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MOSCOW - Russian government officials, political leaders and companies helped Saddam Hussein secretly amass $11 billion between 1996 and 2003 and pocketed an estimated $130 million violating intricate UN sanctions on Iraq in the run-up to the U.S. invasion, a CIA report says. |
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A copy of the interrogation protocol of a man police say is Alexander Pumane, a man from the area around St. Petersburg who was allegedly planning a terrorist attack in Moscow last month and who died after being in Moscow police custody, was published by Komsomolskaya Pravda on Thursday. |
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A series of mishaps has occurred during the renovation of reactor No.1 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, or LAES, in Sosnovy Bor outside St. Petersburg because basic safety regulations were ignored, according to a new report. Reactor No. 1 is the oldest of four reactors at the plant and its official working life has expired, but the Federal Nuclear Power Agency is seeking to extend it. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - A Federal Security Service officer has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in a kidnapping case that police have linked to the murder of U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov. FSB Major Roman Slivkin was arrested in an investigation into the kidnapping of Dagestani businessman Akhmed-Pasha Aliyev, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office said Thursday. |
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Eighty percent of buildings in St. Petersburg's historical center are plagued by mould and toxic microorganisms, says a report by city doctors. Dangerous to both people and the buildings, mould is destroying the city from within, they say. |
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The City Property Committee this week finished a series of inspections of city-owned artistic studios performed to check whether the tenants are using them properly. Before the raids started in August the officials estimated that every third studio - out of 2,000 rented out at discounted rents to local artists - is not used as required under rules set by the city. |
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Investigation Complete > ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A preliminary investigation of the Perm criminal gang headed by Alexander Tkachenko, who is charged with organizing a number of high-profile crimes is complete, Interfax reported Tuesday, quoting the police. |
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 The city is trying to pull its most important infrastructure and transport development project, the Ring Road, out of the gutter. Governor Valenitna Matviyenko asked Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov for his support in helping the city obtain the necessary federal funds to continue the road construction started in 1994. |
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Those renting apartments in the city will pay up to 2,500 rubles ($810) in fees if found without registration during the massive registration checks scheduled to be conducted by district police departments. |
 The St. Petersburg mobile phone market saw massive growth during September, largely due to Russia's second-largest service operator, VimpelCom, receiving new numbers, according to AC&M consultancy. VimpelCom surpassed rivals MTS and MegaFon in the city last month with more than 75,000 new subscribers. "MTS continues to have the largest market share in Russia, though VimpelCom is aggressively catching up," AC&M said to Reuters on Wednesday. |
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 MOSCOW - BP has struck "significant volumes of oil and gas" on the first exploration well of its Sakhalin-5 project, the oil major said in a statement Wednesday. |
 MOSCOW - Flagman Vodka became the first and only vodka brand to receive the title of "Official Purveyor to the Moscow Kremlin" on Wednesday. Russian Wine & Spirits, which produces Flagman, was awarded the honor by the Guild of Purveyors to the Kremlin, an organization that bestows titles to an exclusive pool of producers. |
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Global ratings agency Moody's Investors Service surprised bond markets by assigning a positive outlook on Russia's foreign and local currency debt ratings, because of high oil prices and the country's resulting strong macroeconomic fundamentals. |
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Metropol Space Plans > ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The owner of a 19th century mansion that hosted the now-closed restaurant Metropol will not change, said Alexander Afonichev, the head of the board of directors at Nord, a company that owns the building. Questions were raised when mobile salon Ultra and a clothing store BGN appeared in the same building occupied by Metropol, the historic restaurant that is said to have offered its Russian and European cuisine creations to Grigory Rasputin and the Silver age poets. |
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On Sept. 27, President Vladimir Putin began to implement the political reforms he had announced two weeks before. He introduced a bill in the State Duma that would cancel direct gubernatorial elections and introduce instead de facto appointment of regional leaders by the president. |
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Academics in St. Petersburg State University's department of international affairs want Russia to get closer to Europe, but not all of it at once. They are thinking only of regions bordering the European Union that could be used as stepping stones for the further development of relations between Russia and the EU, scholars said at an international conference held at the university last week. |
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President Vladimir Putin is rolling back democracy in Russia. Last week, Putin's close aide Vladislav Surkov made clear that regional legislatures that fail to endorse the Kremlin's gubernatorial nominations will be dissolved. He also declared that the president's political opponents constitute a "fifth column" aimed at ensuring Russia's defeat in the war against terror. |
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 It may be just three years old, but it bites, fights, bullies, sins, occasionally engages in an active search for God and sometimes discovers its own place on the planet. It is the New Drama festival, an upstart enterprise that, since its inauguration in 2002, has gone from nowhere at all to being about as omnipresent as a small theater showcase can be. |
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Giant Robot, Finland's electrofunk/hip-hop/dub band that performed in the city last week, returns to take part in the second Tusovka Festival of Finnish and Russian Alternative Music at Stary Dom on Saturday. |
 Trey Gunn, a U.S. musician extraordinaire, has visited Russia frequently in the last 18 months. First he came with King Crimson, the veteran U.K. prog-rock band that he has played with since 1994, and then, earlier this year, he returned with TU, a duo with King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto. |
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It's a tough old game, civilization. No sooner does one empire set itself up, than another one comes along, knocks it off its perch and sets up shop in the ruins. |
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Born in 1968, Vasily Kovalenko, the head chef at Demidov Restaurant, started his career more than 16 years ago. Having previously worked in different cafes and restaurants in St. Petersburg, he was recruited by Demidov two years ago. Demidov, which specializes in classic Russian cuisine, consists of two rooms and an alcove, and accommodates up to 80 people. As head chef, Kovalenko manages 15 people working in two shifts. After graduating from high school, Kovalenko received his training at culinary school. But he says cooking was not his childhood dream. "I just didn't have any choice," he laughs. "When my parents went to work, they said that dinner should be ready by the time they came back. |
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 The last known clue as to the whereabouts of a Peter Paul Rubens masterpiece from Berlin or the area around it has emerged, the German art magazine "art" reports in its October issue, placing the painting which disappeared during World War II in the State Hermitage Museum in late 1945. |
 The 14th International "Baltiisky Dom" Theater Festival winds up on Sunday true to its international spirit with a performance in Lithuanian of William Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" by the Oskaras Korsunovas Theater. The 11-day festival gave theatergoers in St. Petersburg the chance to see world-famous, front-line drama theaters from the Baltic States, Norway, Ukraine, Bulgaria and also Russia performing well-known and new works. |
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 REYKJAVIK, Iceland - What is Iceland? A "land of fire and ice." The most northern and distant land in Europe. An extensive island in the North Atlantic, situated two and a half hours from Oslo, five hours from North America and just below the Arctic Circle. |
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Sihanouk Abdicates > PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated Thursday because of poor health and asked the people of Cambodia to begin a search for a successor, the head of the National Assembly said. The king, 81, made the announcement in a letter from Beijing. |
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Zenit UEFA Draw > ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Zenit St. Petersburg will play against AEK Athens, Lille, Sevilla and Alemannia Aachen after Tuesday's draw for the first ever group stage of the UEFA Cup. |
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