SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #997 (65), Tuesday, August 24, 2004
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TITLE: Budget Bolsters Defense
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Cabinet on Monday approved a draft 2005 budget that boosts defense spending by 28 percent and promises to cover the government's ambitious social reform to switch Soviet-era benefits to cash payments for vulnerable citizens.
The draft budget puts revenues at 3.33 trillion rubles and spending at 3.05 trillion rubles. The projected surplus will amount to 254 billion rubles, or 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.
Defense tops the list of spending items at 528 billion rubles, a significant boost from the 411 billion rubles earmarked in this year's budget and the minuscule 93 billion rubles set aside in 1999.
National defense has received top priority in the four years since President Vladimir Putin took office. But the extra money has mostly gone to maintain and improve conditions in the military and done little to upgrade its aging arsenal of weapons. A chunk of the increases has also been eaten up by inflation.
Although defense spending accounts for 17 percent of the budget, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Monday that there is no reason to suggest the budget is militarized.
"National defense spending in the draft 2005 budget is at 2.6 percent to 2.7 percent of gross domestic product like in previous years," he said in televised remarks.
The Kremlin-controlled State Duma is to consider the draft budget in the first of four readings on Sept. 26.
Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said deputies would thoroughly review the budget but added that "the parameters that are already known inspire optimism."
The budget approved Monday contains only broad parameters for spending next year. The details of who will get what will be hammered out in the Duma.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the proposed budget ensures that the government will be able to meet all its social obligations, including the planned transfer on Jan. 1 to the cash payment system for retirees, war veterans, the disabled and others.
"Not a single benefactor will be forgotten," Kudrin said.
He also said the government will not need to borrow money abroad next year due to the amount of cash piling up in a state stabilization fund thanks to high global oil prices.
Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko said he was satisfied with the amount allocated for schools, but Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said he would complain to the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which controls the Duma, that his budget is being cut by 10 percent.
Defense spending is a state secret, but the government does provide general information about how the money is distributed. For 2005, the largest portion of defense spending, 383 billion rubles, is to go toward maintaining the armed forces, while 81 billion rubles will be allotted for defense research and development. A total of 8.7 billion rubles will go to the nuclear weapons complex and 61 million rubles to peacekeeping operations and maintaining security in the former Soviet Union.
Ivanov expressed concern that the extra funds for defense might end up being swallowed by growing energy and transportation costs.
He also said that most of the extra funds will go toward arms procurement and defense research and development.
Earlier this month, Kudrin said allocations for arms procurement and defense research would be increased by 70 billion rubles next year. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said in March that the figure in this year's budget is nearly 150 billion rubles.
If the amount is boosted to some 220 billion rubles, it would be the first time that post-Soviet Russia will spend more on arms than it earns in arms sales, industry experts said. Last year, the defense industry hit a new post-Soviet record of $5.6 billion in export revenues.
Yet it is unlikely that the defense industry will get a significant injection of cash in sales to the military. Aircraft-production plants say more than 90 percent of their revenues come from exports.
Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said this raises questions about where the money is actually going. Last year the military bought 14 tanks and upgraded five fighter jets.
"Something is wrong. There's a lot of money but no results," Makiyenko said. Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office for the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said the government appears to be investing more in research and development.
"Last year, R&D stood at 51 billion rubles and was upgraded to 81 billion rubles this year. This is an investment into the future," Safranchuk said.
He said, however, that the extra $1 billion is still kopeks compared to other country's defense budgets. While Russia's 2004 defense budget is 411 billion rubles, the United States' budget is $411 billion, he said.
Further report, page 10
TITLE: New Rules For Russian Tourists
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburgers visiting France and Italy in tour groups this season are facing additional passport checks by the consulates that issue their visas after they return to St. Petersburg, local tourist operators said this week.
The French consulate has introduced rules requiring city tourist operators to submit passports of all tourists the day after a group returns to prove that nobody stayed abroad as an illegal immigrant, the operators said Monday.
"[Now] we do not accept applications of tourists who plan to travel somewhere else [in Europe] if they go on a bus tour to France," Yulia Sidorova, of travel agency Extra Ltd., said Monday in a telephone interview.
"People are reacting to these new rules with understanding and no one seems too bothered about them," Sidorova said.
Galina Pushkina, an operator at IBI Travel, said tour guides have been collecting passports right after tourists are readmitted, either in the bus or in Pulkovo 2 airport shortly after border guards have examined the travel documents.
"We have to follow the rules and can't do much about them except obey," Pushkina said Monday in a telephone interview.
While the French consulate introduced the new rules in April, the Italian consulate started demanding to examine passports on tourists' return about a month ago, Pushkina said.
"Of course, not everybody likes it when their passports are collected after their arrival," she said. "[But] there are no problems for people who submit their passports because they have not committed any crimes on the territories of these countries."
Some travel agencies have gone even further, collecting their clients' passports right after the Russian border is crossed on their way to France or Italy, leaving the tourists with only copies of their documents for the duration of their travel, Izvestia reported Monday.
This way, the companies ensure their clients do not leave their group and journey in another direction.
The French consulate in St. Petersburg issues up to 30 or 40 visas a day for bus tours only, the paper said.
"It doesn't take long to check [the passports]," a woman at the consulate press service said. She asked not to be named.
"Travel agencies bring the passports in the evening and it takes only a few minutes," she added. "We just cross the names of the people who came back off our list."
The representative did not give any reason for the new rules.
"In the last four months of this year, we have [officially recorded] three people who have not come back," the representative said.
An Italian consulate representative said the passport checks were just a routine method of estimating the amount of illegal immigration. The checks are performed in a way that has very little effect on city tourist agencies.
"We do not check each individual in a group, but do it on a random basis," said Giuseppe Lacatena, head of the Italian consulate visa department. "We pick up a few people."
The consulate intends to review the data on illegal immigration within the next few weeks, he said Monday in a telephone interview.
"I'm saying this before we have analyzed the data, but [the situation] is not that bad," Lacatena added.
The St. Petersburg branch of the Foreign Ministry had no comment on the new rules.
"This is the first time I have heard of it," Viktor Lopatnikov, head of the branch, said Monday in a telephone interview. "They might have their own motivations of some sort."
Yury Vdovin, co-head of the local branch of human rights organization Citizen's Watch, said the rules could be a response to member countries of the Schengen Agreement - which creates a border-free zone between most European Union nations - deciding to monitor illegal immigration more closely.
"Some time ago European countries were arguing that our country [Russia] wouldn't open its borders for their citizens," Vdovin said Monday in a telephone interview. "Now it has and they have started facing certain problems themselves."
"I don't know how the problem of the illegal immigration should be solved, but it's clear that something should be done about it," he said. "This is a problem not only for the countries where the migrants go, but also for the illegal migrants themselves who live in terrible conditions with no work or social services."
"If tourists want to travel in a different direction to the one they originally choose as a tour, it's better to travel individually in the first place," Vdovin said.
Italian authorities are running a nationwide operation called Safe Summer that includes increased activity by the country's immigration services
TITLE: Beer Becoming Russians' Drink of Choice
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Legend has it that Prince Vladimir converted Russia to Christianity because unlike Islam, it did not prohibit drinking.
Six centuries later, Ivan the Terrible tried to capitalize on his people's love of drink by establishing a government monopoly on pubs. Vodka was even an incentive in Peter the Great's drive to Westernize Russia, when he decreed a goblet of vodka a day to each worker constructing St. Petersburg.
These days, however, the drink of choice is increasingly beer.
Not surprisingly, brewers and health professionals disagree on what this shift in taste means for the population's health, although politicians have become sufficiently concerned to propose a ban on beer commercials on television.
Russia's beer industry, which accounted for fewer than a dozen low-quality brews during Soviet times, is today the fastest growing in the world. A key factor in its favor is that, unlike hard liquor and wine, beer is not considered an alcoholic beverage under Russian law, which means it is readily available in kiosks and fast-food stands for the same price as a soda.
"Beer is replacing hard liquor in people's consumption patterns," said Vyacheslav Mamontov, head of the Russian Brewers' Union.
Five years ago, 80 percent of the population's alcohol intake came from vodka and 12 percent from beer, Mamontov said. Today, 70 percent comes from vodka and 19 percent from beer.
Some 47 percent of respondents in a recent survey named beer as their drink of choice, while only 33 percent named vodka, according to the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion.
Anything that can break Russia's centuries-old love affair with vodka may seem like a blessing in a country where, health experts estimate, one in seven people is an alcoholic.
"People are not replacing vodka with beer, but drinking more beer in addition to vodka," said Sergei Poliatykin, the medical programs director at NAN, a nonprofit organization combating alcohol and drug addiction.
Vodka consumption remains at 10 liters per person, according to Renaissance Capital, while beer consumption increased 8 percent to reach 51 liters per person last year. Beer consumption in Germany and Britain is roughly 120 liters and 100 liters per person, respectively.
Russians already drink so much vodka that there is not much room for the market to grow, said Viktor Tskhovrebov, consumer market analyst at Renaissance Capital.
Mamontov, like many Russian brewers, sees the growing popularity of beer as a sign of the country's growing health consciousness and sophistication.
Vladimir Antonov, general director of brewer Ochakovo, agreed. "This is a positive trend because beer contains less alcohol than vodka," he said.
A survey by the Public Opinion Fund indicated that Ochakovo's view is shared by the public - 55 percent of respondents under 35 said they believe that drinking beer every day is less harmful than drinking vodka every day.
But Poliatykin cautioned this way of thinking is misleading. "Drinking a liter of beer that's 4 percent is just as harmful as drinking 100 grams of vodka," he said, explaining that it is the amount of alcohol, not the way it is drunk, that counts.
"The beer industry is growing because more teenagers are drinking beer," he said.
The number of 14- to 18-year-olds being treated for alcoholism shot up by 26.6 percent from 2001 to 2002, according to the Health Ministry's latest statistics.
"Most teen alcoholics who've come through my office have started with beer and then began supplementing it with harder stuff," Poliatykin said. "Adults have formed their tastes, but teenagers have not, which makes them especially susceptible to ads. Brewers don't just advertise their products, they propagate a lifestyle."
In one recent television commercial, Fyodor Chaliapin, Russia's 20th-century opera icon, knocks down a beer during rehearsal. In another, a group of young men watching television in a sports bar don't mind it when pretty girls playing pool get in front of the screen because they are drinking "the right kind of beer."
Beer commercials account for about one-tenth of the television ad market, which amounted to more than $720 million in the first half of 2004, or 36 percent more than in the same period last year, according to the Association of Communications Agencies of Russia.
Earlier this month, the both houses of parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill that would, in the words of Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, "clean up beer foam from TV screens."
The bill, which is awaiting President Vladimir Putin's signature to become law, would prevent brewers from advertising on television and radio between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Commercials aired during the other hours would be barred from implying that beer quenches thirst or increases mental, athletic or social prowess. Under the bill, ads would also be banned from sports and cultural events.
Politicians say the crackdown is a necessary measure to counter growing beer consumption among teenagers.
"Limiting beer ads will ... shelter a healthy generation from the pressures of alcohol," Deputy Duma Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky told Interfax.
Health experts warn, however, that cutting commercials is far from enough.
"The ban is a half measure," Poliatykin said. "Minors can buy beer anywhere they go, and it's very cheap."
Mamontov from the Brewers' Union conceded that teenage drinking is a problem, saying the union is "in favor of prohibiting beer sales to people under 18."
But he said the talk about beer replacing vodka as the country's top drink is exaggerated.
"Beer is a drink for socializing," said Antonov. "It's too early to talk about beer being the national drink."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Starovoitova Trial Delay
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The trial of those accused of assassinating State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova in 1988, which was to have resumed Monday, was postponed until Wednesday because of the absence of a defense lawyer, Interfax reported Monday quoting officials in the city court.
Viktor Kalmykov, lawyer for Igor Lelyavin, was in Moscow on Monday to defend his appeal against the city court's decision to extend the period of detention for his client.
On Wednesday the defense will start presenting its case.
Defendant Released
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - One of six suspects on trial for belonging to the extremist organization Shults-88 was released Monday, Interfax reported quoting officials from St. Petersburg city court.
The suspect Alexei Vostroknutov was freed because he was charged with inciting national and religious hatred, which is not a high-profile crime, according to the federal law. Suspects facing these charges can be kept in prison for a term not more than 6 months.
Investigators allege that in 2001, Shults-88 leader Dmitry Bobrov put together about 10 teenagers to fight people of Jewish, Caucasus and African nationalities. The next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 14.
Hotel Partly Burned
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A fire destroyed part of the Oktyabrskaya Hotel on Sunday.
An report of the fire on the third floor of the building located at 45 Ligovsky Prospekt was received by emergency services at 8:50 p.m., Interfax reported.
Sections on third and fourth floors and the hotel's penthouse were burned out as were staircases. Forty people were evacuated with no casualties.
Blast Victim Dies
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A woman injured by an explosion at city company Pharmakon on Aug. 16 has died, Interfax reported Monday quoting Dzhanelidze Hospital.
Irina Okuneva had been in the hospital with serious burns. The explosion took place as a result of a failure while equipment was being filled with chemicals, the report said.
Prosecutor Starts
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Ivan Kondrat, the new prosecutor for Russia's Northwest officially started work Monday.
Kondrat, born in 1961, is a graduate of the Kharkov Lawyers' Institute.
TITLE: Pope Says He'll Send Icon Back
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II publicly announced Sunday that he will send back to the Russian Orthodox Church a religious icon that ended up in the Vatican.
John Paul had been hoping to return the Mother of God of Kazan icon himself and become the first Roman Catholic pontiff to visit Russia. But tense relations with the Russian Orthodox Church have prevented such a trip.
Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said last month that the icon would be taken to Russia next Monday by a Vatican delegation. However, the pontiff's statement Sunday was his first public announcement of the handover.
The icon, "which left Russia in the '20s of the last century, after prolonged stays in different places, arrived some years ago in the residence of the pope, and from that moment it has watched over his daily work," John Paul told pilgrims gathered at his summer residence in the hills outside Rome.
"Now I am pleased to announce that a special delegation will bring this icon, which is so dear to me, to His Holiness Alexy II, patriarch of Moscow and all Russia," the pope said.
On Wednesday, the Vatican will hold a celebration of the icon to mark its handover, and the piece should be in Moscow next Saturday.
Recently, Patriarch Alexy II played down the importance of the icon, saying the work is an 18th-century copy of a revered 16th-century work.
TITLE: Motley Crew of Musicians Seek Harmony in City
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Musicians and singers from England, Belgium, Sweden, America and Canada plan to produce a beautiful and melodious sound when they perform a concert in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
The catch is that they only met last week. This motley crew of musicians from around the globe came to St. Petersburg through Let's Make Music, an organization based in Eastborn, England.
Let's Make Music provides "the opportunity for instrumentalists to come from anywhere to make up an orchestra for a weekend or a week to play music," said Peter Mayes, founder and director of the organization.
"Music being the most international [language] of all - it's an opportunity for people to travel and make friends from other countries," he said Monday in an interview.
Mayes founded the group in 1992 and for 10 years people gathered in his hometown to meet and play together.
Two years ago, Mayes decided to take the organization on the road and set his sights on St. Petersburg after having passed through the city on his way to Yakutsk, where he taught English.
The group has been rehearsing for about 3 1/2 hours in the morning and spending the afternoons touring the city. The music they play ranges from pieces by Rimsky-Korsakov to Glinka and is not the usual fare of the amateur orchestras they play in at home, Mayes said.
"I wanted to play music that I hadn't before played in the local orchestra and to play with high-standard musicians," he said.
Let's Make Music works with well-established city talents, who lead rehearsals and conduct the orchestra and choir.
Alim Shakhmametev, a conductor with the Rimsky Korsakov Opera Theater and a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, conducts the orchestra. The choir is led by Yulia Khutoretskaya, also a conservatory professor and the conductor of the Youth Chamber Choir of St. Petersburg.
"They're very flexible, musical [and] understanding," Khutoretskaya said of the international players. "Its interesting for them to get acquainted with new music."
This is the first time Mayes has organized a choir to participate in the trip, which costs each member about $545, not including airfare. There are about 50 choir members and 18 orchestra members.
The only hitch was getting the six string instruments through customs. It took about 30 minutes for each instrument to be checked, stamped and approved for entry into the country. Mayes said he would like to bring more instruments next time, but rigorous customs regulations would make that nearly impossible.
"If I brought 48 instruments, it would take 24 hours to get them through customs," Mayes said, "which is not very good for tourism in St. Petersburg."
Despite this, "people were very keen to come for the chance to see St. Petersburg," said Nicola Williams, the choir coordinator.
One of those people is Peter Warner, an artist from Kent, England. Warner had first visited the city in 1987 during the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution while on another musically themed journey.
"One of the attractive things about this trip is coming back to St. Petersburg, which is a fabulous city," he said.
Let's Make Music's choir and orchestra will perform at the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral at 22-24 Nevsky Prospekt Tuesday at 3 p.m. The free concert will last about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
TITLE: Iran Wants Russian Help to Build a 2nd Nuclear Reactor
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Sunday that it plans to build a second nuclear reactor with Russia's help and that at least two other European states have expressed interest in such a project, brushing aside U.S. accusations that the Islamic state wants to build atomic weapons.
Russia is building Iran's first nuclear reactor, which was begun by West Germany but interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Damage caused to the nearly completed facility in Bushehr during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq also led to the postponement of its planned inauguration from 2003 to August 2006.
Despite the delays and the project's $800 million cost, Iranian nuclear officials say they want Russia to build more nuclear reactors to help generate greater amounts of electricity.
The comments Sunday reflect Iran's determination to push ahead with its nuclear program despite U.S. and international concerns that it seeks to develop nuclear weapons.
The United States has been lobbying for the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran's nuclear dossier to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions. Tehran denies seeking to develop weapons.
Asadollah Sabouri, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, did not say when construction might begin but insisted Russia was obligated to build more than one nuclear reactor under a 1992 agreement between the two countries.
"We have contracts with Russia to build more nuclear reactors. No number has been specified but definitely our contract with Russia is to build more than one nuclear power plant," Sabouri said.
Despite U.S. pressure, Russia has been reluctant to abandon the nuclear reactor refit project at Bushehr.
Nikolai Shingaryov, spokesman for Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said by telephone that he was unaware of contracts for Russia to help build any more reactors.
He said the two countries have held discussions on building a second one, as called for in the 1992 agreement, but an actual contract would be needed to begin construction.
Sabouri said later that Russia will build a second reactor in Bushehr and that Iran is studying other sites there for more possible reactors.
Most areas in Iran are prone to earthquakes, restricting choices for setting up nuclear facilities.
TITLE: Classroom Environment Making Pupils Sick
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - A top doctor said schoolchildren are increasingly at risk of coming down with physical and psychological illnesses, because they study in cramped and poorly lit classrooms that sometimes fail to meet sanitary requirements.
The warning comes days before the start of the school year on Sept. 1, and the doctor, Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Health and Social Development Ministry's health welfare service, conceded that little could be done to improve classrooms this year.
Onishchenko said 16 percent of children under the age of 14 developed chronic diseases due to their classroom environment last year.
The children contracted intestinal and psychological illnesses and even developed bad posture, he told reporters last week after receiving the results of a national survey of schools ahead of the new school year.
Onishchenko did not provide any exact numbers.
His spokeswoman Lyubov Voropayeva said the 16 percent figure was an increase from the previous school year.
Onishchenko said classrooms are too small, badly lit and do not have enough desks and other furniture.
He said the worst-off schools are in Chechnya, where 61 percent of schools fail to meet federal requirements, while in neighboring Dagestan 37 percent of the schools fall short.
Only 64 percent of the schools in the relatively better-off Kemerovo region have proper-sized desks for students, he said.
Onishchenko also complained about a lack of schools, which leads to classes commonly being organized into two shifts, the second of which runs into the late afternoon hours.
TITLE: President Flies to Chechnya Ahead of Vote
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A week before the Chechen presidential election, President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Chechnya on Sunday to lay red carnations on the grave of slain Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov.
Putin later hosted Chechen presidential candidate Alu Alkhanov and Kadyrov's son Ramzan at his vacation residence on the Black Sea, where he backed proposals by Alkhanov to increase Chechnya's autonomy.
The president's actions sent a clear signal once again that Alkhanov is the candidate he favors in the election next Sunday.
Putin, with Alkhanov and the younger Kadyrov at his side, solemnly paid tribute to Akhmad Kadyrov during a lightning trip to Kadyrov's home village of Tsentoroi early Sunday morning.
"We lost a sincere, manly, talented and exceptionally decent person," Putin said in remarks shown on state-run Rossia television. "He had no purpose other than to serve his people.
"You and I have to do everything to fulfill Akhmad Kadyrov's plans, all of his good causes and undertakings," he said.
Kadyrov would have turned 53 on Monday.
"I appreciate that you have come to the grave of our President Akhmad Kadyrov at this uneasy time," Alkhanov, Chechnya's interior minister, said in televised remarks. "We are grateful to you for this, and we promise that the cause started by Akhmad Kadyrov, his course and policies, will be continued by his supporters."
Kadyrov was killed May 9 when a bomb tore through a Grozny stadium where he was watching a parade celebrating the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Putin's visit to Chechnya was brief. State news agencies reported that he arrived in Tsentoroi at about 7:30 a.m. and was back at his Bocharov Ruchei residence near Sochi, where he has been vacationing for the past week, at 10:40 a.m.
Meeting at his residence, Putin endorsed a request from Alkhanov for Chechnya to receive oil-export profits for its reconstruction efforts.
"It seems to me that everybody will understand this proposal. The Cabinet will pass a resolution on this if need be, and I'm ready to make an appeal to State Duma deputies if there's any need to amend tax legislation," Putin said, RIA-Novosti reported.
Alkhanov, who heads a public council overseeing restoration efforts, said Moscow would spend less money on restoration if Chechnya was allowed access to the oil money, Rossia reported.
Putin agreed. "Why spend federal budget money if the republic extracts a product that is in demand on the world market?" he said.
He warned, however, that "not a single kopek should disappear."
Under Alkhanov's proposal, the state-owned Rosneft subsidiary that pumps oil in Chechnya would hand over profits-not just taxes-to the Chechen budget, said Alexei Malashenko, a Chechnya analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. The subsidiary, Grozneft, produced 1.8 million tons of oil in 2003 and intends to increase production to 2 million tons this year.
Malashenko called the proposal "healthy" and "realistic," and said Akhmad Kadyrov had sought a similar arrangement.
Putin also approved a plan allowing Chechnya to oversee reconstruction funding from Jan. 1, Alkhanov said. Kadyrov had often complained that up to 80 percent of federal funding for Chechnya ended up in the pockets of Moscow bureaucrats.
Alkhanov also told Putin at the meeting that Chechen residents are snapping up cellphones-500 contracts per day-after a ban was lifted last Wednesday. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, had outlawed cellphones over fears that rebels might use them to coordinate attacks.
Izvestia reported Saturday that the FSB was only allowing 10,000 cellphones to be sold.
Putin on Sunday called for more cellphone stores to be opened to meet demand.
Putin and Alkhanov also spoke about compensating Chechens for property lost in the war.
Rossia showed Putin, Alkhanov and Ramzan Kadyrov eating a lunch of grapes, bananas and watermelon after their talks.
Putin's visit followed a night of heavy fighting in Grozny that underlines the violence and chaos that continues in Chechnya despite Kremlin efforts to portray the situation as relatively peaceful.
A spokesman for the federal military campaign in Chechnya, Major General Ilya Shabalkin, said on NTV television Sunday evening that more than 50 rebels were killed and that 19 were detained.
An official in Chechnya's Moscow-backed government said more than 30 people were killed in fighting in two Grozny neighborhoods, including at least 23 Chechen police or federal servicemen and some civilians, The Associated Press reported. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three polling stations came under fire.
Malashenko said Putin's visit aimed "to confirm that the people who are on his side will enjoy support."
Putin also may have wanted to warn Ramzan Kadyrov to tone down his rhetoric, Malashenko said. In an interview with the Georgian television station Mze on Saturday, Kadyrov said he could send 5,000 fighters from the presidential security service, which he heads, to the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia to "preserve peace."
"Kadyrov will have to lower his ambitions," Malashenko said.
TITLE: Developer's Space Bid Dropped
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - St. Petersburg construction mogul and space tourist-hopeful Sergei Polonsky will not fly to the international space station in October "for medical reasons," his company, Stroimontage, and the Federal Space Agency said Friday.
Neither side would say what the medical reasons were.
Federal Space Agency spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko referred all questions to Polonsky's representatives, but said that "most likely" it was Polonsky and not doctors who made the decision.
"Medical reasons are a private affair," Polonsky's spokeswoman Irina Opimakh said. "We have no other comment."
Polonsky, 32, had passed the necessary medical tests and was expected to sign a contract with the Federal Space Agency on Friday or Monday, Davidenko said.
Polonsky spent two months negotiating about how much he would pay for the right to the third seat in the Soyuz capsule. Polonsky was reportedly offering $8 million, a significant discount off the $20 million paid by the two previous space tourists.
There was speculation that Polonsky had trouble pulling together the full amount in cash, as the Federal Space Agency had demanded up front as a condition.
The previous two tourists paid on installment plans.
Davidenko would not confirm the amount of the contract, which he said was confidential, but he said the money issue was not an obstacle.
The space agency and Stroimontage released a statement Friday saying that both sides were "satisfied" with the negotiations.
"The contract was agreed and ready to be signed. However, upon the appearance of medical reasons for the candidate the sides decided that completing the flight was senseless," it said.
A final decision on the flight roster will be made around the middle of the week, but the extra seat on the Soyuz will probably go to cosmonaut Yury Shargin, Davidenko said.
TITLE: Gathering Recalls Defeat Of 1991 Hard-Line Coup
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A tiny group of people gathered outside government headquarters Sunday for a march and rally for Flag Day, which celebrates the failure of the 1991 coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
NTV television reported that just over 50 people showed up outside the White House - a turnout that reflected widespread ambivalence about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the path Russia has taken since.
"It's painful that people have forgotten," elderly demonstrator Inna Shala told NTV.
Her husband, Grigory Shala, added, "We even wondered where those people have gone - there were so many here then."
The Aug. 19-21 attempted coup failed after thousands of people crowded around the White House, which was then the Russian parliament building, to voice their opposition to the bid to impose hard-line Communist rule and their support for movement toward democracy. A white, blue and red Russian flag was raised over the building on Aug. 22.
In a nationwide survey conducted last month by the respected Yury Levada Analytical Center, 42 percent of 1,600 people respondents said 1991 coup attempt and its failure were nothing but part of a power struggle, and 36 percent called them "tragic events that had fatal results for the country and people."
Only 11 percent characterized the events as the victory of a democratic revolution that removed the Soviet Communist Party from power, and 49 percent said the country embarked on the wrong path afterward, while only 29 percent said it took the right path. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percent.
TITLE: McCain Slams Lukashenko
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIGA, Latvia - Arizona Senator John McCain called Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a dictator and dismissed Belarus' planned October elections as "bogus" during a visit to Latvia on Saturday.
Lukashenko, elected in 1994, has garnered Western criticism for ruling his former Soviet republic of 10 million people with an iron hand. The West accuses him of stifling dissent and the independent media.
"President Alexander Lukashenko has manipulated the constitution to solidify his control," McCain said. "He has ordered the disappearances of opposition activists and journalists. He runs Belarus as if it was the Soviet Union, instilling a climate of fear, repression and arbitrary rule."
McCain was joined in Riga, the Latvian capital, by several Belarusian opposition leaders in condemning Lukashenko's rule, including Valery Frolov, head of the Respublika opposition faction in parliament, who said Lukashenko's regime will not last long.
TITLE: Fall Off in Contract Killings Illusory as Numbers Rise
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The apparent contract killing of American journalist Paul Klebnikov shattered the illusions of many who shared his belief that Russia had moved beyond the days when scores were settled with a spray of bullets.
Yet police estimates indicate that in some ways, little has changed since the Wild West years of Russian capitalism in the early and mid-1990s.
Contrary to popular perceptions, even more contract killings are committed in Russia today than were committed 10 years ago, said Leonid Kondratyuk, a top crime expert at the Interior Ministry's Scientific Research Institute.
"We're seeing somewhere between 500 and 700 such killings annually," Kondratyuk said. "But those are just the murders we know for sure were contract killings. In reality, it's probably two to three times higher."
Kondratyuk's estimate is conservative compared to that of Valentin Stepankov, who until June was deputy secretary of the Security Council.
At a January conference in Moscow held by the World Community Against the Globalization of Crime and Terrorism, Stepankov said organized criminal groups were responsible for 26,000 crimes in 2003, up from 3,300 in 1999. He said around 5,000 of those crimes were contract killings.
Stepankov was Russia's first prosecutor general, serving until he was fired by former President Boris Yeltsin after parliament's revolt in October 1993. He is now a deputy natural resources minister.
The Interior Ministry's main criminal investigations department said fewer than 100 contract killings were registered in Russia last year. "But those are cases where we can say for sure it was a contract murder and where a criminal case has been initiated against a known suspect," spokesman Denis Strukov said. "Those are the only objective numbers we have."
The discrepancy in the figures reflects a lack of police data and the difficulty of classifying some murders.
"Who's to say that someone who gets knocked over the head and his briefcase stolen wasn't the target of a contract murder?" Strukov said.
Contract killings continue to swell because of a weak judicial system and a low probability that those ordering the hits will ever be punished. There also appears to be no shortage of those willing to kill for money, from drug addicts to former military men profiting from their professional training.
The price of a hit varies from a couple hundred dollars to a couple hundred thousand dollars, the experts say, with singling out the 1998 killing of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova as the most expensive he had come across.
Kondratyuk said the weak judicial system often makes it easier to order a hit than to settle a dispute in court.
"Often a court case will be more expensive than just killing someone," Kondratyuk said. "Especially since rampant corruption in the justice system means no one can be sure they would win in court."
"Usually there's nothing personal about it," Yakov Kostyukovsky, an organized crime expert from the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, said about contract killings in the business world. "Unfortunately it's still a typical instrument in dealing with the competition. Al Capone-style."
HITS SOLVED 'UNOFFICIALLY'
Like Chicago police before Capone went down, Russian police have gained a reputation of being chronically ineffective in tackling organized crime and solving contract killings.
But Andrei Konstantinov, who heads the Agency of Journalistic Investigations in St. Petersburg and has a reputation as the most knowledgeable chronicler of Russia's criminal underworld, said police are not as hapless as they are often portrayed.
"In many cases police investigators find out, or already know, who organized the hit," Konstantinov said. "But they can't gather quite enough information for a conviction."
Kostyukovsky put a different twist on what he called a "misconception," delineating between contract murders that are solved on "official" and "unofficial" levels.
The number of contract killings "officially" solved, that is, when enough evidence is passed on to prosecutors to try a suspect, may be low. Far more are solved unofficially, he said.
"If one group of criminals orders a hit on a member of another criminal group, the police might pass on information to the victim's cohorts about who was behind the killing," Kostyukovsky said. "If rival bandits are killing each other off, it might be advantageous for the police."
It might not raise the number of officially solved contract killings, he said, but it is less work for the police.
A retired chief detective, who worked in the St. Petersburg police force for most of the 1990s, said such police tactics are common.
"It happens very often," said the former detective, who asked to remain anonymous. "It's called 'realization of operational information.'
"In most cases everyone understands that if the case is turned over to the courts, it will take them three years to get to it, and in the end decide no one is guilty of anything. But if you give the information to a rival group, the issue will be solved very quickly and radically. It's rarely done out of 'noble intentions.' Almost always it's out of hatred."
The former detective added that the main reason police have a reputation for being unable to solve contract killings is that small-time hits, which are more likely to be solved, get little media attention.
"If an owner of a small store has another owner of a small store knocked off, no journalists are going to write about it," he said. "But if someone like Starovoitova is murdered, the media coverage is enormous, and if the killers aren't found, the impression is that no contract killings are ever solved.
"It's definitely harder to solve a contract killing than a drunken domestic killing, but things aren't as bad as the press makes it out to be."
Most high-profile contract killings in Russia, however, are never solved.
Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes Russia, was shot several times from a passing car after leaving work the night of July 9. Prosecutors have said only that an investigation is underway; there has been no information about possible suspects or any other progress in solving the case.
THE PRICE OF A HIT
Contract killings can run anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple hundred thousand dollars, said Konstantinov, bestselling author of the seminal Russian gangster book "Banditsky Peterburg."
"Take, for example, someone living in a communal apartment with an old lady who just won't seem to die," he said. "So he goes and finds a drug addict and pays him $300 to kill her."
In one low-budget incident in October, police in the Moscow region town of Zhukovsky arrested two Ukrainian nationals on suspicion of knifing to death a 23-year-old Zhukovsky man a month earlier. The two men claimed the victim's mother had paid them $300 for the job.
Lieutenant Mikhail Voronin of the Interior Ministry's Scientific Research Institute was even more blunt in describing some killers' bottom dollar.
"For a bottle of vodka, some homeless guys find they can get the job done with a kitchen knife," Voronin said.
Having a high-profile businessman or politician killed, however, is a much pricier affair.
Konstantinov said the 1998 hit on Starovoitova is most expensive contract killing he has come across, likely costing around $150,000 because of the number of organizers involved. She was shot in the stairwell of her St. Petersburg apartment building.
It is often difficult to gauge how much was paid for a contract killing, Konstantinov said, due to a long chain of middlemen between the hit man and the person who ordered the hit. The two rarely, if ever, know each other.
"It's the hit man who usually ends up getting caught, and only he knows how much money he got," Konstantinov said. "A killing might have been ordered for $20,000, and the hit man only got $5,000. All of the middlemen in between took their cut."
The alleged chain in the Starovoitova murder involves 11 people, most of whom come from the Bryansk region. Seven are currently on trial in St. Petersburg, and one has testified that the murder was ordered by former Duma Deputy Mikhail Glushchenko.
The whereabouts of Glushchenko, who served in parliament as a member of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party and was reputedly a leader of the Tambov group, the most notorious St. Petersburg crime syndicate, are unknown. He is thought to be living abroad.
According to Konstantinov, it is common for killers to be hired from poorer regions - like Bryansk - and brought in to do a job in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
"You can hire someone from Kazan to come in, kill someone and leave quickly, and you're paying them based on Kazan prices," he said.
Prosecutors have identified Vitaly Akishin and Oleg Fedosov as Starovoitova's killers. Akishin is one of the defendants currently on trial. The other six are alleged to have carried out various tasks, including taping Starovoitova's phone calls, dumping the killers' clothing in a river and driving the hit men from the crime scene.
Fedosov and three other suspects are still at large. Prosecutors are seeking the extradition of two of the suspects from Europe.
"There may have been more expensive hits [than the one on Starovoitova], but I haven't heard of any," Konstantinov said.
SASHA MAKEDONSKY
A majority of Russia's professional hit men are former secret service officers, military veterans and ex-convicts, according to Kondratyuk. "Of course people who know how to handle a gun are in demand," he said.
One of the most notorious - and notoriously expensive - hired killers of the 1990s was Alexander Solonik, a former soldier and policeman nicknamed Sasha Makedonsky for his deftness at simultaneously firing pistols in both hands, or "Macedonian-style." Solonik was said to have demanded tens of thousands of dollars for his services, Konstantinov said.
"I don't really believe it, though," he said. "It's more likely just part of the mythology of the criminal world."
Solonik, the only man ever to escape from Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina prison and remain at large, managed to flee to Greece after the jailbreak in 1995. But his body was found on Feb. 2, 1997, about 20 kilometers north of Athens. He had been strangled and wrapped in plastic bags.
Three months later, a suitcase, bag and towel containing the dismembered body of Russian model Svetlana Kotova were found near Solonik's villa in Athens. Kotova and Solonik were romantically linked, according to Russian media reports.
In 2003, five suspected members of the infamous Orekhovskaya crime group were charged with the two slayings. One of them, Alexander Pustovalov, another notorious hit man, was accused of strangling Solonik. Pustovalov was known as Sasha Soldat because of his military background.
HIRING A HIT MAN
But how are killers hired? "That was a big problem for some businessmen in the 1990s," Kondratyuk said. "They wanted to have someone killed but couldn't find a killer. It's not like you can go ask someone, 'How much will it cost to have you kill someone?' and then, after they answer, tell them, 'Sorry, that's too expensive. I think I'll take my business elsewhere.'"
Kostyukovsky concurred that hiring a professional hit man requires some extra considerations. "Business in Moscow and St. Petersburg is a small world," he said. "Everybody knows everybody else."
But he said almost every successful businessman knows someone in the security services that can find someone to do the job.
Several factors other than the credentials of the hit man can determine the price of a contract murder, he said. These are the number of bodyguards a target has, the financial windfall from the death of a competitor and the style of the killing, to name a few.
"A contract murder arranged to look like an accident or a coincidence is going to be a lot more expensive than a standard shooting," Kostyukovsky said.
Kostyukovsky said he believes the mysterious death of anti-corruption journalist and Yabloko Duma Deputy Yury Shchekochikhin to be a contract killing that could only have been arranged by a very expensive "high-class specialist."
Shchekochikhin died in a Moscow hospital at the age of 52 in July 2003 after suffering a severe allergic reaction. People who saw his body said that his hair had fallen out, a symptom consistent with thallium poisoning.
"He was obviously a very dangerous journalist for someone," Kostyukovsky said.
Above all, someone ordering a hit has to be able to trust the people he hires to organize and carry out the killing, Kostyukovsky said. "Either that or you have to pay enough money to where you're sure the job will get done right," he said.
The case of Moscow resident Milovan Ristic is a prime example of a hit man turning against his employer.
In March, police arrested Ristic in a sting operation and charged him with offering an acquaintance $50,000 in exchange for a photograph of the severed heads of his wife and mother-in-law in an alleged scheme to obtain ownership of his wife's pharmacy and the apartment where the couple lived. The hired killer backed out of the deal and notified police.
After Ristic's arrest, police said another man came to them saying Ristic had offered him $25,000 to kill the original hit man, but since the two hired killers turned out to be friends, the man decided to go to the police.
TITLE: Short-lived Rows Hamper Russian-Estonian Business
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This is the fourth in a series of special sections called Northern Neighbors, to be published monthly in The St. Petersburg Times. Northern Neighbors focuses on economic and cultural relations between Russia and the Scandinavian and Baltic nations.
Though Russia occupies a stable position in the fast growing Estonian economy among the country's top ten trade partners, the number of Russian-Estonian investment projects remains low, statistics show.
"I have a feeling Estonians are experiencing an inner yearning to treat Russia negatively," Indrek Neivelt, the head of Estonia's largest bank, Hansapank, told newspaper MK Estonia this month. It is Estonians who are creating the gloomy picture of the Russian economy, Neivelt noted. "Newspapers are mostly running negative stories on Russia," Neivelt said.
When asked to name the main factor hampering business contacts between Russia and Estonia, Neivelt referred to continuous short-lived political problems between the countries. "If we [Estonian businesses] leave Russia today, it would make as much sense as if we had left Latvia after the 'herring war'," Neivelt said, alluding to the several loud but quickly resolved conflicts between Estonia and Latvia in the mid-90s over fishing territories in the Baltic Sea.
Estonian businesses must choose a specific niche to occupy in Russia, Neivelt said. "I would not considere the whole of Russia here, but focus on the Pskov and Novgorod regions, the Leningrad Oblast and Moscow," he added.
There are practically no Estonian businessmen residing in St. Petersburg today, said Ruta Rannala, a representative of Estonian enterprise development agency in St. Petersburg. The main complaints coming from Estonian businessmen regarding working in Russia concern the excessive number of controlling and approving authorities, whose activities are not transparent, Rannala said.
However, Rannala said, since the economy in the Russian Northwest is growing, and private consumption is going up, the region may present some good potential. "We expect a tentative growth of interest in the region on behalf of Estonian businesses," Rannala said.
The number of investment projects generated will fully depend upon the ability of the Russian federal government to liberalize Russia's business climate for its foreign partners, Rannala said. Better passenger links, especially by air, should also help to attract Estonian companies to Russia, Rannala said. More Estonian construction companies should be invited to take part in restoration and construction projects in the Northwest, she added.
Estonia mainly imports wood and mineral consumables from Russia. The country's exports to Russia are food products, textiles and construction materials. The Northwest is also an important region for Estonian ports, cargo carriers and logistics centers, Rannala said.
RISKING IT
One of the Estonian companies successfully working in Russia is Irest Ehitusjuhtimise, a construction company that will build two supermarkets in St. Petersburg. The company will construct a 8,700 square meters Pyatyorochka, worth $5.6 millions, by next summer, Rein Kiudsoo, general manager of Irest Ehitusjuhtimise, said in an interview from Tallinn Monday. The second supermarket, 37,000 square meters, will belong to the O'Kay chain and will open next autumn. The Estonian company will be in charge of partial supermarket and road construction works, worth a total of $17 million.
Kiudsoo said the potential of business cooperation between Estonia and the Russian Northwest lies mainly in construction and food processing and only about 10 percent of this potential has been realized. Estonian businessmen don't come to Russia because they fear big risks, Kuidsoo said. He added, however, that he knows of about 40 Estonian businessmen residing in the city.
Kiudsoo said his Estonian colleagues in Russia often complain of the country's "non-European business practices of not keeping promises and terms of contracts."
Irest Ehitusjuhtimise already completed three other construction projects in St. Petersburg - the offices for Baltnefteprovod and Lukoil and another O'Kay supermarket. The company's revenues in 2003 reached $7.5 million, with total profits of $55,000, Regnum information agency reported this month.
After one and a half years of negotiations, another Estonian company, concrete manufacturer E-Betoonelement, registered a joint venture with one of the city's leading construction companies M-Industry last month. The joint venture will be making technologically advanced products from reinforced concrete in Tosno, Leningrad Oblast. Start-up investments will amount to 10 million euros, reported Business News Agency. Production will be launched in mid-autumn this year at the total capacity of 100 square meters per year. The products will be designed for the construction of large supermarkets. Both sides also plan to manufacture parts for Scandinavian-style houses that M-Industry will be building in St. Petersburg.
Transportation company Tallink, with about 57 percent of Estonian capital, launched its ferry route between Tallinn and St. Petersburg in April, with the company's Fantaasia ship running every other day. "It is too early to say how successful this project is, but we see a very big potential. Every route takes time to become profitable, and profitability arrives when travelling by ship seems as natural as riding the metro," Marek Magi, financial manager of investor relations at Tallink Grupp said in an interview from Tallinn Monday.
St. Petersburg's tourism infrastructure is underdeveloped, Magi said. Meanwhile, he added, tourism is the biggest area for cooperation between St. Petersburg and Estonia.
When asked what is stopping Estonian businesses from entering the Russian market, Magi said the market is simply too big for most small Estonian companies. "In some areas, we still have double customs duties. Besides, to several Estonian companies, the Russian financial crisis of 1998 was quite a stab in the back," Magi said.
RUSSIAN PLAYERS
In 2003 - 2004, Estonian statistical office reported, Russia's biggest federal direct investments into Estonia were the coal terminal in Muuga - a 55 million euro project, carried out by the Russian Kuzbasrazrezugol, and a rail carriage assembly plant in Ahtme - a 10 million euro project by Uralvagonzavod.
Estonian business daily Deloviye Vedomosti touted the Ahtme project as being a successful precedent of a Russian business' resolving Estonia's high job turnover problem. This month, Uralvagonzavod constructed the first of three large apartment blocks in Ahtme to accommodate the plant's workers.
By investing so much money and effort into training the workers on the spot, the Russian company is making sure the workers won't leave right away. It will only be possible to gain private ownership of each new apartment after 15 years of work at the plant.
Despite the low unemployment rate of nine percent, Estonia is experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers, due to low wages and the lack of vocational school and university graduates for some professions.
After Estonia joined the E.U. in May, many of the country's specialists, including bus drivers, doctors, nurses, teachers and construction workers went West in search of better salaries. Every month, over 100 construction workers leave Estonia for Finland, Sweden and Germany.
According to the law on foreign workforce, issued this year, workers from outside the E.U. can come and work in Estonia for six months without any residence or work permits required, which can help promote Russian construction projects.
TITLE: Minority Cultures Endangered
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Estonian scientists presented a book on Finno-Ugric minorities in Russia, whose cultures, they say, are nearing extinction if no preservation programs are developed.
Most Finno-Ugric cultures, including Estonian, rarely number over one million people each, and many of them are already or soon to become extinct, Estonian President Arnold Ruutel said at the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples in Tallinn last week.
"When an animal kind goes extinct, the environment becomes poorer and the natural balance is distorted. When a people goes extinct, its language and its spirituality are lost. Its unique culture and the historical experience are lost," Ruutel said.
The World Congress of Finno-Ugric peoples takes place once every four years. It was held in Syktyvkar, Russia in 1992, Budapest in 1996 and Helsinki in 2000. In 2008, the congress will take place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, upon the invitation of the Mansi community.
This year's congress hosted 630 participants from 11 countries, including Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, Karelians, Udmurts, Sami and some others. Among the guest speakers were Ferenc Madl, President of Hungary, and Tarja Halonen, President of Finland.
Compared to 1989 statistics, Russia's population of Finno-Ugric minorities decreased by half a million, said the general secretary of the congress, Andres Heinapuu.
"However, this process can't be considered irreversible. The world is becoming a more open place, and there can hardly be any limits created for free information exchange, which is vital for small peoples," Heinapuu said. That should help Finno-Ugric peoples learn to preserve their languages, culture and identity, he added.
"We must free ourselves from fear," wrote Estonian newspaper, Eesti Paevaleht in August. Instead of constant conflicts with Russia about the rights of the Russian minority living in Estonia, it is essential to include Russians into Estonia's social life, the paper said.
Estonian Northeast can be turned into a priority region, using the money from European funds - this will both show good will and prevent the formation of Russian ghettos, Eesti Paevaleht said.
"The idea to support our related peoples is also a good start. We should just be more determined. Why not invest into Mari education? That will give Moscow a heart attack," Eesti Paevaleht said.
The paper's analysts said Estonia's pro-active position should help separate minority issues from politics and thus make Russia show more respect for Estonia.
Meanwhile, the same newspaper reported last week that hundreds of Estonian officials were fined by the country's language inspectors for poor knowledge of Estonian.
The amount of fines collected in the first half of this year amounted to 103, 230 kroons, or $8,000, as compared to a total of 10, 385 kroons in 2003. Among the fined were policemen, jail keepers, teachers and school directors, who paid up to 4,000 kroons, or about $310, each. About 90 percent of the penalized parties did not show sufficient command of Estonian, and the remaining 10 percent were fined for using foreign languages in public announcements and advertisements.
TITLE: Estonia Leads the Way Down Information Highway
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Imagine a major business deal being signed between two people who have never met in person or touched a contract.
Their joint venture is legally recognized and irrefutable in a court of law. They sign the document via a digital signature program making the inconvenience of runny ink obsolete.
This scenario may sound a bit far-fetched, but it happens on a regularly in Estonia, a country quickly becoming Europe's IT capital and running for a place among the world's most digitally advanced countries.
From the outside, it seems a bit surreal. A small country the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined, Estonia only received its independence 12 years ago after the fall of the Soviet Union. A newly minted member of the EU, it is positioning itself to lead the race down the information superhighway.
Linnar Liik, one of Estonia's leading IT experts, spent his recent vacation on the Riga Bay. He consented to an interview to explain how and why Estonia developed into an IT powerhouse and decided the best way to conduct it was via email.
"I am writing this letter in the middle of the Riga Bay, still in territorial waters of Estonia and even on the sea I have access to the wireless internet over GPRS. I think I will send this message out when in the harbor of Parnu, probably using a free wireless access point...or a free public internet access point," he wrote.
"There are some 600 to 700 of these [Wi-fi "hot spots"] in Estonia, where you can use computers, connected to the internet, without any charge," Viik continued.
This is not surprising in a country where internet access is considered a basic human right. But what is it that makes Estonia so unique as a hotbed for IT development?
"During the last 15 years Estonia had ... the fastest development of an information society with the smallest investment in IT per capita. Over 80 percent of people have mobile phones, over 50 percent of people use the internet, all the schools and public institutions are connected to the internet and internet penetration in the 6-9 age group is ... over 60 percent," Viik said.
More impressively, he noted, Estonia's IT success has been achieved on a shoestring.
"This all is reached with a public expenditure that is under .1 percent of the GDP - the average in Europe is 1.5 percent of the GDP - and is not based on investments made over the last 50 years but started just 15 years ago," Viik said.
About 12 years ago, Estonia, the most western of the Soviet republics, shed its communist past and underwent something akin to a revolution - only this revolution was digital.
Those who took over government posts and rose to power in the fledgling democratic society were forward-thinking youths with vision and, moreover, an appreciation for the future of computers, Alar Ehandi, head of Estonia's Look@World Foundation, said.
However, the foundation for Estonia's IT success was laid even before that, Viik said. "We already had a whole generation of IT specialists in Estonia by the end of the 1980s when the independence movement started," he said.
IT became an important and foundational part of the governing process in Estonia, being implemented in everything from the border patrol to the tax system.
Money may be limited in a young republic with just 1.3 million residents, but Estonia is proof that not money, but money management, is the key to successfully building a technologically advanced society.
Ehandi, in his mid thirties and young for a man of his position, walked into a hotel in downtown Tallinn, Estonia's capital, toting his laptop computer. Slung over his shoulder, it looked natural, like it was something that went with him everywhere.
Ehandi talked about Estonia's IT advancement, IT history and some of the recent technology Estonians were already using in daily life. He then hooked up his laptop, noting that he hoped the place was equipped with wireless technology - otherwise it really couldn't call itself a hotel.
Ehandi demonstrated the digital signature program, discussed on-line banking and noted how in Estonia, people can pay for parking via their mobile phones.
The demonstration only confirmed that the country has something special going on: efficient use of government and private money converging to fund an information technology revolution. And that isn't the half of it.
Like a growing number of his fellow countrymen, Ehandi has said goodbye to bureaucracy and hello to the information superhighway. Waiting in line is a thing of the past; now, Estonians can handle most bureaucratic processes faster, from home and in their slippers.
And Ehandi is just one in a country full of people trading in their pencils and paper for a mouse and keyboard.
Back in St. Petersburg, Ruta Rannala of Enterprise Estonia sat in her office opposite her laptop. With a few strokes of the keyboard she was surfing X-road, Estonia's crossroad portal to government archives, banks and the like, funded by both the public and private sectors and launched in March of this year.
Rannala has a digital identity card which she could swipe into a special reading device, if her computer was equipped with it. She pulled out the card for show and tell purposes anyway. It looks something like a picture ID credit card, but with a built-in microchip containing Rannala's identity information.
For those like Rannala who don't have the scanning device, another option for accessing X-road is to log on via a bank card, a password and a pin code. The three-tiered process ensures identity protection and the integrity of the system, Rannala said.
About "14,000 people have already used it for everyday life," Rannala said. "It's actually a very good number."
The portal was just recently launched and its services are not required on an everyday basis. Nonetheless, X-road's number of users is growing on a daily basis.
Before long, Rannala had access to an archive that in reality is spread all over Tallinn, handled by different ministries and would take days to research in person. With X-road, she points, clicks and shifts her way to the information she needs.
Court records, property titles and her daughter's grades are all available on X-road thanks to a law passed earlier this year requiring all ministries and government bodies to align their databases with the portal by January of 2005, ultimately reducing the entire country's records into one efficient microprocessor.
Experts say this is just the beginning of Estonia's IT success. "I don't think we have reached the peak," Viik said. "Hopefully this will never happen."
TITLE: Estonian Travel: the City and the Countryside
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Vacation spots like the south of France, the Italian countryside or the Swiss Alps may be tried and true, but it is places like Tallinn, Parnu or a nameless countryside in Estonia's south that Estonian government hopes will attract those looking for a little adventure or some peace and quiet.
Tourism makes up approximately 8 percent of the Estonian GDP or roughly 555 million dollars according to Signe Ratso, deputy secretary general of the European Union and International Cooperation. In 2003, nearly 3.4 million foreigners visited Estonia.
"Estonia has over the past few years gained popularity as a destination for a unique travel experience," Ratso said. "This is not just among visitors from neighboring countries, but also Western Europe and the rest of the world."
The country is most popular among Finns, who made up 53 percent of the total number in 2003. Latvians came in second with more than 12 percent and Russia rounded out the top three with nine percent. Other visitors hailed from countries like Sweden and Germany. The United States and the United Kingdom brought up the rear, accounting for 2.5 percent and 2 percent of foreign visitors respectively.
OUT WITH THE OLD
In preparation for this new era in its political history as part of the European Union, the Estonian government shifted its tourism campaigning into full swing, showcasing Estonia as an alternative tourist destination.
"The annual budget for the Estonian Tourist Board Destination Marketing [for] 2004-2006 is more than four times greater than before," Ratso said.
The Estonian government offered slogans ranging from the simple "Welcome to Estonia" to the intriguing "Nordic With a Twist" to the promising "Ecological Haven." While "Welcome to Estonia" sounds a bit too much like the greeting on a doormat, the other catch phrases capture the essence of the Estonian experience.
NORDIC WITH A TWIST
Tallinn, Estonia's capital, is home to about 397,000 people and consists of two sections: Old Tallinn, a throw back to medieval times, and modern Tallinn, a full-fledged European city. Tallinn exists as a dual entity, ta confluence of the old and the new, right on the Baltic Sea.
Old Tallinn can be seen on foot in a day or even an afternoon. Older tourists should be aware that a hilly terrain might make the walk a bit trying or uncomfortable, but only slightly. The cobblestone streets are lined with charming shops and accented by medieval architecture. Old Tallinn is brimming with myths and legend, so a guided tour is the best bet for tasting the flavor of the city.
An afternoon of walking always arouses a hearty appetite and both Old Tallinn and its modern counterpart have noteworthy restaurants. Olde Hansa, located in the heart of the old city, is a fun, delicious way to get into the medieval spirit.
Two levels of dining are complemented by friendly, multi-lingual staff who are eager to treat guests like ravenous Vikings. Forks and knives are available but the real enthusiast will be applauded for eating with his hands.
ECOLOGICAL HAVEN
After having experienced the city - 70 percent of Estonia's population is urban - the adventurer might hop in a car and head three hours to Estonia's south for a little eco-tourism.
Eco-tourism à la Estonian is a co-op of private farms deep in Estonia's south in a place so under-populated, there is no city or village name, but each farm bears its owner's name or an invented name. These farms double as bed-and-breakfasts for the tourist who is just interested in rest and relaxation. Of course, there are outdoor activities visitors can opt to take part in, but no one will mind if the tourist's main request is to be left alone for several days.
Meals are hearty and home made, hospitality is abundant and the locals are a fascinating lot of actors, blacksmiths, pig farmers and folk dancers. The scenery is outstanding, the people interesting and the peace and quiet almost tangible.
For those interested in experiencing the ultimate in rest and relaxation, Estonia is also known for its sanitariums. To the westerner, this word may immediately conjure up images of stark, run-down soviet-style health spas complete with a masseuse shaped like a proletariat farm worker, who doesn't rub away the pain but induces it.
In reality, the modern-day sanitarium provides a long list of services from hot/ cold stone massages to solariums. Visitors to the Pühajärve Spa Hotel can keep themselves busy by swimming in the Olympic-size pool or bowling in the miniature bowling alley complete with its own snack bar.
The travel to and from Estonia's south is a largely a beautiful country road lined with endless acres of land, animals and trees. The lovely scenery only compliments the journey.
CROSSING BORDERS
Years ago, when traveling in the former Soviet Union was a restricted and privileged activity, the proverb "Bulgaria is not abroad, like a chicken is not a bird" became a popular anecdote. Bulgaria was the Soviet Union's strongest communist satellite, while Estonia was within its borders.
Moscow's already icy relationship with Tallinn has been tried by recent accusations of human-rights abuses suffered by the Russian diaspora in Estonia. This already tense situation is compounded by the need for separate visas to travel to Estonia, a regulation not in place under soviet rule.
Vladimir Dervenev, president of Deko Ltd. Travel, said the biggest obstacle in arranging Estonian vacations for Russian tourists is getting his customers Estonian visas.
"[It's the] one bad thing for Russian tourists in Estonia," Dervenev said. "It is a very uncomfortable situation for travel agencies."
The main problems are bureaucracy and requirements that are impossible to fulfill, Dervenev said. If he would like to work directly with a hotel, he must have accreditation with that specific hotel. Working with a hundred hotels would mean getting a hundred accreditations.
"Its an absolutely crazy situation," Dervenev said
In addition, the Estonian government requires color 4 x 5-centimeter photographs to be filed with each visa application.
"A lot of photo studios don't have this format," Dervenev said.
OTHER PROS AND CONS
It may be too soon to estimate the impact joining the EU will have on Estonian tourism, said Ene Palmiste, a destination marketing consultant on the Estonian Tourist Board with Enterprise Estonia.
"On the one hand it will bring about some limitations such as the disappearance of the tax-free duty-free trade that will probably push further down the numbers of in-coming, same-day visitors from neighboring countries," Palmiste said in a statement.
"On the other hand, Estonia's price level is likely to remain below that of its neighboring countries for quite some while, so Estonia's attractiveness as a tourist destination is not likely to be hurt," she said.
A more serious problem facing the Estonian Tourist Board is the successful tourist campaigns of neighboring countries, which might draw from Estonia's tourist numbers, Palmist said.
"This is competition as usual and Estonia is well prepared both strategically and tactically to retain, and improve, its competitive position," she said.
There are also a number of positive points for tourism in Estonia that come with EU membership, Palmiste noted. They include a more relaxed border crossing procedure, positive PR for Estonia as a safe and viable tourist option and the lifting of bans on taking alcohol and tobacco from the country.
"The positive effects for Estonia from joining the EU will outweigh any limitations and EU membership can be seen as a catalyst of Estonia's attractiveness and credibility as a tourism destination," Palmiste said.
TITLE: Festival Director Enlivens the Soul of the City
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A unique family history and a passion for music have led Mark De Mauny, the director and co-founder of the city's Earlymusic baroque festival, to St. Petersburg where he feels at home.
St. Petersburg is a city that belongs not only to Russia, but also to Europe, so it is natural for a European to feel at home here, said De Mauny, who is half-English and half-French.
Born in Paris in 1971, De Mauny's early childhood was spent in Moscow, where his father, the first official BBC correspondent in the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev, was posted in the early 70s. His mother, also a reporter, was the second woman ever to work for Reuters.
"My earliest memories are of snow and Russian lullabies," De Mauny said. "Probably the fact that I was here as a baby rubbed off on me somehow."
After those first years in Moscow, De Mauny was raised a cheval or "on a horse's back" between the two sides of the English Channel.
His family was extremely musical. De Mauny's grandfather founded the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra when he moved to the country from Normandy after the First World War. His father played jazz piano and the flute, as did De Mauny's younger sister Alix.
De Mauny was playing the violin by the age of seven and singing as a chorister in the Portsmouth Cathedral a couple years later. "We always had live music around the house," De Mauny said.
After finishing high school in Northern England, De Mauny took a year off and headed to Russia with his backpack. Though based out of Moscow, De Mauny gap year included a few weeks of potato-digging in Yasnaya Polyana, a month living in a monastery, and a trip to Almaty to accompany the Moscow Conservatory's chamber choir on his violin.
Returning to England at the end the year, De Mauny completed a four-year degree at Cambridge, with the third year spent studying violin and voice at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. "I fell in love with Russia in 1989 when I was backpacking," De Mauny said, "and I fell in love with St. Petersburg when I was here in 1992."
After finishing his degree, De Mauny went to London to work for Tiffany & Co., but soon found himself hankering for St. Petersburg. "I didn't really want to enter the London rat race," he explained, "and I found I could breath easier out here."
De Mauny left London and moved to St. Petersburg in 1995 as a consultant for the record label IMG Artists. Three years later, he started work as the arts officer for the British Consul, where he met Andrei Reshetin, who shared his passion for music.
Together they set up the Earlymusic Festival. De Mauny says the ideas and the impetus for the festival grew out of his friendship with Reshetin, as they both realized the opportunity afforded by Russia's lack of live baroque music. "We had a good idea, a good partnership and a good opportunity," he said.
The first festival in 1998 was just an offshoot of the British Consulate, but the Earlymusic Festival continued to grow each year, changing names, gathering sponsors, and eventually creating Russia's first and only Baroque orchestra, the Catherine the Great Orchestra.
"Early music revival was very familiar to me," says De Mauny, citing his Cambridge past. "I was very well aware that it was totally ignored here in Russia. There was clearly a gap in the cultural market waiting to be filled."
Directing the festival has been rewarding not just because of the festival's success, De Mauny said, but because of the sense of giving something back to Russia by restoring a part of its cultural legacy that has been lost. "It's very fulfiling to do something you believe in, and to do something for Russian audiences, opening up centuries of music they've never heard," he said.
De Mauny speaks enthusiastically about the festival's upcoming collaboration with the Boston Early Music Festival in a world premiere of Johannes Mattheson's 1710 opera Boris Gudenow. He never imagined the festival would grow this much, he said.
De Mauny's duties as director of the festival mainly lay in the fundraising sphere. "I was really thrown into the deep end of the fundraising game,' he said. "90 percent of my time goes to fundraising."
A registered charity in Russia and the UK, the festival raises about 75 percent of its funding from corporate sponsorship, 15 percent comes from cultural centers and embassies, and much of the rest from ticket sales, De Mauny said.
The musical side of St. Petersburg isn't all that's kept De Mauny here for eight years, though. "I like the fact that it's a city planned in exquisite taste, in music, in clothes, in architecture, in lifestyle," he said.
De Mauny also said that something about the city assuages the dichotomy of a childhood divided between the two sides of the English Channel. "It's slightly odd being half French and half English. In both places I feel both at home and a stranger," he said. "Possibly, settling in Russia was a way of finding an identity that would be a whole identity."
Those closest to him say the class and the culture De Mauny embodies are an essential part of the St. Petersburg soul, something that - like baroque music - De Mauny helps restore to the city.
"He has one very important quality - aristocratism ... The town as a person needs him very much because he has this quality. It's really important for the spirit of Petersburg. We have these palaces and these parks, but the town lost this spirit in the 20th century. And Marc has it, he has that spirit," Reshetin said.
BAROQUE HISTORY
The European baroque period roughly coincides with the time of Peter the Great, De Mauny said. Although Peter the Great reigned around the same time as Louis XIV in France, there was not much string music in Peter's court.
"Legend has it that Peter liked brass, but the brass of Peter's court was a far cry from the brass that people might imagine," De Mauny said.
He noted that Peter's brass orchestra would have included instruments like the wood-and-leather zink, which sounded much like the human voice. Baroque music in Russia didn't take the same form it did in Europe, where famous composers and musicians were attached to the royal courts.
The Baroque era ended with the death of Bach in 1751, and so the court of Catherine the Great, known for its baroque melodies was technically during the early classical period with Mozart in full swing.
One peculiar difficulty of recreating baroque music is that baroque musicians played from a sort of outline, as opposed to a precise score.
Thus, while the composes determined the chord structure and overall shape of the piece, the individual performers determined flourishes, embellishments, and the actual sequence of notes they played.
De Mauny said it resembles the modern-day jazz in its freedom for improvisation. "I've discovered a lot of parallels between jazz and music of the 17th and 18th centuries," he said when speaking about playing jazz on the violin.
"In technical terms, and as far as the way the music relates to the performer and to the composer," both baroque and jazz offer the performer, "the complete freedom to be found within a very set structure," he said.
TITLE: Cargo Flow Dodges Port, Strike Runs On
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Freight shipments began bypassing St. Petersburg Sea Port, heading for the ports in the Baltic States instead, due to the on-going dockers' strike at the city port.
Over 100 companies, including ship owners and shipping agents, became hostages of the strike, each of them loosing thousands of U.S. dollars, Delovoi Peterburg reported Monday.
The ships that have already arrived have been forced to wait for weeks, other ships have turned West and gone to the Baltic states. St. Petersburg Sea Port does not announce the incidence of force major circumstances, therefore, each company working at the port pays 2,000 euros in daily fines for the delay, Delovoi Peterburg wrote.
The total losses the companies working at St. Petersburg Sea Port are bearing have exceeded $1 million, which hurts the port's reputation, the newspaper said.
"The port is not willing to compromise with the dockers, and we are experiencing huge losses due to broken terms of delivery. But we can understand the port - the dockers' wages are already higher than average and can not be raised," a shipping agent told Delovoi Peterburg.
Dozens of ships have accumulated at the port and nearly 1,000 carriages at the Novy Port station of the Oktyabrskaya railroad.
The port's net profits in the first half of 2004 decreased by 50 percent, Interfax reported Monday. St. Petersburg Sea Port has been virtually paralyzed starting from July 19, when the dockers began demanding the port's new owner, the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Combine, or NLMC, to raise their salaries. The dockers complete the daily norm stated in their contracts, but refuse to work overtime. At the same time, the strike cost them nearly half their monthly earnings, largely depending on overtime hours.
The strike began as the port switched to a domestic owner from an off-shore company. Based on combined reports, off-shore Nasdor Anstalt sold its control package of the port's shares to a Danish metallurgical company Jysk Stalindustri, acting on behalf of NLMC, in June. On June 22, the control package was passed to the Depository and Clearing Company for a nominal holding. The partakers did not publish the amount of the deal. According to last month's Kommersant Vlast magazine, the deal amounted to at least $100 million.
Besides the control package, NLMC also purchased 81 percent of shares in the port's First, Second and Fourth Stevedoring Companies, that ship exported metal, coal, fertilizers and oil products.
The port's other largest shareholders are the city property management committee with 28.79 percent and the ministry of economic development with 20 percent.
However, Vice Governor Mikhail Oseyevsky announced last month that the city government is going to sell its shares to NLMC within a year. "The state is a bad owner, and the sooner the state gets rid of its shares, the better," Oseyevsky said.
TITLE: Chinese $900M Arms Deal Said Close
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - China, the country's No. 1 arms customer, is close to signing a contract for anti-aircraft systems worth as much as $900 million, Vedomosti reported, citing sources familiar with the deal.
State arms dealer Rosoboronexport and the Chinese Defense Ministry initialed a contract for the delivery of between four to eight batteries of S-300PMU air defense systems a few weeks ago, Vedomosti said last week.
The contract will be signed by the end of the year, one source told the paper.
The manufacturer of the S-300 system, Almaz-Antei Air Defense Concern, refused to comment Thursday, as did Rosoboronexport.
Domestic arms producers and exporters are particularly tight-lipped about deals with China following a bilateral agreement that makes military and technical cooperation classified information.
With S-300 systems retailing for roughly over $100 million per battery, the contract would be worth $400 million to more than $800 million, said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a defense think tank in Moscow.
China already has 12 batteries of S-300 systems, Makiyenko said. It acquired eight batteries in the 1990s. Earlier this year, Russia completed the delivery of four more batteries, Interfax reported.
"While the existing S-300 batteries cover the key administrative and industrial centers of Beijing and Shanghai, the new systems will cover areas that face Taiwan," Makiyenko said.
At the same time, China will continue purchasing Sukhoi fighter jets, he said. Last year China reportedly received 19 Su-30MKK fighters and is expected to receive 24 naval Su-30s on a contract from last year.
It has been reported that a new deal for a similar number of fighters is in the works and is expected to be finalized with China soon.
"I estimate that China will need a further 150 fighters, which they could either buy or manufacture under a Russian license," Makiyenko said.
Some 150 Su-30s and 70 MiG-29s are likely to be exported by the end of 2010, Ruslan Pukhov, editor of the Moscow Defense Brief, said Thursday.
Forty-eight Su-30s may be delivered to China, up to 24 to Vietnam, 24 to Indonesia, 24 to Brazil and 10 to India, he said, adding that MiGs would most likely be acquired by countries in Africa and the Middle East.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Budget Estimate Raised
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The estimate of the city's budget surplus may be increased up to $200 million in 2005, Interfax cited Governor Valentina Matviyenko as saying Saturday.
"Together with the federal tax minister [Anatoly Serdyukov] we are working on the project of bringing over major tax payers and their taxable base to St. Petersburg," Matviyenko said.
"I addressed the major Russian businesses, reminding them that St. Petersburg is a national treasure, and today I am in negotiations with eight large companies," Matviyenko said. The companies were not specified.
Reform Costly to City
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The decision to replace state benefits with monetary compensation, recently passed by the Kremlin, will cost the city billions of dollars, Interfax reported Vice Governor Ludmila Kostkina as saying Monday after a government meeting. A total of 28 laws will have to be corrected as a reult of the reform, she said.
Fox Buys Film Rights
MOSCOW (SPT) - Channel One has signed a multimillion dollar deal with 20th Century Fox for the worldwide distribution of the Russian summer blockbuster "Night Watch" and its two upcoming sequels, the two sides said Monday.
The exact size of the deal was not announced, but Variety magazine last week reported that Fox was said to have paid "over $2 million" for each of the first two films and an "undisclosed sum" for the last movie, which is to be a coproduction. Fox also gets the rights to shoot English-language remakes.
TITLE: Google Shares Debut on Market
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Shares of Google surged nearly 18 percent in their market debut last week, in the culmination of a unique and bumpy initial stock offering for the 6-year-old dot-com dreamed up in a college dorm room.
The stock started at $100.01 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, $15.01 higher than its $85 initial offering price. Within a few minutes of trading, Google was at $98.08, with 5.5 million shares having traded hands.
The IPO price, set late Wednesday through an unorthodox auction that alienated many on Wall Street, cleared the way for the stock to start trading under the symbol "GOOG." Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page opened trading on the Nasdaq, though Google didn't begin trading until midday.
Nasdaq officials said a delay in trading was standard for IPOs and added that there were some technical issues as the Nasdaq matched bid and ask prices in the minutes leading up to trading.
The $85 initial share price was short of Google's original expectation of $108 to $135 a share. It also comes at the lowest end of Google's downward-revised range it made on Wednesday, when it also reduced the number of shares to be sold to 19.6 million from 25.7 million - a move that was expected to buoy prices.
"The good news for Google is that it didn't price below the low end," said Tom Taulli, co-founder of CurrentOfferings, an IPO research company. "If it had priced below the low end, maybe there could have been some selling pressure."
The IPO raised $1.67 billion. If the stock had priced at the high end of the original estimate, Google would have raised as much as $3.6 billion and given the company a market capitalization as high as $36 billion.
"When you finally cut through the hype, economic rationality wins out," said Bob Clarkson, a securities attorney at the Menlo Park-based Jones Day law firm who did underwriting work for many IPOs, including Yahoo Inc.'s. "Bidders who wanted to buy the stock have done a reasonably hard-nosed analysis and they say they like $85 better than $108 or $120."
The $85 price values the world's most popular search engine at $23.1 billion, more valuable than companies such as Amazon.com Inc., with a market capitalization of $16 billion, and Lucent Technologies Inc., valued at $13.5 billion, but slightly less than General Motors Corp.'s $23.7 billion.
TITLE: RTS Urges Regulation Rule Compliance
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Listing on the Russian Trading System will become more challenging next year, with companies facing removal if they fail to comply with new regulations.
"We will send out warning letters to companies suggesting they comply with new regulations," Oksana Derisheva, RTS listing department chief, said on Friday, speaking after a presentation to companies. The changes apply to companies on the A1, A2 and B lists.
A major change is that A-listed companies will need to have three independent directors on their boards, and B-listed companies at least one.
The new rules already apply to newcomers and will be effective as of Jan. 1 for those companies already listed.
Derisheva said RTS will take at face value information provided by companies themselves.
Aeroflot has announced an extraordinary shareholder meeting in October to re-elect its board to conform with the new regulations.
A number of A1 companies polled Friday, including Unified Energy Systems, Mosenergo, Wimm-Bill-Dann, Lukoil and Yukos, all said they are in compliance. UES spokesman Andrei Trapeznikov said that the utility's newly elected board includes four independent directors. Some of them, however, represent companies that either have stakes in or do business with UES.
Yelena Krasnitskaya, corporate governance analyst at Troika Dialog brokerage, suggested that she is not convinced that independent UES board "will vote in the interests of all UES shareholders and not just in the interests of the financial groups that nominated them,"
"Independent directors should not represent firms that have business with the given company, as in the case of SUEK [coal miner] and UES. It makes [the new requirement] a half measure," said Sergei Suverov, analyst with Zenit Bank.
TITLE: Yukos and Putin, Tourism and Flood Risk
TEXT: Yukos and Putin
Editor,
I have been following the Yukos case since the arrest last year of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
As a European, I am anxious to see Russia achieve economic growth and prosperity for all of society, all companies and the institutions with freedom of speech and application of the legal system and judiciary being rigorously maintained.
My concern is that a fair and reasonable approach towards Yukos and its executives has yet to be made by either the government or by the bailiffs and the judiciary. Furthermore, their actions would appear to blatantly violate certain Council of Europe statutes.
While it is essential that those who break the law should be indicted and tried according to the law and within a reasonable time, the handling of this matter seems to be illegal, unfair and unreasonable and not without political motivation.
This affair sets an important milestone for the government of Russia, its business and its people in conjunction with its foreign relations.
I can only hope that all parties can reach a sensible compromise in the settlement of this affair and give your friends renewed confidence.
Keith Shipman
Saarlouis,. Germany
Editor,
The world watches as Yukos is forced into bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin is to receive an honorary degree in economics from a Germany university. [This has since been postponed - Editor]
Some basic economic concepts of capital markets, investor confidence, and Adam Smith's Invisible Hand have been forgotten about by our scholar.
If Yukos is bankrupted, hard-working Russians will lose their jobs as investors withdraw their money from Russia, bringing the economy to a standstill.
The way state assets were sold at the end of the Soviet Union was questionable. Bankrupting Yukos is one way of regaining control of former state assets.
But will bankrupting Yukos produce a utilitarian result, with the greatest good for the all the largest number of Russians?
The German university offering Putin a degree in economics should take note of this and possibly question the framework that Putin uses to make his economic decisions.
Hamish Mark
Auckland, New Zealand
Editor,
The future of Russia depends on several vital components - the fight against terror, economic reform and the development of a modern tax system.
Putin has delivered.
Chechen terrorists are regulary challenging the authority of the state, and are met with ultimate force. Economic reforms, and the development of a modern tax system go hand in hand. The future of Russia looks bright under Putin.
The status of Russia is increasing in the world again, due to the willingness of Putin to carry out long overdue reforms, and to create a climate that encourages international companies like British Petroleum to set up business operations in Russia.
If Germany does not like Putin, the British professional and business community will welcome him instead.
A. L. Werner,
Britain
Russians Abroad
In response to "Russian Women Discover Better Life in Sweden," an article by Irina Titova on Aug. 6.
Editor,
You can easily substitute the word "Swedish" for Dutch and "Sweden" for the Netherlands for a similar article.
For a couple of years, Russia has been the third-greatest bride-donor country to the Netherlands. Russian brides are more or less the main Russian import.
Even now, since by law you have to master the Dutch language and gain knowledge of Dutch culture before departing from Russia to your Dutch spouse (passing an 'entrance examination at the Royal Netherlands Embassy), the interest Russian girls and women have to emigrate to the Netherlands is great.
But if one thinks that there are limited cultural differences between Dutch and Russian family life, one makes a great mistake. Russians in the Netherlands live their own lives, and do not appreciate much contact with other Russians: they want to integrate and assimilate, and those who do not accept this final consequence of their own decision to emigrate will suffer from home sickness etc.
Prepare yourself for emigration very well!
Jan Beerenhout
Russia Foundation (Amsterdam)
Sinking Prospects
In response to "Will City Sink Like Atlantis?" an article by Galina Stolyarova on July 23.
Editor,
As a civil engineer specializing in flood control, I find the issue of flooding in St. Petersburg. very interesting. There are several issues ignored by your article, and I hope Russian scientists and engineers have considered them.
I believe the city to be built largely upon fill material, and that old fill material often settles, or compacts, especially if it is composed of clays and silts. The city could be sinking due to settlement of the fill placed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Around the world it has been noted that regions covered by glaciers for many thousands of years have been compressed, and they rebound after the glacier melts. Just because the St. Petersburg area has not been covered by a glacier for about 10,000 years does not mean the rebound has ended. It could be that the area is rebounding, but the effect of fill settlement is likely to be larger.
I suspect the main cause of flooding in St. Petersburg is due to a wind-tide. Simply stated, the wind in the Gulf of Finland, blowing very strongly from the west for at least three days pushes water into the eastern parts of the gulf, precisely where St. Petersburg is located. It is not unusual for a wind-tide to cause a 3-meter rise in the level of Lake Erie and thereby cause the Detroit River to flow backwards.
I agree that building the Gulf of Finland barrier will eliminate the wind-tide problem, and that it will change the saltwater estuary ecosystem into a freshwater ecosystem.
This is not necessarily a bad thing when you consider the enormous benefit of saving St. Petersburg. Do you think the Dutch debated the value of their saltwater ecosystems for more than a fraction of a second when faced with losing their principal city? Of course, not.
As far as sewage treatment goes, the city is faced with either piping it out into the gulf beyond the barrier or joining the rest of the civilized world and constructing sewage treatment works.
Neal Chisholm,
Dallas, Texas
Mass Tourism
Editor,
There are more tourists traveling the world than ever. Most of them were in Moscow when I was there and they went on to St Petersburg for the White Nights! Few places in the world can cope well with these numbers. Russia is especially unprepared.
Part of this problem, it seems to me, is to do with old Soviet - perhaps even Russian - attitudes that are firmly entrenched. The entrances to most tourist sites are too narrow and restricted, resulting in bottlenecks and frustration. Ticket offices are obscurely placed, with small, low openings and unfriendly staff. Everyone, it seems, wants to see your ticket. When inside there is the cloakroom to be negotiated, often located down distant, labyrinthine corridors. Having found your way in, it is usually difficult to find your way out. All exits have one of two double doors locked, resulting in pushing and shoving to get to the light.
Even worse is the booking system for groups. Museums open at 10 a.m. (why not 8 a.m.?). All the groups booked for 10 a.m. are there by 9.30 a.m. with the groups for 10:10, 10:20, 10:30 a.m. They fight for priority. Their guides are their advocates, shouting and gesticulating with museum staff quite unable to cope with the numbers and the anger.
At Peterhof there was nearly a riot by a crowd forced to wait in the rain for 2 hours before gaining entry. The tension was everywhere released by the brass bands in colorful costumes that played on despite the weather - even under umbrellas.
We were most impressed that one trio, outside the Hermitage, asking us where we were from, promptly broke into a lively rendition of the New Zealand national anthem! There is a broad band of tolerance from happy tourists, Russians selling souvenirs, the guides, and the museum staff, but the strain the system puts on these relations, on the "tourist" experience that is, at times, quite intolerable.
Mass tourism will not got away. From a commercial point of view Russians have a direct interest in maintaining and even increasing their numbers. To make that a win-win situation organizers in positions of authority need to come out of their Soviet shells and face the fresh air of commercial realities.
St. Petersburg lived through a siege that no one will ever forget. It lived through following decades of gross Soviet neglect of its infrastructure. Annually, it has to cope with seven months of winter. It is no wonder that its general appearance is one of decay. The tourist chugging through the Fontanka and Griboyedov canals is delighted by the few well restored bridges and the occasional house or church that shows off its recent make-over, but the general appearance of the houses and shops on the embankments is one of dreary dowdiness.
Why not launch a city-wide campaign to make the Venice of the North deserve its reputation! Repaint the facades, put geraniums in window boxes, take the garbage out of the waterways. And while you are at it fill some of those potholes and make the sidewalks less of a hazard for twisted ankles. St. Petersburg is a lovely city. Show your pride in your city by social action. Perhaps some of the profits from the casinos and poker machines could be put to better use.
Peter Stupples,
Dunedin, New Zealand
Editor,
I have just come back from my first visit to Russia. I went on an organized package tour to Moscow and St. Petersburg and had a fascinating time. Russia as a tourist attraction has so much to offer the world.
However, Russia is not making the most of its beauty. At the moment it is like Cinderella before the fairy godmother turns up. Yes, it has potential, but it won't get to the ball unless it sorts itself out. I have worked in the tourist industry both in Britain and abroad, and in a mere week in Russia I noticed so many small little things that could be done to improve its attractiveness to tourists.
The world's largest country should be attracting more than a mere 1 percent of the world's tourists. Its service levels, while improving, are still not what they should be. I am not talking about false smiles or fawning to guests, but merely about service reflecting the true nature of the Russian people, who I discovered to be kindhearted and hospitable.
Most tourists can't read Cyrillic, so are not catered for linguistically. I am not calling for Russia to be culturally swamped, but tourist facilities have to display what they are selling or else the tourists will just walk on by.
The hotel standards are very poor. For example, for the three nights I spent in St. Petersburg the hotel did not have hot water! Most attractions open at 10 a.m. - why not make this earlier? If you increase the hours of opening, you increase revenue streams.
Specific theme vacations should be promoted. For example, space tourism doesn't necessarily have to be limited to millionaires if a Russian space tourism vacation involves a visit to attractions such as the space control center at Korolyov, the space museum, Yury Gagarin's grave and a couple of the space rides at Gorky Park. But please try to introduce a multilingual headset so that the visitors can understand what is going on! The Americans at NASA have turned their space legacy into a real tourist cash cow, so why don't the Russians?
Just as Normandy has catered to war veterans, and in a largely tasteful and respectful manner, so should Russia promote this aspect of their history, as they did so much to defeat the Nazi threat - whether it is showing a tourist the depth of the metro, which was used for bomb shelters and command posts, or taking pride in the war memorials and Victory Park.
Literary tourism should attract a high-spending niche tourist. In attracting these tourists, you do not have the fear that the infrastructure will be overburdened - literary history is one resource Russia will never be short of.
My own personal interest was what I call "red tourism," where one gains an insight into the life and times of the Soviet Union. While I missed out on the focal point of any such tour, Lenin's mausoleum, as it was closed, I did see the park of statues near Gorky Park and the headquarters of the KGB on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, where you still feel a forbidden thrill in taking a photo of the building. St. Petersburg is also rich in red tourism gems, whether it be the ship Aurora - from which the shot was fired that started the Bolshevik Revolution - or the fascinating Kirov Museum, which has an excellent English-speaking guide who is a credit to her profession.
When Russians talk about the first revolution, it is the failed 1905 revolution. But the Russian people are persistent! By the time of 1917's "Great October Socialist Revolution," they had clearly gotten a handle on revolution, and so they will with tourism and the whole capitalist model!
Sean Jinks
Watford, England
In response to "Metro Station Proves Haven for Pickpockets" an article by Vladimir Kovalev on Aug. 3
Pickpockets
Editor,
It is absolutely disgraceful the way the St. Petersburg police aid the pickpocketeers! My fiancee and I were both robbed on a bus near this metro station. I believe the police, bus conductor and driver all helped the thieves steal our wallets. The driver opened the doors allowing the thieves to get off the bus, the conductor would not go near the mob, who had pushed us into one end of the bus, and the police were more interested in collecting a 100-ruble fine from us, the victums, for not paying our bus fare, since we had no money after being robbed. It is clearly evident that tourists are viewed as a cash-crop, to be harvested and exploited to the fullest possible extent.
I do have solutions to this problem. 1) Install video cameras to record the thieves in the act. 2) Have the police do their job and stand right next to the known or suspected pickpocketeers, thereby catching them in the act.
In all likelihood, the authorities will do nothing at all, other than continue to take their share of the plunder as payment for looking the other way.
When the foreign tourists learn of this problem, they will stay away in droves. Then who will fill your $200 per day hotel rooms ? The pickpockets ?
Neal Chisholm,
Dallas, Texas
Editor,
You should ask for a commentary from a highly positioned city police officer about why the police are so passive, and publish whatever the officer says.
Then your readers could see, what is the naked logic of the policemen.
Matti Nieminen
Finland
TITLE: Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
TEXT: Aug. 23, 1939, sealed the fate of my family. On that day, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, whose secret protocols divided up Central and Eastern Europe between them.
Within five years, my grandfather was shot by the Nazis. Two of my great-uncles were sent to Siberian death camps by the Soviets. My father-in-law was deported to Siberia as a nine-year-old boy, where he struggled to survive against death by starvation. Unknown to him, his hopes of seeing his father alive again were in vain; his father was shot early in 1941 by the KGB in Moscow's Kirov prison for the crime of being an ordinary policeman in independent Estonia.
Thousands of stories like these have recently emerged from the Soviet archives. The new evidence shows that by encouraging Hitler to start World War II, Stalin hoped to simultaneously ignite a world-wide revolution and conquer all of Europe.
A week after signing the pact, on Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland from the west. On Sept. 17, Stalin's Red Army hit Poland from the east and finished the job. In the next few months, Stalin took Bessarabia (currently Moldova) from Romania. Then his army moved to the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and annexed them in 1940. In November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, which heroically defended itself during the Winter War.
All of the conquered territories suffered through terror, deportations and killings. For the next 10 years, well after the formal end of the war, armed resistance movements fought against Soviet aggression in the Baltics and western Ukraine. They were then replaced by political resistance movements. As a result of Soviet occupation, the Baltic countries alone lost more than a fifth of their population.
This cannot be forgotten, nor forgiven, just because, after two years of their alliance, the Hitler-Stalin conflict started in 1941 and resulted in the sacrifice of millions of Russians fighting against the beast that Stalin himself had helped to unleash on the world.
The postwar Nuremberg tribunal was justified in condemning one part of this criminal pact - Nazism. Even more, Germany has publicly apologized for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and for all the destruction and terror that Nazi Germany visited on the world. Perhaps this has not healed all of the wounds but it has healed a lot of them. And that matters not only for the victims of Nazism but for Germans themselves. Germany has faced up to its past and is now free to keep building its democratic and prosperous society.
Unfortunately the same has not happened to the other side in this bargain. The crimes of communism are not condemned. During most of its existence, the Soviet Union denied even the existence of the secret protocols of Molotov-Ribbentrop, not to mention the crimes against humanity that are directly attributable to this pact, such as the massacre of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn early in the war. And even when the existence of secret protocols was recognized, first the Soviet Union and then Russia refused to undo the results of the pact.
For instance, only after enormous international pressure was exerted on Russia did Moscow withdraw all its troops from the Baltic states on Aug. 31, 1994. This day is now marked as the end of World War II for these countries, with celebrations each year.
But in Moldova, annexed by the Soviet Union after Molotov-Ribbentrop, Russia still maintains military bases regardless of protests by Moldova, the OSCE and the European Union. Russia has often promised to remove its troops from this area, but until this occurs, remnants of the pact are still in place.
To this day, Russia maintains that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were never occupied by the Soviet Union. This month, Russia refused to apologize for standing by, just outside the city, as the Nazis crushed the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, because Moscow hoped the Nazis were, in effect, smoothing the way for a communist takeover of Poland in 1944. Worse yet: Russia refuses to say three simple words to the victims of communism: We are sorry!
Those words can help heal many wounds and remove existing mistrust. But an apology isn't as important even for the victims of communism as it is for Russia itself. When a nation cannot face up to its history, it will live like a human being suffering from a permanent neurosis. Nations that cannot make peace with their past cannot build a future.
It looks increasingly as if this is one of the reasons why democracy is not thriving in Russia and why this great country hasn't developed as hoped after the fall of the Soviet Union. We all must encourage and support Russia to follow this difficult path.
Mart Laar is former prime minister of Estonia. This comment first appeared in Friday's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
TITLE: Government's Bid to Resolve All Ills Itself Is Doomed to Fail
TEXT: A recent public opinion poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, or VTsIOM, in connection with the anniversary of the August 1998 financial crisis - otherwise known as the "default" - shows that most citizens think some kind of financial crisis will happen again.
Even after shedding its independent head, Yury Levada, VTsIOM found almost half of those questioned believe that in Russia such a crisis could happen at any moment.
And this is despite the government's comprehensive publicizing of the country's impressive economic achievements, the macroeconomic evidence for which is confirmed by wholly unbiased information.
Since it is unreasonable to begin to suspect almost 50 million adult citizens (the age of those asked were over 18) of paranoia, other explanations must be found for this paradox. It is clear that, since they do not, on the whole, have an intimate knowledge - whether theoretical or factual - of economics, Russians clearly could not have formulated their own opinions on the basis of reasoned estimations. This leaves only one other explanation: intuition.
The people sense that economic stability, which has been publicized by the government as President Vladimir Putin's main achievement, is a myth. It is this that has led to fears of a crisis. Such a feeling has arisen on the strength of various information on processes in the country capable of influencing the socio-economic situation.
In the opinion of one Levada Center employee, Leonid Sedov, the causes of Russians' growing uncertainty in the future were "fears of a banking crisis and a lack of information on the real meaning of governmental initiatives concerning replacement of privileges with monetary compensation and a lowering of a set of measures for the population's social security to a regional level." Other governmental activities, heard of through the media and friends' experiences, most likely also influenced the mood of the people. The number of pessimists who thought that their financial position would worsen in the next six months rose from 16 percent last year to 22 percent, while the number of optimists fell by 16 percent to 14 percent.
Given Russians' general dislike of the oligarchs, it is impossible for them not to be concerned - if only on a subconscious level - that the government is in cahoots with Yukos and its main representative - Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and others, who are being accused of embezzling state property during privatization. The people aren't that stupid; only 6 percent of those questioned by the Levada Center blame businessmen for the damage done during privatization, while 62 percent quite reasonably believe that state officials are guilty of accepting bribes for the distribution of government property. Only 24 percent think that both are equally guilty. The majority is inclined to think that the trial of former Yukos directors has little chance of being fair and unbiased.
The intuition of the Russian people does not usually let them down. As an increasingly large number of competent individuals - businessmen, politicians and experts - openly admit, the judicial system in Russian has basically been in ruins for the past few years. One businessman who spoke recently on radio station Ekho Moskvy admitted that he was not sure that having even 100 per cent proof of one's innocence would allow the judicial process to triumph over a company controlled by Chekists. Almost every day, lawyers publish facts of glaring procedural infringements committed during legal trials. The lawyer of jailed arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin's recently commented in detail about the mechanism of falsification in jury work.
It is significant that, judging from the evidence, clear infringements of public prosecution laws are committed even by the judges themselves completely openly.
Clearly, the source of their boldness is to be found in the Kremlin. The recent story of the Moscow authorities' intention to name one of Moscow's streets after Akhmad Kadyrov is, in this respect, highly significant. When officials were made aware that Moscow city law openly forbids this until 10 years after the person's death, they then referred to the personal wish of Putin.
The government clearly assumes that the country can do without an independent legal system. Such a system, however, is itself a system-creating institution of modern society, the main guarantor of the defense of a democratic country's civil rights and, most importantly, the guarantor of the rights of the private owner. Without such a guarantor, a market economy cannot work. Evidence for this is that for the last few years there has been no real outflow of capital from Russia.
The authorities, to all appearances, are relying on meeting social demands with just one form of government support. At a recent conference the government decided to increase the effectiveness of its activity by means of the introduction of parameters that openly show the extent to which the people's needs have been satisfied into reports of different ministries' activities. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove (i.e. the satisfying of the people), it will quickly become clear that in this sphere the government cannot replace business.
It seems the people do not doubt this. According to information from the Levada Center, the absolute majority of Russian citizens negatively evaluate the socio-economic policy currently being implemented. Moreover, the gap between those who feel the government's efforts in improving the economy and increasing citizens' welfare to be successful and those who don't (37 percent versus 59 percent) grew even wider. Last year the relationship was 43 percent versus 53 percent.
It is significant that the opinions of the population about the responsibility of the president for obscure and unpopular decisions have no effect on Putin's ratings. According to information from the Levada Center, responsibility for the proposed replacement of social privileges with monetary compensation is something those questioned blame mainly on Putin (35 percent) and the government (34 percent). It is, however, clear that sooner or later intuition will lead the people to the conclusion that they cannot rely upon a person (and Putin's high rating, as sociologists note, is determined primarily by the hopes of the population) who allows the implementation of such a policy.
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
TEXT: Prophet Margin
Transcript, Rush Limbo
Hour, NBC Radio, Jan.
17, 1943
Announcer: Good evening, America! Welcome to the Rush Limbo Hour - brought to you by Bush-Walker! OK girls, take it away!
Chorus: Who put the armor on Hitler's Panzer tanks? Bush-Walker! Bush-Walker! Who helped the Nazis hide their assets in our banks? Bush-Walker! Bush-Walker! And who kept helping Hitler while he was killing Yanks? Bush-Walker! Bush-Walker!
Announcer: Yes, folks, that's Bush-Walker - purveyors of the finest international investments. Now here's our host, a man who always talks out of the Right side of his mouth: Rush Limbo!
Rush: Ha ha, thanks, Johnny! Hello out there in radioland! My friends, we've got a special show for you tonight. We're honored to welcome one of our very own sponsors: a great man, a great American - Prescott Bush! Come on out, Pres, and say howdy to the folks!
Bush: Howdy, folks.
Rush: Har har! You know, Press, that advertising jingle that always leads our show - it really says it all, doesn't it?"
Bush: You're so right, Rush. We at Brown Brothers Harriman - that's the chief vehicle for the Bush-Walker fortunes - we're just gosh-darn proud of the way we've always stood up to the "political correctness" crowd, those silly-billies bleating about "ethical investments" and what have you. Gosh darn it, Rush, there's only one kind of ethical investment - one that makes money for you and your business partners. Everything else is just, well, flapdoodle, if I can say that on the radio.
Rush: Hee hee, sure you can! I said it just yesterday, talking about this war profiteering witchhunt in Congress. I said it was pure flapdoodle, the way Senator Harry Truman and his gang are blackening the name of good American tycoons just trying to make a buck or two in wartime.
It's a darn shame, Rush. Look at our situation. Now, it just so happens that some of our German business partners are major backers of Hitler and major players in arming his war machine. So what? We were operating in Germany long before Herr Hitler came onto the scene. We'll be operating there after he's gone. That's what we do: We operate. The nature of the regime doesn't matter. king, communist, Nazi, sheik, warlord, poobah, it all comes down to this: Are they open for business? If they are, then we have a duty - yes, a moral duty - to ourselves and to our stockholders to maximize our profits anywhere we can, in any way we can.
Some nervous nellies said we should have divested ourselves of our German interests after the Nazis took power. And let someone else make all that money? No way, Jose! That would be a betrayal of everything we stand for. You know, I always look to the example of my good friend William Farish at Standard Oil. He signed a deal with the Nazis on secret patents for synthesizing rubber. Hitler couldn't have gone to war without it. And after Roosevelt and his pinko cabal led us into this war, good old Bill stood by his Nazi partners and refused to share these precious trade secrets with the U.S. government, despite the American military's dire need for rubber. Now that's honor and integrity for you, Rush! And that's the ethos that we in the Bush family try to pass on to our children. It's just a gosh-darn doodley-doo shame that Bill had his knuckles rapped with those conspiracy charges after that little haberdasher Truman put the heat on.
Thank goodness we pulled enough strings to keep my name out of the papers when they seized our Nazi assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act last year! But things have reached a sorry pass in this country when decent businessmen are forced to give up profits and betray their foreign partners just because of some ridiculous law. I mean, come on! The law is for regulating the behavior of the lower orders; it was never meant to apply to people like us!
You know, I'm starting to think that government is just too darn important to be left to the whims of the so-called electorate and their childish notions about law and justice and morality. I might have to get into politics one day and straighten things out. Because I have a dream, Rush.
Rush: Say on, brother!
Bush: I dream of a world where no tycoon need ever lose a dime of profit just because it came from the blood of innocent people. I dream of a world where the rabble keep their mouths shut and the well-born can exercise their God-given privileges in any way they see fit. I see a world where votes go uncounted and judges take orders, where bribes flow and kickbacks abound, where public service and private enrichment are joined in one great, golden revolving door. I see a world where war, corruption and deceit are exalted, where stupidity is rewarded and arrogance enthroned in power.
And if I can't get us there, if I fall along the way, then maybe my son or my grandson will pick up the banner and lead us to that promised land. But I believe we'll make it there somehow, Rush. We'll leave this rickety old constitutional republic behind and see our great country submit at last to the natural order, ordained by God and confirmed by history: the rule of elites, backed by brute power, gorging on the toil and blood of others.
Rush: Amen, Pres! My friends, you can forget about Comrade Roosevelt's "freedom from want, freedom from fear" jazz - this is the true voice of American leadership. All hail the Natural Order!
For annotational references, see Opinion at www.sptimesrussia.com
TITLE: Militants Hold Out in Najaf
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NAJAF, Iraq - Explosions and gunfire shook Najaf on Monday amid fierce battles between U.S. forces and Shiite militants, who remained in control of a revered shrine here as negotiations dragged on for its handover to religious authorities.
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, kidnappers released U.S. journalist Micah Garen on Sunday after more than a week in captivity. Garen confirmed his release in comments to Al-Jazeera television and thanked radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's representative for helping secure his release.
For over an hour Monday, militants in the holy city of Najaf fired mortars at U.S. troops, who responded with artillery, residents said.
Late Sunday, U.S. warplanes and helicopters attacked positions in the Old City for the second night, witnesses said. Militant leaders said the Imam Ali Shrine compound's outer walls were damaged in the attacks.
The U.S. military said it had fired on sites south of the shrine, from which militants were shooting, and did not hit the compound wall.
Also, five U.S. troops were reported dead in separate incidents, and an American journalist held hostage for more than a week and threatened with death if U.S. forces did not leave Najaf was released by his captors.
Sunday's clashes in Najaf appeared more intense than in recent days as U.S. forces sealed off the Old City. But Iraqi government officials counseled patience, saying they intended to resolve the crisis without raiding the shrine, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites.
"The government will leave no stone unturned to reach a peaceful settlement," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouaffaq al-Rubaie said. "It has no intention or interest in killing more people or having even the most trivial damage to the shrine. We have a vested interest in a peaceful settlement."
Senior government officials said last week an Iraqi force was preparing to raid the shrine within hours to expel the militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, but interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi quickly backed off that threat.
Such an operation would anger Shiites across the country and could turn them against the new government as it tries to gain legitimacy.
As of Friday, 949 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
Late Sunday, Garen, who was kidnapped Aug. 13 in Nasiriyah, was released along with his Iraqi translator at al-Sadr's offices there after the cleric's aides appealed for his freedom.
In a brief interview with the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera after his release, Garen thanked al-Sadr's representatives for their work, which included an appeal to the kidnappers during Friday prayers.
TITLE: Munch's 'Scream' Stolen In Bold Raid on Museum
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: OSLO, Norway - Armed, masked thieves burst into a lightly guarded Oslo museum Sunday and snatched the Edvard Munch masterpiece "The Scream" and a second Munch painting from the walls as stunned visitors watched.
It was the second time in a decade that a version of the iconic "Scream," which depicts an anguished, opened-mouthed figure grabbing the sides of its head, had been stolen from an Oslo museum.
The thieves, who fled by car, also grabbed "Madonna," another priceless painting that along with "Scream" is part of Munch's "Frieze of Life" series painted between 1893 and 1894, depicting themes of sickness, death, anxiety and love.
The two or three thieves, wearing black masks, threatened an employee of the Munch Museum with a handgun before grabbing the paintings, easily snapping the wires that attached them to the wall, witnesses and the police said.
Many museum visitors panicked and thought they were being attacked by terrorists.
"He was wearing a black face mask and [used] something that looked like a gun to force a female security guard down on the floor," one witness, Marketa Cajova, told the NTB news agency.
"What's strange is that in this museum, there weren't any means of protection for the paintings, no alarm bell," a French radio producer, Francois Castang, who saw the theft told France Inter radio.
"The paintings were simply attached by wire to the walls," he said. "All you had to do was pull on the painting hard for the cord to break loose - which is what I saw one of the thieves doing."
A photo taken by a witness outside the museum appears to show three black-clad robbers, two of whom are walking to a small, black getaway car with the paintings in hand. The third robber appears to be opening the trunk. The witness who took the photo did not want to be identified.
Police spokeswoman Hilde Walsoe said no one was injured during the robbery and that police had found the escape car-an Audi A6-and fragments of the paintings' frames.
Munch, a Norwegian painter and graphic artist who worked in Germany as well as his home country, developed an emotionally charged style of great significance in the birth of the 20th century Expressionist movement. He died in 1944 at the age of 81.
The stolen "Madonna" depicts an eroticized virgin with a blood-red halo in a dark, swirling aura. Munch later produced woodcut lithographs of a similar subject.
Munch made four versions of "The Scream," an image that has fascinated experts and the general public for decades. Art historians and amateurs alike have pondered the meaning of the enigmatic painting.
The Munch Museum had two of the "Scream" pictures; a private collector owns a third version; and the fourth is on display at Oslo's National Gallery. That version was stolen in February 1994 but recovered three months later.
"They were all painted by Munch, and they are all just as valuable," Munch Museum spokeswoman Jorunn Christoffersen said. "Still, these paintings are not possible to sell, and it is impossible to put a price tag on them."
TITLE: Kerry Team Sees A Parallel to McCain
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CRAWFORD, Texas - Democratic challenger John Kerry says President George W. Bush is remaining silent just as he did four years ago when supporters waged a campaign of "lies" to destroy the White House hopes of fellow Vietnam veteran and senator John McCain.
Kerry running mate John Edwards said Sunday that Bush needs to tell a veterans group to pull its anti-Kerry ads, a step the White House and the Bush campaign refuse to take. McCain., has said the tactics are the same kind used against him and asked Bush to denounce them. The White House says it denounces all attack ads against both candidates by outside groups, while refusing to get specific about condemning the veterans group's advertising.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth says Kerry didn't deserve his Purple Heart, lied to get his Bronze Star and Silver Star, didn't fight in neutral Cambodia as he said he did and that he unfairly branded all veterans with his 1971 congressional testimony about atrocities in Vietnam.
"The president... and [political adviser] Karl Rove have flipped back to the well-worn smear page of their campaign playbook, last used against John McCain in 2000," Kerry's campaign said in a statement Sunday. Voters want to hear about the issues, "not lies and smears, and it's time the president realized that."
A new Kerry campaign ad says Bush smeared McCain four years ago and "now, he's doing it to John Kerry." A former Vietnam prisoner of war, McCain lost the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000 after Bush supporters accused him of opposing legislation to help military veterans. McCain never recovered.
One of Kerry's accusers acknowledged he had no documentary proof for his allegation that Kerry fabricated reports of an incident for which the Massachusetts senator received a Bronze Star. The reports say Kerry was under enemy fire when he rescued a fellow crewman.
"I do not have a single document," Van Odell said on "Fox News Sunday." "I have the fact that I wasn't wounded in that 5,000 meters of fire that he wrote about.... There was no enemy fire from either bank." He said he had seven eyewitness backing up his version of events. Other witnesses say there was enemy fire at the time Kerry made the rescue.
Former Senator Bob Dole, a World War II veteran and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, suggested Kerry apologize for his 1971 testimony to Congress about atrocities committed in Vietnam.
Dole, who has a disabled right arm from war wounds, said Kerry received an early exit from combat for "superficial wounds." He called on the nominee to release all of his Vietnam service records.
Dole told CNN's "Late Edition" that he warned Kerry months ago about going "too far."
"One day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons," Dole said. "The next day he's standing there, `I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.' Maybe he should apologize to all the other 2.5 million veterans who served. He wasn't the only one in Vietnam."
TITLE: Khartoum Meets Rebel Leaders in Abuja
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ABUJA, Nigeria - Pushed to end what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, envoys of Sudan's government gathered in Nigeria on Monday for talks with rebel leaders in Sudan's bloodied western Darfur region.
Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmad, a Cabinet minister and government delegate to the last, failed Darfur peace talks in July, led Sudan's government delegation to Nigeria's capital, Abuja, for what are to be one-day talks.
Rebel Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement groups assembled high-level delegations for the talks.
Eighteen months of conflict in Darfur have killed tens of thousands and driven 1.2 million others from their homes.
Tensions between nomadic Arab tribes and non-Arab African villagers exploded in February 2003 when the two Darfur rebel groups took up arms over what they regard as unjust treatment by the government in their struggle with Arab countrymen.
The United Nations, United States and others accuse Sudan's government of backing pro-government Janjaweed militia in a violent ethnic-cleansing campaign of murder, rape and the razing communities.
In a goodwill gesture on the eve of peace talks in Nigeria, Sudan's government said Sunday it would cut the number of official paramilitary forces operating in Darfur by 30 percent in a bid to ease tensions.
U.N. spokesperson Radhia Achouri welcomed the move, saying the paramilitary Popular Defense Forces have been blamed for committing various acts of violence against African tribespeople in west Sudan's three Darfur states.
"It is a positive step because these forces are one of the reasons of concern for us because they are armed and have been involved in the [violent] actions we want to stop," Achouri said in a telephone interview from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
Sudan's state minister for interior affairs, Ahmed Mohamed Haroon, said Sunday that the 30 percent reduction in the volunteer force's numbers had been ordered to build confidence ahead of the African Union-sponsored peace talks, and to help implement a rarely heeded April 8 cease-fire agreement.
It is unclear how many paramilitary forces operate in Darfur, but they are believed to outnumber the more than 60,000 army and police stationed throughout the region.
Haroon said further reductions will occur if rebel forces adhere to the cease-fire.
TITLE: Arsonists Destroy Jewish Center in Eastern Paris
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Arsonists destroyed a Jewish community center in eastern Paris before dawn on Sunday, leaving behind red graffiti with menacing anti-Semitic messages such as "Jews get out."
Flames gnawed away the wooden doors and blackened the walls of the center, a meeting place for the elderly and disadvantaged located on the ground floor of a six-story building. Rescue workers said the center was gutted.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and other top officials visited the center, the latest target in a years-long wave of anti-Jewish attacks in France.
"I came here today to say that France cannot accept a trivialization of anti-Semitism," the prime minister said. He promised that prosecutors would seek the maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars.
In a statement, President Jacques Chirac condemned the attack and pledged solidarity with the Jewish community. The government is "determined to find the perpetrators of this unacceptable act so that they can be tried and convicted with the greatest severity" that the law allows, Chirac said.
Firefighters were called to the scene at about 3:30 a.m. and had extinguished the flames by early morning.
Authorities immediately suspected the fire was set deliberately. Inside the building, investigators found anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas scrawled in red marker. One message read, "Without the Jews the world is happy."
Visiting the site, rabbi Claude Zaffran said he was "deeply pained and distraught."
"We're very worried," he told The Associated Press. "I have the impression I'm seeing the same movie with the same script. Beyond the declarations and speeches, there must be strong actions to end the string of anti-Semitic acts."
Serge Benaim, a local Jewish community leader, also expressed frustration.
"It happens over and over again, every day now someone lashes out at Jews," he said. "We haven't resolved the problem."
France has suffered a long wave of anti-Semitic violence since 2000, coinciding with worsening tensions in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians.
Some of the violence has been blamed on young French Muslims, although the Muslim community itself is also a frequent target of racist attacks. France has the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe.
The government has already made efforts to tackle anti-Semitism. In December, it announced a wide-ranging campaign that includes encouraging French schools to lead class trips to Auschwitz and punishment for anti-Jewish remarks in the media.
Extra security at Jewish places of worship and schools and tough sanctions against anyone found guilty of anti-Semitic acts is also part of the policy. Sunday's fire was discovered by police assigned to patrol outside a nearby synagogue.
TITLE: Senate Republicans Want Change to CIA
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans proposed removing the nation's largest intelligence gathering operations from the CIA and the Pentagon and putting them under a new national intelligence director.
Senator Pat Roberts, Republican-Kansas, the committee chairman, unveiled on Sunday the most sweeping intelligence reorganization proposal offered by anyone since the Sept. 11 commission called for major changes. In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Roberts acknowledged that full details had yet to be shared with either the White House or with Senate Democrats.
"We didn't pay attention to turf or agencies or boxes" but rather to a delineation of "the national security threats that face this country," Roberts said of the proposals supported by eight GOP members of the intelligence committee. "I'm trying to build a consensus."
But he immediately ran into some resistance from a Democrat on his own committee. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat-Michigan, said that before appearing with Roberts on the CBS show neither he nor the committee's ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, had seen the full proposal.
"I think it would be better to start on a bipartisan basis," Levin said.
The commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks called for a powerful national intelligence director who could force the nation's many agencies to cooperate.
TITLE: IOC Strips Korzhanenko of Gold Medal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS - Russia's Irina Korzhanenko was stripped of her shot put gold medal Monday, the first athlete of the Athens Games to lose an Olympic title because of doping.
Korzhanenko, the first woman to win a gold medal at the sacred site of Ancient Olympia, tested positive for the steroid stanozolol after Wednesday's competition. The backup B sample confirmed the initial finding.
The International Olympic Committee executive board expelled Korzhanenko from the games and ordered the Russian Olympic Committee to return the medal.
The gold goes to Cuba's Yumileidi Cumba Jay. Germany's Nadine Kleinert moves up to silver, and Russia's Svetlana Krivelyova to bronze.
"I am surprised because we did everything to avoid such circumstances," Nikolai Durmanov, head of the Russian anti-doping agency, told reporters. "Irina is in the Olympic Village and she is totally dismayed. We are talking to her, trying to find the reasons why it all happened."
Korzhanenko, who served a previous two-year drug suspension, faces a lifetime ban from the sport. In 1999, she was stripped of the silver medal at the world indoor championships for a doping violation and was given a two-year suspension that kept her out of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Under international rules, two steroid violations warrants a lifetime ban.
The IOC decision came a day after Greek weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis became the first athlete of the Athens Games to be stripped of a medal for a doping offense. Sampanis lost his bronze medal in the 137-pound (62kg) category after testing positive for testosterone.
The shot put was held at Ancient Olympia, about 200 miles southwest of Athens, two days before the start of track and field in Olympic Stadium. It was the first time women have competed at the site; the ancient Olympics were for men only.
Korzhanenko won with a throw of 69 feet, 1 1/4 (21.06 meters) - the first throw more than 21 meters in four years. A member of the Russian Army Club from Azov in the Rostov region and a member of the Russian national team since 1994, Korzhanenko won the world indoor title in 2003 in Birmingham, England.
Another female shot putter, Uzbekistan's Olga Shchukina, tested positive in a pre-event screening for the steroid clenbuterol. She finished 19th and last in her qualifying group and was expelled from the games Friday.
So far, nine weightlifters have failed drug tests, including Russian Albina Khomich. A Kenyan boxer was also sent home for using drugs. With six days left in the games, including track and field events, more positives seem likely.
"The testing is more extensive and more comprehensive, so you'd expect we would catch more athletes that are cheating," Dick Pound, the World Anti-Doping Agency chief, said Sunday. "It increases the confidence in the authenticity of the competition if we are taking people out who cheated."
TITLE: OLYMPIC DIARY
TEXT: TUESDAY'S HIGHLIGHTS
n TRACK AND FIELD - It is one of those inexplicable statistics that Gail Devers, a hurdler who sprints, has won two 100-meter Olympic golds, but enters her fifth Games without a medal of any color over the barriers. She will have hot competition in Tuesday's final however, with Perdita Felicien of Canada winning both outdoor and indoor world titles over the last 12 months. She also holds the fastest time of the year. (Reuters)
n - Tuesday's men's 3,000-meter steeplechase final looks like a race made for the Kenyans. Kenyan Paul Kipsiele Koech is the world leader and the only person under eight minutes this year. Saif Saaeed Shaheen, previously known as Stephen Cherono, switched allegiance from Kenya to Qatar last year and won the world title but Kenya have said they will block him from running in Athens under IOC rules. (Reuters)
n - Ana Guevara, who became Mexico's first female world champion in 2003, began the year as a huge favorite in the women's 400 meters, but Tonique Williams-Darling of the Bahamas has made up ground with three of the top five times of 2004, each quicker than the Mexican's best. (Reuters)
n - Centimeter by centimeter, Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva edges toward both the coveted 5-meter barrier and the consequent financial security.
Isinbayeva has improved the world record by a centimeter six times this year, scaling 4.90 meters in London last month. Each time she has picked up a handsome bonus check.
At a news conference last Thursday, Isinbayeva was disarmingly honest about her motives.
"It's the big money, " she said in her halting but rapidly improving English. "I'm not a rich girl."
The parallel with Sergei Bubka is obvious. Bubka, who won the first of his six world titles in 1983, also picked up bonus money every time he raised the record to its present 6.15 meters.
These days Bubka is a member of the International Olympic Committee, a sophisticated sports politician who has come a long way since he won his first world title as a callow teenager from Ukraine in 1983. He is also comfortably off as a result of his spectacular craft.
Isinbayeva is the favorite to win the Athens Olympics gold medal Tuesday in the women's event, which has provided thrills, spills and glamour in abundance since it was introduced at the 1999 Seville world championships.
Isinbayeva's odds for picking up her first gold received a major boost Saturday when Olympic champion Stacy Dragila failed to qualify for the final.
The American passed 4.30 meters at the second attempt but then failed to clear 4.40. Isinbayeva came into the competition at 4.40 and eased over at the first go, as did her Russian teammate Svetlana Feofanova, the world champion.
With Dragila out of the running, Feofanova is now Isinbayeva's main rival for gold.
In the past few years Isinbayeva has only needed to set a record for Feofanova to come back to break it - with Isinbayeva then reclaiming it a short time later.
The two are not thought to be the greatest friends. They have different personalities, with Feofanova seemingly ill-at-ease in the public spotlight.
Isinbayeva, on the other hand, is happy to share her plans with the world and the financial motivations that help shape them.
Her plan is to first win the gold medal in the Olympic final Tuesday, and then extend the world by a further centimeter, doubling her $60,000 bonus money from the Russian federation.
"I will fight for gold, then I will try and break the world record," she said. "My competition is [with] myself and the bar."
Isinbayeva equates the women's 5-meter pole vault to the men's 6-meter barrier, first cleared by Bubka.
"I think 5 meters and higher is possible," she said. "It's like the men's jump and the men jump 6 meters. I want to do it step by step like Bubka."
(Combined Reports)
n DIVING - China's Wang Feng is favorite for Tuesday's men's 3-meter springboard final but Russian Dmitry Sautin, twice a bronze medallist, could yet again pose a threat. (Reuters)
n EQUESTRIAN - The team show- jumping medals will be decided Tuesday with two rounds. Ten of 77 riders staying clear in the first qualifier on Sunday share the lead, including two riders each from Sweden and the United States.
France, the United States and Germany are considered favorites for team medals. (Reuters)