frodo and Sam to destroy the malevolent ring in the fires of Mount Doom - is, the wizard is forced to admit, &quot;just a fool's hope.&quot; 
 Even Gandalf doesn't really know what we soon find out: Things are going badly for this duo and their treacherous guide Gollum, a creature schizophrenically divided between his desire to do good and his pathological desire to possess the ring once again. Frodo, his mind weakened by the weight of carrying the ring, is increasingly not himself and prey to Gollum' s insidious, Iago-like posturings. Thanks to the input of Andy Serkis, the creature lives up to the director's claim that he's &quot;probably the most actor-driven digital creature that has ever been used in a film.&quot; 
 One of the most satisfying aspects of &quot;Return&quot; is that some of the actors we've seen the most of do especially well here. McKellen makes the most of Gandalf's moments, Viggo Mortensen increasingly becomes the epitome of heroic grace, and Astin brings the kind of dignity and quiet strength to Sam increasingly called for by the role. 
 With so many involving things on offer, it's understandable that although &quot;Return&quot; opts to do without the book's closing section detailing battles around the Shire, it still extends longer than it should. For filmmakers and viewers alike, a world this vivid is next to impossible to leave. As a model for how to bring substance, authenticity and insight to the biggest of adventure yarns, this trilogy will not soon, if ever, find its equal.

TITLE: the liberal case for war in iraq?
AUTHOR: By James Traub
PUBLISHER: the new york times
TEXT: William Shawcross, who made his journalistic reputation as the scourge of Henry Kissinger (in &quot;Sideshow&quot;) has written a polemic ardently endorsing the war in Iraq. And that's not all. Shawcross also argues for the Bush administration's aggressive use of the doctrine of pre-emption, Donald Rumsfeld's distinction between old and new Europe, the neoconservative case for regime change, the perfidy of the French, the indispensability of the Americans and much else to gladden hearts in Washington. What's going on here? 
 
Before addressing that all-important question, it needs to be said that Shawcross is a much better journalist than he is a polemicist. Some of his books, like &quot;Deliver Us From Evil,&quot; contain very little argument at all, though they nevertheless make for gripping, or at least intermittently gripping, reading. &quot;Allies&quot; is, alas, very close to journalism-free; Shawcross seems to have tapped it out almost without leaving his study. This is a bantamweight book that is passionately, but not always closely, argued. Yet it is an important book - not so much because of what Shawcross, known for his left-of-center views, has written as for the fact that he has written it. 
 But Shawcross is scarcely the only liberal or leftist to see the war in Iraq as the consummation, rather than the contradiction, of his principles. Christopher Hitchens is the best-known example; others include Paul Berman, Bernard Kouchner and Andre Glucksmann. These few brave souls have been pilloried by their coreligionists, who are inclined to view the United States as a greater threat to world peace than Iraq. Shawcross must have caught a lot of this himself, for he takes up the cudgel against the &quot;hate-America-first&quot; crowd, so busy loathing President Bush that they can spare &quot;not a word about what the Iraqi people had suffered for decades.&quot; 
 It is impossible to make sense of the left case for war in Iraq without considering the history of the last half century. From the 1950s through the '80s, the West deployed military force to roll back Communism - a threat the left considered wildly exaggerated, and often a flimsy pretext for self-aggrandizement. Then the Communist threat abruptly vanished. In the '90s, force was used or, more often, not used, in the face of humanitarian catastrophe, in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and elsewhere. This scrambled the old ideological alignments, dividing both left and right. The antiwar left and realpolitik right opposed these &quot;CNN wars,&quot; while the Wilsonian moralists of left and right championed them. 
 In &quot;Deliver Us From Evil,&quot; Shawcross indicted the great powers for failing to act in the face of mass brutalization - in Iraq, as well as in Africa and the Balkans - and for making it impossible for the United Nations to do so. At the time, many neoconservatives were making the same argument, minus the part about the United Nations. Indeed, in &quot;Allies,&quot; Shawcross notes that while the neocons are considered &quot;radical&quot; for their insistence that evil regimes have sacrificed their absolute right to sovereignty, these arguments &quot;sound close to mainstream liberal internationalist thought.&quot; 
 The attack on the World Trade Center upended the doctrinal order yet again. In the era of weapons of mass destruction, monstrous dictators, especially monstrous dictators in the Middle East, had become a threat to the West as well as to their own beleaguered people, so that humanitarian crises now had a strong national security element. This was the case for regime change in Iraq advanced by figures like Paul Wolfowitz; and it is Shawcross's as well. Though he appears to believe that Saddam Hussein's barbarity alone would justify intervention on humanitarian grounds, he also argues that Hussein's fascist state posed the same order of threat that Hitler's once did. The failure of much of continental Europe to support the war in Iraq, he insists, &quot;showed that it was still capable of failing the test that it flunked&quot; in the 1930s. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, M. de Villepin!
 Many pro-war liberals (and many pro-war not-so-liberals) believe that the Bush administration frittered away any chance of persuading reluctant allies to join us in Iraq by behaving toward them in a consistently high-handed and contemptuous manner. They also blame the administration for doing nothing to reward Tony Blair's lonely choice to stand with America. 
 Shawcross only briefly touches on the administration's manifest mistreatment of Blair, and in any case blames Jacques Chirac, rather than George Bush, for endangering the international order. Indeed, Shawcross hates the French president the way many of his former comrades-in-arms hate the American one. He writes that Chirac donned the anti-American mantle in order to distract French voters from his budding reputation as the &quot;Super Menteur,&quot; or &quot;superliar&quot;; that he outdid even the Kremlin in his eagerness to do business with Saddam Hussein; and that since he &quot;must have known&quot; that his threat to veto a second United Nations resolution would make war inevitable, he has &quot;the blood of American and British soldiers on his hands.&quot; 
 Might a more dexterous leader than George W. Bush - his father, for example - have flattered or manipulated Chirac into signing that resolution, and maybe even have conducted the war in Iraq as an American-led NATO operation? Shawcross does not contemplate the possibility. But you have to wonder if it wouldn't have been far better for America, and perhaps even a bit better for Iraq, if it could have gotten old Europe as well as new to buy in. 
 
 <i>James Traub is a contributing writer for The Times Magazine. </i>

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy <i>
TEXT: Otospatsya: to catch up on one's sleep.
 One of the nice things about the holidays in Moscow is that after a few weeks of the worst traffic known to mankind, suddenly the roads free up as everyone either stays home to recover from hangovers or goes to the Alps or the Red Sea for a quick break.
 In either case, it may be handy to have a good supply of terms for sleeping and snoozing.
 <i>Spat</i> is just plain old sleep: <i>Ya ne mogu spat v samolyotye</i> (I can't sleep on planes). <i>Pospat</i> is &quot;to sleep a bit,&quot; in the phrase: <i>Ya poydu posplyu chasok</i> (I'm going to take a nap for an hour) .<i>Vyspatsya</i> &quot;to have a good sleep,&quot; &quot;get a good night's sleep&quot;: <i>Sevodnya ya lyagu spat poranshye, chtoby vyspatsya</i> (Tonight I'm going to go to bed early so I can get a good night's sleep). 
 <i>Otospatsya</i> can be used in similar situations, although it usually carries the connotation of sleeping for a really long time after a period of not enough sleep: <i>v prazdniki ya sobirayus otospatsya.</i> (I plan to catch up on my sleep over the holidays.) 
 <i>Prospatsya</i> is used when someone needs more sleep, usually when he is behaving oddly: <i>Navernoye ti vchera slishkom pozdno lyog spat. Poetomu i govorish gluposti. Poidi prospis.</i> (You probably went to bed late last night and that's why you're talking nonsense. Go and sleep it off).
 <i>Prospat</i> is what you do when you go to bed late and forget to turn on your alarm clock - it means &quot;to oversleep&quot; or &quot;to sleep through something.&quot; <i>Ya prospal i opozdal na vstrechu</i> (I overslept and was late for the meeting). <i>Ya prospal vazhnuyu vstrechu</i> (I slept right through an important meeting). If you do, don't worry too much - even presidents on planes have been known to do it.
 <i>Perespat</i> is a tricky word. It can be used in the sense of &quot;to sleep too much,&quot; but if there is a companion involved, it means &quot;to sleep with someone&quot; in the biblical sense: <i>Ya perespal, i u menya teper strashno bolit golova</i> (I slept too much and today I've got a wicked headache); but <i>Ya perespal s Mashkoy</i> (I slept with Masha). 
 There are nice ways to snooze and doze in Russian. <i>Dremat</i> means &quot;to take a nap,&quot; &quot;to doze.&quot; <i>Ya podremal dnyom i seychas khorosho sebya chustvuyu</i> (I took a nap during the day and now I feel fine). It can be used in the negative to mean &quot;stay on guard&quot; or &quot;stay on your toes.&quot; <i>Ne dremat! Situatsiya slozhnaya!</i> (Stay on your toes! The situation is very complicated!). 
 <i>Kemarit (kimarit, kimat)</i> and <i>drikhnut</i> also mean &quot;to take a nap,&quot;&quot;to snooze&quot; - although <i>drikhnut</i> has the sense of sleeping very soundly. <i>On nichevo ne delal sevodnya - lezhal na divanye i smotrel futbol, potom opyat smotrel futbol</i> (He didn't do anything today - he just laid on the couch watching soccer, then he took a snooze, then he watched soccer again). <i>Prikornut</i> means &quot;to take a catnap&quot;: <i>Ya khochu prikornut pered vecherinkoy</i> (I want to take a catnap before the party). 
 The need to catch 40 winks during the day can be the result of a bad night. <i>Mnye ne spitsya!</i> (I'm not sleeping well!) can be used whenever you have a night of tossing and turning <i>(Ya vertelsya vsyu noch)</i>. Worst of all is a sleepless night: <i>Ya povela bessonnuyu noch. Vsyo dumala o vstrechye i nikak ne smogla zasnut!</i> (I spent a sleepless night. I kept thinking about the meeting and just couldn't fall asleep). If that happens, you may be advised to take a <i>snotvornoye</i> (<i>sredstvo</i>) - a sleep-inducing substance ... such as a shot of vodka. 
 <i>Primi sto gramm - i v koyku!</i> (toss back 100 grams and hop into the sack!).
 
 <i>Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. </i>

TITLE: Spirit Begins Journey on Mars' Surface
AUTHOR: By Andrew Bridges
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PASADENA, California - The Spirit rover successfully rolled onto Mars early Thursday, placing its six wheels on solid martian ground for the first time since the robot bounced down on the Red Planet nearly two weeks ago.
 
Engineers and scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory cheered loudly after receiving confirmation that the maneuver was a success.
 &quot;Mars now is our sandbox, and we are ready to play and learn,&quot; said JPL director Charles Elachi.
 Black-and-white pictures beamed from Spirit showed its two rear wheels on the martian soil, with its lander behind it. Two parallel tracks led away from the lander.
 &quot;This is a big relief. We are on Mars. Spirit has landed,&quot; said Rob Manning, manager of the entry, descent and landing portion of the mission. &quot;Our wheels are finally dirty.&quot;
 Jennifer Trosper, mission manager for surface operations, opened a celebratory bottle of champagne at a news conference.
 &quot;Now we are the mission that we all envisioned 3 1/2 years ago,&quot; she said.
 Elachi noted President George W. Bush's call on Wednesday for moon missions and long-term robotic and human journeys to Mars.
 &quot;We at NASA, we move awfully fast,&quot; Elachi joked. &quot;In less than 15 hours, we are doing our first step.&quot;
 Spirit was to have taken less than two minutes to travel the 3 meters from the unfolded petals of its lander onto Mars. Engineers said the move likely would be the riskiest of Spirit's entire three-month mission.
 Engineers delayed the move for three days to give Spirit time to reposition itself atop its lander, where it had sat since arriving. Spirit had to turn in place 115 degrees to line up with one of the exit ramps that ring the lander.
 Originally, Spirit was to roll straight off the lander on its ninth day on Mars. But the now-deflated air bags that cushioned the rover's Jan. 3 landing blocked that way, forcing Spirit to perform a slow pirouette, turning clockwise in three separate moves.
 Mission plans called for Spirit to spend several days parked beside its lander after rolling off, giving it time to find its bearings and perform some preliminary analysis of the soil and rocks around it.
 NASA then planned for Spirit to begin a meandering trip in the direction of an impact crater about 250 meters away. Spirit was designed to travel dozens of meters a day.
 On its way, scientists said Spirit would prospect for geologic evidence that the now dry Red Planet was once wetter and hospitable to life. Spirit landed in the middle of Gusev Crater, a 150-kilometer-wide depression scientists believe contained a lake during the ancient past.
 Even while parked, Spirit remained busy. It used its nine cameras to take at least 3,900 pictures of its surroundings. Mission scientists used those images, including sweeping panoramas, to chart the rover's planned movements.
 The $820 million project also includes a second, identical rover named Opportunity. Spirit's twin should land on the opposite side of the Red Planet on Jan. 24.

TITLE: Braun Ends Her Bid To Run for President
AUTHOR: By Nedra Pickler
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARROLL, Iowa - Former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley Braun quit the Democratic presidential race Thursday and endorsed Howard Dean as the best choice to &quot;renew our country and restore our privacy, our liberty and our economic security.&quot;
 
&quot;Governor Dean has the energy to inspire the American people, to break the cocoon of fear that envelopes us and empowers President [George W.] Bush and his entourage from the extreme right-wing,&quot; she said at a joint appearance with the former Vermont governor.
 Braun's own campaign failed to generate significant campaign funds or support in national or state polls, and she conceded as much. &quot;The funding and organizational disadvantages of a non-traditional campaign could not be overcome,&quot; she said.
 Dean, thanking Braun for her endorsement, said he hoped it would hasten the day when a woman or minority candidate could win the White House. &quot;I'm going to miss you at those debates, stepping in and defending me from those outrageous things people say,&quot; he added. That was a reference to her remarks last Sunday night, after Al Sharpton had challenged Dean's gubernatorial record on hiring minorities.
 Whatever the long-term advantage to Dean, the immediate impact of Braun's endorsement was likely to be minor. She polled less than 1 percent support in one recent survey of likely Iowa caucus-goers, and blacks account for roughly 2 percent of the state's population.
 Braun, the only woman and one of two African-Americans in the race, left the field four days ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
 Her departure left eight men vying for the Democratic nomination to challenge Bush this fall. Another contender, Florida Senator. Bob Graham, folded his campaign last year.
 Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said before the announcement that Braun approached the former Vermont governor after a recent debate and told him she was considering leaving the race and backing him. Braun is giving Dean her endorsement even as he has faced questions about his record on race issues, including his lack of minority Cabinet members during his five terms as Vermont governor.
 Braun never broke out of single digits in national and state polls and failed to qualify for several state ballots.
 And though she had been endorsed by two influential women's groups - the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus - that support failed to translate into financial support. Braun struggled to raise money while running up thousands of dollars in debt. She also missed the deadline to file paperwork for the initial round of federal campaign money, delaying for several weeks the receipt of any federal matching funds, expected to amount to several hundred thousand dollars.
 Even her own campaign manager, Patricia Ireland, had said publicly that Braun couldn't win the nomination.
 She leaves the race after having little impact on it, except for some bright moments in debates. Braun often stressed during the campaign that she was running for president because it was time to &quot;take the 'Men Only' sign off the White House door.&quot;
 Rival Dennis Kucinich said, &quot;I'll miss her,&quot; and expressed the hope that she persuades Dean on a single-payer, universal health care policy.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Korean Minister Quits
 </b>

SEOUL (AP) - South Korea's foreign minister resigned Thursday, a day after President Roh Moo-hyun accused ministry officials of criticizing his foreign policy.
 Roh accepted Yoon Young-kwan's resignation, saying the Foreign Ministry was not fully backing his administration's policy of "independence" from Washington. Roh took office a year ago promising to stand up on equal footing with South Korea's top ally.
 The resignation comes at a critical juncture as South Korea and the United states wrangle with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programs and discuss sending South Korean troops to help the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. 
 
 
<b>Enron Pair Admit Guilt
 </b>

HOUSTON (AP) - Andrew Fastow, chief architect of the off-the-books deals that brought down Enron, pleaded guilty along with his wife Wednesday in a deal that could take prosecutors to the top of the corporate ladder at the scandal-ridden company.
 The former finance chief agreed to a 10-year prison sentence and will help prosecutors build a case against the executives who once occupied the most opulent offices on the company's top floor: former chairman Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
 Fastow's wife, Lea, pleaded guilty to filing false tax forms related to $141,000 in gains from 1997-2000 from a wind farm deal. She was Enron's assistant treasurer.
 
 
<b>Heathrow Arrest
 </b>

LONDON (Reuters) - A Sudanese man carrying suspected ammunition was arrested at London's Heathrow airport on Wednesday after flying in from Washington en route to Dubai, police said.
 The man was detained after passing through a security check in the latest alert at a major international airport.
 Police said the 45-year-old man was arrested after arriving on British airline Virgin Atlantic's VS022 flight.
 
 
<b>Peace Activist Dies
 </b>

LONDON (AFP) - A British peace activist, who had been in a coma and brain dead since being shot by an Israeli soldier at a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza strip in April last year, has died, his family said.
 "Tom died last night" [Tuesday] at the specialist Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, southwest London, after a bout of pneumonia, his mother, Jocelyn Hurndall, said.
 Tom Hurndall, 22, was hit in the head and critically wounded by sniper fire in the Rafah refugee camp on April 11. Palestinian medics and witnesses said he was trying to pull two Palestinian children out of danger when shots were deliberately fired from a nearby Israeli army watchtower.
 The Israeli military has arrested a soldier in connection with the shooting.
 
 
<b>Plan for Elgin Marbles 
 </b>

LONDON (AP) - Activists launched a fresh bid Wednesday to persuade the British Museum to return ancient sculptures from the Parthenon to Greece, saying even a loan would be a huge step forward.
 The activists, whose group is called Marbles Reunited, said Greece had suggested the British Museum retain ownership and control over the so-called Elgin Marbles but display them on long-term loan at a museum being built at the Acropolis in Athens.
 In return, they said, Greece would agree to lend other valuable antiquities to museums around Britain, including the British Museum in London. 



TITLE: Montreal's Fluke Goal Foils Atlanta
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATLANTA - Mike Ribeiro was simply trying to challenge the defense. He wound up with the winning goal. 
 
Ribeiro scored for Montreal with 10 1/2 minutes remaining when an Atlanta player inadvertently knocked the puck in his own net Wednesday, giving the Canadiens a 2-1 victory over the slumping Thrashers. 
 Montreal won for the sixth time in seven games, getting 36 saves from Jose Theodore. The Canadiens have been winning with defense, allowing two goals or less in nine of 10 contests. 
 The team earned these two points with a fluke goal - just 58 seconds after the Thrashers tied it 1-1. 
 Ribeiro was hounded by two Atlanta players as he crashed the net, actually getting tripped by Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre but managing to get off a semblance of a shot. 
 Byron Dafoe made the save, but defenseman Ivan Majesky appeared to knock the puck in with his right glove after running into the goalie. 
 &quot;All I was trying to do was challenge the defense,&quot; Ribeiro said. &quot;It was a lucky goal, but I'll take it.&quot; 
 The Thrashers aren't having any luck. Their winless streak is now at eight, a slump that already cost them first place in the Southeast Division. 
 &quot;We're unfortunately finding some ways to lose,'' Dafoe said. &quot;As a team, we have to dig deep and play even better.&quot;
 Atlanta has managed only six goals in five games. An injury to second-leading scorer Marc Savard doesn't help matters. 
 Savard sprained the medial collateral ligament in his right knee during the second period. He will be re-examined Thursday to determine how many games he might miss. 
 &quot;Sure, we've got some key guys out,&quot; Dafoe said. &quot;But it's an opportunity for other guys to step up.&quot; 
 Savard was returning to the lineup after missing three games with a concussion. He also sat out nine in November because of an ankle injury, but has managed 15 goals and 41 points in only 32 games. 
 Theodore came up big in the first period, stopping several good Atlanta chances, then turned away 18 of 19 shots in the third. 
 &quot;We didn't play our best game, but we came out with the win,&quot; he said. &quot;We have to keep getting points.&quot; 
 They will if Theodore keeps playing like this. He has clearly regained the form that made him an MVP two years ago, bouncing back from a disappointing 2002-03 season. 
 &quot;I'm more experienced. I have better communication with my defense,&quot; Theodore said. &quot;I'm better than I was two years ago.&quot;
 He was helpless on the lone Atlanta goal. Randy Robitaille deflected in a shot from the blue line by Garnet Exelby with 11:30 left. 
 Dafoe, making his second straight start, turned away 29 shots in another strong performance. He stopped two breakaways in the third period but it wasn't enough to snap the Thrashers out of their doldrums. 
 Ribeiro assisted on Montreal's first goal, which came at 4:49 of the second period. After the Thrashers lost the puck along the boards, Richard Zednik passed behind the net to Ribeiro, who fed Pierre Dagenais camped all alone in front of the net. Dagenais beat Dafoe through the legs.

TITLE: Henin-Hardenne into Semis At Adidas Contest in Sydney
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SYDNEY, Australia - Top-ranked Justine Henin-Hardenne beat seventh-seeded Chanda Rubin 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 Thursday and advanced to the semifinals at the Adidas International. 
 
Henin-Hardenne needed a medical timeout after losing the second set to treat a minor sprain of her left ankle and a blister on her right big toe. 
 &quot;It's great to have a match like this the week before a Grand Slam - it was a high level of tennis and had a lot of tension,&quot; she said. &quot;I had a few nerves but it's natural in the second match of the year and very good to be like that before a Grand Slam.&quot; 
 After she rallied from 0-40 in the fifth game to take a 4-2 lead in the third set, the 21-year-old Belgian had a match point on Rubin's serve in the ninth game but had to serve it out, winning with a forehand down the line. 
 She is set to meet Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals after the American, seeded fourth, closed with an ace to clinch a 6-3, 6-4 win over Russian Elena Dementieva. 
 Davenport, on the comeback from foot surgery last October, said she'd strained a chest muscle while serving. She later withdrew from a doubles semifinal after she and Corina Morariu won the first set and were trailing 0-3 in the second against Rennae Stubbs and Cara Black, casting doubt over Davenport's fitness for the singles semifinal. 
 Earlier, Davenport said she wouldn't risk aggravating the problem with the Australian Open starting Monday. Four former women's champions (Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati, Mary Pierce and Monica Seles) have already withdrawn from the Australian Open with injuries, while second-ranked Kim Clijsters is in doubt with an ankle problem. 
 Third-seeded Amelie Mauresmo of France had a 6-4, 7-6 (4) win over Russian Anastasia Myskina to set up a semifinal against unseeded Italian Francesca Schiavone, a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi. 
 Henin-Hardenne said the backhand that she'd relied on as she rose up the rankings had started to fail a little, but she'd improved her serve and forehand to compensate. 
 &quot;My forehand now is my best shot and I have to use it,&quot; she said. 
 Two-time Adidas champion Lleyton Hewitt reached the semifinals with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Arnaud Clement. 
 The former No. 1 player earned the decisive break in the sixth game of the third set to advance. He'll next face eight-seeded Dutchman Martin Verkerk, who beat Wimbledon champion Mark Philippoussis 6-4, 7-6 (4). 
 Carlos Moya continued his unbeaten start to 2004 with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo. A winner of the Tata Open in Madras last week, the third-seeded Moya said getting on a winning streak was good for his confidence ahead of the Australian Open.