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Does the image of Russia as a hotbed of racism correspond with reality? Following a series of internationally reported killings of people with non-Slavic appearance, Doudou Diene, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia held a series of meetings in St. |
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General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner on Tuesday broke ground at the company’s first Russian factory at Shushary, near St. Petersburg, while at the city’s economic forum Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was signing an investment deal to build another plant nearby. |
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MOSCOW — Senior law enforcement officials from G8 countries convened Thursday in Moscow for two days of talks on combating terrorism and organized crime.
Protection of transportation and communication networks should top the list of security concerns, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said. |
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While the government attempts to conquer the demographic crisis in St. Petersburg, local university heads say they plan to use the situation to improve education standards. |
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MOSCOW — The number of assaults launched by hackers on government computers — especially high-intensity mass campaigns involving thousands of attacks — has been steadily rising in recent years, a senior security official said Wednesday.
While all major attacks have been repelled by the ministries’ and agencies’ security systems, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, must now combat about 1 million attacks yearly on government computers, said Viktor Gorbachev, head of the FSB’s communication security department, RIA-Novosti reported. |
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Warlord Makes Claim
MOSCOW (SPT) — Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev says in a newly released video that he paid $50,000 to organize the assassination of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004, Newsru. |
All photos from issue.
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A “revival of the spirit of charity in Russia” is the focus of an international conference running Friday through Sunday, organized by the St. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy.
The conference entitled “Charity in Russia: Concepts and Experiences of Charity Investment and Sponsorship” will be held at and sponsored by the Hotel Angleterre. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma is considering plans to ban candidates deemed racist from running for office and to increase early voting.
These measures could further marginalize government critics and lead to widespread vote-rigging, critics said. |
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The same features that characterize Russian economic strength could be its downfall, participants were told this week at the 10th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The impact of globalization on developing countries and factors of economic competitiveness were the main issues on the agenda. |
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MOSCOW — Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko told the State Duma on Wednesday that he expected gas companies to play a big role in the restructuring of Russia’s electricity market, saying they were in a key position to increase the notoriously low efficiency of the sector. |
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ST. PETERSBURG — Surgutneftegaz, the country’s fourth-largest oil company, has launched a buyback of 5 percent of its shares from the market in line with a share option program, the company’s head said Wednesday.
“It is under way right now,” Surgut director general Vladimir Bogdanov said on the sidelines of the St. |
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Baltic Oil License
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Baltic Oil Terminals, a new company that plans to build terminals for Russian oil exports, said its Zauralneftegaz unit won a 25-year license to develop petroleum fields in Western Siberia. |
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A few months ago, I attended a lecture given at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, by Irina Yasina, the deputy chair of the Open Russia foundation, whose mission is to support nongovernmental agencies in Russia. Yasina was talking about civil society and the Putin regime. |
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The State Duma passed in a first reading Friday a bill that would strike the “against all” option from the ballot in national elections. When the measure is signed into law it will remove another avenue for public dissatisfaction with managed democracy and the so-called power vertical, or executive chain of command. |
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 Singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman discusses her musical influences.
U.S. singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman, who will make her live debut in Russia this week, may be seen as a folk performer, but her celebrated songs such as “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” have nothing to do with “Blowin’ in the Wind” and the 1960s folk movement and are influenced more by great soul and R&B singers, she said in an interview with The St. |
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The National Bestseller Award — the only respected nationwide literary prize that has its award ceremony in St. Petersburg — this year went to Dmitry Bykov’s expertly written biography of the poet and novelist Boris Pasternak. |
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Rumor has it that the general director of the well-known St. Petersburg-based courier service WestPost, Christian Courbois, plus partners, has launched a new, expat-friendly bar located exactly where the ambitious yet short-lived music bar DK Berlin once was.
Located at 82 Bolshoi Prospekt Petrograd side, the new place has no name as yet and is reported to be opening early for friends to watch the World Cup, though the official opening will not be until early July. The bar is rumored to be planning a DJ night once a week and a live concert every two weeks. See this space for more news in the next couple of weeks.
Two Finnish bands, Magyar Posse and Laurila, will perform at Platfroma on Friday, while Magyar Posse is also due to stage a live appearance at Fidel on Saturday. |
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 The Deftones might have been through hard times lately, but has now regained its “Posi-tones.” The California-based alternative metal/post-hardcore quintet returns to Russia to perform its first concert in St. |
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A play based on the works of Dostoevsky shows his tender side.
St. Petersburg’s famed White Nights season is well undeway and last Friday the Molodyozhny Theater unvieled its latest production, called, appropriately, “The White Night.”
Director Oleg Kulikov, who has work in both Russia and in the U. |
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Michael Moore started a revolution with his brand of polemic documentary filmmaking, but the trend has yet to take off in Russia.
From the controversial “Fahrenheit 9/11” to the more subdued “March of the Penguins,” new-style documentaries have recently gained considerable popularity in mainstream America, but Russian filmmakers are unmoved by the trend. |
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BAGHDAD — Security forces have seized al Qaeda documents in Iraq giving key information about the militant group’s network and the whereabouts of its leaders, the country’s national security adviser said on Thursday.
“We believe this is the beginning of the end of al Qaeda in Iraq,” Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told a televised news conference. |
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ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka — Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed 64 people on Thursday when mines blew up a bus in the worst attack since a 2002 truce, officials said, prompting a wave of air strikes on rebel positions. |
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ABUJA — African heads of state and government pledged to lead a new “Green Revolution” on their hunger-stricken continent with an arsenal of better soil, seeds and financial aid for millions of subsistence farmers.
The systematic use of fertilizer — by eliminating taxes and tariffs that often keep it out of reach — is crucial to rejuvenating what experts called the continent’s “dead” soil, the leaders concluded. |
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Hamas Seeks Seize
JERUSALEM (Reuters) — The Hamas government wants a ceasefire with Israel and is willing to speak to Palestinian militant factions in Gaza to get them to stop firing rockets at the Jewish state, a spokesman said on Thursday. |
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LONDON — Tim Henman strolled into the quarterfinals of the Stella Artois Championships on Thursday with a 6-3 6-4 victory over France’s Nicolas Mahut.
The 31-year-old Briton, three-times a runner-up at the pre-Wimbledon grasscourt event, comfortably beat Andre Agassi in the first round and controlled his match against Mahut from the start. |
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HAMBURG — Ecuador strolled past Costa Rica 3-0 and into the second round of the World Cup on Thursday for the first time in its history.
Goals in either half from Carlos Tenorio (8) and Agustin Delgado (54) and then a late strike from Ivan Kaviedes kept the South Americans’ 100 percent record in Group A intact following a 2-0 win over Poland in their opening match. |
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LEVERKUSEN — One of the main architects of South Korea’s surge to the 2002 World Cup semifinals believes the current team can make the football world sit up and take notice again by fashioning a win over 1998 winners France on Sunday.
Pim Verbeek, who was assistant to coach Guus Hiddink in 2002 and is Dick Advocaat’s right-hand man in Germany, said that South Korea had nothing to lose against France following their 2-1 victory over African debutants Togo, which put them top of Group G on Tuesday. |
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Gays Pick Pin-Ups
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo has been anointed the pin-up boy of the World Cup by Dutch gay magazine Gay Krant. |
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