|
|
|
|
United Russia grabbed 53 percent of the vote in Belgorod legislative elections, leaving other parties in the dust as voters apparently recoiled at the involvement of a company controlled by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s wife in the race. United Russia’s victory in Sunday’s vote was a gain of 20 percentage points from the 33 percent it claimed in State Duma elections in 2003, the Central Elections Commission said. The Communist Party placed second, with 18.5 percent, a gain of 2.5 percentage points from 2003. The “against all” option on the ballot collected 7.1 percent, just ahead of the 6.75 percent garnered by the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky denounced the results as falsified, Interfax reported. “We know that every second resident voted for LDPR. These were not elections but a comedy, a farce,” said Zhirinovsky, who ran against Belgorod Governor Yevgeny Savchenko for the post in 1999. Central Election Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov declared the elections fair. |
|
CRASH TEST PATIENTS!
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Journalists filming at the Forum for Russian Nurses which opened Monday in St. Petersburg. The Forum has gathered nurses from 55 regions and intends to bring attention to the profession’s poor standing in Russia. Managers of regional nursing departments are expected to give their assessment of President Vladimir Putin’s plans to increase nurses’ wages. |
|
Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev on Monday claimed responsibility for coordinating a series of “botched” attacks in Nalchik last week, and local authorities deliberated whether to turn over the bodies of militants killed in fighting to relatives. Basayev said Thursday’s attacks, which left well over 100 people dead, most of them militants, were a failure and that a traitor in the militants’ ranks had tipped off authorities about a bigger raid he had planned in Kabardino-Balkaria’s capital.
|
|
In the latest in a series of attacks, unidentified vandals destroyed another 60 gravestones at St. Petersburg’s Jewish cemetery on Saturday night. Mark Grubarg, head of the city’s Jewish Religious Community, said on Monday. “The repeated character of several recent attacks against the Jewish cemetery makes us believe that they were not simple acts of vandalism, but that these actions could be nationalist and extremist in nature,” Grubarg said. |
|
MOSCOW — In a rare flash of defiance from the usually docile State Duma, the Security Committee late last week refused to rubber-stamp a Kremlin-sponsored bill on parliamentary investigations complaining that it would unfairly limit the legislature’s powers. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
At least two St. Petersburg families had their television sets seized on Friday after they failed to pay their bills for communal services. With outstanding debts for communal services in the city amounting to around 3.7 billion rubles ($130,000,000), St. |
|
Tensions may be running high between Russia and Poland on a diplomatic level, but travel industry professionals are making optimistic forecasts for a boom in Polish tourists coming to St. |
|
MOSCOW — The indiscriminate suppression of “unofficial” Islamic organizations in Kabardino-Balkaria combined with poverty and historical grievances have created fertile ground for a virulent strain of religious extremism, as manifested by Thursday’s violent raids. |
|
MOSCOW — A legal dispute stemming from the 2002 kidnapping of a Dutch aid worker in Dagestan is shedding light on how the ordeal ended, including courtroom testimony that the Federal Security Service guaranteed his release for a ransom of 1 million euros ($1. |
|
The Washington Post KIEV — At open-air markets in Kiev this summer, devotees of Dan Brown, the best-selling author of “The Da Vinci Code,” came upon what looked like an unexpected treat, a sensational new novel exploring a deep Vatican secret. Its title, “The First Merovingian,” referring to a Dark Ages European dynasty that according to myth descended from Jesus, hinted of a classic Brown story line. |
|
MOSCOW — An Indian mortar landed just meters from Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and his Indian counterpart while they watched joint military exercises Sunday in western India. |
|
|
|
|
The fate of the Yeliseyevsky shop, an elite property on the Nevsky Prospekt, was left uncertain as the city government slammed attempts to convert the space into anything other than a grocery store. Last Friday the authorities effectively barred a move by the current Yeliseyevsky tenant, Parnas holding, to sell the rights to rent the space to perfume chain Arbat Prestizh. |
|
Finnish retailer Stockman Oyj will invest up to 110 million euros ($132 million) in construction of a major department store in the center of St. Petersburg, the company said Monday. |
|
The remaining assets of the shattered Yukos oil company could be sold off to repay the more than $7 billion in back taxes that it still owes, the court marshals service said Friday. Sergei Sazanov, deputy head of the Federal Court Marshals Service, said last week that Yukos had so far paid $14 billion of its bills, some of which still must be upheld by a court before they can be collected. |
|
MOSCOW — Foreign lenders are queuing to finance a boom in syndicated borrowing by Russian firms, with no shortage of takers for several large deals in the energy sector in particular, bankers said Monday. |
|
FRANKFURT — European planemaker Airbus plans to outsource more of its aircraft production abroad to help it achieve higher growth, Airbus Chief Executive Gustav Humbert was quoted as saying in German newspapers on Monday. Humbert plans to outsource up to 70 percent of production and may give contracts to countries such as China, Russia and India to expand in new markets with potential for future orders, German daily Handelsblatt reported. |
|
MOSCOW — The scandal-tainted owner of the now-defunct Sodbiznesbank was shot dead Sunday as he was commuting in a car outside Moscow, Interfax reported. |
|
MOSCOW — The long, cold winter is coming, but there is no need for panic: The Russian Internet is making trips outdoors less necessary every year. In Moscow virtually anything can now be ordered online and delivered straight to your door, provided your door is inside the Moscow Ring Road. |
|
How much does it cost for a company to get a telephone and Internet connection for their office in St. Petersburg? Under the guise of an inquiring businessman, we contacted the sales departments of the city’s leading alternative telecommunications operators to put forward some practical questions. |
|
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — The rapidly changing nation of Kazakhstan, and its despotic neighbor Turkmenistan, can help the West — in particular Europe — reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern and Russian oil and gas. To achieve that goal, these two eastern Caspian countries must be linked by pipelines to Europe, via the South Caucasus and Turkey. |
|
What would you say if the government offered you exemption from value added tax, or VAT, and customs duties on certain imported materials? The materials would come into Russia, get processed, then leave the country without the local tax authorities asking for a cent. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Russia’s regional telecoms company CenterTelecom reported a 32 million ruble ($1.12 million) first-half net profit on Monday after a full-year 2004 loss of 918 million rubles. This is the first time the company, which serves central Russia, has reported half-year figures to International Accounting Standards, so figures for the first half of 2004 were not available. |
|
Mechel Profit Down MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Metals and mining company Mechel said first-half profit fell 4.3 percent as steel prices peaked and then dropped. |
|
|
|
|
When former Soviet bloc countries shook off the one-party state and rejoined the community of nations, it seemed self-evident that they should all remain republics. Attempts in Bulgaria to restore a legitimate sovereign to the throne produced ironic sniggers in civilized quarters. |
|
Last week marked the second anniversary of Valentina Matviyenko coming to power as the city’s governor — time for a half-time analysis, as it were. For the first year of her rule, Matviyenko’s team was busy making promises. |
|
Humankind received yet another harsh message from its landlord last week. In the agony of Kashmir, in the laments of Guatemala, the planet once again laid down the hard truths of its brutal gospel: The earth doesn’t love you. The earth doesn’t need you. The earth doesn’t know you are here. All across the Hindu Kush, spreading through Central and South Asia, an underground tsunami of stone sent tens of thousands down to Sheol — old and young, male and female, good and evil alike. |
|
|
|
|
MANSEHRA, Pakistan — Delivering a baby at the moment Pakistan’s earthquake struck, Dr Nargis Jehan remembers the mother’s screams and her own faintness as the ground tremored and chunks of concrete fell. The boy, who has not yet been named, came into the world on Oct. |
|
LOS ANGELES — Sylvester Stallone is signing on to reprise his role as boxer Rocky Balboa in the sixth installment of the long-running film series, which he wrote and will direct. |
|
BAGHDAD — U.S. fighter jets and attack helicopters killed about 70 militants around the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, the military said on Monday after a landmark vote that appears to have ratified a new constitution. Election officials slowly counted up to 10 million ballots from Saturday’s referendum, with partial results pointing to a clear win for a charter Washington hopes will help establish Iraq as a stable democracy able to do without U. |
|
BUCHAREST — Romanian authorities slaughtered poultry and sent in doctors on Sunday after the deadly strain of bird flu was confirmed in the Danube delta, and officials elsewhere in Europe prepared for a possible pandemic. |
|
BOSTON, Massachusetts — Floodwaters receded and clear skies stretched across the Northeastern United States on Sunday after a record week of torrential rain, but a blast of gale-force wind knocked out power to thousands of homes. Winds of up to 80 kilometers per hour uprooted trees in the saturated ground, bringing down power lines and leaving nearly 14,000 Connecticut homes without electricity and a peak of about 18,000 in the rest of New England. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — France’s third seed Mary Pierce beat Italian Francesca Schiavone 6-4 6-3 on Sunday to win her second Kremlin Cup title. It was also the second title this year for the 30-year-old Frenchwoman after winning in San Diego in August. In the men’s final, seventh seed and home favorite Igor Andreyev overcame knee and back injuries to beat sixth-seeded German Nikolas Kiefer 5-7 7-6 6-2 for his maiden crown in Moscow. |
|
ANAHEIM, California — Joe Crede broke a 3-3 tie with a two-out infield single in the eighth inning Sunday to send the Chicago White Sox to its first World Series since 1959, with a 6-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels. |
|
Safin Out of Open MOSCOW (Reuters) — Australian Open champion Marat Safin has pulled out of this month’s St. Petersburg Open and is doubtful for the Paris Masters. The world No. 4 said on his official website on Sunday he has yet to fully recover from a ligament tear in his left knee that has troubled him since Wimbledon and forced him to withdraw from the U. |
Temp: -2°C overcast 
Issues Archive