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MOSCOW - Russia has refused to sign a cooperation agreement with a United Nations' probe into possible corruption in the Iraqi oil-for-food program and is withholding access to witnesses and other information from investigators, media reported Thursday. |
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Contradicting the protests of foreign students who say they are more and more frequently falling victim to attacks by skinheads and other nationalists on the streets of Russian cities, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday that crimes against foreigners are rare and numbers are falling each year. |
 Duke Dmitry Romanov, great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I, plans to accompany the remains of Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna, mother of the last tsar, Nicholas II, from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg in 2006. "I think someone from our family should accompany the remains of our relative," Romanov said Wednesday at a news conference. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin's brainchild to bridge the gap between government and civil society, the public chamber, will exclude state officials and politicians but will be stacked with pro-Kremlin members and will not perform oversight of government bodies, Russian media reported Thursday. |
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The sale of the manuscript of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony was canceled Tuesday after, Alexandre Rachmaninoff, a grandson of the composer, contested its ownership and stopped the sale with a court injunction. "The manuscript was withdrawn from the music sale because there was a title claim from the Rachmaninov estate," a spokesman for Sotheby's said. |
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Two Finns - a 58-year-old man and a male student - have been murdered in Russia in the past week, the Finnish Foreign Ministry said Thursday. The body of the 58-year-old man was found at a dump near the paper mill town of Svetogorsk in the Vyborg district of the Leningrad Oblast last Thursday. |
All photos from issue.
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An emergency shutdown of reactor No. 1 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, or LAES, late Monday was caused by a false alarm, representatives of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency said Tuesday. They were trying to assure the population that the reactor, which has just come back into operation after renovations following the expiration of its designed lifetime, works just fine. |
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The Belgian Justice Ministry has approved Russia's application to extradite Pavel Stekhnovsky, a suspect charged with participating in the 1998 assassination of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, Interfax reported Wednesday quoting the Federal Security Service. |
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A week-long hunger strike by eight men who participated in the clean-up of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Sestroretsk ended Tuesday after they were given assurances that their demand to have their compensation indexed to rising costs will be considered by the Supreme Court. The men, who were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation when they helped stop nuclear material entering the atmosphere, complained that they were sick, could not afford medicine and had not had an increase since 2000. |
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MOSCOW - Mechel Steel Group said Wednesday that Interior Ministry agents showed up at its Moscow offices on two occasions this week and confiscated documents in what the company said was an attempt to stop it from bidding for the government's stake in No. 2 steel producer Magnitogorsk. "The company is certain that the events are the result of actions designed to prevent the participation of Mechel in the privatization auction of ... Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works," the company said in a statement issued overnight in the United States through PR Newswire. The government is due to sell its 23.8 percent stake of Magnitogorsk's voting shares at an auction scheduled for Dec. |
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 The area around Sennaya Square will become the "shopping heart" of St. Petersburg, hope city retailers and officials, as a large retail complex opened on the square this week. |
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The number of supermarkets in the city looks set to rocket after two large retail chains announced they will open nine new stores in St. Petersburg in 2005. Lenta Group plans four new supermarkets which will be backed by a $30 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while Moscow budget chain Perekryostok announced plans for five St. |
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German Bosch-Siemens Hasgeraete (BSH) will invest 95 million euro into building a consumer appliances factory in the city's Strelna industrial zone, said the governor's press office Tuesday. |
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When thugs shake down a shop ow-ner, they're not trying to get hold of the shop for themselves. They just want the owner to pay them tribute. If the owner proves uncooperative, of course, they sometimes have to take over the shop anyway. The formation of criminal protection rackets, which thrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s, turned the owners of private property into vassals. |
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Last month a big Estonian company initiated a conference on investment in Russia that was supposed to take place in Tallinn, but never took place thanks to the extremely "productive" work of Russian diplomats, according to the organizers. |
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They don't discuss politics and business; they turn their mobiles off during meals. This certainly doesn't sound like a typical Russian club, but these are the rules at the Russian branch of Chaine de Rotisseurs. The venerable and prestigious gastronomic society celebrated its second anniversary in St. |
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The week's premium gig by a Western act is likely to be that by Kid and Khan, a collaboration of U.S. guitarist Kid Congo Powers and German vocalist/programmer Khan who perform what the promoters describe as "techno garage pop rock. |
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Tres Amigos, 25 Ulitsa Rubinshteina. Tel: 572 2685. Menu in English and Russian. Credit cards accepted. Open from 12 until last customer leaves. Dinner for three: 1,750 rubles ($62.50) Let's face it, winter can get dismal at times. You wake up in the middle of the night, and then you realize it's actually morning already; it's just dark outside and five below zero. |
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Mourners at the burial of the Kursk's captain, Gennady Lyachin, in St. Petersburg in March 2002. Just before midday on Aug. 12, 2000, the Kursk submarine sank following two explosions during a military exercise in the Barents Sea. |
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Recent events in Ukraine have given everyone plenty of food for thought, if you can understand what everyone is talking about, that is. Take ÚÂÏÌËÍË. This is the word used in Ukraine to describe the official instructions given to news agencies on what news to report and how to "spin" it. |
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Following the sale of millions of dollars worth of Russian art in London last week, Auktionsverk, the oldest auction house in Europe, will hold its first sale of Russian art in Stockholm, Sweden on Dec. |
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Faberge's "Coronation Egg," made in 1897, part of the dazzling new show at the Hermitage. This week the State Hermitage Museum unveiled its latest glittering blockbuster show, "Faberge: Lost and Found," with all the expected fanfare. |
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A play exploring drug abuse is a rare thing in Russia, but "Keep Coming Back," performed at Maly Drama Theater last weekend, probed this taboo with openness and honesty. |
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Prison Uprising QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Inmates in the Ecuadorian capital's largest prison took 180 visitors hostage Wednesday to protest what they called overcrowding, poor conditions and long sentences, a prison official said. The prison was designed to hold 400 prisoners but houses more than 1,000 in tiny cells, most of which lack basic services like electricity and running water. |
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