SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #979 (47), Tuesday, June 22, 2004
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TITLE: City Race Expert Murdered
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova and Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A prominent expert on ethnic and racial issues was shot dead in his St. Petersburg apartment over the weekend in an attack that his colleagues and human rights advocates believe was carried out by extremists.
Nikolai Girenko, 64, was killed when he went to answer the doorbell in his apartment at about 9 a.m. Saturday, investigators said Monday. The killer fired a rifle at him through the closed door.
Minutes before the attack, neighbors saw two suspicious-looking men on the staircase of Girenko's apartment building, investigators said.
No suspects had been detained as of Monday.
Deputy St. Petersburg Prosecutor Andrei Zhukov said investigators believe Girenko was killed because of his work as a researcher and expert witness in a number of trials involving extremism.
Girenko assisted the city prosecutor's office in several high-profile court cases, including the 2002 murder of Azeri watermelon vendor Mamed Mamedov and an ongoing investigation of a local skinhead group known as Schultz-88.
Over the past two years he carried out about two dozen studies of neo-Nazi and skinhead groups for Moscow and St. Petersburg authorities. The work has helped lead to several convictions.
But Zhukov said Girenko's killing might have been an act of hooliganism - the charge that prosecutors tend to file against suspects in extremist attacks.
Girenko's colleagues and human rights advocates said they have no doubts that extremists were behind the attack.
"I simply do no see any other possible reason," said Girenko's boss, Yury Chistov, director of the St. Petersburg Museum of Ethnography and Anthropology. Girenko had worked at the center since 1970.
"Nikolai Mikhailovich was a scientist who combined his academic career with intensive public activities and dedicated considerable time to ethnic expertise, sometimes putting his own academic career on the back burner," Chistov said.
Chistov said that even though Girenko was an outspoken critic of neo-Nazi groups and had repeatedly warned that extremist attacks were on the rise, he did not usually get involved in criminal investigations and trials at his own initiative.
Often he participated only after receiving formal requests for assistance from prosecutors, he said.
Chistov, who knew Girenko for 30 years, said Girenko never mentioned receiving any threats. "He was a very quiet and modest person," he said.
Yury Vdovin, representative of the St. Petersburg office of the Citizens Watch human rights group and a friend of Girenko's, said the only enemies Girenko might have had were nationalistic-minded extremists.
"I have known the man for 15 years and, considering his professional interests, I can't help but blame nationalists for his murder," Vdovin said.
He said St. Petersburg authorities should also shoulder some of the blame. "They were able to carry out this vendetta largely because city authorities have long ignored the existence of skinheads and extremists in the city by portraying their activities as hooliganism," he said.
A group of Moscow-based human rights activists appealed Monday to the Prosecutor General's Office to take over the investigation of Girenko's murder from city prosecutors.
"We insist that the Russian authorities finally acknowledge the danger of the growth of neo-Nazism and xenophobia" and boost efforts to combat it, the group said in a statement.
But Prosecutor General's Office spokeswoman Yelena Antonova said her office had no plans to take over the case yet.
Alexander Vinnikov, a senior official at the St. Petersburg Union of Scientists, of which Girenko was a member, said Girenko was the country's leading expert on extremism in Russia.
Girenko is perhaps best known for developing a method of classifying ethnically motivated crimes, which he published in a book. "He began studying the issue back in 1986, when Nazi groups started to openly emerge," Vinnikov was quoted by Izvestia as saying. "Our police often tried to present Nazi crimes as hooliganism or regular crimes, and absence of a method of classification was their popular excuse for doing do. But Girenko co-authored a book that provided an important instrument for investigating such cases."
Olga Korshunova, Girenko's co-author on the book, said the book is now used by prosecutors and investigators alike.
"Given the peculiarities of our criminal legislation, which makes it extremely hard to investigate and explain the motive for a crime that is probably racially motivated, Girenko's contribution to such cases and their results were enormous," said Korshunova, who oversees the department specializing in prosecutor investigations at St. Petersburg Legal Institute.
Vyacheslav Sukhachev, a sociologist at St. Petersburg State University and a friend of Girenko's, told Izvestia that Girenko was deft at using logic to made convincing arguments in the courtroom. "I remember Nikolai Mikhailovich during trials. On the one side, aggressive, mad thugs. On the other side, a very calm and objective person who mockingly ignored frank boorishness and was always able to shut down a hysterical scandalmonger," he said.
In addition to worries about extremism, Girenko's murder raises another issue: the safety of witnesses and other participants in criminal investigations and trials. The State Duma has repeatedly rejected legislation providing safety to witnesses over the past decade.
There are about 50,000 skinheads in Russia, with about 1,500 living in each Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights. It said 20 to 30 people have died in extremist attacks per year in recent years, and the number of attacks is growing by 30 percent per year.
TITLE: Gref Wants To Fire Blunderers
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Incompetent public servants must be sacked in the name of increasing investor confidence, the nation's top economics official said Monday.
Speaking to a conference of foreign investors, the government's leading policymakers made a concerted effort to soothe irritations over the Yukos affair with a balsam of positive macroeconomic projections and good intentions.
"There is just one way to stimulate [the state's] effectiveness - transparency," Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told the annual investor conference organized by Renaissance Capital.
"Only after we see a few loud public resignations stemming from ineptitude will we [be on path of] such effectiveness."
Gref called the state the "weakest link" in the economy and urged it to invest only in infrastructure that stimulates business.
Other officials promised fiscal responsibility, tax reduction and further liberalization of the economy.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the government's stabilization fund, designed to cushion Russia from a future decline in oil prices, is growing faster than expected. The fund will reach 417 billion rubles ($14.4 billion) by year's end, he said, and gain an additional 267 billion rubles in 2005.
Kudrin said consolidated budget spending - including expenditures by regional governments - would fall by 1.5 percent next year, signaling lower government participation in the economy.
"We must strictly control our spending," he said.
At the same time, Central Bank Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev insisted the Central Bank would meet its dual goals of limiting inflation to 10 percent and keeping a cap on ruble appreciation against the dollar. He predicted the greenback would buy 29.50 to 30 rubles by the year's end.
The authorities are also committed to reducing the value-added tax to 16 percent in 2006, said Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov, Interfax reported.
Furthermore, he said, controversial VAT accounts will not
freeze up companies' cash flow and will be implemented in 2006 "at the earliest."
Oleg Vyugin, head of the financial market regulator, was the only government speaker to strike a sour note.
Although he hinted to reporters that Gazprom's "ring fence" limiting foreign investment may be removed by the end of the year, Vyugin lamented the underdevelopment of Russian capital markets.
"Barring new IPOs, the golden age of the Russian stock market is at an end," he said, noting that 75 percent to 80 percent of Russian shares are now traded abroad, more than last year.
Despite economic growth, the markets raised "great expectations that Russia [has not been] able to fulfill," Stephen Jennings, CEO of Renaissance, told the conference.
While stability under President Vladimir Putin has increased, Jennings said, "trust and respect for property rights have obviously taken a step back under his term."
Paradoxically "the concentration of absolute power in the hands of Putin and his advisors is likely to slow down the decision-making process," Jennings said.
Investor Ian Hague said he remained on his guard after hearing the officials speak.
"We've been investors in Russia long enough not to rely just on what people say," said Hague, whose Firebird Management handles $600 million of investments in the former Soviet Union.
"The increased uncertainty about the rule of law and property right issues have undermined the favorable impression created by the solid macroeconomic performance."
Other investors were more forgiving. "If property rights were not respected, we would not invest here," said Stanislav Fetolov, external relations director at Baring Vostok Capital Partners, which manages $410 million of Russian assets.
"Yukos has frightened everyone, but I think in the short term, this affair will come to an end, and half a year from now no one will remember it anymore."
TITLE: Warm Reception for Sir Paul McCartney
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg audience of Paul McCartney's first and only concert in the city of White Nights went wild as their idol appeared on stage on Sunday night.
"Paul! We love you!" chanted the crowd when greeting McCartney.
"Privet, Piter! Privet, rebyata!" Sir Paul answered in Russian, which meant "Hi, St. Petersburg! Hi, guys!"
"St. Petersburg is so beautiful. And we will rock it tonight!", McCartney said.
The audience obviously loved Sir Paul so much that nobody even dared to grumble that the concert started almost 1 1/2 hours later than planned.
Admirers of The Beatles, many aged in their 50s, patiently waited for their turn to pass through metal detectors to enter Palace Square, where the concert was held.
It apparently took much more time than initially planned two hours for more than 50,000 people to pass through the detector, and Sir Paul waited until everyone got to the square. Nobody's spirits were dampened when heavy rain drenched the square. United by the common desire of seeing the living rock legend, people protected one another under their umbrellas, creating a sea of many colors under which the crowd huddled.
The first Beatles hit McCartney, who appeared in a lilac jacket and a red shirt, performed was "All My Loving."
The crowd went wild. Video screens projected images of The Beatles in the 1960s, eliciting nostalgia among the estimated 70,000 Beatles admirers at the concert.
Sir Paul could not escape nostalgia himself.
"Sometimes we don't say what we want to, to people when they are with us," he said of fellow Beatle John Lennon who was assassinated in 1980. "And then it gets too late when they pass away. That's why I wrote this song for my friend John Lennon."
His next song was dedicated to another Beatle George Harrison, who died in 2001.
TV screens provided Russian translations of McCartney's comments to the crowd, and he also tried to speak quite a lot of Russian.
"Eta pesnya ispolyayetsya vpervye v Rossii (I am performing this song in Russia for the first time)," McCartney said in Russian about a couple of songs from 1960s.
McCartney performed works from the Beatle oeuvre and also from his post-Beatle period. But it was the Beatle songs that drew the biggest and loudest response from the audience.
"Yesterday," "Let It Be,"and "Hey Jude" brought the Beatles most devoted admirers to the height of excitement.
"It was something fantastic!" said Russia's "No. 1 Beatle fan" Kolya Vasin, 59, of St. Petersburg. "It was a show of the century. And it was such wonderful music," he said.
Vasin, who also attended McCartney's concert in Red Square in Moscow last year, said the concert in St. Petersburg was better than the Moscow one.
"There was more soul in this concert," Vasin said.
He said he was also deeply impressed that McCartney had written a new song dedicated to St. Petersburg, which he sang at the concert.
"That song sounded like a prayer. It means McCartney was really moved by our city when he visited it last year," he said. Igor Malsky, 47, journalist and translator, who came to the concert, said he was very excited about it.
"I grew up on the music of the Beatles," he said. "When I first heard it I realized at once that it was my music, the music exactly for my soul."
Malsky remembered how one of his classmates was thrown out of the Pioneers Communist youth organization for listening to The Beatles.
Malsky said he came to McCartney's concert not only to pay his respects to The Beatles but also to the great music and talent of McCartney himself.
Sergei, 33, a manager, said he came to the concert "to hear the legend live."
However, McCartney's missing out two Beatles hits "Michelle" and "When I'm 64," disappointed fans. Yet again, people did not grumble.
At the end of the concert, people again chanted, "We love you, Paul!"
Most of McCartney's stay in St. Petersburg was out of the public eye. He spent most of his time at the Konstantin Palace in Strelna, where he stayed in an elite cottage with his family.
However, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on Friday, McCartney's 62nd birthday, when he arrived in St. Petersburg, that Sir Paul had a short conversation with his fans at the airport.
One young man managed to pass McCartney an old so-called "bones" record, which Soviet fans used to make from X-ray film to record banned music. The Beatles' records were not sold anywhere in Russia at that time.
McCartney visited three restaurants where he had exclusively vegetarian food. However, despite rumors that no one traveling with McCartney is allowed to eat meat, Sir Paul's team ordered fish and meat, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
On Saturday, McCartney went to see the famed fountains of Peterhof and also met with St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, the report said.
On Monday afternoon, dozens of McCartney's fans gathered at Pulkovo airport to say goodbye to the singer. "Malo! Malo! (It's not enough!)" they chanted.
But McCartney simply waved.
TITLE: Putin Signs Law on Rallies
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW -President Vladimir Putin signed a new law on demonstrations on Monday that the government had softened to counter allegations that it was encroaching on freedom of assembly.
The original government-proposed bill, tentatively approved by the State Duma, in April, would have banned rallies outside all government buildings. That provision triggered vocal criticism, and Putin then told the Kremlin-controlled chamber that it should be rewritten to avoid denting democratic freedoms.
The revised law, which was approved earlier this month by both chambers of parliament, allows demonstrations outside government buildings with the exception of presidential residences, but bans rallies outside prisons, courts, border zones and facilities that are "dangerous and harmful to health," such as railways and power lines.
It also eases the procedure of procuring permission.
TITLE: Sophia Kovalevskaya: an Inspiration to Generations
AUTHOR: By Anna Konstantinova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The short and brilliant life of mathematician Sophia Kovalevskaya served as an inspiration to the women of her day but still inspires scientists of today.
She was not only one of the most outstanding mathematicians of the 19th century, but also a leading advocate of women rights.
Kovalevskaya's life was full of ups and downs. Her bouts of depressions were frequent, but they ended with each of her scientific triumphs.
Her life could bear the same name as the play, "The Struggle for Happiness," which she wrote together with her friend Anna Leffler.
She had to constantly struggle to receive the right to do what she wanted and the only thing she wanted to do was to study mathematics.
Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, Sophia tried to find the way into Wonderland, only in her case it was the world of abstractions, mathematical symbols and equations, a world to which women had rarely been admitted before.
What lay behind her aptitude for mathematics? Does it have something to do with her family background?
In Kovalevskaya's case, the talent could have been genetically inherited because her family had been scholars for several generations: her maternal grandfather and her great grandfather were both mathematicians.
But she might also have gained it from her environment; she was encouraged in her curiosity in mathematics at a very young age.
Strange as it may seem, lecture notes on differential and integral calculus were used as wallpaper in her nursery. She was so impressed by the unusual wallpaper and so fascinated with the figures that she started to take great interest in mathematics.
Born in Moscow in 1850 Sophia was the middle child of Vasily Krukovsky and Yelizaveta Schubert. Her father was an artillery general from the nobility and her mother was from a family of German scholars who had settled in Russia in the 18th century.
Sophia was greatly influenced by her uncle, Pyotr Krukovsky, who was enthusiastic about mathematics and stimulated Sophia's interest in it.
She wrote in her autobiography: "Although he had never studied mathematics, he cherished the most profound respect for that science.
"He had gathered a certain amount of mathematical knowledge from various books, and loved to philosophize about them, on which occasions he often thought aloud in my presence ... The meaning of these concepts I naturally could not yet grasp, but they acted on my imagination ..."
At the age of 11, Sophia studied differential and integral analysis. When she was 14 she studied trigonometry on her own and was given a special tutor to teach her higher mathematics.
Sophia was considered to be very capable and was determined to continue her education at university level.
Probably, mathematics was at first an island of safety for a nervous child who was not happy at home and felt neglected beside her elder sister, who was admired by everybody. It was likely a chance to escape from reality and from a strict governess who tried to turn Sophia into a well-bred young lady with perfect manners.
Later, Sophia's great achievements in mathematics enabled her to reveal her personality, to realize her high intellectual potential and to prove that women should have equal rights to men in receiving good education; that women were equal to men in general and in particular, intellectual equals.
"I would like to be able to use my knowledge of teaching at university for one reason only: to allow women to be admitted to universities," she once said
Every time Kovalevskaya faced an obstacle, she did her best to deal with it as easily as she solved mathematical problems.
Since Russian universities didn't admit women, Kovalevskaya made up her mind to go abroad to continue her education.
Because young unmarried women were not permitted to travel alone, she entered into a marriage of convenience to Vladimir Kovalevsky, a paleontologist.
That "false" marriage, which later on turned into a genuine one, allowed Kovalevskaya to go to Heidelberg University in Germany in 1869. She struggled to persuade the university authorities to let her attend lectures and seminars in physics and mathematics, as women were discriminated against not only in Russia, but also in much more progressive European countries.
In 1870, Kovalevskaya moved to Berlin to discover that Berlin University wouldn't let women attend classes. So she took private lessons.
She pursued her studies under Karl Weierstrass, a great German mathematician, who at first did not take her seriously but soon realized that she grasped complicated mathematical concepts with ease.
Kovalevskaya was also greatly impressed by his personality and profound knowledge. In her memoirs she wrote: "These studies had the deepest possible influence on my entire career in mathematics. They determined finally and irrevocably the direction I was to follow in my later scientific work: all my work has been done precisely in the spirit of Weierstrass."
After four years of studies under Weierstrass, Kovalevskaya wrote three research papers, instead of the usual requirement of only one. Goettingen University granted her a PhD for her paper "On the Theory of Partial Differential Equations," which was later published in the prestigious Crelle's Journal. Her doctoral dissertation was so extraordinary that she was awarded her doctorate without having to take an exam. In spite of her great personal triumph and Weierstrass's support, she couldn't get a job teaching mathematics in Germany.
Sophia and her husband had to return to Russia to search for academic posts. Despite their excellent degrees, neither was successful.
Discouraged by his rejection from the academic world, Kovalevskaya's husband decided to follow quite a different path and accepted a position with a petroleum firm. Kovalevskaya started to work for a newspaper, writing articles on different subjects including theater reviews. She also helped to organize higher education courses for women as the basis for a women's university, but her offer to teach the courses without a salary was rejected.
In October 1878, Kovalevskaya gave birth to a daughter, who was also named Sophia. For two years she gave all her time and effort to raising the child without any opportunity to continue her research.
In 1880, she returned to her study of mathematics and took part in the Sixth Congress of Natural Scientists in St. Petersburg, presenting a paper on Abelian integrals that was one of the three Kovalevskaya had presented for her doctorate in 1874. Her presentation was a great success and Kovalevskaya suddenly felt reinstated as a serious figure in the academic world. In 1882 she began studying the refraction of light in crystals and wrote three scientific papers on the subject.
In the spring of 1883 she received devastating news: her husband had committed suicide after his business venture collapsed.
After the initial shock, she absorbed herself in mathematics with renewed fervor.
In 1883, Kovalevskaya received an invitation to lecture at Stockholm University.
Two years later she was appointed to the chair of mechanics at the university, becoming the first woman to hold such a position at a European university. At the same time she worked as editor of a mathematical journal and published her scientific papers there. Kovalevskaya's years in Stockholm were the most fruitful of her scientific career.
She took an active part in organizing international conferences on mathematics, taught courses on mathematical analysis and continued her research.
In 1888, Kovalevskaya won a prize from the French Academy of Sciences for her paper "On the Rotation of a Solid Body About a Fixed Point".
Her personal motto was contained within that paper: "Say what you know, do what you must, come what may."
In the paper, Kovalevskaya developed a theory for an unsymmetrical body where the center of gravity is not on any axis of the body. The work was so brilliant that the prize money was raised from 3,000 to 5,000 francs.
Kovalevskaya won a prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1889 for further research on this subject.
That year Kovalevskaya was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
She died of pneumonia in Sweden in 1891.
Kovalevskaya's greatness lies not only for her achievements in mathematics, but also in her contribution to women's struggle for equal rights with men to receive higher education in the best European universities.
She changed public attitudes, proving that women were capable of excellence in complicated subjects, including mathematics.
She published 10 papers on mathematics and mathematical physics that presented a new approach to generally accepted theories and gave the impetus for future discoveries. One of her papers became an important part of the theory of differential equations.
Kovalevskaya also wrote several literary works, including recollections of her childhood, the play "The Struggle for Happiness," a short novel "Vera Barantzova," and a radical political work "A Nihilist Girl."
When times were hard, she turned to writing. "It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in the soul," she said.
Contemporary scientists have a very high regard for Kovalevskaya and have paid tribute to the great mathematician by naming a crater on the Moon after her.
An extremely hard working person, she used to say: "I wish only one thing: to be devoted to my favorite occupation - mathematics."
TITLE: Sophia's Happy Childhood Home
TEXT: The only museum devoted to the memory of Sophia Kovalevskaya is located in the south of the Pskov region. The building was the former estate of Kovalevskaya's parents' family, the Korvin-Krukovskys.
The main building stands in a memorial park with a small lake and trees on the 1 hectare site that remains from the family estate.
Kovalevskaya lived in the building between the ages of 8 and 18 and this period of her life is described in her book "Childhood Impressions." Later, she would regret that she had not had more pleasure in her youth.
Her wedding to a man whom she did not at first love was held in the village on Oct. 1 1868 and after that she went to St. Petersburg to seek the adventures of scientific life.
A monument of mid-19th century architecture, the building resembles a castle and is atypical for the Pskov region. It is believed that the architect Alexander Bryullov designed the building. He is well known for his architectural ensembles in St. Petersburg.
The museum is the only one in the world devoted to Kovalevskaya. Her archives are kept here, including her private correspondence, photographs of her and her close contemporaries.
In August 2003, a special exhibition was opened at the memorial estate of devoted to Kovalevskaya, Yulia Lermontova and other women scientists who were the first to receive a degree in Russia.
TITLE: Lermontova Was Renaissance Woman
AUTHOR: By Varvara Skachkova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Yulia Lermontova was one of the brightest talents of 19th century Russia. The first Russian woman to receive a doctorate in chemistry, she was also an agronomist, a cheesemaker and a writer and her work was hailed by the greatest scientists of her day. Some of her discoveries are important even today.
Lermontova rubbed shoulders with the elite of Russian and foreign science, among them Dmitry Mendeleyev who developed the periodic table of elements, Ilya Mechnikov, the microbiologist and Nobel Prize winner, Alexander Butlerov and Vladimir Markovnikov who contributed much to structural theory in chemistry, and August Hofmann, president of the German Chemistry Society.
Many of them advocated women's rights to receive higher education and therefore did their level best to help Lermontova, whose talent they appreciated greatly.
Lermontova had to fight every step of the way to achieve what she did, because the doors of higher educational institutions were closed to the women of her generation.
The granddaughter of a cousin of the famous novelist Mikhail Lermontov, she was born in St. Petersburg on Jan. 2, 1847. Her father was a general and the director of a Moscow military school.
Lermontova received her primary education at home where she made great use of the large library of her parents. She quickly learned about history and was speaking several European languages fluently at an early age. However, the humanities didn't interest her much: from an early age she went in for natural sciences, especially chemistry.
Lermontova's parents were surprised that her thirst for knowledge soon outpaced all they knew. She read their chemistry books from cover to cover.
Valuing education, they invited the best teachers from the military school to give her private lessons. Lermontova's interest in chemistry grew and grew and in 1869 she filed an enrollment application with the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy. But, the administration couldn't even imagine an academician wearing a skirt and a shawl, so Lermontova's request, like that of all other women, was declined.
Lermontova was not a feminist. She never enlisted in any feminist movement because she was above all a scientist, seeking only to be given the right to get enough information and to carry out chemical research.
However, in striving for this right Lermontova came across the first women scientists in Russia: Anna Volkova the first woman in the world to publish research on chemistry; Sophia Kovalevskaya, the first female mathematician in Russia and Europe - she was not only was she Lermontova's best friend, but also her only family after Lermontova's parents died - and Nadezhda Suslova, the first Russian woman to be awarded a degree in medicine.
If Kovalevskaya, who was already an active women rights advocate, had not heard the story of the director's daughter who was not allowed to enroll in the Academy because of her gender, Lermontova's career could have ended before it started.
But Kovalevskaya started corresponding with Lermontova, and then came to Moscow where they soon made friends. She finally convinced Lermontova that the only way for her to continue her studies at a high level was to go abroad with her.
Lermontova remembered later in her memoirs the reasons that Kovalevskaya gave for the trip: "However hard it is for you to cause so much pain to your parents, especially when they are so kind to you, you should understand that it is time to show them how unbearable it is for you to live here and how important it is for you to catch a breath of fresh air and become independent".
Eventually, Kovalevskaya managed to persuade Lermontova and even her father, who at first was dead against the idea. The two friends arranged for Kovalevskaya to go first in 1869 to Heidelberg in Germany, where the university was one of the main centers of the study of natural sciences. Lermontova was to join her later.
Kovalevskaya and Lermontova chose Germany not only because there women had more opportunities than in Russia.
The feminist movement started in 18th century in the United States and had reached Europe by the time they arrived in Germany.
However, Germany was the main educational center of the time; the universities of Heidelberg and Goettingen were famous the world over.
Before Lermontova and Kovalevskaya decided to go to Germany, many Russian scientists had already studied there.
Right away Kovalevskaya started applying pressure to have her young friend, Lermontova, and herself allowed to university courses and laboratories. They began attending lectures and were soon held in high respect by the professors who were much surprised to find Russian women with such knowledge, talent and diligence. Eventually they were allowed to attend whichever lectures they wanted. At the same time, Lermontova worked in the laboratory of leading chemist Robert Bunsen of Bunsen burner fame.
Lermontova almost always played second fiddle to Kovalevskaya, and was strongly influenced by her friend. But this was not the case when it came to chemistry. Acting on the advice of Mendeleyev, she started her first scientific investigation that involved the complicated splitting of rare platinum metals. Although her research was partly successful, Lermontova would later make organic chemistry her main field of interest.
She began organic chemistry in 1871 when the two scientists moved to Berlin. Despite glowing references from Heidelberg scientists, they were neither allowed to attend lectures nor to work in laboratories in the capital. While holding on to hope that they might still be able to proceed with their studies they took private lessons.
Kovalevskaya attended Karl Weierstrass' mathematics classes while Lermontova worked in Hofmann's laboratory. The research Lermontova carried out in this laboratory is reflected in the most important work of her Berlin period about diphenyl, which ascertained the exact formula of the substance. In 1872, her achievement was reported at a German Chemistry Society meeting and later published. Lermontova sent a reprint of the work as a present to Mendeleyev.
Partly under Kovalevskaya's influence, Lermontova decided to write a doctoral thesis and chose to write it in Goettingen, "where all the life is concentrated around the university."
In the summer of 1874, having finished her thesis on methylene compounds, Lermontova studied for examinations on four subjects at a time. The exams were a difficult ordeal for the young scientist. "At last, the day of doom arrived," she wrote in her memoirs. "All the professors were completely unfamiliar to me. I was the only one to be examined at that time and the examination lasted two hours ... even don't know how I managed to stay alive thereafter. More than two weeks passed before I started breathing again, at first I couldn't eat and sleep."
She need not have feared anything: the university awarded her the doctorate "magna cum laude" (with high praise).
Now aged 28, Lermontova came back to Moscow and Mendeleyev organized a welcome-home dinner. At the dinner, Lermontova met Butlerov, who invited her to work at his laboratory in St. Petersburg. She would later accept the invitation but first she decided to stay in Moscow and start analyzing the synthesis of propylene and in Markovnikov's laboratory.
In 1875, Lermontova was entered in the list of members of the Russian Chemistry Society. Her time in Markovnikov's laboratory turned out to be very fruitful. Her name was widely acknowledged among the chemists of Moscow.
But then fate struck an unexpected blow that took her away from chemistry for almost half a year; she became ill with typhus. Kovalevskaya, her best friend, came to Moscow to take care of her. The disease brought the two friends even closer together: having recovered from typhus in the beginning of 1877, Lermontova moved to St. Petersburg to live with her best friend and work in Butlerov's laboratory at St. Petersburg University. There she enjoyed some of the best times of her life.
However, another misfortune was soon to befall her. In 1877, her father died and Lermontova returned to Moscow for the funeral and stayed.
Butlerov invited her gifted to teach at the Higher Courses for Women - a kind of university-level education institution especially created for women, but Lermontova declined.
"Sofochka Kovalevskaya is at the bottom of all this," Markovnikov wrote to Butlerov.
And he was right. Lermontova's life had by then become entirely fitted around that of her best friend, especially after Kovalevskaya's daughter Sophia was born. As the girl's godmother, Lermontova, took an active part in bringing up Fufa, as the girl was called at home. After Kovalevskaya died in 1891, Lermontova became the child's second mother (the father had died in 1883). The little girl became eventually the only heiress of Lermontova, whose estate and all her property was bequeathed to Kovalevskaya's daughter.
By 1880, Markovnikov had managed to separate Lermontova from the two Sophias and get her to join his research on Caucasian oil. With her work in this field Lermontova came to the height of her fame. She settled in Moscow, was enlisted in the Russian Technical Society and her name ranked alongside those of the most renowned chemists and oil-industry pioneers.
While researching on separating out the components of crude oil with chemist and production engineer Alexander Letny, Lermontova was the first to prove that oil was to be preferred to bitumous coal for industry because it produces lighting gas of a much higher quality. She also devised one of the best oil-distilling machines of that time. Lermontova's oil researches contributed significantly to the development of oil and gas plants in Russia.
Lermontova's fame didn't last long, however, since she suddenly quit chemistry in 1886 for the reasons best known to herself and never took it up again.
She lived at her Semenkovo estate in Pskov province and devoted herself to agriculture. Here too, just like in chemistry, Lermontova showed amazing results. She raised production without exhausting the soil, bred cattle and fish (the pools of Lermontova are still well known in the province), made cheese and brought up Fufa Kovalevskaya.
She kept living the quiet life until 1917, but then, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the new government created a lot of trouble for the now elderly Lermontova. The local authorities tried evicting her from her house and would have if Anatoly Lunacharsky, the commissar of education, had not intervened. One will never know what other hardships Lermontova would have had go through if she had not died of a brain hemorrhage at the end of 1919, only a few days short of her 73th birthday.
Quite well known when she was a chemist, Lermontova would later be consigned to oblivion. For more than 50 years after her death no one seemed interested in her life and achievements although some of them (the Butlerov-Lermontova reaction, the oil research, etc.) are still being used today. It was not until the 1970s that books appeared about one of the most outstanding women chemists in Russia.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Sports Complex Collapse
MOSCOW (AP) - The roof over a derelict sports complex in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk collapsed early Monday but no one was hurt.
The collapse happened after a brick wall fell at the Spartak sports complex, which was closed this past spring for repairs.
State television reported that investigators were considering two possible causes: the violation of safety norms or heavy rains, which resulted in the build-up of water in the structure.
Journalist Deported
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Belarussian security forces arrested a Ukrainian journalist early Monday and deported him to his homeland as punishment for allegedly slandering and destabilizing the country.
"We weren't even given a chance to say goodbye. It was just like in Stalin's time," journalist Mikhail Podolyak's wife, Irina, said. Podolyak, 32, arrived in Belarus in 1989 to study at a medical institute.
After graduating, he stayed on in the country and took up journalism, working for a decade in the country's biggest independent publications and writing critically about Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Putin Sees U.S. Friend
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - President Vladimir Putin said Monday that he will maintain friendly relations with U.S. President George W. Bush after disagreements over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Putin spoke during a meeting in the Kremlin with Donald Kendall, the former PepsiCo Inc. chairman who gave Soviet Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev his first Pepsi in 1959.
Putin awarded Kendall an Order of Friendship for strengthening relations between the U.S. and Russia.
"We really do have very friendly relations with the president of the United States," Putin said. "We may have different approaches and different opinions in relation to different events, but we have the main thing - we have confidence and trust in each other.''
Blood Donor Record
MOSCOW (SPT) - A 48-year-old woman in Yekaterinburg may have set a world record after donating blood to a nearly 400 times, Interfax reported.
Galina Pchelintseva, an employee of the Urals city's Sangvis clinic, has given blood at her work place 382 times over the past nine years, Interfax said Monday.
Pchelintseva won a contest organized by the Health Ministry's Blood Center this year in two categories - regional leader and national leader - and the Sangvis clinic has sent an application on her behalf to the Guinness Book of Records.
Peace Tower to Shift
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Peace Tower in Sennaya Ploshchad will be moved to a park, while the memorial column on Ploshchad Vosstaniya will stay where it is, Interfax reported Friday.
That was the verdict of the city's Public Council's Memorials Commission, which held a special meeting to decide the fate of modern and historical monuments in town, the report said.
Commission's head Stanislav Gaudasinsky, who is also artistic director of the Mussorgsky State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, said the two monuments were among the most sensitive with local citizens.
Ivan Uralov, head of City Hall's construction and architecture committee, said moving the memorial from Ploshchad Vosstaniya would be unethical.
"The monument is dedicated to defenders of Leningrad, who showed the greatest heroism during the whole of the city's history," he was quoted as saying. "Besides, the column, which weighs 240 tons, was carved of a single piece of granite and would be at a high risk of breaking during transportation. But the Peace Tower would be more appropriate in a green area."
Top City for Tourists
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg is the most visited city in Russia, while the tourist industry generates at least 10 percent of city budget revenues, Interfax quoted Alexander Prokhorenko, head of the external relations committee, as saying.
"The city budget gets 4.5 billion rubles (8.5 percent) [$155 million] of taxes from incoming foreign tourism and another 600 million rubles from incoming tourism," Prokhorenko said.
According to the City Hall, a tourist spends $100 a day on accommodation, and another $100 to $150 on various extras. The average tourist stays in town for three to five days.
Architects Eye Post
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city's Union of Architects has sent a request to Governor Valentina Matviyenko asking her to include the organization's representatives on a commission to select a new chief architect of St. Petersburg, Interfax reported.
The competition for the position of chief architect was officially announced Monday.
Former chief architect Oleg Kharchenko, who held the job for the past 13 years, has left to become rector of the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts.
The candidates should have a degree in architecture, two or more years on top managerial positions on state service, minimum of five years of professional experience and be under the age of 60. Alcohol Free Working
PETROZAVODSK (SPT) - The Swedish government has allocated 3 million crones to fight the alcohol problem in Russia. The amount will be invested in a unique international project started in Petrozavodsk last week.
Representatives of the Stockholm administration, Swedish medical companies and social agencies visited Petrozavodsk last week with a proposal for the local factories to participate in an international project developed by the Swedish International Development Agency. Over three years Swedish methods of fighting alcoholism will be introduced at the Oronezh factory, which was chosen as a guinea-pig. The project aims to stop the workers from consuming alcohol while on the job.
"Constant medical check-ups will be administered at work-places," said a Swedish consulting firm representative.
TITLE: Expert Blasts Inaction on AIDS
AUTHOR: By Simone Kozuharov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia's mounting HIV/AIDS crisis will have grave consequences both socially and demographically if the government does not take action, one of the world's leading experts on Russia's health crisis warns.
Muray Feshbach, senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C., is a crusading voice in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Russia. Recently in town for the conference on AIDS, Cancer and Related problems, Feshbach expects Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic to worsen.
"They have a very serious problem that they have to rectify from internal or external sources, I don't care where, just do it and don't give me more concepts - I'm tired of concepts," Feshbach said in an interview. "Just do something."
By May of this year, about 280,000 people in Russia were officially registered with HIV. However, most experts agree that the number could be more than three times that amount.
Vadim Pokrovksy, director of the Federal AIDS Center, has put the number at about 1 million.
Some experts liken the beginning stages of Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis with the Russian epidemic, but the two are incomparable, Feshbach said.
"You can't compare them because Africa does not have nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (NBCs) - they have [them] here," Feshbach said. "If there's social instability here, if this all eventually creates the state of the system, of the society, that becomes unstable, then I worry about this NBC stuff and somebody pushing a button."
The number of infections has skyrocketed since HIV first exploded here in 1997-1999, when it was almost completely transmitted by intravenous drug users and sex workers.
The rate of infection is "slowing down here, but I think there is going to be a novy vsplesk - a new outbreak," Feshbach said.
Most experts agree HIV has just begun to affect the general population here and is no longer just concentrated among certain social groups.
If HIV/AIDS continues to gain foothold among Russia's general population, it will have far-reaching affects and major ramifications, not just on the nation's health but economically, demographically and socially as well, he said.
"Very likely, it won't go to the medium projection, but closer to the pessimistic projection, which is my belief," Feshbach said. "I think there will be 10, 15, 20 million excess deaths [between now and 2025]," he estimated.
These deaths will not only stem from HIV/AIDS, but related health issues, including tuberculosis, hepatitis C, syphilis and pneumonia, he said.
The World Bank optimistically predicts Russia 2020 GDP to drop below the baseline of 19.61 trillion rubles ($675 billion at current exchange rates) to 19.37 trillion rubles. Pessimistically, that same figure could drop to 17.54 trillion rubles because of AIDS deaths.
"In Brazil, with the same GDP per capita, and roughly the same population, they spend $1 billion per year and they give ART (antiretroviral therapy) to everybody. Here they give it to 1,200 to 1,500 of the roughly 2,000 to 3,000 they say that needs it, but next year that number's going up to 50,000 and soon after that to 80,000," Feshbach said.
Brazil's problem was comparable to Russia's at one point Feshbach noted, but now Brazil is "dealing with it."
The Russian government allotted just $4 million last year to combat Russia's HIV crisis, with promises of $8 million this year - more than six times less than the minimum amount needed, Feshbach said.
Most experts agree that Russia is now entering the third and final phase constituting an epidemic - the infection of the general population, equivalent to the infection of one percent of the population. The Federal AIDS Center's Pokrovsky has publicly acknowledged the 1 percent infection rate.
Two years ago, 90 percent of HIV cases in the country were attributed to intravenous drug use. Now, that number has dropped to 80 percent, leaving a 20 percent margin of contraction through mainly heterosexual contact.
Three years ago only 4 percent or percent of cases came from heterosexual contact, Feshbach said.
TITLE: Moscow Novel 'Margarita' Filmed in City
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A screech of tires was the only sound to disturb a serene yet ominous St. Petersburg morning last week as a group of NKVD secret police officers raided the Astoria hotel.
They came to arrest Grisha Rimsky, financial director of the variety theater, who was hiding, beside himself, in a cupboard in room 412.
This was no real crime, but part of the filming for television of a celebrated novel set in the heart of the Moscow in the 1930s, Mikhail Bulgakov's most famous and most mystical work, "The Master and Margarita."
The series, commissioned by Rossiya television channel will be shot mainly in St. Petersburg, with the crew traveling to Moscow for only a few episodes.
But St. Petersburg director Vladimir Bortko insists St. Petersburg is the perfect backdrop for the filming.
"Naturally, there are scenes that can only be filmed in Moscow such as, for instance, Patriarchs Ponds, Pashkov House, or the Alexandrovsky Garden but that's about it," Bortko told reporters after smashing a plate for good luck outside the Astoria last week.
"But Moscow has gone through a series of massive reconstructions since the novel was written, and the landscape has generally very much changed. Much to the regret to our crew, the Bulgakovian Moscow of 1930s is easier to find in central St. Petersburg because it has been much better preserved."
Bortko was not forced to create a film set of the area around Patriarchs Ponds, which is the scene of key events in the novel. In 2002-2003, crowds of Muscovites protested against plans to construct a giant shopping center with underground parking and monuments to Bulgakov and his characters at the Patriarchs Ponds.
The protesters complained that the plans would destroy the character of the area, "vampire style" as some call Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov's vast projects. The protesters then won over the Moscow administration, for which the film crew is thankful.
The series will also be shot in Jerusalem, Bulgaria, the Livada palace in Yalta (where the fountains remind the director of those in the Herod Palace in Jerusalem) and Sudak Fortress, the gates of which are reminiscent of ancient gates in Jerusalem.
The novel has parallel plots about the sufferings of 1930s Muscovites and the matyrdom of Jesus Christ.
Bortko's television series will be the first to be screened of the novel, which juxtaposes social satire, romance and mysticism and features a human-size, talking black cat called Begemot.
Despite its colorful characters and the novel being an international success, and a dozen directors, including masters Igor Talankin, Elem Klimov and Eldar Ryazanov all being willing to film the novel, Bortko's will be the first film version.
The other directors' hopes were crushed as all of their proposals were rejected by the country's culture bosses who wanted to censor the work. Bulgakov was regarded as an "unstable element" by the ideologists of the Soviet empire.
Completed just before his death in 1940, "The Master and Margarita," was banned until the mid-1960s.
In 1994, Yury Kara finished editing his take on the novel to become Russia's first director to get that far, but the film was never distributed. Several years later, even the copies had disappeared without a trace.
Now, Bortko - though very careful with Bulgakov's prose - is planning to give his movie a somewhat unconventional, yet still thrilling angle.
The director doesn't add anything new, but devotes particular attention to the episodes in the novel in which Woland, the devil figure, is present - either physically or mentally.
A mechanical device was to be imported from Hollywood for Begemot, but it was felt this would lose the "live" charm of the huge cat. Alexander Bashirov was offered the part.
Oleg Basilashvili plays Woland, while the role of Margarita went to Anna Kovalchuk, and that of the Master - to Alexander Galibin.
Yeshua and Pontius Pilate are performed by Sergei Bezrukov and Kirill Lavrov respectively.
Living up to its mystical reputation, the novel's screen version has survived notable cast reshuffles. Oleg Yankovsky refused to play Woland on the grounds that he did not know how to approach his character, but more importantly because a human being can't possibly portray either God or the devil. Alexander Kalyagin, who had first agreed to star as Berlioz, a character who is decapitated in the novel, eventually reconsidered, reportedly after a heart attack.
Renowned composer Andrei Petrov, the author of a symphonic fantasy and one-act ballet "Master And Margarita", who had been invited to write the soundtrack for Bortko's film, said the idea of making such a film has met much skepticism.
"Many people advised the director not to touch the 'diabolic matters,' or 'deal with supernatural forces,' perhaps because they were superstitious," Petrov said. "They were saying that something strange that makes you scared and send shivers down your spine surrounds the novel. Several actors have refused to star in the film for that very prejudice."
Petrov's music is now not going to be part of the film but not because the composer got cold feet. The director later offered the contract to Igor Kornelyuk.
Bortko himself is approaching the novel for the second time. In 2000, Kino-Most film studio, associated with NTV, chose him to direct their series but at the last moment the company failed to reach an agreement with Sergei Shilovsky, grandson of Bulgakov's wife and the owner of the copyright.
The shooting is scheduled to end by January 2005, with the 10-part series expected to screen by the end of next year.
TITLE: Aeroflot Rulings Overturned
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow court on Monday overturned the abuse of power convictions of two former Aeroflot managers and two of their associates and returned the case to investigators after both the defendants and the prosecutors appealed the original ruling.
Nikolai Glushkov, Aeroflot's former first deputy general director, along with several other former Aeroflot executives and the head of Financial United Corp. had been accused of abuse of office and failing to transfer the airlines foreign currency earnings from abroad to Russia. They had also been accused of money laundering for allegedly transferring more than $200 million in airline revenues to two Swiss firms founded by businessman Boris Berezovsky.
Glushkov was acquitted of money laundering but convicted of the other charges and sentenced to three years and three months in prison; he was also found guilty of attempting to escape custody.
Aeroflot's former promotion director, Alexander Krasnenker, was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to 2 1/2 years. The court then ordered both men released because Glushkov had already served time in pretrial detention and Krasnenker was released under an amnesty.
Another former Aeroflot executive, chief accountant Lidiya Kryzhevskaya, was found guilty of abuse of power, and the former head of the Financial United Corp., Roman Sheinin, was convicted for assisting other defendants in abuse of power. Both were also set free under an amnesty.
Berezovsky amassed a fortune in dubious privatization deals in the early 1990s and became an influential Kremlin insider, but fell out of favor with President Vladimir Putin and fled the country to avoid the investigation.
TITLE: Adzharia Elections Favor Tbilisi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BATUMI, Georgia - A party named after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili gathered three-quarters of votes cast in the weekend election of the Adzharian regional legislature, according to preliminary results announced Monday.
With more than half the votes from Sunday's election counted, the Mikhail Saakashvili-Victorious Adzharia party had 75 percent of the vote and its nearest rival, the Republican Party, had 9 percent, the regional election commission said.
A group of observers from the Council of Europe's Congress of Local and Regional Authorities said it "got the impression that the campaign was dominated by the party in power.
Sunday's election was expected to hand the central government greater control over this once-defiant Black Sea region.
TITLE: Putin Says Iraq Eyed Attacks on America
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Giving an unexpected boost to U.S. President George W. Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein's regime had posed a threat to the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russian intelligence agencies had received information that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks against American targets and warned U.S. intelligence.
The announcement appeared to surprise the Bush administration, which is under fire in an election year for still not proving Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction or links to al-Qaida, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, intelligence repeatedly received information that the official services of the Saddam regime were preparing terrorist acts against military and civil targets on the territory of the United States and beyond," Putin told reporters Friday in the Kazakh capital, Astana, where he was attending a security summit of several former Soviet republics.
Putin said the information had been passed on to U.S. intelligence and that Bush had personally thanked a Russian intelligence chief for it.
Putin said Russia had no knowledge of whether Iraq had managed to carry out any attacks.
But he stressed that Russia still opposed the U.S. decision to invade Iraq because it did not follow "international legislation on procedures of the use of force in international affairs."
Putin made no mention over whether Russian intelligence knew of links between the Hussein regime and al-Qaida.
His remarks came as Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continued to insist that Iraq had ties to al-Qaida - despite findings last week by a U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that there was no credible evidence Iraq had cooperated with al-Qaida in the attacks.
The White House would not comment about Putin's announcement Friday. "We've declassified as much information as we can to talk about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed," a White House spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times.
A National Security Council spokesman also refused to comment, The Washington Post reported.
A State Department official told Reuters that "everyone is scratching their heads" about Putin's remarks.
Speaking with reporters at a roundtable Friday, Secretary of State Collin Powell was equally vague. "Yeah, I don't - I'm not familiar with what the Russians might have given us, but I'd just have to yield to my friends in the intelligence community," he said. "Those sorts of things usually come from service to service, and I just haven't had a chance this afternoon to see what the CIA is saying about it."
The Bush administration had tried to justify its plans to invade Iraq by suggesting that Iraq might have links to al-Qaida and then pressing the case that the Hussein was actively pursuing WMD programs. The Russian leadership, including Putin, had challenged the Bush administration's rationale, pointing out that there was no solid evidence of active WMD programs in Iraq.
Given Russia's opposition to the war, Putin's statement, which essentially indicates the United States might have had a case to go to war, came as a surprise.
"The timing of it leaves no doubt that it is - directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally - support for President Bush," said Alexander Pikayev, an independent defense analyst.
He said the Kremlin might have decided to give Bush some support as he runs for re-election in November because it sees his Republican administration as more pragmatic and "less inclined to emphasize" Russia's human rights record and the situation in Chechnya than the Democrats.
At the same time, Russian intelligence agencies probably had better capabilities to collect information in Iraq than their counterparts in the United States and also Britain and Israel, which reportedly helped build the U.S. case to attack, he said.
Putin and Bush forged a personal relationship after Sept. 11, when Putin was the first world leader to call and offer his support. Just days after the attacks, Putin told MSNBC that he had ordered Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government in "the strongest possible terms" of imminent assaults on airports and government buildings.
Putin's statement Friday "may have come as a result of a concrete agreement with the Bush administration," said Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. "But we might not know for a while what the agreement was."
Putin spoke in response to a reporter's question about an Interfax report on Thursday. The report, which cited an unidentified intelligence agent, said Russian intelligence had received information in early 2002 that Iraq was planning an attack against the United States.
"This information was more than once passed on to our U.S. partners in oral and written form in the fall of 2002," the agent was quoted as saying.
The agent said Iraq's plans needed to be made public because "in investigating the causes of the Iraq crisis, it is necessary to take into account everything, including the direct threat to the United States from Saddam Hussein's regime."
The agent said Russia had no evidence of a link between Hussein and al-Qaida, but he suggested that the Sept. 11 commission's findings failed to "draw a comprehensive picture."
Safranchuk said the fact that Putin was asked to comment on a report carried by a state-run news agency and at a summit of former Soviet republics indicates that his announcement had been carefully orchestrated. He noted that Putin had carefully worded his response in such a way that he offered support to Bush but did not reverse his opposition to the war in Iraq. Given Moscow's close ties to Iraq from Soviet times, Russian intelligence services may have had good footing there. In April 2002, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said Washington knew contacts had been made between Russian and Iraqi intelligence agencies.
In January and February 2003, as the U.S. and coalition forces massed in Kuwait and the Gulf area, the Bush administration asked countries including Russia to keep close surveillance on Iraq intelligence officers in their countries to make certain they were not preparing terrorist attacks against U.S. facilities, The Washington Post reported.
TITLE: Film Festival Rolls Out a Blue Carpet
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moscow rolled out a blue carpet for movie industry celebrities including director Quentin Tarantino as the 26th Moscow International Film Festival got under way with a ceremony Friday.
Film figures including Tarantino, whose movie "Kill Bill - Vol. 2" opened the ceremony, walked along a carpet stretched outside the Pushkinsky Movie Theater on Pushkin Square.
Those in attendance also included Uma Thurman and David Carradine, who are in Tarantino's film, as well as Mayor Yury Luzhkov and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who are not.
Actresses Meryl Streep and Isabelle Adjani and Bosnian director Emir Kusturica are also expected to make an appearance at the festival, which ends June 27.
The main competition will involve 17 feature films, three of them Russian.
This year also introduces a new contest called Perspective - a category featuring a selection of first or second films by novice directors.
TITLE: Human Rights Activists Fret Over Police Assignment Plan
AUTHOR: By Maria Danilova
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Leading human rights groups on Friday criticized an Interior Ministry plan to assign police representatives to all rights associations to promote cooperation, saying they suspect it is aimed at placing them under state control.
The rights groups expressed concern a day after human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin and Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin reportedly agreed to sign a memorandum on boosting cooperation between law enforcement bodies and rights groups.
As part of the deal, the Interior Ministry - the main police body - plans to assign its officers to each rights group with the task of "immediately reacting to citizens' complaints and their appeals to rights activists involving the work of the police," Chekalin said, Gazeta reported Friday.
Lukin had publicly lambasted law enforcement bodies Wednesday for alleged human rights abuses when detaining, interrogating and holding people in custody, calling their behavior "fierce, cruel and cynical tortures," Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.
Lukin said one-third of the 20,000 complaints his office gets every year involve police abuse. But rights activists said they suspect the initiative is a government's attempt to keep them under its thumb.
Alexander Petrov, of Human Rights Watch's Moscow office, said the initiative "smells of old Soviet times."
"Why assign [law enforcement representatives] to human rights groups?" Petrov said. "So that they would peek where the groups get their funding and whose hand they cannot bite?"
In a chilling warning in his state of the nation address last month, President Vladimir Putin charged that many civic organizations are more interested in getting funding from abroad or from corporate sponsors than in defending the interests of the people. He said such groups "cannot bite the hand that feeds them."
Leading rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, also criticized the initiative.
"I don't doubt that this is being done with the hope of watching us, so that we will be under their control, but we act openly and there is nothing for them to uncover here," Alexeyeva said.
She added that "it could also turn out to be useful, when the Interior Ministry - such a closed organization - pledges to cooperate with us."
TITLE: Aslakhanov: Cut Troops
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Aslambek Aslakhanov, a Chechen who advises President Vladimir Putin on Chechnya called on Friday for Russia to reduce its troops presence in Chechnya, where he said police who work for the Moscow-backed regional government are becoming more effective.
Aslakhanov said "unneeded troops should be withdrawn from Chechnya, and more law enforcement functions should be delegated to the regional law enforcement system," Interfax reported.
"The Chechen police are beginning to fulfill their direct responsibilities, fighting crime more actively," he said.
Aslakhanov said he was repeating calls made by slain Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who repeatedly made similar statements.
Aslakhanov did not say how many troops should be withdrawn. Russia has about 70,000 troops in Chechnya not counting its own Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service forces, according to the authorities, and the Chechen Interior Ministry has 14,000, members, Interfax reported.
Aslakhanov said he expects the main contenders in the Aug. 29 election to replace Kadyrov will be Chechen Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov, who was won support from the Kremlin and Kadyrov's allies, and Malik Saidullayev, a Moscow-based Chechen businessman who led Kadyrov in opinion polls before the October vote but was disqualified by a court.
Aslakhanov also said it is possible that Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and rebel warlord Shamil Basayev are no longer in Chechnya, Interfax reported.
A Chechen official said earlier in the week that Basayev might have gone abroad last September.
"There are grounds to suggest that Maskhadov and Basayev may not be in Chechnya," Aslakhanov said.
He said that he had heard rumors Basayev left for medical treatment, and pointed out that neither man has given interviews to media recently.
TITLE: City Celebrates Midsommar
AUTHOR: By Simone Kozuharov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Throngs of people crowded the bus stop across from the Dybenko Metro station Friday, awaiting the bus that would shuttle them to IKEA Kudrovo and its Midsommar celebration.
The horde of party-goers rushed the bus and spilled out as the doors tried to close. The scene was about 10 times worse than the average morning metro commute.
Sasha, an enterprising motorist, stopped his 13-seat black Gazel van and offered people tired of standing in the drizzly weather a ride for 10 rubles each.
"Now I will go back again," he said as his passengers thanked him and spilled out of the van.
Midsommar is the Swedish holiday celebrating the summer solstice, or the longest day of the year.
About 10,000 people had come by about 6:30 p.m. and Nick Chambers, store director, expected another 3,000 by the end of the first day's event at midnight.
Vikings battled each other with axes and swords, children danced around a giant May Pole and Swedish Consul General May Andersson was on hand in full traditional garb for the celebration.
"This our most popular Swedish holiday" Andersson said. "I wanted to give a little bit of a Swedish touch, with myself, with my rather fantastic national costume because this is probably the only one in St. Petersburg."
The IKEA, located on Murmanskoe Shosse, is also the only one in St. Petersburg and the store went full out to celebrate the traditional Swedish holiday a week early this year.
"Its the first day of our sale today so we thought [to] combine the two things," Nick Chambers, store director, said.
The two-day celebration started Friday afternoon and continued Saturday. There was a lottery with prizes, traditional Swedish dances, traditional Scandinavian music, Vikings and games for kids, Chambers said.
"We try and take our Swedishness with us wherever we go throughout the world," Chambers told the small crowd outside the store.
Traditional Russian dancers were also on hand for the fun, decked out in Russian national costumes and dancing everything from folk dances to the cancan.
The crowd had dwindled by 7p.m., but children were still jumping in the inflatable playground. Pre-teens danced a rendition of the Macarena around the May Pole while an MC and a person wearing a dog suit spurred them on.
"I love such events in summer," one attendee, Maxim, said. He added that seeing people in the open air is always memorable. Maxim said he was planning to return Saturday for day two of the celebration with some younger relatives.
Inside the store, shoppers lined up for food samples as they surveyed the sale. The in-store restaurant was brimming with people, and the spacious seating area was completely full.
TITLE: Swedish Days Festival To Shake Up the City
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This is the third in a series of special sections called Northern Neighbors that are published monthly in The St. Petersburg Times. Northern Neighbors focuses on economic and cultural relations between Russia and the Scandinavian and Baltic nations. In the end of September and early October 2004, St. Petersburg will be treated to the best of Swedish design, cuisine, music and art.
The Swedish Consulate General in St. Petersburg, that sponsored a similar event during last year's anniversary celebrations, announced this year's Days of Swedish Culture should present an even bigger slice of the Russian-Swedish cultural cooperation.
Sponsored by the Consulate and the Swedish Institute, the Days are organized by a promotional team consisting of Oleg Bogdanov from Light Music and Stefan Höglund, a Swedish music entrepreneur, who started one of the first clubs in Stockholm that is still going strong - Kafe 44.
The Swedish Days' main focus this year will be club music. Sweden's internationally acclaimed DJs, singers and bands - DJ Jonas Quant, Weeping Willows, Re.Orient Club, Meine Kleine Deutsche, Laakso, Deltahead - will perform at St. Petersburg's hottest nooks - Amor Fati, Red Club, Cadillac Club and Moloko. The program also features Swedish violinist Anna Lindahl, who is going to play at the Swedish consul general's residence.
After an overwhelming success at last year's Stereoleto, the legendary Jay-Jay Johanson will also come back to St. Petersburg as part of the Days. With the exact location to be announced at a later date, Johanson is planning to give an extravagant performance at one of the city's largest stages.
To close this autumn's week of Swedish melomania, the king of underground DJs, Mad Mats, joined by DJ Jakob Lusensky, will shake up the night with what he called a Raw Fusion Party, taking after the name of a famous night club - Raw Fusion - that Mad Mats runs in Stockholm.
This mix of the latest and the classical musical trends concentrated in St. Petersburg this fall is expected to generate a lot of discussion. Club promoters, festival organizers, musicians and media will meet at the House of Journalists, where a seminar devoted to popular music will be held for a day on October 1.
The Days of Swedish Culture will also include a two-week exhibition called "Monument" at the Kvadrat gallery and delicious servings of authentic Swedish treats prepared by the country's cuisine wizards.
TITLE: Swedish Businesses Find Russia an Attractive But Still Restricted Market
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Swedish trade with Russia is growing faster than it is with other economies in transition, but the level of direct foreign investment into Russia remains relatively low.
Swedish trade with Russia went up by 33 percent between 2000 and 2002, as compared to only 6.7 percent trade growth with Poland, the Swedish Trade Council reported earlier this year. However, Poland has 8.4 percent of Sweden's total foreign direct investments, seven times as much as vast Russia has with 1.4 percent, according to 2002 figures.
Besides such common reasons as the additional time needed for Russia to earn the trust of western businessmen, it is still mainly the failings of bureaucratic policies that hamper commercial interaction between the two countries, Swedish experts said.
"The dynamics of our trade with Russia have been positive over the past years, although the growth rate has lowered somewhat during last year," said May Andersson, consul general of Sweden in St. Petersburg. "According to the 2004 first quarter trade figures, Swedish exports to Russia increased by 6 percent and its Russian imports went up by 5 percent.
"In absolute terms, however, total Swedish trade with the three small Baltic states is more than that with Russia," Andersson said. "The figures we possess are calculated per country of origin, so they are not connected with transit trade with Russia."
Nore Kamoun, trade commissioner specializing in Russia at the Swedish Trade Council, said that Russia has a lower amount of foreign direct investments than all other transitional economies.
"Overall foreign direct investment during 1992-2002 is roughly 20 times lower than those in China," he said. "The Czech Republic and Slovakia received approximately 10 times more foreign direct investments per capita than Russia."
BARRIERS TO INVESTORS
Andersson said that there are several factors explaining why the development of investment has been less intensive in Russia than, for instance, in Poland.
"Since investors usually make rational decisions, I would think that Poland's success in attracting investors - not only from Sweden - is largely due to its investment policies," Andersson said.
Sweden is one of the largest investors in Russia. It ranks 7th after the United States, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and Japan in accumulated direct investments, according to a recent Swedish Trade Council report.
Sweden's $525 million accumulated direct investments up to 2002 ranks highly, especially considering that the quite substantial IKEA investments are not included in the figures. IKEA Russia is a branch of IKEA Germany, Kamoun said.
"Investment statistics in today's world of globalization are not always accurate, as companies invest through subsidiaries and it is at times difficult to determine which companies are Swedish," Andersson said. "Some of our largest investments in this region in the 90s - Tetra Pak, Assi-Doman - were later sold to other foreign companies."
However, there is room for Swedish investments. Electrolux, which recently announced plans to build a washing machine plant in St. Petersburg, regardless of subsidiary ownership, can still be considered a Swedish company, Andersson said.
IKEA EYES PRODUCTION
Lennart Dahlgren, general director of IKEA Russia, said all countries could invest much more in Russia, but more cooperation is needed from Russia.
"The biggest problem is that regional authorities can influence and sabotage investments that are agreed upon at a higher level," Dahlgren said in an interview from Moscow.
In Dahlgren's opinion, the solution partly lies in increasing regional authorities' awareness about the country's long-term plans for investment growth. The power the regional authorities possess to create obstacles to foreign investments should be reduced, he said.
However, Dahlgren added, IKEA had had very good experience of cooperation with the Leningrad Oblast.
When asked to comment on an Interfax report quoting the Karelian leader Sergey Katanandov as saying that IKEA was going to cancel its plans to build a factory in Karelia because the Swedes were displeased with their Karelian partners, Dahlgren said the information was incorrect.
"The relations with Karelian partners are good and the negotiations are ongoing," he said.
WEIGHING CHALLENGES
According to a survey of challenges faced by Swedish companies doing business in Russia, compiled by the Swedish Trade Council, unclear legislation and unclear tax laws were named by 95 percent of respondents.
Half of the respondents saw Russian customs procedures as a severe obstacle. Payments discipline and corruption were viewed as serious challenges by 25 percent and 20 percent of Swedish respondents respectively. Only 5 percent of the respondents had problems with access to qualified staff. Even fewer Swedes, only 3 percent, considered crime to be a major problem.
"I would say that the main problem today is not with the investment or the tax legislation itself," Andersson said, adding that Russian taxes are lower than those Swedes are used to. In Andersson's opinion, it is the mechanisms by which the laws are implemented that are confusing.
"Swedes are used to follow the existing regulations to the last letter, and I am convinced that most of them want to do the same in Russia," she said. "To do so can be very difficult when implementation mechanisms are arbitrary and bureaucratic red-tape is abundant, while law-abiding behavior is not always rewarded."
RED TAPE
Meanwhile, Clas Bostrom, director of Swedwood Tikhvin said that it takes enormous effort to establish a company in Russia.
"It takes a lot of time and juridical expertise. And the larger the company, the more money is involved, the more difficult it is," he said.
However, he added, it is essential to pursue exclusively the legal ways, no matter how long it takes.
Bostrom says the legislation that provides such low salaries for the "common bureaucrats" can also be blamed for complicating the process.
"There are positive dynamics in the air, but the changes are slow," he said. "Customs regulations have also become slightly better over the past years, but they are still the worst ones I know in the world."
Swedwood wants three main things, Bostrom said.
"We want customs procedures simplified, which would facilitate business making. Secondly, we want fair and not so bureaucratic reimbursement of value-added tax for companies like ours that do a lot of construction. At present, we have to literally fight to get VAT back - it is a confusing and an enormously time-consuming procedure," Bostrom said.
Thirdly, Swedwood wants to help extinguish illegal logging, widespread in Russia's Northwest. Unfortunately, deliverers' documentation today can be falsified, he said, so monitoring systems need to be strengthened.
UNCLEAR REQUIREMENTS
"The most important thing is to make sure there is information available on rules and legislation concerning investment, customs, taxes, visas, work permits, and the like," Andersson said. "Too often foreign companies have to spend a lot of time and resources to understand their rights and obligations in those spheres.
"Availability and transparency of information are the key words. One way to achieve this is to establish some kind of 'investment window' within the regional administrations - this was successfully tried in some of the Northwest regions," she said.
"This agency should not only be able to give information, but also have the authority to act and solve problems when foreign investors are being hindered by various administrative bodies," Andersson said.
VISA TANGLE
Trade commissioner Kamoun said visa administration is a problem area that clearly sticks out.
"It is just baffling and completely incomprehensible to hear Russian politicians roaring about the need for attracting foreign business, while at the same time they do nothing to facilitate the procedure for foreigners to enter the country and live here," he said.
"When you compare the number of tourists from Sweden going to a city like Tallinn by ferry to the minute number going to St. Petersburg, it does not take a scientist to calculate that St. Petersburg is at the losing end because of the visa issue," Kamoun said.
Meanwhile, Andersson said "it does not help propagating the image of Russia as a country welcoming trade and investments when foreign businessmen have to spend days and weeks in order to get necessary documents." A tourist is a potential investor, she added.
Andersson said the lack of convenient flight connections is another drawback. "Today, there are flights every day between Stockholm and St. Petersburg. SAS has been asking for permission to increase the number of flights between St. Petersburg and Copenhagen for a long time. For reasons beyond my comprehension, they have constantly been refused," Andersson said.
Lastly, Andersson named the growing crime rates against foreigners as a factor having a very negative impact on the image of St. Petersburg in the eyes of potential tourists and businessmen.
"My impression is that petty crime against foreigners has been inherent in the system, and that a lot more could be done by the police and other city authorities to combat this problem," she said.
"Trust needs to be earned," Kamoun said.
Developing the trust of locals and of the western world is an absolute must for Russia to be fully accepted as a regular market place, he said.
TITLE: Experts:VAT Ruling Changes Old Practices
AUTHOR: By Pavel Andreev and Andrew Zhigulev
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A ruling of the Presidium of the Higher Arbitration Court of Russia dated Feb. 24, 2004 with regard to recovering value-added tax, or VAT, paid for machinery and equipment has revolutionized established practice.
In theory, VAT paid by a company entitled to recover part of the amount paid under tax concessions can now be recovered more quickly.
Prior to this ruling, VAT paid for machinery and equipment was usually recovered when all the following conditions had been met:
. The machinery and equipment was purchased for the purpose of producing supplies on which VAT could be levied;
. VAT invoices or customs declarations had been received;
. Payment to the supplier or the customs authorities had been made;
. The machinery and equipment purchased was put into operation by the taxpayer (i.e. transferred from the statutory accounts used for accounting for Capital Expenditures or Equipment for Installation onto the Fixed Assets account).
Needless to say, delaying recovery of VAT paid until the machinery and equipment was put into operation resulted in additional financing costs for the taxpayer, since it could take a number of months - or even years for large projects - from the moment the taxpayer paid this VAT to suppliers or customs authorities to the moment when the machinery and equipment was put into use.
According to the new ruling, taxpayers are now entitled to recover VAT paid on machinery and equipment in the tax period when they are booked as Capital Expenditures or Equipment for Installation, provided that other general requirements listed above are met. It should be noted that the ruling does not cover issues related to recovering VAT paid on construction work.
Another consequence of the ruling relates to the popular choice of contributing machinery and equipment to charter capital in order to avoid customs duty and VAT. The cash-flow effect of avoiding upfront VAT, which may take a long time to recover, has been considered a key economic benefit of this concession. But now existing VAT-collecting companies should carefully weigh the reduced benefits against the well-known administrative burden and inflexibility of the charter contribution concession.
However, according to unofficial information from the Finance Ministry, it is possible that the authorities will try to treat this ruling as a specific ruling applicable to a particular taxpayer, and the tax authorities will attempt to continue applying the old rules for VAT recovery on machinery and equipment.
Pavel Andreev and Andrew Zhigulev are tax consultants at Deloitte
St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Two Russians and American Win Prize
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Created by Nobel Prize winner Zhores Alfyorov in 2002 and annually sponsored by energy companies Yukos, UES and Gasprom, the Global Energy international prize was awarded for the second time Sunday.
Three nuclear scientists - one American and two Russians - shared the $900,000 prize presented to them by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov at the Konstantine Palace in Strelna. Meanwhile, the scientists expressed concerns about little funding being allocated for nuclear research.
Komerssant Rating rated The Global Energy Prize fourth after the Nobel Prize, Rene de Cart Prize and the international King Feisal Prize. This year two members of the Russian Academy of Science, Fyodor Mitenkov and Alexander Sheindlin, and Professor Leonard Koch from the U.S. were awarded for their fundamental research aimed to save the world from what experts call a "very serious energy crisis," expected to arrive in 50 years and to show its first signs in 25 years.
"I don't want to diminish the value of the awards I have been given in the past, but this one will be most appreciated in my family," Sheindlin said, adding that the award had come as a surprise.
Sheindlin had been researching thermodynamic qualities of water and water steam for 65 years. It was thanks to Sheindlin's work that the field reached a virtual break-through last year with research results that allowed most heat energy power plants to increase their efficiency by 15 percent and helped to save primary energy resources.
Mitenkov and Koch, who both have some 50 years of nuclear research behind them, specialize in fast reactors - the technology allowing repeated use of nuclear fuel, recycled in the process of work. Fast reactors are unanimously acclaimed as a safer and more efficient technology than water reactors, commonly used today.
EBR-2 operating in the U.S. was created by Koch several decades ago and became the world's first nuclear reactor to work without producing nuclear waste: the waste was immediately recycled and fed into the reactor as part of a continuous cycle.
"Unfortunately, no new reactors of the type have been built in the U.S. since, people's attitude being "we don't need it yet," Koch, now retired, explained in an interview Saturday.
Businessmen in the U.S. don't like thinking long term, and at present, fast reactors are no cheaper than water reactors, he said.
Russians built two fast reactors - BN-300 in Kazakhstan and BN-600 in Beloyarsk in the Ural Mountains - both based on Mitenkov's research. A more progressive BN-800 reactor is currently under construction in Beloyarsk as well.
International involvement should be expanded in Beloyarsk to prevent unexpected halts or the possible lack of financing on the Russian part, Koch said, as long-term projects in Russia remain at risk due to the remaining unpredictable character of the country's economy.
"I am concerned whether the construction of BN-800 is going to receive stable financing," said Alfyorov at a news conference Saturday. Considering the funds taken up by water reactors, more attention should be given to fast reactors, which demand only a 15-percent addition in capital investments, he said.
Besides Russian energy giants that sponsor the Global Energy Prize, the award is supported by such companies as Royal Dutch Shell and Excel, said President Putin's aide Sergey Yastrzhembsky. This weekend's award ceremony at Putin's residence in Strelna united quite a powerful group in funding the prize, including the new head of Yukos Semion Kukes, president of Gasprom Alexei Miller and Anatoly Chubais, head of UES.
"Nuclear power is not really in a competition with gas and oil. It is more of a supplemental resource," Koch said, when asked why oil and gas leaders supported fast reactors. It is also the resource of the future, for "nuclear power is a friend of the environment," he added. "Uranium used in fast reactors is cheap already.
The new technology is going to be most rewarding once we learn how to recycle fuel inexpensively," Koch said.
There is enough uranium in the world to last for 200 years, according to conservative calculations, Koch said. Recent studies proved there is even more of that material available than previously estimated, he added. "I hope the Global Energy Prize will attract more attention to fast reactor research," Koch said.
"Fast reactors are liquid metal cooled. This makes them very different from water reactors that operate at very high pressure," Koch said. "In water reactors, if there is a leak anywhere, the water is pushed out with great force. Fast reactors have smaller probability of leaks for there is no pressure," Koch explained.
Chernobyl was a water reactor, Koch said.
TITLE: Safety of Tourists, Welfare and Architecture
TEXT: In response to "Extra Patrols at Terminals Aim to Make Tourists Safer," an article by Galina Stolyarova on June 18.
Editor,
On my third trip to my favorite European city, St. Petersburg, it finally happened. My pocket was picked. It did not happen on Nevsky Prospekt, but in a crowded metro train between Petrogradskaya and Nevsky Prospekt stations.
I put my wallet in my side pocket of my coat as I was engaged in conversation with a friend as we entered the metro. Fortunately for me, "I don't put all my eggs in one basket."
I had some cash with which to survive until I had money cabled. Mind you they had pulled $5,000 out of my credit card account through online purchases, which were obviously going to supply street sellers! A hundred handbags on a foreign credit card! Is this usual? Or is a sale that important you turn a blind eye.
DVDs, CDs and computer software from an online marketer that home delivers. Did this purchase not seem strange on an Australian credit card? I think these retail outlets or some of their employees are in on the scams. Interestingly, two days later on the metro from Pionerskaya to Nevsky Prospekt, I noticed the guy that had been standing behind me on the train when my pocket was picked. Here he was standing midway down the crowded carriage. "Got you," I thought and looked him straight in the eye as the train pulled into Petrogradskaya, whereupon he bolted out with his plastic bag under his arm.
At the same time another guy closer to me did the same they crossed the platform, exchanged plastic bags and got on the train heading back to Pionerskaya.
These people are working the metro like a milking machine. The police are where? One stood at the entrance to the Nevsky Prospekt metro station. Pathetic!
If the St. Petersburg authorities don't do something about the rampant theft, St. Petersburg will suffer enormously. I will be thinking twice about returning to visit my good friends that I have made in the city.
The metro needs to have a vigilante force like the Red Angels on the New York metro. Video surveillance on the platforms should be first priority. And the babushkas at the bottom of the escalators should have a mobile or walkie talkie to call the police at the top.
I would also like to add a comment about the in-fill construction. It is madness. Foreigners come to see the City of Peter the Great. The Venice of the North. It's called cultural tourism. Italy would be a basket case economy without Venice, Florence and Sienna.
There appears to be a total lack of will from the authorities to do something. The rampant capitalism and crime that is so evident in St. Petersburg will kill this wonderful city. St. Petersburg is a cultural asset for the people of Russia and development must be handled with sensitivity.
Why not refurbish all those old warehouses or government stores at New Holland or the area between the Fontanka and Obvodnogo canals into apartments like the warehouses in the West. Vasilyevsky Island is an area that could be world class, if it is put in the right hands and restored, not built in.
Rodney Scherer,
Melbourne, Australia
Editor,
I don't remember how many times I have been searched at gunpoint by the militsia late at night, but everybody working in tourism I talk to agrees with me that the situation is getting worse year by year.
Robbing foreigners seems to have developed into a lucrative industry with high returns and no apparent risks. City Hall seems to have no authority over the police and police chiefs seem to have no authority over young and hungry cops. Organizing your salary wearing a uniform and carrying a gun is not acceptable even in civil war regions with no apparent government. It is even less acceptable in a country that wants to integrate into world markets and in a city that dreams about cashing in on its huge tourist potential. The mere notion of tolerating cops that attack foreigners is too absurd to believe, yet it happens every night on and around Nevsky Prospekt.
I could give a lot of advice about how to react when approached by police after midnight, but this would mean accepting the unacceptable. Anyway, what would tourists - most of them Russia first timers - do with such advice? Most of them are so paralyzed looking at a Kalashnikov, that they would not even dream of holding on to their cash or mobile phone, even less of writing down license plates numbers. If cases of theft by the police get reported, then it is to hotel managers or to the consulates. Asking a tourist to report to the authorities would prolong his holidays for weeks, if not months. On the other hand, hotel managers, club owners and expatriates do not report because they have either gave up doing so long ago or they fear repressive action from the authorities.
I don't think that it is reasonable to expect expatriates to come forward and take corrupt cops to court. Such acts of individual heroism could well lead to nepriyatnosti [troubles] that are not worth the effort. Consulates shrug their shoulders and keep a low profile. Or they simply complain that they have nobody to talk to. This is wrong: consulates could and should use their privileged position to create the necessary political pressure. Business associations - especially those pretending to represent the international community - should take a much tougher stance.
Mass media? Not much to except from the local media unfortunately, so this newspaper will probably remain the only publication writing about the police extorting money and allowing readers to complain about the subject in public. At least that much is being done.
Walter Denz
St.Petersburg
Editor,
I was in St. Petersburg from May 29 to June 5 and, on June 3, I was attacked and robbed on Nevsky Prospekt by gypsies. Because I know the tactics of the gypsies, I managed to hold them off and they got away with 3 euros! They failed to get 20 euros and 1,470 rubles that I had in another pocket.
It was 1 p.m., in other words, the lunchtime rush and this street was crowded with people. I was alone, but not dressed like a tourist. It happened at the trolleybus stop at the top of Nevsky Prospekt, facing the Admiralty. There was a large crowd at the trolleybus stop, but nobody made the slightest move to help me. By good fortune, I had a purse in my trousers pocket full of 1, 2 and 5 cent pieces. It was very full and very heavy and the gypsy children probably thought it contained a fortune! I protected my wallet and credit cards with my two hands, but as Frederick the Great used to say, "he who will defend everything defends nothing, so I let the rest go." Once they got the purse, they ran.
I did not report the incident. Why bother? They got very little money and no papers.
The police seem to be totally ineffective. All I ever saw them do was stop cars, and, indeed, I have never seen a police force devote so much time to doing that. I'm told that they are in fact "racketeering" the drivers. Otherwise, I saw them sleeping in their cars or standing around with cans of beer in their hands and cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.
Clearly, policing is a huge problem and the answer may be a special tourist police that would patrol the tourist sites, Nevsky Prospekt from the Moscow Station to the Admiralty, some of the side streets off Nevsky, Fontanka, Moika, Gostiny Dvor, plus the railway stations where the tourists arrive, like the Moscow and Finland stations and the metro, both stations and trains, in the city center and out to the airport. They should have all the powers of a normal police force but be a municipal agency, having no links with the national police, and should be paid at the same rates as the private security guards that are in almost every building. In the off-season, they could take their own holidays and undergo training, possibly with assistance from big city police forces in other European countries, and learn the basics of the main foreign languages, particularly English.
Something similar happened in Spain, by the way, just after the death of Franco in 1976. With the tight controls of the authoritarian regime removed, there was a sudden crime wave and the national police, discredited by its association with the former regime, was unable to deal with it. The tourist resorts set up municipal police forces to deal with the problem. Now, practically every town in Spain has a municipal police force! That doesn't mean that there is no crime against tourists in Spain. Preying on tourists is inevitable to some degree and big cities. You can protect yourself against pickpockets by being a bit careful, but what can anybody do against gangs like the gypsies? The only chance the victim has is if other people come to his assistance, and that did not happen to me on Nevsky Prospekt.
The question for the people of St. Petersburg is therefore is: is everybody so rich that they don't need the tourists? Would all the people who live from tourism in the hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes, the guides, the tourist sites, coaches and riverboats be able to find other jobs if the tourists didn't come? Probably not. A city like St. Petersburg cannot live solely from tourism, but it helps, and at the moment, there is not a lot else!
Michael Kenny
Roodt-sur-Syre, Luxembourg
Welfare Arrangements
In response to "Blokadniki Protest Cash Deal," by Irina Titova on June 11
Editor,
I have just returned from St. Petersburg, after having walked around part of the Hermitage and visiting the Smolny Institute.
It was very interesting for me to visit one of the most important historical sites in the last century from which Lenin wrote the new constitution.
After just having returned from this journey it saddens me greatly to read that the blokadniki (survivors of the 900-day siege of Leningrad during World War II) may lose their rights to free medicine and the like. However many such people there are left today, they should be treated as heroes and their rights to free medicine and the like should be maintained. Russia has a lot to thank them for!
Dr. Bradley Dodd
Oxford, Britain
Managed Democracy
In response to "Broken Promises Prompt Public Anger," a comment by Vladimir Kovalev on June 11.
Editor,
As a citizen of the U.S., I read your article about Broken Promises, politicians, their catering to business interests, and what you referred to as "controlled democracy". This phrase is foreign to me. But, I suspect, at one time in our nation's past, Black America, may have experienced this same concept. And, their road to freedom was not smooth and took many turns. However, they endured. Through patience and perseverance, through everyday struggles and personal sacrifices, and the application of non-violent protests, they held their heads high in public marches and vigilant gatherings; they got the nation's attention and realized change. A family, working together, can achieve great things.
Robert Kiser,
Elkins,West Virginia
In response to "The Paradox of Ronald Reagan," a comment by the Los Angeles Times on June 8.
Editor,
I worked in the United States under Ronald Reagan and what I did only adds to the paradox of the man.
The Reagan White House sponsored a program for the poor of New York to be introduced to science and technology. We introduced the students who were from the worst schools in New York to technology and concepts like superconductivity. What happened is that these low achieving students revealed their intelligence and enthusiasm and went on to university. My problem was that even though the program is still running today in New York City where children are bussed to colleges every Saturday by church groups, nobody would believe that Reagan immediately provided a grant of $500,000 for this program advancing the opportunity of African Americans and the poor for entry into university.
The misconception of the man is so great that many of his true achievements go unrecognized. Condoleeza Rice recognized the importance of this type of program saying that her grandfather's entry into a university was the truly sustainable emancipation of her family, who entered the permanent stability of the educated class in America.
The greatest thing was the assurance and rapidity of bureaucratic response. We did more in than one year than I have ever done since and with my appointment to PRISM in the White House, this one decision supported by Ronald Reagan led to a long and enlightening career. Today, I realize that Reagan was the source of my inspiration and that maybe that has changed forever with his passing.
Dr. Paul Samuel di Virgilio
Gainesville, Florida
City Architecture
In response to "Chief City Architect of 13 Years to Quit," an article by Vladimir Kovalev on June 15.
Editor,
Among the eulogies poured on chief architect Oleg Kharchenko by the local press nobody seems to care about numerous instances of depraved perspectives, ugly buildings and questionable designs he is personally responsible for.
Now he is to head the Academy of Arts. Poor city!
Kharchenko, although encouraging modern architecture in word is, in deed, the main apologist of the notorious "St.Petersburg style" - a local distorted version of contextualism, owing to which we have hundreds of tasteless and ugly structures that have infested the city in the last years.
Advocating the protection of the city center (in word again), Kharchenko approved construction in many areas that were extremely sensitive in terms of urban planning. Thus, a view to Vasilyevsky Island and St. Catherine's Church from the area surrounding Sportivnaya metro station is now obstructed with a monstrous shopping centre. The main building of the Military Medical Academy is hidden behind hideous structures of a new pedestrian street in Finsky Pereulok. St. Isaac's dome cannot be seen anymore from Zagorodny Prospekt as the vista along UlitsaVvedenskogo Kanala is now dominated by the boxy Sennaya shopping mall.
The perspective of Malaya Morskaya Ulitsa, when seen from Nevsky Prospekt toward St. Isaac's Square is lost owing to a mattress-like glass attic of the new Renaissance Baltic Hotel.
This list is not, of course, exhaustive. During Kharchenko's years the cityscape was "enriched" with tens of kitschy monuments. Some of them like "mounted traffic-controller"Alexander Nevsky in front of the Lavra monastery, became advertisement vehicles for vainglorious sponsors, in addition to an astonishing lack of taste and skill.
The only thing this city may be grateful to outgoing chief architect for is the first, since 1920s, truly international architectural competition - the one to select the new Mariinsky opera house. He reportedly insisted on conducting it. But this, however, cannot outweigh the bad quality of recent architecture that gives this unique megalopolis an extremely provincial look.
Max Sher
St. Petersburg
TITLE: The Case Against Optimism
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Albats
TEXT: In Tashkent last Thursday, President Vladimir Putin announced that the "official authorities of the Russian Federation, the government and the country's economic authorities are not interested in the bankruptcy of a company like Yukos." Putin's remarks ignited the biggest stock market rally since he came to power. Yukos shares finished the day up 34.2 percent and the entire market followed in its wake. The MICEX and RTS indices rose 8.8 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively. Yet the president's long-awaited statement has also sown confusion and even some despair.
The big question now is whether the state will honor the contracts it has signed with businesses across the country or begin unilaterally voiding contracts on the grounds that they are unfair or illegal before proceeding with the wholesale redistribution of property. The answer to this question will determine Russia's future for years to come. The enforcement of contracts is the backbone of capitalism, after all, and an ironclad obligation for all but totalitarian regimes.
At present, two scenarios are possible, the optimistic and the pessimistic.
The optimistic scenario assumes that Putin's goal in the Yukos affair is to bring the oligarchs to their knees and force them to pay the state the difference between the real market value of their companies and the rock-bottom prices they paid during the murky privatization deals of the 1990s. His goals would presumably also include forcing businesses to pay their taxes in full and to dispense with the practice of transfer pricing, which most often amounts to blatant cheating.
The pessimistic scenario, by contrast, assumes that whatever Putin and the Kremlin's spin doctors might say, the president's real goal is to place control of the most important sectors of the economy - oil and gas, metals, telecoms and so on - in the hands of the state and/or Kremlin insiders. In order to make this redistribution of property more profitable, the value of major companies would be artificially driven down by jailing the current owners and through bankruptcy proceedings. Once this strategy was unleashed against big business, it would only be a matter of time before medium and small business came under attack as well.
Which scenario is the more likely? Recent history provides little cause for optimism. Putin has been known to make all sorts of promising statements in the past that proved to bear little relation to the actual course of events and little if any impact on the activities of law enforcement and the judiciary.
The president famously could not get the prosecutor general on the phone when media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky was thrown in jail and forced to sign away his assets under threat of confinement in a prison cell with HIV-positive and highly violent cellmates. On another occasion, Putin has differed with law enforcement about the pretrial detention of businessmen accused of white-collar crimes, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been denied bail and held in prison since his arrest last October.
The optimistic scenario also has the potential to create a great deal of uncertainty for the ruling elite, and could even undermine Putin's hold on power. By relying on the bureaucracy for support to the exclusion of other institutions, Putin has forfeited control over Russia's army of government officials, who are all too eager to assert their control over business. To ensure the loyalty of his supporters, particularly those in uniform, Putin has been forced to cede both property and power to satisfy their ambitions. Moreover, announcing an amnesty regarding the privatization deals of the 1990s and allowing the oligarchs to buy their way into the regime's good graces using the fortunes they have amassed over the past decade would lead to the rise of a powerful opposition pitted against Putin's bureaucratic state. It would only be logical for business leaders to assume that the state, having once used coercion and force to gain control of a privately held company's assets, would do so again in the future. And in the absence of an independent judiciary capable of defending property and ownership rights, no contract will be set in stone.
It has become all too clear, even to outsiders, that Putin, not the courts or the prosecutors, will decide the fate of Yukos and its former CEO. Given the total lack of transparency in the Kremlin's decision-making processes, we can only guess what may have prompted Putin to make his reassuring remarks in Tashkent. Nor is there any way to gauge the president's sincerity. It may just as well turn out that Putin failed to convey his message to the Prosecutor General's Office, or that the Kremlin couldn't get the judge on the line.
In the end, the optimistic scenario would come as a pleasant surprise, but it would fundamentally contradict the system that Putin has put in place during his first four years in the Kremlin.
Yevgenia Albats hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio on Sundays.
TITLE: City Hall Must Spend More Wisely If It Wants People to Pay It More Tax
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Gryaznevich
TEXT: City Hall has begun a campaign aimed at eliminating the most important element of the black-market economy - under-the-table cash payments.
On June 10, representatives of the administration, businessmen and journalists discussed this problem at a meeting on legalizing wages. As Vladimir Blank, head of City Hall's committee for economic development, industrial policy and trade, said, the authorities understand that businesses cannot be forced to legalize wages. The resolution lies in negotiating, he said. To this end, he initiated a detailed explanation to those present of the negative aspects of "gray pay," both for businessmen (mainly from small businesses) and their employees.
Blank considers one of the most serious defects of this practice to be the difficulties it creates for employees when they want to take out a loan. If they cannot borrow money, the market for goods and services - those provided for an extended period of time such as housing and cars - will not develop properly. Meanwhile, an analysis of the problem shows that the devil might not be so terrible as he is painted. It is well known that retailers are able to work with customers who receive their income under the table. It is understood that making these people's income creditworthy is more difficult than for people who are able to officially declare their wages, but the stronger the competition in the retail market, the more the "legal" and illegal wages converge. At the moment the difference is between 15 percent and 20 percent, which is not all that much.
Of course, it would be more convenient for both retailers and customers if they could all have legal incomes, but everyone understands that legalization of wages is an extremely complicated problem for employers. They would also like to work legitimately (more and more businessmen now express this desire openly and sincerely), but are impeded by a great number of factors, which are, in the main, completely objective, such as the high cost of a qualified work force caused by the scarceness of labor on the employment market and the unified social tax.
Objective circumstances tip the scales in the same way for the workers.
The chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of St Petersburg and the Leningrad region, Garri Lysyuk, called gray wages "pay packet slavery," alluding to workers' dependence on employers who have the opportunity to save money on employment safety and on pensions for their staff. In theory, he is right. However, the condition of state pension provision in Russia is such that if you don't look after yourself, you end up without a pension. As far as working conditions are concerned, the shortage of skilled workers, the threat of losing a valuable worker and the wish to motivate him towards intensive work stimulate employers much more strongly than the probability of court action (for improper employment conditions) from colleagues receiving legitimate pay.
At the same time, the government's inefficiency in spending our taxes is obvious. As is well known, the receipts from income tax are the main source of the St. Petersburg budget (45 percent). Moreover, the bulk of budget expenditures go on state orders. But as Blank himself announced at a government meeting on June 9, an honest assessment of state orders is being openly sabotaged by officials from branch committees, leading to large losses for the budget. The result is that the government, which lays claim to a significant percentage of our earnings (through the unified social and income taxes), is squandering this money, while a not insignificant percentage is simply going into the officials' pockets - in the form of "hush-money".
I have not even mentioned that even money that is distributed in the right direction is often distributed inefficiently. One finds examples of this at every turn. Officials themselves talk about the inefficiency of the wasteful financing in the social sphere and about the need to move towards a remuneration of services. City Hall's finance committee has been trying for four years to bring in a budget reform, but things are still right where they started. It is being sabotaged, just like the reform of state orders, by branch officials.
Incidentally, St. Petersburgers reformed their "budget system" a long time ago. They pay directors of good schools, kindergartens, doctors at polyclinics and hospitals for the welfare of their children - all voluntarily. Working citizens care for their elderly relatives, their medical and day care included, much better than the state, while employers do the same for their workers using funds saved through not paying the unified social tax.
"We don't have enough money for the maintenance of the city," reads Vladimir Blank's reason for campaigning for the legalization of pay. Such an inefficient government will, however, always be short of money. From a purely economic point of view, when the state is working less efficiently in the social sphere than the people, it would be more appropriate not to legalize wages, but to completely abolish the tax on earnings and give the people themselves the burden of social security.
Taxes are the product of a social agreement. You can set whatever wages you like, but people will give back to the government only as much as they trust it. Our state does not merit great trust, and it admits this itself. So why give it money?
The majority of arguments in favor of keeping illegal pay, as I have shown, are completely objective. This means that society is simply not ready to make wages legal, at least not fully. Thus, however reasoned the authorities' arguments, they will not achieve full legalization of pay. However, the authorities can count on an increase in the "legitimate" component of pay. It is precisely this that the common-sense talking Blank, himself from a business background, is aiming toward. In order for this proportion to grow faster, the state should demonstrate to the population an increase in the efficiency of its work. Then it will require less money, which will mean the unified social tax can be decreased substantially, and the people's confidence in the authorities will rise. It's a shame that Smolny, in initiating a campaign for the legalization of pay, is committing the same error it has in the reform of the communal housing payments: demanding money in advance.
Vladimir Gryaznevich is a political analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine. His comment was first broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday.
TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
AUTHOR: By Chris Floyd
TEXT: Blood of Victory
Surely it is now time for all the Bush-bashers and war critics - on both left and right - to swallow their pride, put aside their partisanship, and admit the stone-cold truth: The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a rousing success.
For despite many setbacks and dark days, it cannot be denied that George W. Bush has accomplished exactly what he set out to do in launching his aggression: the installation - through "a heavy dose of fear and violence," as one American commander eloquently put it - of a client state in Iraq, led by a strongman who will facilitate the Bush Regime's long-term (and long-declared) strategic goal of establishing a permanent military "footprint" in the key oil state, while also guaranteeing the short-term goal of opening the country to exploitation by Bush cronies and favored foreign interests. All of this has now been done - and even sealed with the approval of the UN Security Council.
True, in its quest to install a "Saddam Lite" - more pliant and presentable than the old Bush-Reagan partner - the Regime had to change horses in midstream, swapping its early favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, the convicted fraudster, suspected Iranian spy and Pentagon-paid purveyor of warmongering lies, for a late-breaking dark horse: Chalabi's cousin and rival, Iyad Allawi, former Baathist enforcer, proudly-confessed CIA tool - and the leader of a terrorist campaign that killed dozens of Iraqi civilians, The Independent reports.
Under the direction of CIA paymasters, Allawi and his Iraqi National Accord carried out a terror bombing campaign in Baghdad during 1994-95. Their targets included a mosque, a movie house and a newspaper - the latter strike killing a child passing by. Ex-CIA operatives from those glory days said a bus full of schoolchildren was also blown apart - although they admitted they weren't sure which of their paid terrorist groups were responsible for that one, The New York Times reports. But conservative estimates put at least 100 terrorist murder notches in Allawi's stylish Gucci belt.
Obviously, this man of blood-and-iron action was much to be preferred to his windbag cousin, who could offer little more than lies and larceny. So Chalabi got the customary shiv in the back - the fate of all retainers who prove superfluous to the Bush Family's ambitions - while Allawi was named prime minister of the newly "sovereign" government.
One of his first acts was to "invite" the American occupiers to stay on. Meanwhile, just before the "transfer," U.S. Viceroy Paul Bremer installed Bushist "commissioners" throughout the ministries of the "sovereign" state. These moles were given budgetary and prosecutorial powers, ensuring that political control - and the flow of loot - would remain firmly in Washington's hands.
The whole adventure has been a win-win scenario for the Bushists from the start, no matter how it ends up. This is what opponents of the war - and even most of its supporters - have failed to grasp, because they don't understand what the Bush Family is about. Put simply, the Bushes represent the confluence of three long-established power factions in the American elite: oil, arms and investments. These groups equate their own interests, their own wealth and privilege, with the interests of the nation - indeed, the world - as a whole. And they pursue these interests with every weapon at their command - including war, torture, deceit and corruption.
Democracy means nothing to them - not even in their own country, as demonstrated in 2000. Laws are to keep the common herd in line; they don't apply to the elite, as Bush's own lawyers asserted openly in their memos establishing his "inherent power" to "set aside the law" and order any crime in the name of his self-proclaimed "war on terror."
The Iraq war has been immensely profitable for these factions and their tributaries; billions of dollars in public money have already poured into their coffers. The aftermath of the war promises equal if not greater riches. Even if the new Iraqi government maintains state control of its oil industry, there are still billions to be made in servicing, refining, distribution and oilfield security, as in Saudi Arabia.
Likewise, the new Iraqi military will require billions more in weapons and equipment - bought from the U.S. arms industry. And as with Saudi Arabia, oil money from the new Iraq will pump untold billions into American banks and investment houses.
Even in the worst-case scenario, if the Americans had to pull out tomorrow, abandoning everything - their bases, their "commissioners," their contracts, their collaborators - the Bushist factions still come out ahead. Not only has their already incalculable wealth been vastly augmented (with any potential losses indemnified by U.S. taxpayers), but their deeply-entrenched sway over American society has also increased by several magnitudes.
No matter who controls the government, the militarization of America is so far gone now it's impossible to imagine any major rollback in the gargantuan U.S. war machine - 700 bases in 170 countries, annual military budgets nearing $500 billion, $1 trillion in new weapons systems moving through the pipeline. Indeed, John Kerry promises even bigger war budgets and more troops if elected. He poses no threat to the factions' power.
Has Bush's war brought democracy to Iraq? Has it dealt a blow to terrorism? Has it made America - or the Middle East, or the world - any safer? No. But it was never intended to do those things. All this blood and chaos - this mass murder - has had but one aim: enhancing the power of a handful of elites. This mission has been accomplished. And there is not the slightest chance that any of the perpetrators will ever face justice.
That, my friends, is victory.
For annotational references, see the Opinion section at www.sptimesrussia.com
TITLE: EU Constitution Faces Tough Sell to Public
AUTHOR: By Robert Wielaard
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS, Belgium - Getting agreement on its first constitution took three years of wrangling. Now the European Union may face an even tougher fight in selling the charter on the streets and in the parliaments of Europe amid growing skepticism about the wisdom of more integration.
The historic deal, reached Friday night after two days of contentious talks, now must be ratified by each of the 25 member nations either by referendum or parliamentary vote - and reaction in some countries suggested just how hard the pitch will be.
"Blair sells out to EU," the British newspaper The Sun declared on its front page Saturday in lambasting Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Daily Telegraph said Blair had committed the "worst blunder of his premiership."
Spain's conservative Popular Party criticized the Socialist government for agreeing to a deal that it said would lessen Spain's voting clout in the EU. Spain "is no longer in the group of important countries," said Angel Acebes, a former interior minister.
The treaty includes a 50-article charter of fundamental rights, including the right to free speech and religion as well as shelter, education and fair working conditions.
It also retains a requirement for unanimous votes on foreign and defense policy, social security, taxation and culture.
But to streamline decision making, the charter would end national vetoes in some 50 new policy areas, including judicial and police cooperation, education and economic policy. That's what alarms people worried about the EU evolving into a federal "superstore" that would erode national sovereignty.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who as chairman of the summit was credited with clinching the agreement, said he was convinced Europeans will embrace the charter.
"This is a great achievement for Europe and for all Europeans," he said. He said that the treaty would help safeguard human rights and democracy and that its promise to promote peace "will resonate with all decent people."
But while EU leaders toasted their deal with champagne, they also had to admit they failed to select a new head of the European Commission, the EU's executive body. At least eight candidates were considered, including several prime ministers, but none could muster sufficient support.
Opposition to the constitution is strongest in Britain, where a "Euro-skeptic" party came in a strong third in this month's elections to the European Parliament and Blair's Labour Party turned in the worst electoral performance by a governing party in decades.
The European Parliament elections also revealed Euro-skeptic sentiment in some countries that joined the EU on May 1 after decades of living under communist rule. Euro-skeptic candidates did well in Lithuania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Poland, signaling governments there will face fights over the constitution's ratification.
Britain and at least seven other nations will hold referendums on the charter.
Addressing worries about the danger of an EU superstate, Blair suggested the bloc's 10 new members are already helping to blunt the long campaign by France and Germany to bring ever closer integration.
"The truth is that in the new Europe taking shape there are allies that share our perspective. It is a new Europe. You can see the difference with these new countries coming into Europe and sitting round the table. They are our allies," Blair said.
French President Jacques Chirac said he had wanted more powers ceded to the EU. "We, it's true, would have liked to have gone further still down the road of harmonization in social and fiscal areas, but of course we had to take everyone's opinions into account," he said.
The final text resolved one of the most bitter disputes of the three years of negotiations - the voting system.
The charter provides that at least 15 countries representing 65 percent of the EU's 455 million people would be required for a measure to pass, a safeguard to prevent the most populous countries from dominating. In another safeguard, at least four countries with 35 percent of the population would be needed to block any measure.
TITLE: First Private Space Flight Blasts Off
AUTHOR: By John Antczak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOJAVE, California - Aviation enthusiasts began gathering Sunday in the high desert in hopes of seeing the first flight into space by a privately developed, manned rocket.
Thousands of people were expected to be watching early Monday when an exotic jet-engined airplane named White Knight was set to take off from Mojave Airport carrying the rocket-propelled SpaceShipOne.
"Clearly there is an enormous, pent-up hunger to fly in space and not just dream about it," SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan told a news conference packed with hundreds of reporters, photographers and news cameras Sunday.
"Now I know what it was like to be involved in America's amazing race to the moon in the '60s," he said. "Those folks were driven... and they had the fun of working for America's prestige."
White Knight, carrying the rocket plane slung under its belly, was scheduled for a 6:30 a.m. local time, takeoff, followed by a climb to 50,000 feet, where it will release SpaceShipOne about 7:30 a.m.
SpaceShipOne's pilot, flying solo, will then ignite the rocket and pull up into an 80-second powered climb. After the rocket motor shuts down, the craft is to coast up to a target altitude of 62 miles above the Earth, then re-enter the atmosphere and glide for 15 to 20 minutes to a landing back at Mojave.
Wind or clouds could force a postponement. At Sunday's press conference at Mojave Airport, Rutan and program financier Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., named the pilot for Monday's flight: Mike Melvill, 62, a veteran civilian test pilot and a vice president and general manager for Scaled Composites.
Melvill, who holds records for altitude and speed in various classes of aircraft, piloted the rocket plane on a test flight last month in which it soared 40 miles high.
NASA is interested in the project, said Michael Lembeck, requirements division director of the space agency's Office of Exploration Systems.
"We need people like Burt Rutan with innovative ideas that will take us to the moon and Mars," he said from NASA headquarters. "Folks like Burt bring a different way of doing business."
Rutan became a household name in 1986 when his lightweight Voyager aircraft made the first nonstop flight around the world without refueling. His projects include the popular homebuilt VariEze light aircraft, new business planes, remotely piloted craft for defense and science, the 1988 America's Cup wing sail, a crew-return vehicle for the international space station and an upcoming jet-powered plane for another world flight attempt.
TITLE: S. Korea To Send Troops Despite Kidnapping
AUTHOR: By Christopher Torchia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea said Monday it will go ahead with its plan to send troops to Iraq despite the abduction of a South Korean man and the televised broadcast of his desperate pleas to stay alive.
The kidnapping tested South Korea's resolve just days after the U.S. ally announced it will dispatch 3,000 troops to assist in reconstruction efforts in northern Iraq. Once the deployment is complete, South Korea will be the largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain.
On Sunday, the Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape purportedly from al-Qaida-linked militants showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.
The kidnappers, who identified themselves as belonging to a group led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave South Korea 24 hours to meet its demand or "we will send you the head of this Korean."
Officials of South Korea's National Security Council, and the ministries of foreign affairs and defense, hastily met after news broke of the abduction.
"There is no change in the government's spirit and position that it will send troops to Iraq to help establish peace and rebuild Iraq," Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin said at a news conference.
President Roh Moo-hyun said the incident was "deeply unfortunate and regrettable" and instructed his government to do all it can to win the release of the hostage, Roh's office said in a statement.
"President Roh instructed the government to increase efforts to explain to the Iraqi people that South Korea is sending troops to Iraq not to engage in hostile acts against Iraq, but to focus on assisting reconstruction there," the statement said.
South Korean media identified the hostage as Kim Sun-il, 33, an employee of South Korea's Gana General Trading, Co., a supplier for the U.S. military.
Kim was abducted on June 17 while making a delivery in the city of Fallujah, Choi said. Gana's president, identified as Kim Chun-ho by the Yonhap news agency, tried to negotiate his employee's release before notifying the government, Choi said.
"We are sorry that we can't provide further details because sensitive government efforts are underway to save his life," Choi said.
A South Korean television news station, YTN, said Kim had been in Iraq for about eight months. His distraught sister, Kim Jung-sook, told the station that his family last spoke to him in April. At that time, she said, Kim Sun-il was in the Fallujah area and planned to return to South Korea in July to attend his father's 70th birthday.
The hostage on the tape is heard screaming in English: "Korean soldiers, please get out of here. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I know that your life is important, but my life is important."
Kim's tearful mother, Shin Young-ja, told YTN. "The government should do whatever it can to save my son's life. Time is running out."
TITLE: Saudi Cops Aided Abductors
AUTHOR: By Salah Nasrawi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The al-Qaida group responsible for beheading an American engineer said sympathizers in the Saudi security forces provided police uniforms and cars used during the victim's kidnapping, according to an Islamic extremist Web site Sunday.
The account of the abduction of Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was later decapitated, highlighted the fears expressed by some diplomats and Westerners in the kingdom that militants have infiltrated Saudi security forces - a possibility Saudi officials have denied.
The article recounting the abduction appeared in Sawt al-Jihad, or Voice of the Holy War, a semimonthly Internet periodical posted by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula - the group that claimed responsibility for killing Johnson.
According to the account, militants wearing police uniforms and using police cars set up a fake checkpoint June 12 on al-Khadma Road, leading to the airport, near Imam Mohammed bin Saud University.
"A number of the cooperators who are sincere to their religion in the security apparatus donated those clothes and the police cars. We ask God to reward them and that they use their energy to serve Islam and the mujahedeen," the article read.
When Johnson's car approached the checkpoint, the militants stopped it, detained him, anesthetized him and carried him to another car, the article said. Earlier Saudi newspaper reports said Johnson was drugged during the kidnapping.
In a separate article on the Web site, the leader of the al-Qaida cell behind the abduction, Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, justified the targeting of Johnson, pointing to his work on Apache attack helicopters for Lockheed Martin. Al-Moqrin and three other militants were killed Friday in a shootout with Saudi security forces hours after Johnson's death became known.
Johnson "works for military aviation and he belongs to the American army, which kills, tortures and harms Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies [of Islam] in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir," wrote al-Moqrin.
On Sunday, police continued their search for Johnson's body and the militants involved in his death.
"We are still combing through neighborhoods. And we hope that eventually we'll find the body and restore it to his family," Adel al-Jubeir, the foreign affairs adviser of Crown Prince Abdullah in Washington, said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Police cars, armored vehicles and a large contingent of emergency forces blockaded the al-Malaz area Sunday in a search for suspects, security officials said. Witnesses saw suspects fleeing into a house in the neighborhood after police fired at them at a traffic light.
On Sunday night, scores of Saudi men, mostly in their 20s and 30s, paid visits to the gas station where al-Moqrin and the three others were killed.
"This should be turned into a national monument," said Mohamed Ibrahim Shakir. "Every Saudi should come here and pray to God. We got rid of these terrorists."
Saudi King Fahd said Sunday that militants would not succeed in their aim to harm the kingdom.
"The perpetrators of these attacks aimed at shaking stability and crippling security - and it is a far fetched aim, God willing," he said in a speech to the advisory Shura Council. "We will not allow this destructive bunch, led by deviant thought, to harm the security of this nation or affect its stability."
TITLE: Navratilova's Russian Protege
AUTHOR: By Howard Fendrich
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WIMBLEDON, England - Martina Navratilova sure can spot tennis talent when she sees it.
At an exhibition in Moscow a dozen years ago, she saw a girl brandishing a racket and encouraged her to seek serious coaching, perhaps in the United States.
Next week at Wimbledon, both Navratilova and that kid - Maria Sharapova - will be competing. And while Navratilova, now 47, is playing singles at the All England Club one last time before retiring, Sharapova, now 17, considers herself a title contender.
"When I was 5, I did an exhibition with thousands of kids, and Martina Navratilova was there," Sharapova recalled. "She told my dad I had a lot of talent."
At the time, Sharapova wasn't aware the advice was coming from an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion.
"I had no idea who she was. I didn't know anything about tennis," Sharapova said. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't a big fan of anyone. I knew tennis was a big sport, but I never had anyone I looked up to."
Sharapova eventually might be the best. And she knows it.
"It would be a dream come true if I were to win Wimbledon," she said. "Realistic? Why not?"
Perhaps her confidence was inherited from her father, Yury. Approached after Maria won her third-round match at the French Open, he told reporters to come back "after the tournament." Then he added: "After she will win, we will talk."
Alas, Sharapova lost her quarterfinal, her first at a major. At Wimbledon in 2003, she reached the fourth round, tying the best showing ever by a female wild card here.
With No. 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne and No. 2 Kim Clijsters sidelined, and the Williams sisters trying to regain their top form, Wimbledon appears wide open.
"Sharapova could be a dangerous player, for sure," former pro and ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernandez said. "She's looking to be another superstar."
It's been a circuitous route.
Born in Siberia, Sharapova moved to a Black Sea resort at 2, began playing tennis at 4, and entered Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in Florida at 9. She also has worked in Los Angeles with Robert Lansdorp, who coached Tracy Austin.
Sharapova, who signed with the modeling agency which represents Tyra Banks, has been compared with Anna Kournikova, but there's a key difference: Sharapova has won a tournament - three, actually, including last week on grass at Birmingham.
Her English is nearly flawless, and the WTA Tour is eager for her to help promote the game. Its new ad campaign includes a poster with Sharapova on court and the tagline, "A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do."
In Sharapova's case, that includes shrieking after shots. At Birmingham last year, she was warned by tournament officials when an opponent - and players on another court! - complained about high-pitched grunts.
She's toned it down, and her game keeps improving. Success at Wimbledon might hinge on beating countrywomen: Sharapova, who meets 120th-ranked qualifier Yulia Beygelzimer in the first round, could play Bovina in the third, Myskina in the fourth and Dementyeva in the quarterfinals. "I know I have a long career ahead of me," Sharapova said. "It's kind of a dream come true. But on the other side, I think I still have a lot more to go."
Navratilova, meanwhile, doesn't. She'll retire for good after this season and is playing singles here for the first time since losing the 1994 final.
"I'm not proving anything to anybody," said Navratilova, who faces Catalina Castano, a Colombian ranked 100th. "This is definitely the last opportunity for me."
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Ralf Hospitalized
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) - Ralf Schumacher was hospitalized with back pain Sunday after he spun coming out of a turn and hit the wall hard during the U.S. Grand Prix.
He probably will remain in the hospital for several days, BMW team owner Frank Williams said.
Schumacher, younger brother of race winner and Formula One champion Michael Schumacher, spun twice on the 10th lap coming out of the last of the 13 turns on the course. He went backward into the wall and had to be taken from the car by the safety crew.
Michael Schumacher, who won the U.S. Grand Prix for the third time in five years, said his brother's condition was his biggest concern.
Golden Goosen Wins
SOUTHAMPTON, New York (AFP) - South Africa's Retief Goosen won the 104th U.S. Open on Sunday in a dramatic shoot-out with Masters' champion Phil Mickelson.
Goosen, the U.S. Open winner in 2001, closed with a one-over 71 to beat Mickelson by two shots. Mickelson, too, fired a final round one-over 71.
It was a nail-biting closing nine holes as the lead switched between the only two players left who refused to buckle under the punishing challenge that Shinnecock Hills threw at them.
Mickelson, looking for back-to-back majors, went in front when he birdied the par-five 16th.
But Goosen, the third-round leader and playing directly behind Mickelson, matched him and went to the par-three 17th all square.
It was on the 179-yard 17th that Mickelson's dream was crushed.
The 34-year-old American hit his 6-iron tee shot into the left bunker. He blasted out to five-feet but saw his par putt slide five-foot past.
U.S. Soccer Advances
AFP - Jamaica, El Salvador and Panama joined the United States in the semifinal round of the regional World Cup qualifying tournament on Sunday.
The four teams will start the group stage on Aug. 18, with two teams eventually advancing to the final six-team group. Three of those teams will qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, while a fourth meets an Asian team in a playoff for another berth.
The Americans easily downed Grenada 3-2 and 6-2 on aggregate.
O'Neal Feels Blamed
LOS ANGELES, California (AFP) - Shaquille O'Neal says managers are looking to use him as a "scapegoat," at the same time trying to drive a wedge between Los Angeles Lakers team members, Los Angeles media reported over the weekend.
O'Neal, who is in contract negotiations, said he wouldn't mind being traded and blasted Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak.
"I don't think this is about me at this point, because Mitch said he would entertain offers," O'Neal told the Los Angeles Daily News. "Everybody knows I love L.A. That's just Mitch using me as a scapegoat."
The summer overhaul of the Lakers began Friday when Phil Jackson officially ended his five-year coaching tenure in Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant also declared himself an unrestricted free agent on the same day.
The Lakers lost the basketball league final last week to underdogs Detroit Pistons.
All Blacks Win 36-12
AUCKLAND (AFP) - New Zealand romped to a 36-12 win in the second test against England after the world champions were reduced to 14 men only 11 minutes into the match.
Three tries to left wing Joe Rokocoko, giving him 21 from 14 tests, sealed a 2-0 series win on Saturday for the All Blacks after lock Simon Shaw had been sent from the field.
Shaw was shown a red card for kneeing his opposite number Keith Robinson in the back when the All Blacks lock was lying on the wrong side of a ruck, sparking a brawl.
Shaw was cleared to play next week against Australia after a judiciary committee ruled on Sunday he could not be banned since Australian touch judge Stuart Dickinson, who recommended the sending-off, had breached protocol by asking for help from the third match official to identify Shaw via a video replay.