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MOSCOW The head of a probe into Russias Beslan school tragedy has said terrorists alone were to blame for it, remarks that suggested bureaucrats accused of failing to stop the raid could be exonerated. Some 330 people half of them children died after Chechen gunmen took them hostage in a school in southern Russian for three days in September 2004. Most died in a series of sudden explosions and firefights at the end but it is still not clear what sparked the carnage. Many surviving hostages blame local officials for failing to stop the gunmen reaching Beslan, and for allowing the tense stand-off to end in a bloodbath. But Alexander Torshin, a senator who heads the official investigation, was quoted on Thursday as saying it was a mistake to blame anyone other than the rebels loyal to Chechen leader Shamil Basayev who launched the attack. |
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ZERO GRAVITY
Sergei Remezov / Reuters
An instructor guiding a woman during a weightlessness flight inside the cabin of an IL-76 plane above Moscow region on Thursday. A ticket for the “gravity-free” flight costs $3,000 to $4,000. |
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia Leaders at the first Association of South East Asian Nations, or ASEAN, summit on Wednesday postponed any decision on letting Russia become a full member of the organization as President Vladimir Putin addressed the gathering. Australia urged its partners in ASEAN to pause on Russian entry into the grouping, moments before Putin was due to address the summit.
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Police spent last night scouring the city on the trail of an imaginary runaway elephant reported to be strolling around the city by a hoax caller. An unknown man called the police at approximately 1.30 a.m. on Thursday to say that an elephant, which belonged to a Finnish company, had broken free from its cage while being transported through the city in a large truck. |
All photos from issue.
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The city prosecutors office has charged five suspects with the murder of 20-year-old anti-fascist student Timur Kacharava. The charges do not yet include the incitement of racial, religious or national hatred, though these may follow, said St. Petersburg prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev at a news conference on Thursday. |
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Nigeria Frees Sailors MOSCOW (AP) A Nigerian court set 13 Russian sailors free after convicting them of stealing crude oil and sentencing them to time already served, Itar-Tass reported Wednesday. |
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DaimlerChrysler has put its plan to make cars in Russia on hold, a potential blow to St. Petersburg, which had hoped to secure hundreds of jobs at a new assembly plant in the region. The worlds fifth-largest carmaker said Wednesday that setting up production in Russia was not currently viable given the conditions Russia was willing to offer. |
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The Moscow-based insurance company, Renaissance Strakhovanie, is to acquire 100 percent of Neva Progress, one of the Northwests leading insurers, the companies confirmed Wednesday. |
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SEOUL, South Korea South Korea entered the race for a bigger slice of Russian resources on Wednesday, taking a 40 percent stake in an oil field that may hold billions of barrels of reserves and stepping up the challenge to other Asian importers. A South Korean consortium led by state-run Korea National Oil Corporation, or KNOC, signed a contract to take over the stake from Russias state oil firm Rosneft, the operator of the block in the Sea of Okhotsk off the Western Kamchatka peninsula, KNOC said in a statement. |
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Pyaterochka Buys Rival ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) Pyaterochka Holding NV, Russias largest supermarket chain, bought stores from rival Kopeika for $90 million on Thursday, to expand in the Moscow region, the countrys richest and most populous. |
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NOVOSIBIRSK Russias state controlled banks should modernize in order to play more active role in the economy, President Vladimir Putin told a banking conference in Siberia on Wednesday. A significant number of banks created with the state participation are weak and are not able to service large-scale projects, Putin said in an obvious reference to so-called national projects in housing, education and health care. |
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Russias top earners are paid 11 times more than the lowest-paid workers, making for one of the greatest wage inequalities in the former Soviet bloc, the World Bank said after releasing a report last month on job opportunities in the region. |
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Gazproms Germany BERLIN (Bloomberg) Gazprom, Russias natural gas export monopoly, is interested in buying German municipal utilities to gain access to household customers, Der Tagesspiegel newspaper said, citing the head of Gazproms German operations. The company also wants to expand its existing holdings, said Hans-Joachim Gornig, according to an article which was due to be published in Fridays edition of the newspaper. |
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Vladimir Putin will not step down as president in 2008 nor will he need to change the Constitution and all discussion about such occurrences for the next two years, albeit necessary and useful, will have very little chance of affecting actual events. |
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Back in mid-October, we were all glued to our television sets watching the heroic tale of the poacher Valery Yarantsev, captain of the trawler Elektron. |
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 Director Vladimir Bortko has succeeded where other Russian directors have failed and brought a famously unfilmable classic to the screen. The script was written nine years ago, shooting finished in March and posters appeared nationwide last month, promising that a televised version of The Master and Margarita would air in December. |
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Ah, the holiday season is upon us. Trees are decorating the squares, streets are lit by flashing lights, and you are planning to max out your credit cards and happily eat your way to mid-January. |
 PARIS A young ballerina from the Mariinsky Theater is becoming an international star on stage and screen. Yevgenia Obraztsova, 21, has found herself very busy after a recent promotion from coryphee dancer (a rank above corps de ballet) to second soloist. She is currently making a guest appearance at the Baltimore Ballet in The Nutcracker, while last week she made a fine impression during the Mariinskys season in Paris dancing in four different programmes. |
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HONG KONG Developing nations cranked up pressure on the rich to open their long-protected markets as world trade talks foundered on Thursday, while the United States and Europe blamed each other for the deadlock. As World Trade Organization (WTO) nations haggled in Hong Kong, over 1,000 anti-globalization demonstrators marched peacefully under the watchful eyes of riot police a short distance away, but they promised a more aggressive demonstration on Friday. |
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BAGHDAD There may not be the same sense of history this time round, but the joy and determination of Iraqi voters emerging from dictatorship is still evident. |
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Sydney Lockdown SYDNEY (Reuters) An emergency session of parliament passed special laws on Thursday allowing Sydney police to lockdown parts of Australias biggest city to stop racial unrest. After two nights of racial violence in Sydneys beachside suburbs this week, the New South Wales state parliament also increased the penalty for rioting from 10 to 15 years and doubled the sentence for affray to 10 years. |
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Although its organizers must have hoped for frostier weather, the Snowboard Europe Cup Championship stage will be held in Tuutary Park in St. Petersburgs suburbs, on Saturday through Tuesday. During the four days of the tournament more than 100 snowboarders, including competitors from Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Germany and Slovenia, as well as Russia, will take part in Big Air, Parallel Slalom, and Jibb Style competitions. |
Temp: -2°C overcast 
Issues Archive