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City officials and law enforcement officers invited to a rally Sunday afternoon against racism and prejudice against different nationalities failed to show, but sent a policeman with a digital camera to snap the protestors. More than 500 people took part in the rally, marching from the Sportivnaya metro station through the city center to Sakharov Square. |
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KIEV - Less than 1 percentage point separated Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in preliminary results from Ukraine's presidential election Sunday, as a runoff between the two candidates looked set to be decided by who picks up the left-wing vote. |
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MOSCOW - Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said Friday that authorities should be allowed to detain relatives of terrorists by force as a "counter-hostage-taking" measure, prompting harsh criticism from some politicians, including Kremlin loyalists. Ustinov was speaking to the State Duma, which summoned senior law enforcement officials to report on the investigation into the Sept. |
All photos from issue.
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Greenpeace said Friday it had won a court case against Vodokanal that means the local monopolist water supplier must release documents on the ecological conditions of its project to build waste incineration plants in a suburban area of the city. However, Vodokanal representatives insist that the court case is not over yet because no official court ruling has been issued in writing yet. Nevertheless it says it says it will release the technical documentation on one of two plants. The environmentalists filed a lawsuit in June after Vodokanal, over the course of almost a year, repeatedly refused to release the information. Greenpeace is concerned about the Northern and the Southern sewage disposal facilities that Vodokanal plans to build. |
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 The famed historic cruiser Avrora, one of the symbols of St. Petersburg, may leave its permanent moorage in the Neva River for two months next year to undergo a technical examination in a dock. |
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Crime Rate Rises ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city's crime rate grew by 15 percent for the first nine months of this year compared to 2003, the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office has said. More than 51,000 crimes were committed in St. Petersburg in that period, Interfax said last month. |
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MOSCOW - Hollywood film star Richard Gere joined with charity campaigners and media figures in Moscow on Wednesday to call for the creation of a "Creative Task Force" in Russia to combat HIV/AIDS. |
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MOSCOW - Police have detained 10 men for distributing leaflets linking several opposition politicians to Chechen terrorists, Interfax reported last week. A police spokesman said the suspects were detained Oct. 26 for distributing the leaflets in the Avtozavodskaya, Medvedkovo, Dubrovka and Pechatniki metro stations. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin has appointed an ally from St. Petersburg to head the Court Marshals Service, a key instrument in the Kremlin's legal battle with Yukos. |
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MOSCOW - Russia ranks 140th out of 167 countries on a new press freedom index released by Reporters Without Borders. Russia is up from 148th in last year's index, though media analysts have questioned the accuracy of the assessment. Russia's low ranking, only 27 spots ahead of last-place North Korea and behind Azerbaijan (136) and Kazakhstan (131), was based primarily on the deaths of two journalists and attacks on 25 others the organization has registered so far this year, Soria Blattman, head of the organization's Europe Desk, said by telephone from Paris on Thursday. She said journalists in Russia face constant insecurity, especially in the regions. |
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 MOSCOW - Yabloko is stepping up its opposition to President Vladimir Putin in hope of winning over new voters as it struggles to stay alive with very little money and virtually no coverage in the mainstream media. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin last week backed a plan to cut the number of state-funded scientific institutions by at least two-thirds, while increasing funding for science by more than 50 percent. The plan, developed by the Education and Science Ministry, envisages that the state will fund only 800 research institutions by 2006, down from a total of 2,388 now. Federal spending on science will increase from 46.2 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) in 2004 to 70 billion rubles in 2006 and 110 billion rubles by 2008. "We intend to conduct an effective restructuring of the state science sector," Putin said at a session of the Presidential Council for Science, Technology and Education. |
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 Liberal politician Irina Khakamada announced the creation of a new political party Saturday, saying she is trying to bring liberal parties back onto the political stage, The Associated Press reported. |
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 Russian airline operators started raising ticket prices this week in an attempt to compensate for increasing fuel costs and the lack of domestic aircrafts. Aeroflot, the country's largest operator, implemented a $10 to $15 "oil tax" on ticket prices Monday, deeming the step necessary due to the record-breaking world oil prices. |
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Production Up in Oblast ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The manufacturing growth in the Leningrad Oblast has been calculated at 10.2 percent over the last nine months, said the regional administration's press service. |
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ST. PETERSBURG - Toyota is planning to become the world's leading car manufacture in terms of production by 2006, ahead of current leader General Motors, according to Itar-Tass press agency reports. With a projected 20 percent rise in manufacturing levels on 2003, the Japanese car maker aims to assemble 8.4 million vehicles in 2006, thus topping General Motors' scheduled 8.24 unit output for the same year. Japanese daily, Nihon Keizai, reported Toyota's production figures on Saturday, adding that the rise in output has been made possible due to great demand for Toyota vehicles in the North American and Asian markets. On the expanding Russian market, Toyota has also seen a rapid rise in the amount of sales. |
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 Porsche opened its first Northwest showroom in the city last week. No longer do locals lusting after a chance to spend 97,000 euros on the brand new 911 Carrera model have to travel far to satisfy their desire for vehicular luxury. |
 "Viva has a short name, since it costs less than a long name," joked the general director of General Motors-Avtovaz in St. Petersburg, John Milonas, at the launch of the company's new vehicle, the Chevrolet Viva saloon. The joke, at last week's Auto and Automechanics exhibition, aptly fitted the company message, relevant to the new car and GM-Avtovaz's established robust, off-roader, the Chevrolet Niva. |
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 Stephen Gardner is the commercial director at PeterStar, one of the leading telecommunications companies operating in northwestern Russia. Gardner has more than 10 years in the telecommunications business and can certainly compare experiences. |
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Two-fifths of the country's top 200 private companies are involved in wholesale and retail business, a new survey has found, suggesting that the service industry is making inroads against traditional powerhouses like oil and metals. Although heavy industry still ranks highly among the 200 largest private companies listed in the November issue of the Russian Forbes magazine, 76 service and trading firms also made a strong showing. |
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Yukos, already groaning under the weight of a multibillion-dollar back tax bill, is about to be hit with an additional $5.7 billion claim, Kommersant reported Friday. |
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Foreign currency and gold reserves had the largest weekly gain in six years, rising to a record $105.2 billion, and nearing the country's total foreign debt. The Central Bank said Thursday reserves surged $5.1 billion in the week ending Oct. 22, the largest jump since July 1998, when the Central Bank received $5. |
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NEW YORK - Steelmaker Mechel became Russia's first metals firm to list on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday after it placed about 10 percent of its stock there at the top of the expected range. |
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Widespread fears that this Tuesday's U.S. presidential election will produce yet another disputed outcome instead of a clear winner dominate these final days before the vote. Every forecast predicts that it will be an exceptionally close race, yet both the candidates and the news media are focusing exclusively on just the small number of toss-up states - no more than 12 and perhaps as few as six - that either President George W. |
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It's the first anniversary of Mikhail Khodorkovsky being put behind bars on pre-trial detention. His imprisonment has become a symbol of contemporary Russia not only because of his exclusive role as Political Prisoner No. |
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On Sept. 14, 2001, as the Twin Towers in New York were still smoking, this column spoke of the coming response: "Blood will have blood; that's certain. But blood will not end it. For murder is fertile: It breeds more death, like a spider laden with a thousand eggs." Almost 3,000 people died in the Sept. |
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ST. PETERSBURG - Home favorite Mikhail Youzhny trounced Slovakia's Karol Beck 6-2 6-2 in the St Petersburg Open final on Sunday to claim his first title of the year. Fourth-seeded Youzhny, Russia's 2002 Davis Cup hero, delighted a large crowd at the 11,000-seat SKK stadium as he dominated the unseeded Slovak from the start. |
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Senator John Kerry has declared victory in the U.S. presidential election, staking his claim on a historical quirk linking past White House races and the Washington Redskins football team. |
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Issues Archive