SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #999 (67), Tuesday, August 31, 2004
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TITLE: Chechens Elect Alkhanov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: GROZNY - Kremlin-favored candidate Alu Alkhanov won 74 percent of the vote in Chechnya's presidential election, election officials said Monday, amid reports of widespread vote rigging from independent monitors.
Chechen Interior Minister Alkhanov, 47, replaces Kremlin-backed President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in a bomb attack in May.
Speaking to reporters at a Grozny news conference, the head of the Chechen Elections Commission, Abdul-Kerimov Arsakhanov, said that a total of 505,000 people took part in the election Sunday, or 85 percent of the republic's registered voters.
In second place was FSB Colonel Movsar Khamidov with 9 percent of the vote, Arsakhanov said.
Arsakhanov said that there were no registered violations during the elections, only "oral complaints." In many cases, these complaints turned out to be "unconfirmed accusations," he said.
Official election monitors from the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference agreed with Arsakhanov, saying they had not registered any violations.
The head of the CIS observers' mission, Dmitry Bulakhov, told reporters in Grozny on Monday that the elections "were carried out ... in an organized way and with a high participation of voters."
But independent observers and representatives of candidates other than Alkhanov complained that the elections were carried out amid widespread vote rigging and election violations.
An observer for rival candidate Movsar Khamidov, Sharil Tsuruyev, said Monday that at the polling station in Zakan-Yurt village one of Khamidov's observers was forced to sign the protocol of the election results at gunpoint.
Turuyev said the observer told him that only 350 people had voted at the polling station, where 2,000 voters were registered, but the final protocol he was forced to sign recorded that about 1,500 people voted.
"They put a submachine gun on our observer and told him: 'Sign or we'll shoot you.'" The observer called Khamidov and asked what to do. "He told him to sign," Tsuruyev said.
Tsuruyev said that the Khamidov campaign observers were denied access to a polling station in the Nadterechny district. An independent observer from the St. Petersburg Strategy Center, Antuan Arakelyan, said that at polling stations in the villages of Vedeno, Za-Vedeno, Shali and Germenchuk "there were no more than two or three voters at any one time."
Grigory Shvedov, a representative of the Memorial human rights organization, said the turnout was very low and that the official turnout did not tally with the observers' figures.
"Representatives of the elections commission counted four or five times as many voters," he said Sunday.
Shvedov said that the election was marked by a large military presence, and at many polling stations there were no representatives of the elections commission. "There were more [military personnel] than voters," he said.
Shvedov blamed the low turnout on clashes between security forces and rebels in Grozny on Aug. 21 that Chechen government officials said left at least 30 people dead.
"People were not scared, but they just lost confidence in the Interior Ministry, which cannot provide for anything," Shvedov said. "[The clashes] discredited those in power."
Shvedov said that rumors were circulating in Grozny that the rebels would attack the city on Saturday evening.
"We all remembered how it was last Saturday," Grozny resident Zarina Askhabova said. "We believed that rumor and we went home. We decided to stay home Sunday as well, just in case."
Madina Mezhikova, 33, said she did not know why she did not go vote. "I didn't even think about it. It was not interesting and I didn't go," she said.
Denilbek Khasayev, a local election official in Argun, 15 kilometers east of Grozny, said he and his colleagues at the local elections commission were ordered to produce a 68 percent turnout.
"Around midday our representative got a call from the city administration asking how the turnout was going. He said 75 percent. The other guy yelled down the telephone 'It's enough.' In the end, our polling station was given an 84 percent turnout," Khasayev said.
No observers from international organizations such as the Council of Europe or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were in Chechnya to monitor the election.
In a joint statement Monday, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Moscow Helsinki Group questioned the credibility of the election, citing a lack of minimum international standards for holding free and fair elections.
"The brutal Chechnya conflict is crying out for a political solution," said Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the International Helsinki Federation. "Yet manipulating democracy to produce a predetermined outcome is neither fair nor a solution."
TITLE: Environmentalists, Artists Join Forces to Save Baltic
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: STOCKHOLM - The youngest sea on the planet, the Baltic Sea, is also one of the most polluted in the world.
This year all countries around it, except Russia, have appealed to the International Maritime Organization to grant the Baltic the official status of a particularly sensitive sea area, or PSSA, so that they can join forces in tackling environmental threats in the region.
In April, the whole Baltic Sea except Russian territorial waters, was designated a PSSA.
However, it is doubtful that measures to protect the sea and its animal and plant life can succeed without Russia; it is a large contributor of pollution with the city of St. Petersburg the biggest single contributor.
The Leningrad Oblast's new oil terminals, increasing oil traffic, the lack of sewage treatment and horrendous numbers of illegal spills poison the waters of the almost enclosed waters of the Baltic Sea.
The World Wildlife Fund discussed the fate of the sea and measures to protect it at a special session this month in Stockholm. The discussion coincided with the Second Baltic Sea Festival, where Swedish, Russian and Finnish classical musicians campaigned to draw attention to the ecological plight of the region.
WWF representatives plan to visits the governments of all countries around the Baltic this year to convince them to sign a list of protective measures aiming at saving the sea.
But the group will not come to Russia. "The only reason why we aren't coming to Russia is because it is the only country that hasn't applied for the PSSA status," said Anita Makinen of the Finnish branch of WWF.
The measures include water traffic speed restrictions, closing of routes, seasonal suspension of certain routes to protect migrating marine mammals, tighter anchoring requirements, regulation of offshore bunkering, discharge restrictions and air pollution emission limitations.
The amount of oil transported on the Baltic Sea has doubled since 1997 and is expected to increase to up to 160 million metric tons per year. Makinen said sub-standard shipping practices had significantly increased the risks of severe oil accidents. Since 1980 an average of one major accident a year has occurred in the Baltic.
"Oil traffic has been increasing enormously in the Gulf of Finland," Makinen said. "Russians enlarge their existing oil terminals and build new ones.
"Not only has the number of tankers increased, but their size has also grown. At the same time, cruises between Helsinki and Stockholm have increased tremendously, and this route is crossing the main routes of vessels transporting hazardous substances."
The WWF forecasts that the risk of an oil accident in the Gulf of Finland will quadruple as the amount of oil transported through it rises from 1995's 22 million tons to the 90 million tons expected in 2005.
"We recognize that the Russian economy is very dependent on oil, but we are extremely concerned," said Lars Kristoferson, secretary general of WWF Swedish branch.
Globally, less than 0.5 percent of the world's seas have been designated as protected areas. The PSSA status is given in order to avoid accidents, intentional pollution and damage to habitats.
Upon request from the countries involved, the International Maritime Organization can also decide about associated protective measures for the region.
Top classical musicians from the Baltic region, including Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, Swedish conductor Manfred Honeck and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev have united in a special artistic event to draw attention to the ecological plight of the sea.
Politicians from most Baltic countries have also acknowledged the problem.
"During the Cold War, the Baltic Sea separated people," Finnish President Tarja Halonen said in her welcome letter to the cultural festival. " It divided people rather than united. Today, it has returned to its natural role. It unites rather than divides. The EU enlargement process is turning the Baltic Sea into the first EU internal sea."
The first festival in 2003 was well received, attracted top cultural and political figures and introduced musicians from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Denmark and Germany.
The Financial Times wrote last year that the first Baltic Sea Festival had more than proved its artistic merit as a contender in the annual summer marathon of European music festivals.
The ultimate goal of the Baltic Sea Festival is to get all countries on the coast involved.
"Music is a universal language, it has no political leanings, and it effortlessly crosses the language barrier to reach people everywhere," Salonen said. "That is why a major festival of this kind can develop unity around the Baltic Sea."
WWF's Kristoferson agreed. "These may be so-called soft values but they unite people," he said. "They help building confidence and trust in each other, while making the Baltic nations feel closer through the universal language of music."
To spread the word, the organizers are considering a series of satellite events in other towns across the region.
There is the possibility that next year a small series of events will be incorporated into St. Petersburg's annual "The Stars of the White Nights" summer cultural festival.
Eventually the program is likely to become more versatile, with jazz, rock and popular musicians joining the event for a more embracing picture of the region's cultural scene.
European environmentalists are pinning their hopes on the cultural heavyweights behind the festival.
"In my opinion, well-known and respected cultural people can establish a good contact with the governments of their countries, and can convince them to make a difference," Makinen said.
As St. Petersburg contributes in large measure to the contamination of the sea, the participation of Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater company in the festival has a further meaning beyond the obvious desire of including one of the world's greatest ensembles in the event.
"I am not naive to think that classical musicians can save the environment of a whole sea," Salonen said. "But I do think that if we bring the ideas into the minds of the people with this ecological theme running through the festival, we have a better chance of improving the situation in the future."
The arts can help build mutual trust but the decisions in the end will have to be political, Gergiev said.
"I don't mind being a bridge but it will be politicians who make the decisions," he said. "Russian politicians may listen to me, because we have built an international reputation, but to keep their confidence in us we should concentrate on our artistic efforts, not political activities."
Russia is the only country on the Baltic Sea coast that is not a member of the European Union, and in terms of environmental responsibility Russia's political isolation plays a crucial role.
"The EU countries share the same legislation, and naturally, they are all accountable to it," Kristoferson said. "With regards to Russia, we don't really have an instrument of influence, apart from appealing to the government's goodwill.
"After all, every country should be interested in having a healthy environment for its citizens."
Gergiev believes the political climate in the region has improved immensely and makes the musician hopeful about stronger integration in the future, in both cultural and political terms.
"For instance, the relations between Russia and Germany these days are better than ever the last 100 years," he said. "The war [World War II] is behind us, and now it is the very time to build relationships."
TITLE: Newspaper in Trouble After Petitioning Putin
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A small paper has found itself in big trouble for demanding that President Vladimir Putin do his job as guarantor of the constitution.
The staff of St. Petersburg weekly Konsyerzh have come under pressure from the local administration after it organized a petition of city media organizations against rampant in-fill construction and sent it to Putin.
In-fill construction has angered citizens and seen the loss of many of the few green areas in the city center.
The paper's editorial board said Friday that employees of City Hall's media committee called district housing committees asking them to stop providing the documents the paper needs to continue to rent its office, Konsyerzh representatives said.
"These are not direct phone calls to us, but to the housing committees and also to our shareholders, a local company dealing with housing," Olesya Galkina, head of Konsyerzh publishing house, said Monday in a telephone interview. Alla Manilova, the City Hall media committee head made the phone calls, Galkina said.
Manilova had no comment Monday.
"I had planned to organize a round table about in-fill construction projects, but now I'm in doubt if we really should do that," Galkina added.
"I think that if we did, they would pressure us so heavily that I have a feeling we'd be shut down.
"They don't want us to write bad stuff about all this or about [Governor] Valentina Matviyenko," Galkina said.
Konsyerzh was set up in August 2003 by Tvoi Dom, or Your House, publishing company and has a circulation of 10,000 copies. The 14-page publication contains stories on the local construction market and has been printed every Monday since September last year.
"If what Konsyerzh is saying is true, then the authorities are out of line -they are using the power, which is given to them to protect the legitimate interests of citizens, to protect their own interests," Yury Vdovin, co-chairman of the local branch of international human rights organization Citizen's Watch, said Monday in a telephone interview.
"Although, as we joked in the Soviet times, if the situation [in the country] is screwed up in general, the way things are screwed up locally does not look that significant," he said.
In June, Konsyerzh sent an open letter to Putin asking him to stop in-fill projects in the city. The letter was signed by more than 50 editors of about 30 St. Petersburg-based media outlets.
"At your meeting with the St. Petersburg administration in April it was announced that the city would allow the development of new territories [for construction] and infrastructure," the petition says. "But the same people at a public council meeting on March 24 said the current practice [of in-fill projects] will be followed for another three years," the petition said.
"We, the representatives of media outlets, are addressing you as the guarantor of human rights because we see these rights being broken by the in-fill projects," it said.
The initiators of the letter asked the president to send a federal commission to the city that would examine the situation and resolve the legal status of in-fill construction projects.
"If that does not happen we will have to organize a big public meeting with the participation of foreign experts and media representatives to demonstrate that the Russian Constitution is not the main law that authorities, officials and construction companies have to obey, and that a person is not a supreme treasure and that people have no rights in democratic Russia," the letter said.
In July, Konsyerzh received a response from the Kremlin that the letter had been received by the presidential administration and had been handed over to the Energy and Industry Ministry.
Putin has still not replied, said Galkina, who said he has a statutory obligation to do so.
"The [****] has not replied," she said Monday. "I had consultations with lawyers and I'm lost thinking if we should go to court. The question is, is there a regulation that says he has to reply and if he didn't, then can we file a lawsuit because he is a guarantor of the constitution?"
The Kremlin said Putin's silence does not break the law.
"This is a completely normal practice," the presidential press service said Monday in a telephone interview from Moscow.
"There is a special service of clerks that answer letters addressed to the president. He replies to some of them, but does not have time to write back to everyone. He is very busy," the press service said. "Unless there are some subtle points, I don't think there are grounds for a court case. Such is the practice of many countries, not only Russia."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Trophy Art Set Free
MOSCOW (SPT) - A 400-year-old painting by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens that had been held in a Moscow museum while the Prosecutor's Office decided if it could be legally handed back to Germany has been released to its owner after finding it was legally purchased, Interfax reported Friday, quoting Vladimir Logvinenko, a businessman and art collector.
The release of Rubens' "Tarquin and Lucretia" means it was purchased legally, Interfax cited the businessman as saying, although the German government considers it "trophy art" and had pressed Russian authorities to prosecute Logvinenko. Logvinenko took possession of the painting recently.
"I, in my turn, have handed over the painting to the [St. Petersburg's State] Hermitage, according to an agreement I had reached with the museum earlier. Today it was already sent there," Logvinenko said.
The painting was exhibited in Potsdam Art Gallery before 1942 it was taken by to the cottage of a lover of Joseph Goebbels. It was then taken to Russia by an officer of the Soviet army and sold several times before coming into Logvinenko's possession.
Staff Consultation
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Members of the international advisory board of the State Hermitage have discussed plans to hand over the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building to the museum, Interfax reported quoting museum representatives.
The Hermitage has plans to place in the building its additional collections of art and run temporary exhibitions, Interfax reported.
"It is most important for the Hermitage to be involved in a discussion with the best museum specialists, to listen to their advice and questions. This is the best style of work," Interfax cited Mikhail Piotrovsky, head of the Hermitage, as saying.
FSB Stalls Consulate
KALININGRAD (SPT) - The German diplomatic mission in Kaliningrad is unable to find a building to locate its consulate in the exclave because none of the premises have been approved by the federal security service or FSB, Interfax reported Friday quoting regional officials.
"The FSB analyzes buildings from a point of view of state security and, unfortunately, we have not received any answers yet [about proposed sites]," Interfax cited Pavel Mamontov, head of the international department in the Kaliningrad oblast government, as saying Friday.
German consular officials have so far suggested five buildings to local authorities, but all have been refused.
TITLE: Crash Investigators Say Planes Blown Up
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After analyzing flight recorders and the debris from two planes that crashed almost simultaneously last week, investigators concluded Monday that the planes had been blown up in a terrorist attack and had not been hijacked first.
Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, who is overseeing the investigation, said crewmembers of both planes did not report any problems before the crashes last Tuesday. He said an SOS call and a hijack alert sent from one of the planes, a Sibir Tu-154 heading for Sochi, may have been triggered by a short-circuit when it broke up in an explosion.
"Nothing suggests anything happened on board the planes other than their destruction," Levitin said, Interfax reported.
He said the final results of the investigation will be known in four to six weeks.
In its first official acknowledgment of terrorism, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, announced Friday that it had found traces of the explosive in the wreckage of the Sibir Tu-154 that crashed in the Rostov region.
"A preliminary analysis showed that it was hexogen," FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said, Interfax reported.
Ignatchenko also said the FSB has identified "a circle of people that may have been involved in the terrorist act on board the Tu-154 plane."
His statement came hours after
a group called the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility for both crashes.
On Saturday, the FSB announced that it had found traces of hexogen on the debris of the Volga-Aviaexpress Tu-134, which crashed in the Tula region.
The Tu-154 was bound for Sochi, while the Tu-134 was headed for Volgograd. They crashed three minutes apart Tuesday night.
The death toll from both crashes rose to 90 on Friday after rescuers found the scattered remains of a 44th person on the Tu-134.
The remains are believed to be those of Amanat Nagayeva, 30, one of two Chechen women who took the flights, Kommersant reported.
Both women bought tickets at the last minute at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, and none of their relatives have contacted authorities for information after the crashes.
Chechen police on Friday opened an investigation into Nagayeva and the other Chechen woman, identified as Satsita Dzhebirkhanova, 37, whose remains were also scattered.
Many of the other bodies at the crash sites were found relatively intact - suggesting the two women were in close proximity to the bombs, Kommersant and Izvestia reported.
Nagayeva's brother disappeared three years ago when unidentified armed men took him away from the family's home in the Chechen village of Kirov-Yurt, said the village's head, Dogman Akhmadova, Izvestia reported.
Federal troops are often blamed for such disappearances in Chechnya, and rebels have in the past recruited the female relatives of killed and missing people to act as suicide bombers.
Nagayeva was 27 years old and worked as a market vendor in Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya, Chechen police told Kommersant.
Dzhebirkhanova is only known to be from Chechnya's Shali district, Izvestia reported.
Details about the explosions - which tore off both planes' tails -emerged over the weekend.
Only one body from the Tu-134 was burned, indicating that the explosion may have been triggered in a small space, such as the toilet at the rear of the plane, Kommersant said.
Dzhebirkhanova was assigned to seat 19F, the fifth row from the back, Sibir said in a statement. She didn't have carry-on or check-in luggage, Sibir deputy director Mikhail Koshman said.
The passports of the two Chechen women were found at the crash sites.
Izvestia reported Monday that the women shared an apartment with two other women in Grozny and they all worked at an outdoor clothes market. It said the four often traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan, for goods.
The newspaper said the other two women, Nagayeva's sister Roza, 29, and Maryam Taburova, 27, went missing before the crashes and speculated they may be in Moscow plotting another suicide attack.
TITLE: Repin Work for Auction
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: STOCKHOLM-The last major work of renowned Russian painter Ilya Repin will be auctioned off in Sweden in December, after being tucked away in a private collection for 50 years. It is one of the most valuable paintings ever to surface on the Swedish market, art dealers said.
The painting "Hopak," the last in a series of three paintings featuring a Cossack motif, is considered one of Repin's most important works. It was recently found hanging on the wall in a Swedish family's house by art dealer Knut Knutson, after he was called to look at an antique desk.
"It was an art-historical ambush," Knutson told reporters Monday. "When [the family] said it was a Repin, I almost fainted."
At a Dec. 5 auction in Uppsala, 70 kilometers north of Stockholm, the oil painting will be offered at an opening bid of up to 6 million kronor ($800,000), Knutson said. It could sell for more than three times that, he said.
Painted in 1927, "Hopak" became Repin's last major work before his death in 1930. It was painted on oilcloth bought at a local store in Finland, where Repin moved after the Russian Revolution. Repin, one of the foremost Russian realist painters, was too poor to use a real canvas, said Yelena Kirillina, head of the Repin Museum in St. Petersburg.
Kirillina traveled to Stockholm on Monday to look at "Hopak" for the first time. "I sat for an hour looking at it, writing down my feelings," she said. "There's so much more happening in this painting than what you can see in a photograph."
She said the first of the three Cossack paintings was finished in 1891 and is on display at the St. Petersburg museum.
"Hopak" features brightly colored Cossacks jumping over a fire and dancing in joy, but it has a sad story behind it.
It was willed to Repin's daughter Vera after his death in 1930. After Vera died, however, her heirs could not afford the inheritance tax for the painting, so it was confiscated by Finnish authorities and sold at a Helsinki auction in 1954.
In despair over losing the painting, Repin's son committed suicide by jumping out of a fourth-story window, Knutson said.
TITLE: 'Nord-Ost' Producers Appeal to Governor
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The producers of the ill-fated Russian musical "Nord-Ost" sent an open letter to Governor Valentina Matvienko on Friday in a desperate move asking her to let the show be staged at the city's Music Hall.
A City Hall commission declared Thursday that the Music Hall stage is too fragile to host the production's massive sets, although preparations had been underway to use the hall for several months.
"Nord-Ost" was to open a tour of more than 17 Russian towns on Sept. 24 in St. Petersburg. More than 3,500 tickets have already been sold for the performance, the musical's producer Georgy Vasilyev said.
But the tour is in doubt after Music Hall director Anzhela Khachaturyan refused to allow the show on to its stage claiming the venue is in need of urgent renovations.
But the musical's producers say she is conducting "a war against the show."
The tour's preparations started peacefully at the beginning of this month when the show's producers and the Music Hall's managers gave a joint press conference announcing the project. But just two weeks later, the Music Hall's managers said it was impossible for the show to go ahead.
The musical's producers are outraged. "Vice-Governor Sergei Tarasov said the venue will be closed for repairs ... and therefore the tour has to be canceled," reads the open letter. "The actions of officials appear as a low farce: two weeks ago the Music Hall's director reported the venue was perfectly ready, and then, miraculously, one of the best theatrical venues in town falls into ruins."
Vasilyev said he is convinced that both the Music Hall and the City Hall didn't want to have the show in town from the start.
"They just didn't dare saying it directly," he said, complaining abut excessive bureaucracy surrounding the preparations.
"The Music Hall started by requesting huge numbers of various papers and documents, equipment certificates and so forth," he said. "It was absolutely unnecessary, and the Music Hall's further actions only confirmed our suspicions."
The producers see the letter as the last chance to save the show.
"You know very well how much effort it took our company to revive Nord-Ost after what had happened to the show," the letter appeals to Matviyenko. "We overcame everything, realizing how much the audiences in all Russia need this production. The terrorists couldn't destroy the show, so are you going to let your officials kill it?"
Chechen militants seized Moscow's Dubrovka Theater during a performance of "Nord-Ost" in October 2002. Over 700 people were held hostage for three days. At least 129 people died after federal forces used a special gas to free the hostages.
TITLE: St. Petersburg Bombs Were Aimed at Drug Clinic Bosses
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This weekend, two managers of St. Petersburg's central drug clinic were the targets of bomb attacks organized by unidentified criminals that resulted in the death of one of them, Interfax reported Monday, quoting the city police.
An attempt to blow up Sergei Tikhomirov, the clinic's director, was thwarted after a resident of a building at 48/4 Telmana Ulitsa where he lived spotted a bag with a metal jar in it Friday night.
It had been left close to the doctor's apartment, the report said.
The jar was later identified by police as a remote controlled bomb containing up to 600 grams of TNT and small metal balls.
Larisa Artyukhovskaya, the deputy director, was killed by a bomb of the same kind, which contained 200 grams of TNT, the report said.
A report on the explosion was received by police at 7:40 p,m. from 58/1 Zamshina Ulitsa, where Artyukhovskaya lived.
The bomb went off after the victim opened the door to her apartment, the report said.
Artyukhovskaya died soon after arriving at a hospital.
The police believe both cases are linked, and, besides initiating a criminal investigation in relation to Artyukhovskay's death, they have launched an examination of the circumstances surrounding the explosive left near Tikhomirov's apartment.
The police could not be reached for comment Monday.
The Agency of Journalistic Investigations said the assassination attempts are likely linked to a long-running conflict within the management of the local drug clinic system.
"There is a fight within the drag treatment system for control of the area," a representative of the agency said in a telephone interview Monday on condition of anonymity.
One of the indications of the conflict mentioned by the agency was the case of Leonid Spilenya, former head of the St. Petersburg drug clinic, who was injured in an assassination attempt in June last year and resigned shortly afterward.
TITLE: Catholic Cardinal Returns Virgin of Kazan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: A Russian icon that hung for years in Pope John Paul II's private chapel returned home to the Russian Orthodox Church on Saturday, a gesture the ailing pontiff hopes will improve relations between the two churches.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II formally accepted the 18th-century replica of the Mother of God of Kazan icon from Cardinal Walter Kasper, who headed the Vatican delegation, at the end of a three-hour Orthodox service in the Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral.
With incense smoke hanging in the air and candles flickering, Alexy noted that "this revered icon recalls for us the time of the ancient undivided church."
As he spoke, Orthodox priests in ornate robes and caps stood along one side, facing a small delegation of Catholic priests clad in black vestments and priestly collars.
John Paul, 84, the Roman Catholic Church's first Slavic pope, has long hoped to visit Russia and initially considered returning the icon himself.
But while the collapse of the atheist Soviet state made it possible to conceive of such a visit, the faith free-for-all that followed in Russia soured relations between the churches, giving birth to a new kind of antagonism and distrust a millennium after the Great Schism divided Christianity into eastern and western branches.
The Orthodox church has accused the Vatican of trying to poach converts among Russian Orthodox believers, and Alexy has made it clear that the pope is not yet welcome in Russia.
The Catholic church counters that it is trying to minister to the small Catholic community-about 600,000 people or less than 1 percent of the country's 144 million.
Kasper told the Russians that by returning the icon, the Catholic church hoped to convey its deep respect for the Russian people's fidelity to their faith despite suffering and persecution.
"Despite the division that sadly still persists between Christians, this sacred icon appears as a symbol of the unity of the followers of the only begotten son of God," the pope said in a message to Alexy.
The 32-by 26-centimeter icon, taken to the West after the 1917 Revolution, was presented to the pope by a Catholic group in 1993 and has hung in his private chapel. It shows the faces of Mary and the infant Jesus surrounded by elaborately worked gold, inlaid with precious stones.
The original icon, which first appeared in Kazan, Tatarstan, in 1579, is revered by Russian believers for its purported ability to work miracles, including the rout of Polish invaders from Russia in the early 17th century. It hung in the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square and the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg before disappearing.
A joint commission including representatives of the Vatican, the Russian church and the Russian Culture Ministry examined the pope's icon last year and determined it dated from around the 18th century.
But, nevertheless, the pope has said that it is dear to him, noting that it "has watched over his daily work" and the Vatican has emphasized this in talking about its return. Many Russians also believe that the replica icons are capable of working miracles and regard them with great reverence.
In accepting the icon, Alexy said he hoped this step would be followed by others.
"We need to get away from a relationship based on competition," Orthodox Father Vsevolod Chaplin later told reporters.
For some of the Russian Orthodox worshipers who filled the church, the icon's return already represented a big step toward improving chilly official ties.
"This is a big event-not only has this holy icon come home, but our churches celebrated its homecoming together," said Irina Trukachova, a retiree.
TITLE: Russia Pulls Out of Talks With Tbilisi
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Foreign Ministry said Friday that it has pulled out of talks with Georgia over disputes in separatist Georgian regions due to days of loud and abusive protests outside the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi.
The nonstop protest, organized more than a week ago by a group of Georgian computer programmers and Internet users, is calling for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from breakaway Georgian regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Protesters have been using laptop computers to project anti-war and anti-Russian slogans on the walls of the embassy and loudspeakers to play Georgian national and Russian anti-war songs, the Georgian online magazine Civil Georgia reported.
"While the scenes of bacchanalia outside the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi continue, it will be impossible to hold any contacts or talks with Georgia, either on military issues or a 'big' agreement," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"There is no doubt that the disturbance is going on with the knowledge and evident permission of the authorities," it said, adding that the complicity of the Georgian government was a breach of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.
The ministry also said the embassy has stopped issuing visas to Georgians who want to visit Russia, where tens of thousands of Georgians despairing of employment at home work or do business.
The Russian Embassy sent a protest note to the Georgian government last Tuesday.
"They [the protesters] do not allow the embassy to work normally and our employees and their families to sleep," embassy spokesman Yevgeny Ivanov said, Civil Georgia reported.
Meanwhile, several hundred South Ossetian protesters and Russian nationalists rallied Friday outside the Georgian Embassy in Moscow holding portraits of Saakashvili depicted as Adolf Hitler.
Georgia accuses Moscow of backing separatists in South Ossetia, which seeks a union with Russia, and Abkhazia.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Putin Signs Law On Benefits
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin signed into federal law has signed a key piece of legislature on social benefits reform that will replace Soviet-era non-monetary benefits with cash payment next year.
The law is controversial, with many beneficiaries fearing that transfering responsibility for many benefits to regional and municipal governments rather than the federal government means that they will miss out.
Such benefits include free use of public transport and medicine for invalids.
It had been thought that Putin, who has been careful not to alienate the large and impoverished electorate of pensioners, might not sign the law. It had already been passed by the State Duma and the Federation Council.
Putin signed the law Sunday, and it was posted on the official presidential web site.
In total, the law revises more than 250 federal legislative acts regarding financing and the division of power among governments.
TITLE: Airports Waiting for Rules to Fight Terror
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Following two near-simultaneous plane crashes, airports across the country reported Wednesday that they were tightening security, yet both airport and airline officials complained that there are no clear laws on how they should combat terrorism and other threats.
"Most countries after the Sept. 11 attacks worked out the relevant legislation," said Yevgeny Zvonkov, deputy head of the Russian Airport Association. "The Americans did it in six months, and we are still waiting for the government to approve it."
One of the first things President Vladimir Putin did upon returning to Moscow on Wednesday was to order the government to change the law to transfer responsibility for airport security from the Transportation Ministry to the Interior Ministry, Interfax reported.
At a Transportation Ministry meeting on security earlier this month, Deputy Minister Sergei Aristov said legislation covering anti-terrorism measures for the entire transportation sector was still being worked out and would be completed only at the end of the year.
He said the term "transportation security" only appeared earlier this year, and that the sector remains highly vulnerable to terrorist acts.
The number of terrorist attacks involving transportation has quadrupled since 1997, reaching 350 so far this year alone, according to ministry data.
The Transportation Ministry would provide no information on how much the federal government spends on transportation security.
Zvonkov said the new legislation is supposed to identify the government's financial responsibility in fighting terrorism on transportation. "Now it has been placed with the companies themselves, and they are scrambling for money while terrorists don't stand by and wait," he said.
Not all airports provide complete baggage scanning, Zvonkov said. "Regional airports especially have outdated equipment. New scanning equipment costs up to $100,000 apiece, and they simply cannot afford that."
In April, the Transportation Ministry ordered that metal detectors be placed at airport entrances, but they have not yet been installed in all 450 of the country's airports, Zvonkov said.
Domodedovo Airport, the departure point for both planes that crashed late Tuesday, has refused to install the metal detectors, saying they clog the entrance. Its director, Sergei Rudakov, has insisted that the airport has other, more effective measures, including thorough baggage scanning and dogs trained to detect drugs and explosives.
Sheremetyevo Airport's aviation security chief, Vasily Kunashev, said it installed the metal detectors to provide "an extra line of control."
Both airports said they use sensors capable of detecting explosives. Zvonkov said Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg is testing a new gadget that can detect plastic explosives.
An official from one airline operating from Domodedovo said that with the surge in passenger traffic at the airport, exacerbated by the high season, security has become more lax. "The number of passengers is growing at night, and there are lines; and the quality of checking is dropping," he said.
Domodedovo spokeswoman Yevgenia Chaplygina defended the airport's security system, in particular the quality of its personnel. "Our security personnel get certified training," she said. "They are taught psychology to recognize suspicious behavior."
About 300 of East Line Group's private security staff are normally on duty at Domodedovo, looking for unusual behavior and checking bags, she said. Regular police officers, who are there to check documents, are also on guard at every entrance.
On Wednesday, as security was heightened, at least two police officers guarded each entrance to Domodedovo's departure terminal, checking the documents of all passengers with large bags. East Line security guards also stopped people with a lot of luggage, which they scanned with portable metal detectors.
The airport has its own canine center, Chaplygina said. "Our bomb-sniffing spaniel is wonderful."
Several times a day, trainers walk around the airport with the dogs, most of which are German shepherds. The dogs also sniff all checked luggage, which is sent to a room in the basement, where it also passes through a scanner and a metal detector, she said.
The airport also takes special precautions with its employees, believing they potentially present the greatest threat, Chaplygina said.
"It may seem absurd, but even our cleaning ladies' buckets get inspected several times a day," she said.
All sensitive areas have biometric sensors, which scan employees' thumbprints to unlock doors. "An employee badge may be lost or stolen," Chaplygina said. "That's why we use biometrics."
While airports in major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg are generally thought to provide the best security, many regional airports are far from up to the required standards.
"Some airports are impossible to control," said Sibir deputy director Mikhail Koshman. "Take Adler. There is an uncontrolled flow of baggage, boxes with flowers, fruit and cognac. You can transport anything in them, from cash and drugs to weapons. Aviation security remains an open subject. You can get anything through that you want."
Once in the air, Russian airplanes provide security to the crew. Even before Sept. 11, 2001, Russian aircraft had reinforced armored doors to the cockpit, which the crew are not allowed to open under any circumstances, said Aeroflot's aviation security chief, Azat Zaripov.
Following Sept. 11, such doors were introduced on foreign-made jets.
On some flights, Aeroflot also has its own unarmed security agents, who are known to only a few of the crew.
A proposal to install video monitors on board has not been implemented for financial reasons, Zaripov said. The cost per plane would be $20,000, and there is no government backing, he said.
Proposals to introduce sky marshals also have been quashed, with transportation officials opposed to having armed agents on board. In 1972, on board a Tu-104 flying from Irkutsk to Moscow, a sky marshal shot a passenger who was holding a grenade, which then fell out of his hand and exploded, killing everyone on board.
TITLE: Passengers Unfazed By Fatal Crashes
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - As the nation observed a day of mourning for the 89 victims in Tuesday's dual plane crashes, the travel industry on Thursday barely registered a change in people's willingness to fly.
"Our people are not subject to panic. If they are heading out on vacation, the majority will go," said Irina Tyurina, spokeswoman for the Russian Tourism Union.
Airlines and tour agencies said they have had very few cancellations, if any.
"We have had only two cancellations. Bookings are at the same levels as before," said Irina Savelyeva, general director of Alean, which specializes in domestic travel and sells package tours to Sochi, the destination of the ill-fated Sibir airliner with 46 people on board.
Savelyeva said that the agency's phones have been ringing off the hook.
"But there are no hysterics-just some confusion. People call for advice on what to do, to see what alternatives they have, whether they can travel by train," she said.
"As of today I can definitely say that there have been no cancellations.... It is unlikely that [the crashes] will affect tourism flows," said Yelena Voyevodina, head of Roza Vetrov, another tour agency with a focus on travel to destinations in southern Russia.
Airlines also said they were not experiencing any decline in passengers.
"There are practically no cancellations-nothing that would differ from regular statistics," said Mikhail Koshman, deputy director of Sibir.
The airline has said it will accept cancellations without penalty until Aug. 28.
Irina Dannenberg, a spokes-woman for Aeroflot, said the airline has not had a single cancellation because of the disasters.
Dannenberg recalled that there was also no drop in air travel after 71 people died in a midair collision of a Bashkir Airlines plane and a DHL freighter over Germany in 2002.
"It's sad, but we are beginning to get used to tragedies," Voyevodina said.
The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks threw the global airline business into a slump, which was exacerbated by the SARS scare and the war in Iraq.
But Russian airlines rode out the crisis, reporting continuous growth in traffic and ear-nings.
In the first half of this year, passenger numbers have already grown by 20 percent.
Industry experts do not believe that number will drop because of the latest tragedies in the air.
"People will just be more cautious in the next two weeks," Tyurina said.
"And if nothing terrible happens, they will head for their autumn vacations."
TITLE: Six Lucky Passengers Did Not Take the Fatal Tu-154 Flight
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Russian saying "God takes care of the intoxicated" proved to be all too true in the case of six passengers who did not board the Sibir Tu-154 jet that crashed Tuesday night.
Of the 44 passengers who booked reservations to Sochi, six did not take their seats after airport security guards barred the group from boarding, according to media reports. Several in the group drank heavily while waiting for the flight.
Domodedovo Airport spokesman Igor Tikhomirov said Thursday that he had been instructed by airport directors not to provide any information other than "they registered, checked in their luggage, came late when boarding was closed and their luggage was taken off the plane."
Sibir deputy director Mikhail Koshman confirmed that several in the group were intoxicated. A Federal Security Service spokesman said they had not boarded the flight due to "a life situation." He refused to elaborate.
He did say the six have been cleared in the investigation into the Sibir crash. "We are working on all versions, but this one is not being considered anymore," he said.
It was unclear whether the six were Moscow residents. They were identified by Sibir as Natalya Dimova, Oleg Fyodorov, Nikita Kapustin, Natalya Kapustina, Dmitry Katalov and L. Ganin.
While the six are probably thanking their lucky stars, an abrupt change in plans did not turn out so well for one passenger.
Nikolai Rudenko, 33, decided at the last minute to board the Volga-Aviaexpress Tu-134, which left Domodedovo on Tuesday night for Volgograd and crashed just three minutes before the Sibir plane.
"He was supposed to come back to Volgograd by car but at the last moment bought a plane ticket," his wife, Anastasia, was quoted by Izvestia as saying. "He was in a hurry to get home."
TITLE: Jews Who Sought Fortune Abroad Returning to Russia
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - As the Iron Curtain began to fall, Igor Dzhadan left the Soviet Union with his family, bound for Israel and a long-forbidden opportunity.
Dzhadan was luckier than most of the 11,000 Soviet doctors who rushed to Israel around the same time, 1990, under Israel's Law of Return. He was able to continue his practice and research. Still, he returned to Russia in 2001 to become an editor at Moscow's Jewish News Agency.
"It was interesting for me to live in a Jewish state, but I feel more comfortable in Russia," Dzhadan said. "I knew from the experience of others that I could find work here, and my life prospects wouldn't be worse than in Israel."
Dzhadan is part of a tide of emigrants who have returned to Russia from Israel over a litany of concerns: the second intifada, Israel's worsening economy and an inability to adapt to cultural and social realities. According to a study released this March, at least 50,000 emigrants returned from Israel from 2001 to 2003.
The exodus has stirred up a discussion in Israel, said Boruch Gorin, head of the public relations department at the Russian Federation of Jewish Communities, which commissioned the study. On the one hand, millions of Jews already live outside Israel. On the other hand, "living in Israel is an ideology, and that the people who sought a shelter in the country have been leaving is a blow to the ideology," he said.
Israel had two waves of Russian immigration that altogether boosted its population from 5 million to 6 million, according to Gorin. In the first wave, 200,000 Jews left the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The second wave, which coincided with perestroika in 1986, brought 800,000 more Soviet Jews.
Under the Law of Return, anyone having at least one Jewish grandparent may seek citizenship.
Recently, however, Israel has seen its population growth subside, with citizens leaving not only for Russia, but also for Europe and the United States.
Only 20,000 to 30,000 immigrants entered Israel from 2001 to 2003, which was for the first time less than the outflow, Gorin said, citing the study.
According to the Israeli Embassy in Moscow, up to 100,000 Jews left Russia annually in the 1990s; last year the number was down to 10,000.
At first, emigrants, mostly businessmen, began venturing back to Russia in 1995 in small numbers, Gorin said. Russia beckoned them then with greater economic potential and relative political and economic stability, Gorin said.
One such businessman was Anton Nossik, who came back in 1997 because, he said, his ambitions had outgrown the Israeli market. He left Russia in 1990 after graduating from college as a surgeon. He could not land a job in medicine and began working as a journalist.
His big success came in 1996, when he started a web design company and won orders to create web sites for the Museum and the Central Bank of Israel and the Eastern European department of the Foreign Ministry.
"In principle, everything was great and successful," Nossik said. "I won as many tenders as were available. But confining your business to a small and remote country is like hobbling a horse."
Nossik, 38, has created many high-profile Internet news sites in Russia, where, he said, the number of Internet users is 14.6 million, compared to just 2.2 million in Israel. His most successful news portals are Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru and Newsru.com.
The second tide of returns began in 2000, as the Russian economy developed sufficiently for returnees to find jobs with greater ease, sometimes within companies created by Jewish businessmen who returned in the late '90s.
At the same time, the start of the second "intifada" in 2000 damaged security in Israel and, along with it, the investment and employment climate.
Although Dzhadan, 40, did not lose his job, he had to face military service. He was twice called to serve in heavy fighting areas, in Bethlehem and Hebron.
"I had to wait during operations to see whether there would be any wounded that I would have to treat," he said. "I saw dead bodies."
The 23-day conscriptions caused Dzhadan to lose his salary at work, and state compensation was hard to receive, he said, due to a tangled bureaucracy.
Another reason for returning was what Dzhadan called the "sectarian" structure of the society. In order to rent an apartment or find a job, a person has to operate through members of his party or immigrants from the same country or area.
"I didn't like it," he said. "I'm used to operating in an open society where people don't ask you to what community you belong."
Gorin named several other reasons that prompt Soviet and Russian Jews to come back. One of them is that most highly educated immigrants have to take blue-collar jobs in Israel. "Doctors, physicians and mathematicians were cleaning the streets," Gorin said.
Also, immigrants from Russia largely lacked a Jewish identity while at the same time they longed for the Russian culture they left behind. They fled the Soviet Union because of its state policy of discrimination against Jews and felt they could return once that policy had seen its end.
The Jews that have come back find many signs that they can feel more at home in Russia than before, one of them being the appointment of Mikhail Fradkov, whose father is Jewish, to the post of prime minister.
According to Gorin, the Jewish Community Center in Moscow, with a wide range of sports facilities, an Internet cafe and a library, is one of the best in Europe. Moscow is also home to four Jewish universities, 10 schools, three newspapers and one online news agency, Gorin said.
Anti-Semitism remains a problem, certainly, but it "isn't the main form of xenophobia in the country" and looks less frightening than elsewhere in Europe, according to a 2003 Moscow Human Rights Bureau report. "Russia has been spared the surge in anti-Semitism that has disturbed the whole Western world in the past three years," the report said.
Nossik said he feels fairly safe as a Jew and is more scared by random street crime. He said he walks around in traditional Jewish headwear, a kippah, but the only time he was attacked in the street was when Russia lost to Japan during the 2002 soccer World Cup. He happened to be in the way of an infuriated drunken crowd of fans.
"I don't see anti-Semitism," he said. "I don't see a position that a Jew can't occupy, especially after Fradkov's latest appointment." Russia's capitalist economy "allows you to exist regardless of your religious beliefs."
Most Jews - including Nossik and Dzhadan - that come back to live and work in Russia retain Israeli citizenship and travel to Israel on a steady basis, Gorin said. Dzhadan said he plans to visit friends in Israel, but would never return there for good because he belongs to Russian "civilization."
Nossik did not rule out living in Israel in the future. "When I drop out of business for age or health reasons, I could go to Israel to enjoy the cuisine and the nature," Nossik said. "It's a very beautiful and pleasant country."
TITLE: Consultants Publish Book for Foreigners
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Newcomers to Russia in need of quick answers to frequently asked questions can now turn to a new book in English, "Foreigner in Russia: 100 Questions and Answers."
The book by Sergei Melnikov and Anatoly Bolsunovsky is published by Vash Poverenny, or Your Attorney, a Moscow-based group of consulting companies.
"Foreigner in Russia," attempts to answer a wide range of questions in only 62 pages.
The books assumes that readers have little or no knowledge of Russia, with initial questions such as "What is Russia?" and "What is its political structure?"
The book focuses on legal issues, answering questions about clearing customs, obtaining visas, registering with the police and obtaining work and residence permits.
Melnikov and Bolsunovsky seem to have had the needs of businessmen especially in mind, with several questions relating to foreigners starting companies, paying taxes, and buying real estate in Russia.
There are also questions useful for readers intending to start families in Russia, including "What is the process of registration for marriage with a Russian citizen?" and "What consequences arise from divorce with a Russian citizen?"
"We've been feeling a big interest in our country from foreigners from all over the world," Melnikov said in a telephone interview from Moscow.
"We felt that this kind of information - short and to-the-point - would be especially useful. Using the format of these short questions and answers is unique. This kind of book didn't exist before."
"Foreigner in Russia" is not yet available in St. Petersburg, but Melnikov noted that copies are available at Vash Poverenny in Moscow and from airline Aeroflot.
The book's brevity is both its biggest selling point and its greatest fault.
Trying to compress their answers into a paragraph or two, the authors sometimes look rather simplistically at more complicated questions in a manner that seems intended to reassure foreigners.
A page is devoted to the third question, "What is the economic situation in Russia?"
The answer takes the form of statistics and the claim that the country has moved through a successful "transformation" period to a market economy, with no explicit mention of the economic turmoil of the last decade.
"Foreigner in Russia" is focused largely on legal issues; those who want to learn more about Russian culture or language will have to look elsewhere.
The book's brevity may leave some readers wanting more, but "Foreigner in Russia" is undoubtedly a valuable resource for those who want help in trying to weave their way through the country's often daunting legal procedures.
TITLE: The World of Vladimir Vladimirovich
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When political life starts to seem painfully dull, many of the city's politically conscious head to the imaginary world of www.vladimir.vladimirovich.ru for its short spoofs of what may or may not go on behind the Kremlin's walls.
The scenarios portray President Vladimir Putin going through the affairs of state as if he were an earnest little kid, not quite sure how he'd wound up in the Kremlin.
In a recent story, the president of South Ossetia calls Putin: "How's life down there?" the Putin character asks. "We have a war," the president of the separatist Georgian republic tells him in a serious voice. "We have rain," Putin responds in a dreamy voice. "It pours and pours ... thundering and lightning everywhere."
Such lighthearted sketches are the brainchild of Maxim Kononenko, a computer programmer-turned-journalist who insists that, unlike the writers of the former NTV program "Kukly," he's not out to produce scalding political satire; he just likes to crack a good joke.
In another story, posted last Monday, Putin and the head of his administration are discussing the sky-high price of oil. Putin wants to know how much oil is in a barrel. His chief of staff admits he only knows it's different from a pint, the size of a beer at Rosie O'Grady's. "The main thing is we have a lot of them," he says.
"I don't have an agenda," Kononenko said over a mid-afternoon espresso the other day near Novy
Arbat. He was on his way to Ekho Moskvy radio's offices there for negotiations about a possible Friday night show based on his sketches. The newsreader would give a straight version of events, followed by Kononenko's spoof version.
Kononenko, 33, gets a lot of mileage out of what he posts on his web site. He would not write scripts for the radio show, he said, but instead producers would use what he had put on the Internet that week.
One fixture of the Vladimir Vladimirovich world is the office telephone with only one button - the one that the virtual Putin uses to call the head of his administration when he does not know what to do, which is often.
Kononenko resists comparisons to Daniil Kharms, the absurdist writer who was famous in the 1920s for his paradoxical anecdotes. "I don't like Kharms," he said flatly.
Another hallmark of Kononenko's humor derives from his putting low-brow slang in the mouths of bureaucrats publicly known for their formal, stuffy speech. One of his signature phrases is "Slysh, bratello," or "Listen, bro," a line that appears in every sketch.
"Somehow the jargon works," said Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst who said he occasionally swings by the site when he is online. "Away from public sight, the way bureaucrats talk among themselves can't be all that different from policemen or prisoners."
Kononenko is releasing a book compilation this fall, and his postings also pop up regularly alongside his bushy-haired, bearded mug on the pages of the newspaper Gazeta, where Kononenko is a music reviewer for the culture section.
The deal is, Kononenko said, Gazeta can take material from his site and print it as often as it wishes, free of charge, and in return he is not required to produce for his site on any schedule but his own.
When he writes, it is under the pen name Mr. Parker - literally, the pen name.
It was inspired by a gift from a grade-school sweetheart in the 1970s, he said, pulling a silver Parker pen out of the inner pocket of his drab green flak jacket. (It's not the same one - he's gone through many since then.) "Back then these things were a colossal rarity," he said. "It was a big deal for me."
When he started tinkering with computers soon thereafter, Kononenko used Parker as his first login and the name stuck.
Kononenko said he was a big fan of the sassy and wildly popular cartoon Masyanya, and registered the www.vladimir.vladimirovich.ru domain name back in the fall of 2002, when he, like many others, had dreams of tapping similar success.
"I thought of doing a cartoon, but I can't draw," he said. Next he thought of making the site about different people named Vladimir - Vysotsky, the singer, Nabokov, the writer, Gusinsky, the businessman. "I didn't set out to write about Putin, but I couldn't escape him."
Every mention of Putin in the sketches is followed by the trademark symbol, presenting Vladimir Vladimirovich as no different than ubiquitous consumer goods like Coca-Cola or Kleenex.
"When he came to power, it irritated me that everyone spoke of him not as the president, or as Putin, but as Vladimir Vladimirovich," he said. "He privatized that name. Now you can't associate it with anyone else."
Kononenko said he knows his vignettes about the Kremlin are read inside the Kremlin. Ekho Moskvy editor Alexei Venediktov told him that he had opened the site to show former chief of staff Alexander Voloshin during an interview in his office. He has also heard that Voloshin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev, is less than pleased with the primitive depictions.
As for rank-and-file members of the administration staff, "they all read it," he said. "Imagine if there was a site about your newsroom, you'd read it first thing."
Kononenko said friends had relayed to him a request from someone in the administration to post new sketches early in the morning, so that Kremlin staffers could read them and get on with the day, rather than checking the site impatiently through the day.
"It's like a TV series," he said. "As long as something is there, people are happy."
He calls his project a polit-series, and he says that an average of 15,000 people visit the site a day.
Someone named Kostya left this message in the site's guestbook last week: "Thanks a million, Parker. A fresh breeze is blowing over the country thanks to your great text. If the country had 50 others like it, then it would be fun to live with Putin."
There are other humor sites devoted to Putin, like www.vovochka.spb.ru, but Kononenko's is by far the most popular.
Perhaps driven by worries that the site could be shut down, or perhaps by a desire to use it to influence last fall's parliamentary elections, one particularly deep-pocketed fan approached Kononenko last November and offered him a lump sum of money on the condition he keep the site up and running for one year.
Kononenko will not name the person except to say that he is a businessman, and he will not describe the sum except to say that it is "not small."
The mysterious patron retained for himself the right to influence the site's content, Kononenko said, but he never invoked that right. "He's disappeared. I haven't heard from him since."
Kononenko said he had no qualms about that. "I produce a literary product. If someone wants to buy it and use it, that's fine with me."
Kononenko said he has more than enough money to keep the site running past November, thanks to his salaried jobs as an editor at Internet tabloid Dni.ru and at Bourgeoisie, a glossy magazine launched by Dni.ru's owners. "They're for simple people. It's a lot of show business and as little as possible about politics," Kononenko said with a shrug.
He has a few volunteers who translate the sketches into English, German and Spanish for the site. The German volunteer is particularly industrious and prompt, but the latest offerings in the other two languages are from about six months ago.
Kononenko said he already has a plan for the final sketch he will run on the day Putin leaves office - provided his creative energies last that long: Vladimir Vladimirovich will go fishing. "He's always saying he wants to go, but he never gets to, so finally he will."
Olympic Gold
One day, Vladimir Vladi-mirovich went for a stroll along his presidential beach in Sochi. His Navy guard ships loomed in the distance, helicopters circled overhead and around the beach and tired policemen shifted their weight from one foot to another.
"I'm surrounded on all sides," Vladimir Vladimirovich muttered to himself, kicking the pebbles with the toes of his expensive Italian shoes. "Like a wild animal at the zoo."
Vladimir Vladimirovich stuck his hand in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his government-issued cellphone with the two-headed eagle in place of a keypad and pressed the only button to call the head of his administration.
"Listen, bro," Vladimir Vladi-mirovich said. "Is there anything new?"
"They've won another medal," the head of the administration happily answered. "A gold one!"
"Listen, why do we need these medals? What, don't we have enough gold?" Vladimir Vladi-mirovich asked, a bit exasperated. "If so, let's mine more of it. Here we are traveling who knows where, spending budget money and bringing back next to nothing."
"That's already the 501st Russian medal!" the head of the administration proudly retorted. "If each is 100 grams, that makes 50 kilograms of gold! It's all money ... and national pride."
"I'm your national pride," Vladimir Vladimirovich interrupted. "As usual, for Luzhkov it's Greece and for Putin it's Sochi, with cops on his back."
Vladimir Vladimirovich wound up and pitched the phone into the Black Sea, where it was quickly fetched by scuba divers from the Federal Guard Service.
Vladimir Vladimirovich loo-ked sullenly toward Turkey. He was annoyed.
Source: www.vladimir.vladimirovich.ru
A Barrel of Oil
"Forty-four dollars a barrel," Vladimir Vladimirovich said slowly, dreamily staring at his portrait on the wall. "Forty-four dollars a barrel! Just think ..."
Vladimir Vladimirovich pushed the button to call the head of his administration.
"Listen, bro," Vladimir Vladimirovich said. "A barrel, that's how much?"
"Forty-four dollars!" the head of the administration answered promptly.
"Why do you immediately talk about money?" Vladimir Vladimirovich said, gently correcting the head of his administration. "I'm asking about volume. How much is it by volume? A bucket? Just what is a barrel exactly?"
"Volume?" the head of the administration asked, confused. "Haven't a clue. A pint, now that I know. It's one glass of beer at Rosie O'Grady's, but a barrel, who knows? But who cares? The main thing is that we have a lot of these barrels. Even more than pints at Rosie's. And for each one we get $44!"
Source: www.vladimir.vladimirovich.ru
TITLE: Dossie.ru Editor Gets 7 1/2 Years
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The editor of a controversial web site that claims to battle corruption was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison Thursday.
Yulia Pelekhova, a former journalist for the tabloid Versia and the editor of Dossie.ru, plans to appeal the ruling by the Tverskoi District Court.
Pelekhova was arrested on Jan. 28 at a restaurant in central Moscow after accepting $38,500 in exchange for not releasing compromising material she had obtained about Moscow businesswoman Olga Tokaryova, prosecutors said. The payment was to be the first installment of a total of $100,000 for turning over the documents, they said.
Prosecutors had asked that Pelekhova be sentenced to eight years in prison, though the maximum sentence for extortion with intent to obtain a large amount of money is 15 years.
The sentence is especially harsh considering that under the Criminal Code a person convicted of premeditated murder can be sentenced from six to 15 years in prison.
Tokaryova was the key witness in the case, testifying that Pelekhova had contacted her in December and demanded $150,000 in exchange for not going public with the information she had gathered while working on an investigative article.
Tokaryova said that after long negotiations, the sum was lowered to $100,000, after which she contacted the city police's economic crimes department, which subsequently set up a sting operation at the American Bar and Grill.
Pelekhova maintained her innocence throughout the trial.
"There was no crime whatsoever, and there is enough evidence to prove that," her lawyer, Alexander Tovt, said after the conviction Thursday. "Unfortunately, the judge rejected much of the evidence that the defense had."
He said he would appeal.
Dossie.ru, founded by Pelekhova in October 2002, prides itself on exposing corrupt government officials, with a focus on the regions. But it also has earned a reputation of publishing stories comparable to those of the better-known muckraking site Compromat.ru.
Media analyst Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said he does not consider the Pelekhova case to be connected in any way to a stifling of free speech.
"This is not about journalism," Panfilov said.
"This is about a person trying to extort money. It could happen in any profession, be it a doctor, a lawyer, whatever."
Panfilov noted a growing number of journalists have been selling compromising material in recent years. "It has become a rather popular activity for journalists, not just in Russia but throughout all of the former Soviet republics," he said.
TITLE: Smolny Sells Shares, Seeks GUP Reform
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Smolny is reaching deep into its reserves to increase the city budget revenue, which Governor Valentina Matviyenko promised to double this year.
To make the set mark, the city will sell its remaining shares in 65 local companies and convert 76 state-controlled governmental unitary enterprises, or GUPs, into joint-stock companies, which will allow for better management of the enterprises, the city property committee said Monday.
The joint-stock companies the city plans to sell off include: Piterstroi - which the city government owns outright; Skanska St. Petersburg Development - a company with a 50-percent city share, Dinamo - a football club with a 26-percent city share; and Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti - a newspaper with 25-percent city ownership, Interfax reported last week.
It was not specified how much the city plans to raise from these sales or how the sales would be made, the news service said.
Meanwhile, business daily Delovoi Peterburg reported that the head of city property committee Igor Metelsky said that the list of GUPs destined for re-organization is much shorter than originally planned.
The list was shortened when the management of the GUPs expressed fears that many of the enterprises may change the profile of their business activities after being sold, Delovoi Peterburg said.
Out of the 76 GUPs set for conversion, six are state-owned bookstores, headed by the famous Dom Knigi on Nevsky Prospekt. Some experts say the great locations of the bookstores may attract investors looking to make the stores' activities more suitable to their neighborhoods.
"It's impossible to stop the stores from switching their business activities or re-profiling once they're converted into joint-stocks,' said Igor Gorsky, director of commercial real estate agency Bekar in an interview with Delovoi Peterburg.
Rodina, another one of the listed bookstores, is most likely to re-profile since it is located in a residential neighborhood, and the size of the store, at 1,500 square meters, will be too large for a bookstore to manage once the rent goes up, Gorsky said.
These bookstores have so far paid minimal rent to their owners, the city property committee - a privilege enjoyed by all the GUPs.
"If it's not profitable to have Dom Knigi on Nevsky Prospekt, then that's not a problem - it should be replaced by something that is profitable," said James Beatty, partner at EMG, an accounting firm in the city.
"It's always a good idea to get enterprises out of the city's hands into private ownership," he said. "I think these sales will benefit the city long-term, but it will be interesting to see how the auctioning process unfolds; whether it will be a transparent process and whether investors will be given enough time in the coming months to get a true picture of the value of these enterprises."
TITLE: Helsinki Airport Increases its Capacity
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new extended international terminal opened to passengers today at Helsinki-Vantaa, Finland's largest airport.
The extension, which covers an area of 6,000 square meters, includes a range of new passenger and border facilities and has increased the airport's passenger capacity by one-fifth - from 12 million passengers to 15 million, the airport's press release said.
The extension to the international terminal will serve passengers on long-haul flights and flights outside Schengen countries. It includes new shopping facilities, a restaurant, an exchange bureau and two business lounges, which will open on September 1.
The number of passport control points has also been increased from ten to 30, and this is expected to speed up border control procedures, making it easier for passengers on transfer flights, the press release said.
Mikko Talvitie, director general of the Finnish Civil Aviation Administration said that the extension will help Helsinki-Vantaa become a more popular transfer point between Europe and Asia.
Helsinki is one of the most direct connecting points for flights from Asia to Europe. Asia has become the fastest growing air-travel market in the world, which may be why, in the last two years, Finnair's Asian traffic has more than doubled.
"The terminal expansion will ensure that Helsinki-Vantaa airport operates efficiently in the future," said Finnair President and CEO, Keijo Suila. "It will provide our company with the setting it needs to further increase the number of Asian flights. At the same time, we will be able to offer efficient onward connections from Helsinki," he said. Helsinki-Vantaa is closer to St. Petersburg than Moscow's international airport Sheremetyevo. Finnair runs eight flights a week to St. Petersburg, and Pulkovo airlines run an additional six flights.
It is difficult to say whether the increase of passengers flying to Helsinki will have a flow-on effect into Russia.
"The extension will definitely result in an increase in passenger numbers for Finnair," said Marja Rissanen, a spokesperson from Finnair in St. Petersburg. "This may also translate into higher visitor numbers for St. Petersburg and Russia as well," she said. "At least, that's what we're hoping for."
Construction and finishing work will continue at Helsinki-Vantaa's long-haul flight gate area for the rest of the year, but the extension is scheduled for completion in January 2005.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Arms Ready for Iraq Sale
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree permitting Russian organizations to sell weapons and military equipment to Iraq's provisional government, the Kremlin said Monday.
The order posted on the Putin administration web site says that under the June U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing Iraq's new government, arms embargoes imposed by previous resolutions do not apply to "arms and property needed by the interim government of Iraq or multinational forces" to carry out their mission.
Weapons can be sold to assist in the fulfillment of the June resolution, the order said. The unanimously approved resolution, number 1546, endorsed the interim government, laid out a timetable for Iraq's transition to democracy and authorized the multinational force to remain in the country to provide security.
Tallink Reports Success
ST. PETERBURG (SPT) - The management of the largest Estonian marine transportation company Tallink Grupp has said that the first season of the company's passenger line operations on the route of Tallinn - St. Petersburg - Helsinki, which opened in April 2004, is going successfully.
The total number of passengers serviced on the route and the occupancy percentage will become known by the end of year, news web site Fontanka.ru reported Monday.
The company has lowered the price of a ticket to St. Petersburg from 395 crones to 180 crones from Aug. 16 to Sept. 30. The company representatives have said that the price decrease has been brought about by a promotional campaign the company is running, not a damping pricing policy, as other sources have indicated.
Earlier, another marine transportation company, Silja Line has said that its ferry line Finnjet operating on the route St. Petersburg - Tallinn - Rostok, Germany is experiencing profitability losses and that some of the ferry's staff will have to be laid off.
Finnish Forestry Woes
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish forestry firms could close down a significant part of domestic production unless the government takes steps to grow more forests and make imports from Russia easier, the main industry body said Thursday.
The timber firms, among the largest in the world, accounted for 25 percent of Finland's exports in 2003 and they employ some 50,000 people in the Nordic country, which has suffered for years from high unemployment.
Over 20 percent of the timber used by Finnish sawmills and paper factories comes from Russia.
"The new EU directives threaten our Russian imports. If the bureaucracy raises our costs - we won't be able to afford it. But there are also forces in Russia who want to diminish wood exports," said Jouko Jaakkola, the head of Finland's Forestry Association.
TITLE: Russia Joins Asian Economic Bloc
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ASTANA, Kazakhstan - Four Central Asian nations Saturday formally approved Russia's membership to their economic bloc, providing Moscow the opportunity to restore its influence in the strategic, energy-rich region.
Also on Saturday, the four nations signed a cooperation declaration with Japan, aimed to strengthen ties with its major regional donor.
In May, Russia said it would join the Central Asian Cooperation Organization, established in 2001 to improve trade ties among its members.
The foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan approved Russian membership at talks in the Kazakh capital.
The organization has made little progress at economic integration in the three years since its founding because of border disputes, ethnic tension, economic hardship and security concerns.
Russia pushed to join the organization in its attempts to restore influence in Central Asia, where Moscow guided the policy of the four countries before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The United States has deployed troops in Central Asia since 2001 in its anti-terrorism campaign in neighboring Afghanistan.
The move irritated Russia, which views the region as part of its sphere of influence. At a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi later Saturday the Central Asian foreign ministers agreed to boost their political and economic contacts under a new Central Asia-Japan formula.
Kawaguchi said the new form of cooperation would allow Japan to assist the region with solving such regional problems as terrorism, drugs, weapons proliferation, water and energy sharing and trade.
"There are some problems that the countries cannot solve on their own; they require both joint regional and international efforts," she said through a Russian interpreter.
The predominantly Muslim region saw a spread of radical Islamic groups after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Uzbekistan was hit by two series of attacks this year blamed by authorities on al-Qaeda-linked groups based outside the country.
The attacks killed more than 50 people.
TITLE: New VAT System Limits Claims
TEXT: A recent change in the VAT system placed serious limitations on reclaiming tax credits.
Published in July, the Russian Federation Constitutional Court Determination No. 169-O fundamentally changed the procedure for assessment and payment of VAT.
The Determination was made after the Constitutional Court examined Article 171.2 of the Russian Tax Code for compliance with the Constitution. Article 171.2 describes the recovery of VAT paid for the goods, works and services.
The Constitutional Court introduced a new compulsory criterion for VAT recovery: the "realness-of-the-expense" criterion. Tax payments are being treated as "real" if they are paid at the expense of the taxpayers' own property or cash resources. And the transfer of property is treated as a real expense only if the property transferred was acquired by the taxpayer in a non-gratuitous transaction and was fully paid for.
In practice, this means that, in some instances, VAT recovery will be deferred to some time in the future or may not be applied at all - for instance, in the case of a parent-subsidiary special purpose financing aid.
Most relevant to taxpayers is the statement that the Constitutional Court formulated with respect to loan agreements.
The Court ruled that in paying input VAT from property - including cash obtained by the taxpayer under a loan agreement - the transfer of property meets the realness-of-expense criterion only upon "fulfillment by the taxpayer of his/her liability under the loan."
This implies that the taxpayer may reduce the total VAT payable by the amount recoverable only upon repayment of the loan. It is not clear yet whether this provision applies to inter-company loans or if it will also encompasses credits from banks. An analysis of the general concept of "realness-of- expense" introduced by the Constitutional Court, however, suggests that it may well apply to bank credits.
It is worth noting that the Tax Code stipulates no such requirement. Before the Determination was adopted, the Federal Arbitration Court for the Northwest district used to take the opposite approach that the lender transfer ownership of borrowed funds to the borrower. That is, VAT was paid by the taxpayer with funds obtained under a loan agreement which was recoverable through the regular procedures.
Interestingly, the tax authorities issued a number of written clarifications stating the exact same principle: VAT is reclaimable irrespective of the funds the tax was paid from.
The adoption of this Determination will have several adverse effects on taxpayers. In particular, the inability to reclaim input VAT before loan (credit) repayment will add etra material costs to investment projects financed from foreign borrowed funds. The implications may be severe, given the relatively high proportion of loan (credit) funds in foreign investments.
According to the State Statistics Committee (Goskomstat), in the first half of year 2004, out of foreign investments in Russia of $18.943 million, borrowings represented $13.586 million (or 71.6 percent). Basically, the majority of the foreign investments in Russia have historically been structured through debt financing.
Needless to say, bookkeeping issues will arise with respect to accounting for loans (credits) to justify tax credits recovery. Currently, the Russian tax accounting rules do not provide for any special treatment about how to segregate tax on payments to suppliers that are made out of borrowed funds compared to non-borrowed funds.
One solution for taxpayers is to determine if they are entitled to tax recovery in an excess of revenue collected over the VAT reclaim for the given taxation period.
The question that many taxpayers face is whether Determination No 169-O covers only future legal relations or whether it can also apply to taxpayers who used to have loans and did not follow this revised VAT treatment. Importantly, the "retroactive effect" concept does not apply to Constitutional Court's decisions.
This Determination is technically a mere "interpretation" of legal norms based on the Russian Constitution, although it does have the force of the law. Accordingly, conclusions made by the Constitutional Court are equally applicable to legal relations prior to its enactment.
Therefore, Russian taxpayers who have debt-financing structures in place will have to take some steps to protect their tax position to avoid tax penalties.
Those taxpayers who consider attracting new investments should review their business plans to account for the new VAT treatment, possibly restructuring investments into capital contributions or other available forms of financing that will meet this "realness-of-the-expense" criterion.
Ruslan Vasutin is a senior manager at Ernst&Young Law and Evgeny Tulubensky is an associate at Ernst&Young Law. They contributed this article to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Fradkov Assures China
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov pledged Friday that Russia would keep meeting its oil export commitments to China, an apparent reference to fears that a cut in production at the beleaguered Yukos oil company could harm Beijing.
"There are no reasons for any emergency," Fradkov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. "Oil products will keep going to China the way they have been."
Yukos sends about 124,000 barrels of crude every day by rail to China, which is already the world's No. 3 oil importer. Earlier this month, Russian railway officials said they were told by China that it would cover Yukos' rail fees if the oil company became unable to cover the transport costs.
Fradkov did not address Yukos directly in his comments.
Yukos is struggling to pay a potentially crippling 99.4 billion ruble ($3.4 billion) back-taxes bill for 2000. It faces a similar claim for 2001, and the total claims against it for the period 2000 to 2003 are expected to swell to some $10 billion.
Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is also on trial on charges including fraud and tax evasion, in what is widely seen as a Kremlin-backed campaign of punishment for his growing clout. Khodorkovsky helped finance political parties and had challenged Kremlin policy as head of Yukos.
The Yukos affair has drawn concern from foreign governments, and it has also added uncertainty to the oil market amid warnings by Yukos that it might have to cut back production.
TITLE: Investment Flows Into Retail Property Market
TEXT: Over the last few years there has been a gradual investment growth in commercial real estate development in St. Petersburg.
The numbers of modern office centers, shopping malls, hotels, hyper-markets, bowling clubs and fitness centers have increased in the city's center and its outskirts. In general, the increase of investment activity on the real estate market is due to the development of Russian investment companies and banks that have accumulated large monetary resources and the growing interest of Western developers, banks and investment funds.
RETAIL REAL ESTATE
In 2003 and the first half of 2004, there has been over 20 new retail outlets opened, each with a total area of over 10,000 square meters.
For each 1,000 of the city residents there is about 110 square meters of retail area (in shopping malls, cash&carry stores and hyper-markets).
Some of the biggest outlets that were opened in the beginning of this year are the shopping centers Ozerki, Nord and Merkury, a retail and wholesale giant Lenta-5, and a furniture center Great.
In December 2003 the furniture and household giant Ikea opened on the Murmanskoye highway.
In many ways the growth of investments in commercial property is tied in to the growth of incomes in the general population and the people's demand for more comfortable shopping environments, thus leading to the growing demand for quality property from the leasing businesses.
Meanwhile, given the growing numbers of commercial real estate properties and the competition, the projects may take longer to bring investment returns. As such, the return on investment period for many shopping and entertainment centers is predicted at four to eight years.
FUTURE PROJECTS
City developers plan to prepare for exploitation over 250,000 square meters of new retail areas before the end of the year. Some of the biggest outlets include the shopping and entertainment centers Gulliver, near the Staraya Derevnya metro station; Primorsky, located on the Primorskoye highway; and Kosmopolis, near the Ozerki metro station.
The center of the city will also receive an influx of new arrivals with shopping centers Pik, near Sennaya, and Perinniye Riadi, near Gostinny Dvor opening up. Several additions to specialized store chains are also expected - the fourth Maxidom, on Bogatyrsky prospekt, and furniture center Mebelniy Kontinent, near the Electrosila station.
MAIN INVESTORS
The holding company Adamant remains the city's major developer. It owns or partially owns 11 shopping centers and plans the construction of 10 more objects, among them shopping centers Merkury, Warshavsky and Kazachok.
Other leaders among large retail property developers are Lenta Cash&Carry, and Dorinda, which invests into the construction of O'Kei hyper-markets. Dorinda said it also plans to develop other construction formats - "supermarket" and "the neighborhood store."
German chain Metro has completed the construction of two objects of the "cash&carry" format and began the third.
Swedish Ikea plans to build three more outlets in the city, including a shopping-entertainment complex Ikea Mega, with over 120,000 square meters. The investments amount to about $100 million.
PROBLEMS
The main factors limiting the growth of investments in commercial real estate in the city are the difficulty of obtaining land plots for construction, weak infrastructure around most of the obtainable land plots and the unjustifiable amount of time it takes to get through all the registration procedures before begining the construction.
There is also a possibility that St. Petersburg may be over-saturated with shopping centers in the near future, as the considerable growth in the shopping areas is not supported by a corresponding growth in the disposable income of the population.
The Research Department of Colliers International St. Petersburg contributed this article to The St. Peterburg Times.
TITLE: Finnish Deputy Urges Russia to Align With EU
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As a child, Henrik Lax, the Finnish European Parliament deputy, believed that the world ended at the shoreline of the Baltic Sea to the south of his country.
In his 50s, Lax started learning his seventh language, Russian, which he thinks is necessary for a European deputy, whose dream is to integrate Russia into European society.
"This is the fourth year that I have come here [to St. Petersburg] for an individual Russian language program. It relates to my dream that someday people will enjoy the flourishing Baltic Sea Europe," Lax said.
Lax had been trying to promote his way of thinking for 17 years while he was a member of the Finnish parliament from a liberal party representing Swedes living in Finland. He carried the same convictions to the European Parliament.
"We're talking about the learning process on both sides of the border and it is a very long learning process. But, it has to get started. There are substantial economic and business interests involved, there are substantial environmental interests involved, there are substantial interests involved that relate to international crime and fighting diseases, just to mention some of the heavy issues," Lax said.
Lax had over 20 years experience working for Finnish industries, often partnering on business projects with its eastern neighbor, even in Soviet times. For this reason, he is familiar with the complications that foreign businesses got used to facing while operating in Russia.
"Mr. [Vladimir] Putin made it very clear that the development of the country requires foreign investment in Russia. Looking at this from the other side of the border, I'd say that it would require Russia to adjust to the same business rules and practices that have been adopted in Europe," he said.
Lax said local authorities should understand one thing - that foreign investors should be treated equally to local businesses when dealing with the law, and that that should be made clear to foreign investors who want to bring their money to Russia.
"To that point, of course, a serious concern is the way the Yukos case is being carried out. It creates fear among Western investors. It's difficult for them to believe that there is a functioning, independent judiciary here," he said.
"The independent judiciary is an important part of the rule of law. If a parliament passes a law it means that the law should function in practice," he said.
Lax said that Russia seems divided on the question of whether the authorities should let foreign investors actively enter the country.
"It is hard to change Russia into a country with a market economy and into a society where the rule of law prevails, taking its 70 years of the Soviet regime into account," he said.
But Lax believes that to raise the living standards of living of the average Russian, innovation is necessary. "And it will not be efficient without the use of foreign investment and foreign know-how," he said.
He said Russian authorities should also be more clear about their position concerning the visa regime, negotiations on which are ongoing with the European Union,
"I don't like it if they try to play games ... for instance, by using the visa regime issue. It leads to the deterioration of the domestic situation in the end. It is the Russian people who pay if the authorities of the country are 'mickey-mousing' on the issue, while the government and Mr. Putin say that Russia should be a loyal and credible player on the international oil and gas market," he said.
A key indication that Russian society is still far from the European values is the way local drivers disobey the traffic rules, Lax said, naming it the most dangerous thing about St. Petersburg.
"It also reflects a lack of deeper values regarding the treatment of human beings and the attitude toward commonly accepted rules. For me, it's quite evident that recognizing democracy and the need for a functioning market [is necessary] for the change of the whole of Russian society to begin. It is such a turbulent process that you can't expect it to happen quickly," he said.
While visiting St. Petersburg this time, Lax contacted the St. Petersburg Institute of Meteorology, which, he said, has a good opportunity to be an example of cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
"There are many things the institute can do, such as short-term weather forecasting, which can serve traffic, agriculture and other business interests. It can also work to increase the safety of air transport, [provide information] on cell phones and a lot more," he said.
"The main thing on my mind when I was visiting was that I would contact corresponding people in Finland. The director of the institute [Gregory] Schukin was very interested in developing bilateral contacts with Finnish partners. I've got a couple of names in Finland that I could check for them," Lax said.
Lax's character could lead him to achieve many things, as it already has in his life, said Natalya Agababova, a representative of Russian for the Business World Ltd., a company that has organized Russian lessons for the deputy.
"I've known him for quite a while. He has already got many things done, and, although he had doubts about being elected, he won the election. Many people had doubts, but I did not," Agababova said in a telephone interview.
"He is an active, bright and kind person. He can see through people easily, he likes jazz and dances very well," she said.
"He's a very sociable person and is extremely popular in Finland," she said. "Everybody from bus drivers to train conductors know him and they ask him questions every time they see him around."
On Finland's Independence Day last year, Lax got the chance to speak both Finnish and Russian to an audience of Scandinavian businesspeople gathered in a Lutheran church.
"As a professional linguist, I think he has been very successful in implementing language policy in Finland, a bilingual country. He made several proposals on what rights the Swedes of Finland should be granted in using their language," said Fred Karlsson, professor of general linguistics at the Helsinki University in a telephone interview from Finland.
"He made quite a good campaign for the European parliament and succeeded to appeal not only to Swedes, but also to Finnish-speaking people and other minorities here," he said.
"It's extremely important to have closer integration between the European Union and Russia. As Russian is one of the biggest cultural languages in Europe, it's extremely important that people in the EU countries learn as much Russian as possible, [and Lax] is a very good example there," Karlsson said.
TITLE: Investors Keep Their Eyes on Putin's Path for Russia
TEXT: The reason why Russia's richest oligarch is sitting in jail is because he wanted Russia to become the new Saudi Arabia. President Vladimir Putin said he wants Russia to pursue a European economic model and prefers to focus on catching up with Portugal (until recently the poorest of the EU member states in per capita wealth). Events of the past few months concerning the Yukos tax case and a lack of progress in pushing ahead with key economic and administrative reforms have raised doubts among both domestic and foreign investors about exactly which model the government is likely to reproduce.
That uncertainty has led to a sharp rise in the rate of capital flight - up to $12 billion is expected this year - and a sharp drop in the valuation of assets on the stock market (down 30 percent over the past four months). Whether these trends prove temporary or long-lasting will depend on whether the government moves to restore confidence or cements current doubts through the continued absence of positive action.
An authoritarian government with easy access to export-generated cash flows is the perfect combination for fast tracking wide-ranging reforms that then translate into broad expansion and growth in the economy. It is also a perfect recipe for the apathetic misuse of fiscal strength and for missed opportunities. Today, Russia is at a crossroads or, more accurately, a three-way intersection: it has to turn one way or the other. One road is the route successfully traveled by countries like Chile and points the way to Portugal and Putin's vision of a European economic model; the other is the path down which Suharto took Indonesia and which will inevitably lead to Saudi-style dependence on the commodity price cycle, continued wealth concentration (albeit shifting to the "late-arriving oligarchs" among the siloviky) and protection for inefficient state-sponsored industries.
Today and every day this year, Russia will earn around $300 million from the export of oil and gas. Six years ago that daily average was just about $70 million. There can be no doubt that the rapid growth in export revenues was as critical a factor in the country's recovery from the August 1998 financial crisis as the 1990s decline in the oil industry was a major contributing factor to the default. But the decline and recovery in the value of energy exports only tell part of the story.
One of the reasons why events concerning the Yukos case and the lack of progress on the reform agenda are having such a negative effect is because investors had come to believe that Russia was on a fast track to global integration and modernization. Putin had convinced investors not only that the days of economic chaos and political confusion experienced under Boris Yeltsin were truly over, but that they had been replaced by the two critical factors that differentiate a stable economy from one with continued high risk and volatility. These are political stability and economic predictability.
In 1999 and 2000, the investment case for Russia was based on the simple formula of very cheap assets, following the collapse of 1998, becoming less cheap as oil revenues propped up the fragile economy and political structure. From 2001, investors slowly became convinced of the case for political stability and economic predictability. And, despite the arrest of Platon Lebedev and Mikhail Khodorkovsky - events that were seen as helping to bring closure to some of the Yeltsin-era legacy issues - by the time Putin was re-elected in March, capital flight had reversed and assets were trading at valuations close to emerging market peer groups.
But political stability is about more than just having an authoritarian government that is unchallenged by external dissent. The political stability that investors look for is that which General Augusto Pinochet oversaw in Chile and Mahathir Mohamad established in Malaysia. Chile is of course a difficult model for comparison because of the regular brutal suppression of political opponents, a legacy of the overthrow of the previous regime. Such a situation, where the newly established government had forcibly ousted an established popular regime, did not exist in Malaysia nor does it exist in Russia. The chief characteristic as regards management of economic change is that both governments were internally united on a common strategy for economic reform, created growth incentives for small-business development, reduced bureaucracy and obvious corruption and established a strong partnership with industry. These are also at the heart of the reform agenda that Putin has set out for Russia.
Similarly, economic predictability is more than a country's ability to service its foreign debt and pay its bills on time. It is about establishing a credible strategy that can deliver long-term economic growth and wealth expansion.
Right now investors have serious concerns. The apparent inconsistency between the broadly pragmatic statements of the president and his senior ministers regarding the objectives and likely endgame of the Yukos tax case and the aggressive actions of certain state agencies and bureaucrats, suggests that there may be one or more factions within the siloviky that favor a different outcome. That outcome, it is feared, may have more to do with wealth reallocation than preserving the goals of an attractive investment climate that Putin has consistently said is required if Russia is to successfully compete for investment capital with countries like China and India. The lack of any real progress on key reforms has also called into question the government's ability or willingness to deliver on its stated strategy.
To many investors these concerns raise the specter of the Indonesia syndrome. In this case, senior members of the government under Suharto, although initially committed to wide-ranging economic reforms, actually used Indonesia's growing commodity-based wealth to enrich themselves and to favor selected industrial groups while slowly abandoning their previously stated lofty goals. When Suharto was ousted from power in 1998, as a result of the riots that followed the Asian economic crisis, he was ranked as the sixth-richest man in the world with a personal fortune estimated at $16 billion, while Indonesia was on the brink of bankruptcy. Mahathir, on the other hand, is not regarded as personally very wealthy, and his presidency and economy survived the Asian crisis.
Again, it has to be stressed that this review is purely focused on the economic success achieved by regimes that solidly stuck to their stated economic goals and did not allow either internal government dissent or external pressures to deflect them from these goals. The record on human rights and political freedom is an entirely separate issue that is beyond the scope of this article.
It must also be noted that all three leaders stayed in office for more than two decades, while Putin has indicated that he will not seek a third term. That raises the important question of whether he will be successful in building a common ideology in government that will survive the transition in 2008. A critical factor in that will be Putin's ability to prevent the entrenchment of factions within government, and how the Yukos case ends will probably be decisive in answering this question.
The stock market, notoriously abhorrent of any uncertainty, will undoubtedly rally once the Yukos case ends, almost regardless of the endgame. But whether this is simply a relief rally or a resumption of long-term asset price appreciation will depend on how investors view the integrity of the assumptions that drove the market in 2002 and 2003 - those being political stability and economic predictability.
Christopher Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Intellectual Property Laws Favor Trademark Owners
TEXT: It's no secret that Russia has a poor reputation for intellectual-property rights protection. To an extent, this reputation is justified, but not entirely.
The stories of counterfeit dolls, jeans, soaps and detergents, cigarettes, sneakers, food products and anything else one can imagine are true, and fakes do indeed all too often make it to the shelves of Russian stores and kiosks. The fact of the matter, however, is that Russia is a member of the Paris Convention and the Madrid Agreement, and its laws governing Intellectual Property are modern and closely conform to those of the United States and Europe. The problem lies not in the laws themselves, but in their effective use by those seeking legal redress.
The issue is not only important to trademark owners; the Russian government also has much at stake. Intellectual property enforcement has been raised repeatedly during talks regarding Russian's entry to the World Trade Organization (which has been going on for the past 10 years now) with industries from both the U.S. and Europe lobbying their governments to push for changes in Russia.
The Russian government is taking the issue seriously. The body with the responsibility for enforcing intellectual property rights is the Interior Ministry's Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes. The Ministry has a division devoted exclusively to combating intellectual property violations with corresponding units located throughout the country. Last year alone, it was reported that 500 underground factories had been uncovered and 3,500 criminal cases had been brought.
Trademark owners whose brands have been misappropriated by counterfeit producers need not wait for the Russian government to take action. Indeed, it is a common misapprehension that the Russian legal system provides victims with little means of taking the offensive against illegal producers. It is, however, up to the trademark owner to take the initiative of protecting their brand.
Trademark owners typically find out about infringement through their distributors (these may be either dependent or independent agents, but in either case have a vested interest in protecting the brand). The distributor becomes an invaluable source of information, and the most pressing issue then becomes the extent of the damage (size of market share). Once a decision is made to bring legal action, the next step is to locate the source of production, or if the goods are manufactured abroad, the source of Russian distribution.
Russian legislation provides procedures that the victims of trademark infringement can use to shut down producers of counterfeit goods. Often, however, victims are not aware of these remedies or are dissuaded from using them because they mistakenly believe that the system is too complicated or corrupt to effectively provide trademark owners with a remedy.
As stated earlier, the Russian government is under international pressure to combat illegally manufactured goods, but this pressure does not automatically manifest itself on a local level. Very often, when the local divisions of the Ministry of Economic Crimes are contacted directly, those requesting action quickly become frustrated by what often appears to be a never-ending series of bureaucratic hurtles, and it is here, to a large exten, that Russia's poor reputation gains credence. Russia's legal system, like legal systems everywhere else, has rules and procedures that can appear ambiguous and confusing to those not familiar with them. Using the legal system to protect one's brand is no exception. Just like in any other situation when legal action is brought, professional advice and assistance is crucial.
We work closely with Russia's Interior Ministry to combat illegal production and have found that trademark owners are far from helpless in protecting their brand. On the contrary, once a working relationship is developed and the procedures understood, the Russian government's own desire to combat illegal production works to the advantage of the trademark owner. Navigating the system requires resolve, determination and knowledge, but perseverance gets results. Russians are very brand-conscious and the market is too big to ignore. Given the amount of money trademark owners invest to promote and market their brands, professional assistance when needed to combat illegal production makes strong economic sense and has left many with a sense of empowerment.
Tom Stansmore is the head of the St. Petersburg office of Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: When Turnabout Is Not Fair Play
TEXT: In the spring of 1999, then-Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov set off on an official visit to the United States. Over the mid-Atlantic, however, Primakov ordered his pilot to turn the plane around and return to Moscow. He canceled his visit to protest the bombing of Yugoslavia by the United States and its NATO allies.
Five years later, Russian capital moving through illegal channels-below the radar of state regulatory agencies-staged an equally dramatic turnaround. The balance of such capital movements falls under the heading of errors and omissions in Russia's balance of payments.
Throughout the period of economic reforms, this balance was negative or, in rare cases, approaching zero. Capital was leaving the country illegally. This trend continued in the first quarter of 2004, when capital outflow through illegal channels amounted to $4.4 billion. In the second quarter, however, a net inflow of capital ($1.4 billion) through these channels occurred for the first time in the 10 years that such flows have been monitored. In the space of one quarter, this turnabout amounted to $5.8 billion.
This change affected overall capital movements. In the second quarter of 2004, net capital outflow slowed sharply to $1.1 billion, down from $4.4 billion in the first quarter. This is a seasonal adjustment regularly observed in the second quarter. But this year capital movements through channels that are more or less subject to state regulation did not show any significant change.
The outflow of private banking capital, for example, rose by $400 million in the first quarter to $3.6 billion. This marginal increase occurred because a decrease in Russian banks' foreign assets from $3.6 billion to $2.4 billion was counterbalanced by a growth in liabilities. Foreign liabilities increased by $400 million in the first quarter, and they shrank by $1.2 billion in the second quarter.
Improvement in total capital movements was achieved thanks to the nonfinancial sector, which generally accounts for errors and omissions. An outflow of $1.2 billion in the first quarter was followed by an inflow of $2.5 billion in the second. Meanwhile, growth of foreign liabilities was insignificant (up $300 million to $8.8 billion), while foreign assets-that is, capital outflow-jumped from $5.3 billion to $7.7 billion. Thus, overall capital inflow occurred thanks to a shift in the direction of capital flowing through illegal channels.
Capital inflow through illegal channels seems to have resulted from a unique combination of a favorable economic situation and the extremely complicated-from the business point of view-domestic political situation.
The significant volume of the Russian market-secured for the foreseeable future by continued high oil prices-and the possibility for developing a business here using little more than standard, modern management techniques make Russia extremely attractive to investors, especially when compared to less favorable conditions in the developed countries. This assessment has become commonplace in recent years.
At the same time, law-abiding companies are being frightened off by a number of factors, including the incompetence of the state bureaucracy; its impotence when faced with real problems, as graphically illustrated by the recent banking crisis, which resulted largely from the Central Bank's failure to take timely and decisive action; its tendency to resort to propaganda rather than take action; and the widespread phenomenon of copycat crackdowns by government officials at all levels during the Yukos affair.
The best indicator of how this process works-even better than falling stock prices, which are susceptible to speculation-is provided by an analysis of overall capital movements.
According to Central Bank data, capital outflow in the first half of 2004 amounted to $5.5 billion, exceeding outflow during the first half of 2002 ($2 billion) and during all of 2003 ($2.3 billion). Keep in mind that in the first half of 2003, before the beginning of the Yukos affair, Russia enjoyed a net capital inflow-of $3.9 billion-for the first time during the entire period of economic reforms.
When you compare capital movements during the year that has passed since the Yukos affair began-in other words, from July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004-with the situation one year earlier, the deterioration of the situation becomes even more clear. In the 12 months preceding the attack on Yukos-from July 1, 2002, to July 1, 2003-the net outflow of capital amounted to $2.2 billion. During the next 12 months, in far more favorable external conditions, net capital outflow skyrocketed to $11.6 billion.
In the second quarter of 2004, however, capital outflow through channels regulated by the state was increasingly offset by capital inflow through unregulated channels. Illegal business began to erode the position of its relatively upstanding competition. Essentially, illegal capital began to squeeze out not only legal but also quasi-legal capital that is at least partially monitored and controlled by the state. It is now clear that entrepreneurs who employ illegal schemes for moving money operate without fear of reprisals, because they have carefully calculated the risks involved in such operations, they know how to seal a deal, and they are confident that, in terms of business acumen, they are far superior to the government bureaucrats who regulate them.
The consequences of this situation for Russian business and for society as a whole are clear. Just as they did during the years of stagnation under Leonid Brezhnev, the business and social life of the country will once more retreat into the shadows, where regulatory mechanisms are not transparent and subject to public control but entirely corrupt and destructive for the life of society.
Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Modernization Institute and chairman of the Rodina bloc's policy committee, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Bureaucrats Won't Make Athletes Stronger, Faster, Higher
TEXT: I'm not a specialist in sport, but I was interested in the opinions of several acknowledged experts, who assert that the failures of the Russian team at the Olympic Games were due to problems of sport management in Russia.
According to some experts, the recent Olympics have not been a flop for Russia in any way. Quite the opposite is true. Under the present system of the state's management of sport the results could have been even worse. The situation here is analogous to other spheres of our life - politics, economics, science and culture. Success is achieved not thanks to the efforts of the state but despite it, solely as a result of private initiative.
In the opinion of many specialists, the state's system of sports management in Russia today is the worst possible system. While preserving all the inadequacies of the Soviet model, it lacks its predecessor's merits: abundant financial resources and iron discipline. But if sportspeople can do without the strict discipline, the system simply cannot function without careful and responsible civil servants. It degenerates into a sinecure, which is in effect what our many sports federations are.
Constructed along the principle of a rigid vertical line - the president of the federation arranges for men dependant on him to head the regional divisions, who are then compelled to always vote for him in the elections - they are not answerable for sporting results. Because of this, they really only deal with the assimilation of funds. Insofar as this is a "delicate" activity, the federations are closed to the public, often to an absurd degree. So, on the official site of the Russia Hockey Federation there is no free access - you have to choose a username and password. The NHL's site can be entered freely, but only those with permission can interest themselves in the business of the Russian hockey union, although this organization receives a significant amount of its funds from the budget, from our money.
It is practically impossible to fire even an obviously incompetent president of a federation. Vyacheslav Fetisov, head of the Federal Agency for Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism, freely admits this. His first task is to reform a system acknowledged to be worthless. Instead of this, Fetisov simply shrugs his shoulders. Moreover, his immediate boss does the same, as well as the boss of that boss - all the way to the top.
Bureaucracy doesn't like to be reformed. Words about reforms are bandied about only as a blind. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov recently initiated a changeover to a special method of determining the ministries' budgets, under which they would only receive funds following the creation of concrete indices. The latter, according to the prime minster, should "directly reflect the level of satisfaction of the people's needs." Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov even suggested carrying out special surveys of the population. However, even in the process of discussing these reforms at a government meeting, it became clear that all this is being done with one goal in mind - to satisfy not the people, but President Vladimir Putin, who is demanding a doubling of the GDP. So it is most likely that the indices will be oriented not towards the people's needs, but rather towards formal figures of annual growth, which the remaining specialists of the Soviet-era Gosplan can obtain without straining themselves too much. There will be little profit from the creation of such indices for the people.
Local authorities fit in with this "general line", including, unfortunately, the administration of St. Petersburg. Members of Valentina Matviyenko's team made rousing speeches about reforms, but when push came to shove even the "main reformer" Vladimir Blank, instead of solving institutional problems, occupied himself with the workers from the bread-baking plant who were affronting consumers with their high prices, as well as wringing money from the sale of alcohol, members of the gambling industry etc. This is understandable - it's easier to fulfil the indices of acquisitions in the budget than, for example, to clean out the Augean stables of land reforms. But by continuing to loot the budget because the reforms of city orders have failed, Blank's efforts to fulfill the budget it will obviously be of significantly less use to the city than would be getting rid of the deficit by allowing investors and developers to build.
"Free up private initiative!" This is the slogan of our times. It is already obvious to everyone that private initiative solves problems more effectively than the state does. Less money is wasted, and the results are far more substantial. In the Olympics, according to sports specialists, medals were won thanks to the individual efforts of the sportspeople, trainers and private interests, including patriotism, which has now become an individual's business. If it weren't for these factors, the results of the Russian contingent would have been shattering.
In sport, as in other areas of life, private initiative is growing, like grass from under asphalt, everywhere that the inert state doesn't satisfy society's requirements. People need sport, and there are people whose initiative compensates for the defects of the state system. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Arkhangelsk team Vodnik vegetated until Boris Skrinnik provided funds and got it going through his personal efforts. Vitaly Mutko not only saved the St. Petersburg club Zenit from degradation - he attracted funding from Gazprom and improved club management - he also made it an object of the locals' adoration, thanks to which the team became a profitable business venture. The Magnitogorsk metallurgical plant didn't simply support the local team Metallurg, they made it one of the leading hockey teams in the country. There are many similar examples.
In general, sports like tennis and figure skating are supported exclusively by private initiative. A newcomer to the sporting nomenklatura, Shamil Tarpishchev, has made tennis a state sport through his personal efforts. But on the whole, tennis stars are created by energetic parents. So, Maria Sharapova, who recently won in Wimbledon, was sent to America by her father, who is a friend of Yevgeny Kafelnikov's father, and entered the tennis academy of Nick Bollettieri, where she grew into a star. The Russian state played no role in her development. However, it enjoys the fruits of her success, also solely because of the personal interest of Sharapova herself: "I always feel Russian, and I have one citizenship - Russian," said the sportswoman, who represents Russia in competitions as a matter of principle. Sharapova's example is also typical of figure skaters. Private initiative is extremely fruitful, as the only thing the state is required to do is create conditions for its realization. It's true that, in many situations, for things to improve, the present system would have to change.
I'm already tired of repeating that the authorities, both central and regional, should concentrate their efforts on institutional reforms. It's got to a point where the most progressive civil servants are starting to openly protest against the traditional policy of "swimming with the tide." The revolt of German Gref and especially the hitherto loyal Alexei Kudrin at a government meeting - during the discussion of the presidential goal of doubling the GDP they stated that the government had to focus on institutional reforms and practically asked the prime minister to take these reforms under his personal control - indicates that the situation in the country has reached a critical point. The crossing of this Rubicon can't be put off any longer.
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: Cry Havoc
If you would know the hell that awaits us-and it is not far off-there's no need to consult ancient prophecies, or the intricate coils of hidden conspiracies, or the tortured arcana of high-credentialed experts. You need only read the public words, sworn before God, of top public officials, the great lords of state, the defenders of civilization, as they explain-clearly, openly, with confidence and pride-their plans to foment terror, rape, war and repression across the face of the Earth.
Earlier this month, in testimony before Congress, the Bush Regime unveiled its plans to raise a host of warlord armies in the most volatile areas in the world, Agence France Presse reports. Bush wants $500 million in seed money to arm and train nongovernmental "local militias"-i.e., bands of lawless freebooters-to serve as Washington's proxy killers in the so-called "arc of crisis" that just happens to stretch across the oil-bearing lands and strategic pipeline routes of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and South America.
Flanked by a gaggle of military brass, Pentagon deputy honcho Paul Wolfowitz told a rapt panel of Congressional rubber stamps that Bush wants big bucks to run "counter-insurgency" and "counter-terrorist" operations in "ungoverned areas" of the world-and in the hinterlands of nations providing "sanctuary" for terrorists. Making copious citations from Bush's 2002 "National Security Strategy" of unprovoked aggressive war against "potential" enemies, Howlin' Wolf proposed expanding the definition of "terrorist sanctuary" to any nation that allows clerics and other rabble-rousers to offer even verbal encouragement to America's designated enemies du jour.
Any rogue state that countenances such freedom of speech within its borders will become a prime target for "the path of action," Wolfowitz said, quoting Bush's most ringing Hitlerian phrase from the 2002 manifesto. To relieve the overstretched U.S. military, the "action" will be carried out largely by Bush's new hired guns: religious and ethnic militias, tribal forces, mercenaries, cultists, insurrectionists, drug lords, pirates-basically anyone willing to slit throats and terrorize populations at the order of the Oval One.
A more sinister - not to mention stupid - policy can scarcely be imagined. One of the most spectacular miscalculations in modern history was the American decision to create an international army of Islamic extremists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Together with the repressive militarists of Pakistan and the head-chopping religious tyrants of Saudi Arabia, American leaders armed, funded, supplied and shaped the global jihad - beginning before the Soviet intervention, which the bloody religious insurgency successfully provoked, as Washington intended. The CIA ended up fighting cheek-by-jowl with the likes of Osama bin Laden, helpfully providing the holy warriors with extensive training in "asymmetrical warfare" - i.e., terrorism. These rabid chickens came home to roost with a vengeance on Sept. 11, 2001 and are now running wild all over the world.
Meanwhile, the Afghan warlords thus empowered by Washington proceeded to tear the country to shreds, killing more than 50,000 people in Kabul alone during their post-Soviet factional frenzy, creating a hell so dire that even the Taliban's vicious moralism seemed a welcome relief for a time. These same warlords are back in the saddle again, paid by Bush as they re-establish their petty fiefdoms of repression, religious obscurantism, rampant crime, factional violence-and dope-dealing on a record-breaking scale, the Independent reports.
The "victory" in Afghanistan has deteriorated so badly that this week the UN's own staff workers called on the organization to leave the country because it is too dangerous, the BBC reports. This follows the July pullout of Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Nobel Prize-winning medical aid group that managed to survive in Afghanistan for 24 years, through the anti-Soviet jihad, the murderous civil war and the depredations of the Taliban. But with Bush's paid proxies now in control, even the redoubtable doctors have had to quit the field.
There's nothing really new in Bush's murder-by-proxy scheme, of course; America has a long, bipartisan tradition of paying local thugs to do Washington's bloodwork. For example, just this week, Guatemala was forced to pay $420 million in extortion to veterans of the U.S.-backed "paramilitaries" who helped Ronald Reagan's favorite dictator, right-wing Christian coupster Efrain Rios Montt, to kill 100,000 innocent people during his reign, the BBC reports. The paramilitaries, whose well-documented war crimes include rape, murder and torture, had threatened to shut down the country if they weren't given some belated booty for their yeoman service in the Reagan-Bush cause.
But Wolfowitz did reveal one original twist in Bush's plan: targeting the Homeland itself as a "terrorist sanctuary." In addition to loosing his own personal janjaweed on global hot spots, Bush is also seeking new powers to prevent anyone he designates a "terrorist" from "abusing the freedom of democratic societies" or "exploiting the technologies of communication"-i.e., defending themselves in court or logging on to the Internet. As AFP notes, Wolfowitz tactfully refrained from detailing just how the Regime intends to curb the dangerous use of American freedom, but he did allow that "difficult decisions" would be required. (Perhaps a stateside version of those rigged "military tribunals" now serving up prime kangaroo meat down in Guantanamo Bay?)
No doubt the arrogant Bushists believe they can control the mercenary dogs of war they're now unleashing. But history shows that armed bands driven by religious, ideological or ethnic fervor-or just the ordinary lust for loot and power-rarely follow the script set for them by their elitist paymasters. Bush's morally depraved "path of action" leads straight to chaos, desolation and hell.
For annotational references, see Opinion at www.sptimesrussia.com
Chris Floyd's new book, "Empire Burlesque: The Secret History of the Bush Regime," is now available online at www.globaleyefloyd.com.
TITLE: Athens Games Achieve All Olympic Goals
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS, Greece - If anyone deserved a party, it was the people of Athens.
The flame went out on the Olympics during a closing ceremony Sunday night that honored the birthplace of the games with an ebullient display of Greek pride and symbolism, a relief-filled celebration of the ancient and the new.
Famed Greek singer George Dalaras serenaded the crowd. Dancers danced, arms folded, legs kicking high, during an enactment of a traditional Greek wedding. Fireworks exploded over the stadium packed full with 70,000 fans who waved the twinkling strobes they were given to light up the show.
Hundreds of athletes from many of the 202 countries that participated mingled in the center of the stadium and paraded their flags-Canadian and Swiss, American and Brazilian-around the floor. They were ringed by a cadre of security guards, and a white security blimp hovered overhead, just two of strong reminders of how much the world has changed since the Sydney Games four years ago.
Later, the huge white torch that burned brightly over the stadium for 17 days was lowered and symbolic remnants of the flame were passed to the people of Beijing, where the games will be held in 2008.
China's capital city put on a short ceremony filled with a preview of what's to come. Chinese string instruments played and red-clad martial arts performers romped around the stage. Elaborately clad women wearing headdresses walked out on stilts. A giant, red lantern popped up and, while a young Chinese girl sang, a banner was unfurled that said "Welcome to Beijing."
China will have to put on quite a show to match Greece, a poor country that spent $8.5 billion to bring the games back to their home, and often wondered if the effort was worth it.
"The world discovered a new Greece," said Athens 2004 president Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who made it all happen with her fierce determination to overcome construction delays and avoid international humiliation.
The three-week festival of sports was tumultuous, as expected, but not for the reasons most people anticipated.
Athens put the finishing touches on its games with only days remaining-paint really was still drying in some places when the torch was lit. But the city put on a fantastic-and safe-show, much to the surprise of skeptics who fretted over the country's readiness and security issues almost from the day it was awarded the games.
While Greece shone, the athletes, delegations and even the fans were not as well-behaved.
These games were marred by doping scandals, booing in the stands and protests by the teams. The misbehavior extended right to the very end, when a man jumped out of the crowd and tackled Brazilian marathoner Vanderlei de Lima. He recovered and finished third.
"I think the Olympic spirit prevailed, and I prevailed," de Lima said during a news conference, held in the bowels of the stadium while the ceremony rocked on above.
The complaints came in no fewer than six sports, most notably in gymnastics, where South Korea's protest of American Paul Hamm's all-around gold medal became one of a handful of unsavory stories that dominated the games. Disgraced Greek sprint stars Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou also played a role, and a record two dozen athletes were caught on doping cases.
On Sunday, though, it was time to celebrate the Olympic spirit and the Olympic hosts that held the first games in 776 B.C. and resurrected the modern-day version in 1896.
Athens was only one of the sites. The games also made a cameo appearances in Olympia for the shot put, and to Marathon where the race got its name.
Mia Hamm was the U.S. flagbearer during this, the last of three medal-winning appearances for her at the Olympics. The U.S. women's soccer team won one of the Americans' 103 medals, surpassing the U.S. Olympic Committee's goal of 100 and easily outdistancing Russia, which finished second with 92 medals.
China was third with 63, and the Chinese already are gearing up their Olympic efforts, planning to lead the world when the games are at home.
In his closing remarks, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge lauded Athens, a city that came close to having the games taken away because of massive construction delays.
"You have won," Rogge said. "You have won by brilliantly meeting the tough challenge of holding the games. These were unforgettable, dream games."
At the end, a chorus of popular Greek singers serenaded the crowd, and 150,000 balloons were sent skyward. While the music blared, silver, blue and white confetti rained down as the athletes headed for the exits, saying goodbye to an Olympics that was spectacular and memorable, just like the city that hosted them.
TITLE: Powell Trip Called Off As Pacifists Protest War
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell canceled his trip to Greece at the last minute, partly because of concern that his presence - expected to be met by anti-war protests-might have disrupted the closing ceremony at the Olympics, State Department officials said Saturday.
Powell's decision, announced just hours before he was to depart, came after anti-American protests in Athens on Friday that featured "Powell Go Home" placards.
The secretary was not concerned about his own security but felt Greek organizers were entitled to carry out the Sunday night ceremony without the potential for distraction that his presence might have caused, said two State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Many Greeks had wondered why Powell planned to visit this weekend, knowing his presence would likely provoke protests. Until Powell announced his visit, there had been none of the anti-American demonstrations that were feared in the run-up to the games.
He discussed the situation on Friday with Greek Foreign Minister Petros Moliviatis. Powell said he hopes to travel to Athens in October.
The officials said a contributing factor was the U.N. Security Council's debate this week over the performance of the Sudanese government in carrying out a council resolution last month on Darfur.
The council set Monday as the deadline for Sudan to demonstrate it is acting to improve security and humanitarian access in Darfur and to curb Arab militias in the western Sudanese region.
Some council members, notably China and Pakistan, have been reluctant to take strong steps against Sudan. It is not clear what the United States will recommend.
In Athens, the Greek foreign ministry said Powell decided against the trip because of "urgent responsibilities."
The State Department said initially that the situations in Iraq and Sudan led to the cancellation. Later, however, officials said Sudan was the primary foreign concern this weekend for Powell.
On Friday, a department spokesman, Adam Ereli, said officials were aware of protest plans. "We are committed to visiting our Greek friends and sharing in this very important occasion," he said.
In a letter, Powell congratulated Moliviatis "for the especially successful and secure organization of the games."
Friday's protest was directed largely against U.S. policies in Iraq. Greece, along with about 10 other members of NATO, is not a part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
Riot police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators protesting Powell's planned visit. About 1,500 people who took part in the march were prevented from taking their protest to the U.S. Embassy.
"It is an enormous victory of the anti-war movement that managed to cancel the visit of the arch-killer Powell," protest organizer Yiannis Sifahakis said.
Communist Party member Aristotelis Gontikas said Powell's decision was a victory for those opposed to U.S. policies and was not targeted at Americans.
"I believe that the reaction of the Greek people still counts. It is not by chance that Greeks measure in polls as the most anti-American," he said.
TITLE: More Than 100,000 March Against Bush
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - More than 100,000 demonstrators marched past a heavily fortified Republican convention hall on Sunday, chanting denunciations of the administration and the war in Iraq as delegates flocked to the city to nominate President George W. Bush for four more years in the White House.
Vice President Dick Cheney campaigned his way into the convention city three days ahead of the president, praising him as "calm in a crisis, comfortable with responsibility and determined to do everything needed to protect our people." He spoke on Ellis Island, framed by a Manhattan skyline altered irrevocably by terrorism.
The president was in West Virginia, accusing Democratic rival Senator John Kerry of changing his stand on coal industry issues that are vital to the state's economy. "Be careful of somebody whose position shifts in the wind," he said.
Bush presented his standard campaign defense of the war in Iraq, saying, "America and the world are safer because Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell." But in an interview with Time Magazine, the president suggested he had underestimated the struggle of the postwar period in Iraq.
"Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day," Bush said.
Vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded for Kerry and the Democrats. "President Bush now says his Iraq policy is a catastrophic success. He's half right. It was catastrophic to rush to war without a plan to win the peace," he said.
Polls show the war in Iraq has become increasingly unpopular in recent months, and the throng of protesters filling 20 city blocks on a steamy Manhattan afternoon underscored that. "No More Bush" and "No More Years" were two of the more popular chants. "Bush Lies, Who Dies?" read some of the signs.
Several protesters carried flag-draped, coffin-shaped boxes through the streets, meant to draw attention to the U.S. death toll in Iraq.
The Pentagon says 969 Americans have died in action, including 831 since Bush stood on an aircraft carrier more than a year ago before a banner that read "Mission Accomplished."
Police gave no official crowd estimate of the day's protest. One official put the size at 120,000, although it took nearly five hours for the procession to pass Madison Square Garden. Delegates meet there beginning Monday to nominate Bush and Cheney for second terms.
Organizers claimed they had turned out roughly 500,000 protesters.
In all, about 100 arrests were reported, with no major outbursts of violence. At mid-afternoon, a small fire erupted along the protest route a half block from the Garden. Police quickly doused the flames, then handcuffed two people and led them away.
Thousands of police, some dressed in riot gear, others bearing automatic weapons, watched as the protesters passed. Extensive as it was, the force represented only a portion of an unprecedented security deployment designed to protect the city, New Yorkers and Republicans during the convention week.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week the efforts would include air surveillance over the city, monitoring activity in the harbor and stationing security personnel at every hotel housing any of the 2,508 delegates or 2,344 alternates.
In a close race, Republican officials say they intend to use the four-day convention to build support for Bush's handling of the war on terror and the war in Iraq as well as to undermine Kerry's claim to be a suitable replacement.
TITLE: Car Bomb Kills 7 in the Afghan Capital
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan - A powerful car bomb detonated outside the office of a U.S. security contractor in the Afghan capital Sunday, killing at least seven people, including two Americans, and wounding several others, officials and witnesses said.
Hours earlier, a blast wrecked a religious school in southeastern Afghanistan, reportedly killing at least eight children and one adult and underlining the country's fragile security as it moves toward its first post-Taliban election in October.
Security officials have issued several warnings in recent weeks about possible car bombings and suicide attacks in the Afghan capital. NATO forces patrolling Kabul have warned that anti-government militants, including the ousted Taliban, could try to mount spectacular attacks in a bid to disrupt the landmark presidential election scheduled for Oct. 9.
The Kabul explosion hit the office of Dyncorp Inc., an American firm that provides security for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and works for the U.S. government in Ira, said Nick Downie of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office.
"The explosion ... killed at least seven people," Karzai's office said in a statement. "Two Americans, three Nepalese and two Afghan nationals, including a child, have been confirmed dead."
Karzai and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad expressed shock at the bombing.
An American embassy statement said the contractor was also involved in a project to train Afghan police, a key element of the internationally backed plan to prevent the country from reverting to a haven for al-Qaida militants. The company is believed to employ Nepalese and Americans in Afghanistan, where it reportedly is involved in anti-drug efforts.
TITLE: Two Arrested for Plotting To Blow Up N.Y. Subway
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - A U.S. citizen and a Pakistani national were arrested in an alleged plot to bomb a subway station in midtown Manhattan and possibly other locations around the city, police said Saturday.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the men were not thought to be connected to al-Qaida or any other international terrorist organization, although he said they expressed hatred for America.
The arrests came two days before the start of the Republican National Convention, which is drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the city.
Though there was no clear tie to the convention, authorities moved to arrest the two men before it began.
The men had been under police surveillance and had discussed placing explosives at the Herald Square subway station and stations at 42nd and 59th streets, Kelly said. The men never obtained explosives, he said.
"It was clear that they had the intention to cause damage, to kill people," Kelly said. "They did not immediately have the means to do it."
He identified the men as Shahawar Matin Siraj, 21, a Pakistani living in Queens, and James Elshafay, 19, a U.S. citizen living on Staten Island.
Kelly said the men visited the Herald Square 34th Street station-one block from Madison Square Garden, the site of the convention-on Aug. 21. After walking through the station, the pair drew diagrams of the station "in order to facilitate the later planting of the explosive devices," then gave the drawings to a paid police informant, according to the complaint.
In secretly recorded conversations with the informant, Siraj said he was "ready for jihad" and Elshafay "discussed his hatred for the 'Zionists' and expressed ... his solidarity with the Palestinian people," according to the complaint.
The men were being charged with conspiracy to blow up the station.
They appeared before a federal judge in Brooklyn and were ordered held until a later hearing. Attorney Tom Dunn, who represents Elshafay, said his client would plead not guilty. Siraj's attorney, Heidi Cesare, had no comment.
Elshafay's mother left the courtroom weeping. "We're proud to be Americans," said the woman, who did not give her name.
The men also scouted three police stations on Staten Island and a jail there. They drew maps of those sites and a map of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, Kelly said.
"Their motive was generally hatred for America," he said. He said one of the men had also made anti-Semitic statements.
TITLE: Israel Denies It Collected Intelligence in Pentagon
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The FBI has spent more than a year covertly investigating, including with the use of electronic surveillance, whether a Pentagon analyst funneled highly classified material to Israel, officials said Saturday. Prosecutors were still considering whether to bring espionage charges.
Charges could be brought in the case as early as this week, said two federal law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The case has taken so long in part because of diplomatic sensitivities between the United States and its close ally Israel, they said.
Although the information involved - material describing Bush administration policy toward Iran - was described as highly classified, prosecutors could determine that the crime involved falls short of espionage, which could result in lesser but still serious charges of mishandling classified documents, the officials said.
They said the still-classified material did not detail U.S. military or intelligence operations and was not the type that would endanger the lives of U.S. spies overseas or betray sensitive methods of intelligence collection.
The target of the probe was identified by the two officials as Larry Franklin, a senior analyst in a Pentagon office dealing with Middle East affairs. Franklin, who did not respond to a telephone message left at his office Saturday, formerly worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Efforts to find a home telephone number were unsuccessful.
In a statement late Friday, the Defense Department, without identifying anyone by name, said the inquiry involved someone at the "desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence U.S. policy through this individual."
Franklin works in an office overseen by Douglas Feith, the defense undersecretary for policy. Feith is an influential aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld whose previous work included prewar intelligence on Iraq, including purported ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida terrorism network.
In August 2003, Franklin and a Pentagon colleague were in the news after it was disclosed they had met with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, who had been involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
TITLE: U.S., China, Russia Top Olympic Gold Rankings
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: ATHENS - After 16 days of competition and 301 events, the United States finished atop the medal charts for the third straight Summer Olympics, with Russia the overall runner-up and China second in gold medals - its best showing ever and the leading edge of a surge by Asian teams.
A late comeback saw Russia more than quadruple its gold medal count from a mere six on Tuesday to 27 on Sunday. Russia dipped in golds compared to Sydney, where it won 32, but, despite disappointing performances in swimming and gymnastics, exceeded its overall medal total - 92 this time compared to 88 in 2000.
President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that Russia's athletes had fulfilled his hopes, Interfax reported.
But the rising stars were undoubtedly the Asian teams.
"These were the games where we saw the awakening of Asia," International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said. "The traditional strong nations that dominate the scene now will have to work extremely hard."
Australian Olympic chief John Coates, whose team finished fourth, said China and Japan "have sent us an ominous warning. They're gearing up for a dominant performance in 2008."
Asia's gains came largely at the expense of Europe. Germany won 48 medals in Athens, nine fewer than in Sydney, while medal hauls also dropped for France, Italy, Poland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. Greece, despite drug scandals and other setbacks, won 16 medals, its best showing since it hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896.
The Americans won the most medals in swimming and track and finished just one behind Romania in gymnastics. U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr, who set his team's medal target, said surpassing it was "an exceptional accomplishment" in light of the stiffening competition from Asia and the former Soviet republics.
Yet the U.S. gold medal total of 35 was the lowest since the Montreal Olympics in 1976.
"It's more and more difficult, as time goes on, for U.S. athletes to gain a spot on the podium," Scherr said.
Australia finished with 49 total medals and 17 golds. Avoiding a traditional falloff, it became the first nation ever to increase its gold medal total four years after hosting the Summer Games; the Aussies won 16 golds in Sydney.
On Sunday, in the first major security breach of the Olympics, the leader of the men's marathon was grabbed by an intruder five kilometers from the finish and knocked off the course.
Vanderlei Lima of Brazil was pushed to the curb into the crowd as police tackled the intruder who was dressed in a brightly colored costume. Lima was able to get back into the race, but lost precious time and eventually was overtaken by Stefano Baldini of Italy, who won the race in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 54 seconds.
The intruder was arrested. His name was not immediately available.
Mebrahtom Keflezighi of the United States won the silver medal, with Lima getting the bronze, running into the Panathinaiko Stadium to cheers from the crowd.
Despite dire warnings of hijacked airplanes, dirty bombs and killer kites, this was the first major security problem apart from a man in a pastel-blue tutu doing a swan dive into the pool during the diving.
The marathon - a 42.2-kilometer course that originated in Greece 26 centuries ago - was the last event of the Athens Olympics. The race began in the village of Marathon, where doomed runner Pheidippides took off with word of a Greek battle victory against the Persians in the fifth century B.C.
After a scandal-ridden two weeks, there were more doping revelations on Sunday.
Two more medals were taken away when Hungarian hammer throw champion Adrian Annus was stripped of his win for failing to take a follow-up doping test - the third gold to be returned in Athens. Colombian cyclist Maria Luisa Calle Williams also lost her bronze in the points race after testing positive for a stimulant, taking the total number of athletes stripped of their medals to seven.
With Annus's medal annulled, Japan's Koji Murofushi will get the gold for hammer throw, Ivan Tikhon of Belarus moves up to silver, and Turkey's Esref Apak gets the bronze. With Williams losing her points medal, American Erin Mirabella moves up to take the bronze.
And the dispute over the men's individual all-around gymnastics gold medal, which was won by American Paul Hamm, continued. South Korean bronze medalist Yang Tae-young appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to correct a mistake in the results that deprived him of victory.
Drugs aside, the Olympics has surprised its critics. Rogge praised Athens organizers for defying the skeptics.
"I'm an extremely happy president of the IOC," he said. "We always expressed our confidence in our Greek friends. I've always said I believed there was enough time to finish the preparations in due time. I think our friends have delivered in Athens in a very splendid way."
Rogge said the security - before Sunday's marathon incident - had been "flawless." He also noted that ticket sales of 3.55 million had topped the figures from Seoul and Barcelona, international sports federations praised the venues as "outstanding," and global broadcasters reported that TV ratings were up more than 15 percent from Sydney four years ago.
(AP, SPT)