|
|
|
|
MOSCOW - Growing numbers of recruits in the military are dying of injuries inflicted by hazing or committing suicide after mistreatment, a report released by Human Rights Watch says. Inhuman and degrading hazing against first-year conscripts by their seniors is so prevalent that it is "clearly undermining" the military's effectiveness and is one of the country's biggest human rights problems, the report says. The report, compiled by Human Rights Watch's senior researcher on Russia, Diederik Lohman, criticizes the government as ignoring the problem of hazing, and calls on President Vladimir Putin to combat widespread abuses known as dedovshchina, or the "rule of grandfathers," the nickname given to second-year conscripts. |
|
 Sasha and Masha pedal furiously, concentration etched on their young faces, as cycling coach Alexander Vasilyev glides along beside them offering encouragement. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
The United Nations Environmental Program presented its Global International Waters Assessment (UNEP-GIWA) report on the Baltic Sea on Friday during the 12th annual session of the Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation organization in Malmo, Sweden. |
|
MOSCOW - At least 2,000 people gathered in Moscow on Saturday to call for an end to the war in Chechnya. It was one of the largest anti-war protests in years and also provided a rare public platform for broader criticism of President Vladimir Putin's rule. |
|
MOSCOW - Prosecutors have named a second suspect in the case of alleged police violence that led to the death of Alexander Pumane, a man detained for driving a car rigged with explosives in the center of Moscow last month. Junior Sergeant Yevgeny Gulin, 23, was detained on Wednesday, said Svetlana Peterenko, a spokeswoman for the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office. |
|
The City Election Commission has accused candidates campaigning for municipal elections scheduled to take place in December of using illegitimate methods to advertise their programs, local media reported last week. |
 MOSCOW - The reburial of a tsarist-era counter-intelligence hero in Moscow last Wednesday by agencies affiliated with the Federal Security Service has sparked a flurry of media speculation that the FSB could be looking for a new symbol to replace its Soviet founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky. Soldiers of the Kremlin regiment fired off a three-round salute as World War I spy catcher Nikolai Batyushin, who died in Belgium in 1957, was laid to rest at the Nikolo-Arkhangelskoye cemetery. |
|
|
|
|
The city's governor, Valentina Matviyenko, is on an ambitious drive to lure some of the nation's biggest companies to the northern capital. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller has announced that its new subsidiary, Gazpromneft - set to become one of the country's major oil producers - will register in St. |
|
St. Petersburg's Arbitration Court has denied Finance Ministry demands for a repayment of the $20 million budget debt by the city administration Friday. |
|
Elcoteq Starts Building ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Finnish telecommunication equipment company Elcoteq started the construction of its first St. Petersburg plant Monday, in a project that is said to cost about 100 million euros. The plant will occupy a 147,000 square-meter area by Pulkovo airport, and will employ about 1,500 people. |
|
MOSCOW - Russia was former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's oil agent of choice and Russian companies benefited much more than those of any other country from the United Nation's oil-for-food program, according to newly published UN records and U. |
|
MOSCOW - Eastern Europe's "Big Four" countries are luring foreign direct investment projects away from the continent's more advanced economies, according to a new study. Russia and new European Union members Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland attracted a combined 283 investment projects from abroad in the first half of the year, up from 156 on the same period a year-earlier, a report by Ernst & Young said. |
|
Ruble Strengthens Anew MOSCOW (SPT) - The Russian ruble took its strongest position against the dollar since May at 28.86 rubles to the dollar on Monday, at which point Central Bank started market-support buying. |
 While the amount Russians spend on products and services keeps growing year by year, it is significantly falling behind the annual rate of salary increases, making experts believe many businesses are still operating a system of 'cash-in-hand' salaries to avoid taxation. Despite estimates by experts at the Federal Center for Macroeconomic Analysis (FCMA) that, on average, black payments make up not more than 32 percent of all paid salaries, commercial operators say salaries of small and medium-sized business employees are 3 to 16 times higher than the figures being officially declared. |
|
 GROWTH IN TRAINING Interest in training has grown dramatically in St. Petersburg over the last two years. Corporate spending on training has increased across the board, in medium-sized and large companies, and it will continue to increase as economic growth continues and competition for qualified professionals intensifies. |
|
High personnel turnover is fast becoming one of the key issues for companies, with industries such as IT reporting a doubling in staff turnover this year. Head of Arcadia++, an IT recruitment company, Yuri Ivanov said the norm of 3 percent turnover reached 5 to 7 percent in 2004, and it is not due to personnel leaving to work abroad. In the fields that depend on intellectual property, such as information technology, employee knowledge and skills are the main asset of a company. As one IT company boss admitted: "we are nothing without our people. So we have to make them stay." If a few years ago, the Russian IT industry regularly lost about 2 percent of qualified workforce to the West, with the entrance of such IT giants as Intel, Sunmicrosystems and Motorola onto the St. |
|
 A job interview "can be a 60 percent fool-proof tool for making the hiring decision," says Yury Mikhailov, managing partner of city HR agency Consort Petersburg. |
|
Finding the right job is a challenge even for those with a great education and a prestigious diploma. And in St. Petersburg, being very well qualified can be more than just a little difficult. Cambridge graduate Christina Gribaleva spent five months digging through job vacancies on the St. Petersburg market, before eventually accepting an offer in Moscow. "I would have liked to stay in St. Petersburg if I had the chance," said Gribaleva, who now works as a project manager at a private Moscow-based English company ETI. "But the positions I was being offered [in the city] were either lower than my expectations or they demanded more work experience". |
|
 Work-related stress does not pick on only executives and those in 'high-power' jobs. It's a real issue affecting most lives, and yet, paradoxically, as companies are putting more effort into training people to work more effectively, we are forgetting the basic rules of how to relax, often unwinding with alcohol, exhaustive partying, or loud entertainment. |
|
|
|
|
You don't often see Russia's political leaders endorse American presidents, certainly not conservative Republicans. But Vladimir Putin's recent comments at a news conference in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, amount to a ringing endorsement of U.S. President George W. |
|
It has probably not occurred to many St. Petersburgers that the last year has been one of feverish reforms in the city. Until now this has been going on mainly in the offices of bureaucrats-the reforms are being refined and they are then being confirmed by the city government. |
|
Now we come at last to the heart of darkness. Now we know, from their own words, that the Bush Regime is a cult - a cult whose god is Power, whose adherents believe that they alone control reality, that indeed they create the world anew with each act of their iron will. And the goal of this will - undergirded by the cult's supreme virtues of war, fury and blind faith - is likewise openly declared: "Empire. |
|
|
|
|
MANCHESTER, England - Manchester United emerged triumphantly from an uncompromising Battle of the Titans to end Arsenal's 49-match unbeaten league run with a 2-0 victory at Old Trafford on Sunday. In a match fuelled more by passion and crunching tackles than tactical niceties, United won with a controversial Ruud van Nistelrooy penalty and a late goal from Wayne Rooney, who celebrated his 19th birthday with the cheers of almost 68,000 people ringing in his ears. |
|
Zenit Show Form ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - FC Zenit went into its top of the table clash with CSKA Moscow, due to kick off Monday night, in good form after last Thursday's UEFA clash with AEK Athens. |
Temp: -2°C overcast 
Issues Archive