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The full concept of Golden Angel, a new international film festival aimed at becoming the world’s only event devoted entirely to European films, was presented on Monday, drawing fierce criticism from members of the city’s cultural elite. The campaign against the new festival is being led by Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky, who feels popular entertainment doesn’t belong on Palace Square — the planned location for the event — and that it would create security concerns. |
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Two brutal incidents during the last week have left one dead and two hospitalized in what some are seeing as continuations of the racial tensions that have plagued the city over the last two months. |
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MOSCOW — The bureaucracy has emerged as a new political class with its own values and way of life, and bureaucrats themselves acknowledge that they put their own interests above the public good, according to a study presented by a group of sociologists on Thursday. Moreover, bureaucrats have become less efficient and more corrupt during the rule of President Vladimir Putin, even though he vowed in this year’s state-of-the-nation address not to “hand the country over to ineffective, corrupt bureaucrats” who, in the words of the 1,500 average citizens and 300 low- and mid-ranking bureaucrats polled for the study, have degenerated into a “closed and arrogant caste. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Mikhail Khodorkovsky attacked President Vladimir Putin’s regime in a withering missive from his east Siberian prison camp that said time was up for the “parasitic” policies of the current elite and, for the first time, presented what appeared to be his own manifesto for the presidency. |
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MOSCOW — An atheist activist is mounting a challenge in the Constitutional Court over the use of the word “God” in the national anthem, and he said Tuesday that he was hoping to draw attention to a blurring of the line between church and state. |
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MOSCOW — Moscow city prosecutors on Wednesday opened an investigation into a television campaign commercial by the nationalist Rodina party that is being criticized as inciting ethnic hatred. The ad, which has run all week on TV Center television, begins with a shot of four dark-skinned men seated on a courtyard bench, munching on watermelon slices and tossing the rinds on the ground. |
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ALMATY, Kazakhstan — An outspoken critic of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev was found shot dead late on Saturday, a killing the opposition said clearly had political overtones in the run-up to next month’s presidential election. |
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BAKU, Azerbaijan — Mehriban Aliyeva has a new hat to wear this week, and it’s not from Paris. Aliyeva — variously described as Azerbaijan’s fashion icon, tireless charity organizer and savvy behind-the-scenes adviser to her husband, President Ilham Aliyev — is about to take her place in the new parliament after officially winning 92 percent of the vote in her hometown district, near Baku. |
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MOSCOW — Police gave up chasing a fraudster after receiving information that he had fled to Belarus. But then he surfaced on national television as a contestant on the scandalous reality show “Dom-2: Build Your Love. |
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Fierce competition is arising between two Finnish ports over the lucrative business of transporting cars into Russia. The port of Kotka is set to take on the dominant transit point at Hanko by opening a 20 hectare site for cars in transit, Helsingin Sanomat reported last week. |
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Vanity, a St. Petersburg operator of boutiques, is due to open the city’s first luxury department store Thursday in an attempt to serve the growing number of locals who desire and can afford designer clothing. |
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Fuad, an illegal migrant from Azerbaijan, is thinking of going home after five years’ work as a loader and brick-carrier in Moscow’s booming shadow economy. He tells of forced labor, bribes paid to policemen and beatings while in custody. His last employer, a Moscow warehouse, simply refused to pay him the 4,000 rubles ($140) he was owed for a month’s work as a loader. |
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The Natural Resources Ministry on Friday signaled it is considering Transneft’s proposed route for its Far East pipeline, possibly marking a change to its stance on the controversial route, which could threaten Lake Baikal. |
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Russian developers are willing to think of anything to circumvent new laws concerning the regulation of partake investment, a widespread form of financing residential construction where private individuals buy flats in buildings yet to be constructed. |
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St. Petersburg’s cyber cafÎs have not derived tangible profits from the increasing popularity of the internet. On the contrary, their clientele is shrinking – their main customers now being students and tourists. |
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From next spring all mobile phone users in Russia could get incoming calls free of charge. That is the implication of amendments to the law regulating communication services approved by the State Duma on Nov. 2. Companies remain tight-lipped about the change, however, which has only passed through its first reading. |
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The country’s No.2 mobile phone firm, VimpelCom, entered Ukraine’s fast-growing market Friday by buying a mobile operator company for $231.3 million despite opposition from Norway’s Telenor, one of VimpelCom’s key shareholders. |
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U. S. Senators struck a note of populist outrage when they ordered oil executives to appear before the Energy and Commerce committees to explain high fuel prices and record company profits. When Senator Bill Frist, a Republican and the Majority Leader, announced the hearing, he said it would expose “those who abuse the free-enterprise system to advantage themselves and their businesses at the expense of all Americans. |
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On November 9, 2005 President Vladimir Putin signed the bill “On Amendments to the Russian Federation Law “On Customs Tariffs” into federal law. The fundamental idea behind the amendments is to raise the status of certain standards and rules that have been around for quite a while. |
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Panasonic Into St. Pete ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Japanese consumer electronics maker Matsushita is considering a Panasonic factory in St. Petersburg, Masao Motoki, head of Panasonic Rus, Interfax reported. St. Petersburg is the most promising of several sites being considered by Matsushita, Motoki said at a technology fair in St. |
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Which would you rather have in your capital city: a terrorist attack in the center or two weeks of rioting on the outskirts? After the experience of last July, most Londoners would probably be tempted to opt for the latter. The damage inflicted by the Tube and bus bombings far exceeds the cost of the recent mayhem in Paris' eastern suburbs. |
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In last week’s column, I gave an overview of the “St. Petersburg Strategy for the Preservation of Heritage” adopted by the local government. In the view of almost all the independent experts consulted, it misses the main risk to cultural heritage — the increasing activity of business in the historic center of the city, as a result of which new buildings appear with low architectural and aesthetic standards. |
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This week, the broadcast of a shattering new documentary provided fresh confirmation of a gruesome war crime covered by this column nine months ago: the use of chemical weapons by U.S. forces during the frenzied destruction of Fallujah in November 2004. Using filmed and photographic evidence, eyewitness accounts and the direct testimony of U. |
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SYDNEY, Australia — Eight Sydney men arrested on terrorism charges may have been planning a bomb attack against the city’s nuclear reactor, police said on Monday. Their Islamic spiritual leader, also charged with terrorism offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they should inflict “maximum damage,” according to a 21-page police court document. |
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PARIS — The French government said on Monday it would ask parliament to grant a three month extension to emergency powers it invoked to help curb the worst urban violence in almost 40 years. |
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LONDON — Britain could start pulling its soldiers out of Iraq next year if local forces are strong enough to keep the peace, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday. “I think it’s entirely reasonable to talk about the possibility of withdrawal of troops next year but it’s got to be always conditioned by the fact that we withdraw when the job is done,” Blair told reporters after talks with Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. |
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Norway Landslide OSLO, Norway (AP) — Heavy rainfall in western Norway triggered landslides on Monday, including one that swept away seven people working on a house, police said. |
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KARLSRUHE/BERLIN — Germany’s Conservatives and Social Democrats said they were confident a coalition deal would be endorsed at party congresses on Monday despite rising criticism the agreement is bad for the economy. After a month of negotiations, the longtime political rivals announced on Friday they had sealed a pact which foresees a sudden and dramatic consolidation of the German budget in 2007, driven by a rise in sales tax. |
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TOKYO — The people who have run rugby since it turned professional in 1995 have given constant lip service to expanding the game’s borders and awarding the 2011 World Cup to Japan would prove they mean business. That is the message of the Japanese bid organisers and they have mustered an impressive list of international backers including former World Cup winners John Kirwan, Nick Farr-Jones and Martin Johnson. |
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Federer Returns to Win SHANGHAI (Reuters) — Roger Federer made hard work of the start of his Masters Cup defence on Sunday before recovering to squeeze past Argentine David Nalbandian 6-3 2-6 6-4. |
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Issues Archive