|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — At the Public Chamber’s first full session on Sunday, President Vladimir Putin warned the 126 members that they would face an uphill struggle with state officials reluctant to accept supervision from the new body. Putin also raised issues that the chamber will have to address, including the new NGO law and efforts to confront ethnic hatred. The chamber unanimously elected as its head Yevgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov nuclear research institute, and as its deputy head Sergei Katyrin, the vice president of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The session brought an eclectic group of people — including pop diva Alla Pugachyova, billionaire Mikhail Fridman, academic luminaries, religious leaders and lesser-known members from the regions — together in the gold-and-white St. |
|
FULL STEAM AHEAD
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A man stands beside the Peter and Paul Fortress, looking towards Vasilievsky Island. Following over a week of severe sub-zero temperatures, causing fatalities and injuries, forecasters are predicting warmer weather for next week. |
|
LONDON — European gas importers scrambled on Monday to find alternative ways of powering industry as sharp cuts in Russian supplies dragged on into a second week. Europe is at the mercy of Russia which supplies a quarter of its gas and needs to agree a common energy policy to counterbalance Russian gas giant Gazprom, European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said.
|
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
The bitter cold seizing Russia held its grip into a second week Monday, and severe frost spread into much of Europe. More than 50 people have been reported killed by the cold wave in Russia, and scores of victims were recorded elsewhere in Europe over the weekend. Amid growing demands on heating and electrical systems, many Russian communities suffered breakdowns. |
|
|
|
|
St. Petersburg’s failing infrastructure combined with intensely cold weather to force local production companies to decrease power consumption on Saturday. After power consumption exceeded record levels last week, Unified Energy Systems decreased the electricity supply to the city by five percent. |
|
Across the country salaries continue to rise but fewer are being denominated in U.S. dollars, according to Ernst & Young’s annual “Russia, Compensation & Benefits Survey,” in which 109 companies (both Russian and foreign) took part. |
|
Vneshtorgbank subsidiary VTB-24 will increase the volume of loans granted to small companies to up to $530 million by the end of the year, Sergei Suchkov, director of VTB-24’s retail department, said at a news conference Friday. This will “exceed the current volume of loans the bank issued for small companies by nearly 2. |
|
MOSCOW — Russia said on Monday it had invited India, China, Brazil and South Africa to attend a meeting of G8 finance ministers in Moscow next month after having previously said they would probably be left out. |
|
KIEV — Ukraine has delayed signing a new contract to buy Russian gas, pending final agreement of terms including pricing, because of the Ukrainian parliament’s attempts to scuttle the deal, the country’s prime minister said on Saturday. Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov said Ukraine would aim to sign the deal with Russian gas giant Gazprom next Wednesday. |
|
MOSCOW — State-owned arms dealer Rosoboronexport is interested in buying a majority stake in the world’s largest titanium producer, VSMPO-Avisma, part of a drive to create a large state-owned metals holding, Russian newspapers reported Friday. |
|
MOSCOW — Fast-growing oil firm Russneft wants to buy TNK-BP’s Udmurtneft production unit and other assets in Russia and abroad in a move to join the Russian major league, the company’s head said on Friday. The privately owned, 280,000-barrel-per-day oil producer was created by company president Mikhail Gutseriyev with the help of Swiss-based oil trader Glencore in 2003 and has been actively buying oil producing and refining assets since then. |
|
Although most package tours over the New Year cost twice their average price, this year a record number of Russians decided to go abroad for their ten days of winter holiday. |
|
Extremely cold days remind us how vulnerable people remain in spite of all our technological and intellectual progress. We are as dependent on the weather as we were a thousand yeas ago and neither car nor computer, or any other fruit of civilization can save us from the dark and cold. |
|
Sir, Alan Wendt (Letters, January 13) betrays his past as a US state department official in the Reagan administration in the antagonistic view he takes of Russia. |
|
|
|
|
Launcher Order MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia won an order from India for its Smerch multiple-launcher system for battlefield rockets, RIA Novosti said, citing Viktor Komardin, deputy head of Russian state arms export agency Rosoboronexport. The Indian Defense Ministry and Moscow-based Rosoboronexport signed a contract on Dec. |
|
|
|
|
On Dec. 14, 2005, my day’s email included a Jacquie Lawson animated greeting card. To view it, all I needed to do was click on the link. Expecting a season’s greeting somewhere between cutesy and kitschy, I was startled by the message commemorating the 16th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov’s death. I immediately recalled the day — the drained, stricken faces of the family, the inability to discuss anything but the most basic logistics, the vastness of his absence. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Giant boxer and recently crowned World Boxing Association champion Nikolai Valuyev recently said he had no idols in boxing, only the greatest respect for some of his favorites, including controversial former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. Valuyev presumably admires Tyson’s exploits in the ring, but after an incident Thursday reminiscent of Tyson’s notorious outside-the-ring altercations, the Russian boxer — who at 2. |
|
LONDON — Chelsea dropped its first home points of the season on Sunday when new signing Marcus Bent earned Charlton Athletic a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. |
|
PARIS — Finland’s Marcus Gronholm held on after an outstanding recovery by world champion Sebastien Loeb to clinch his first victory in the Monte Carlo rally on Sunday. The Ford driver took the lead on Friday when France’s Loeb was handed a five-minute penalty after he failed to complete the last stage of the day following a crash in his Citroen. |
Temp: -2°C overcast 
Issues Archive